All right, let's do it. You're listening to the Back
Home Network presented by Home Field Apparel.
Welcome back folks, Galen Clavio, Scott Caulfield here.
Welcome to Crimson cast. It is Sunday morning, November
3rd and Indiana is 9. Scott for the first time in
school history, Indiana going up to East Lansing and walloping
the Michigan State Spartans 47 to 10.
I was there. It was a remarkable seem to
behold. You were watching from home.
We've got a ton to dig into. First of all, my friend, how are
you doing? I'm doing fantastic.
I'm doing utterly fantastic. Dude, we have a nine and O team.
I'm doing great. It really is hard to get your
head wrapped around. I know, and we're gonna try to
dive into that. We've got a ton of you already
in chat. If you're interested, head over
to YouTube, get into the comments section.
We, we, we're gonna try to bring as many comments up as we can
throughout the course of this thing as we talk about the huge
win for Indiana up in East Lansing yesterday.
We'll talk about the scene up there.
We'll talk about where Indiana sits right now in the CFP
discussion. And of course, we're going to
talk about what is shaping up to be among the most consequential
games in the history of Indiana football coming up this weekend
as the Hoosiers host Michigan in the marquee slot of the day,
3:30 PM on CBS. As as Matt notes, Scott, this is
the fever dream I've had. The number of people who have
come up to me asking me what Scott's next fever dream is
going to be has been a bit overwhelming for me.
I don't even know really how to respond at this point.
The next fever dream is I've been playing with the college
football predictor on ESPN, which by the way, is like an IU
football fan didn't even know exists.
It's like, oh, this is cool. I didn't know these websites
exist. And you can do this stuff.
They can predict things. And so I predict Indiana to win,
you know, win Michigan, lose to Ohio State, win Purdue, which
might even be giving him not enough credit, not making the
Big 10 title game. It has us in kind of the eight
seed range. In one of the predictions, we
played Illinois in the first round, which seems odd, but we
did. But we played Illinois and then
we beat BYU and then we're suddenly I think we were playing
Texas to go to the college, you know, the national championship
game, which is, you know, this is where it gets fever dreaming
because I'm I'm I'm look at that.
I'm like, that's possible, nothing insane.
Nothing seems impossible at this point, which is what to a large
degree makes this so much fun. And so we're gonna dive into
that in just a second. First of all, wanted to talk a
little bit about the folks that helped to bring the podcast to
you. Of course, we are part of the
back home network here at Crimson Cast and a great array
of shows that you can tune into on the back home network,
particularly on the YouTube channel.
Just search back Home Network on YouTube, you'll find Assembly
Call, you'll find the dribble Dr. you'll find the doing the
work podcast, you'll find Bison Chat, which of course we've been
doing regularly on Tuesdays throughout the course of the
football season. We should have some variants of
Bison Chat coming for some of the other sports here relatively
soon. Keep an eye on that in the next
couple of weeks. But all these podcasts,
everything we bring you at the Back Home Network is brought to
you by Home Field Apparel, your place to go for the finest in
college fashions, the softest fabrics, the coolest designs.
Scott, I don't know about you, but I am signed up for Home
Field Apparel text messages. And what did I get immediately
after the game ended yesterday? What did I get, Scott?
Nine win Indiana. Nine win Indiana T-shirts not
just available but on sale. They had a discount code go to
home field apparel. Sign up for that, you know, home
field apparel services the entire college football
community, but their heart is in Indiana.
Their heart is with the Indiana Hoosiers.
If you haven't bought the never daunted Bison hoodie or of
course the script Indiana hoodie which I wore wore yesterday in
Spartan Stadium, head over to home Field apparel.
Check them out. They've got a ton of things I
saw again, I every time I go somewhere where there is Indiana
football, I see home field apparel.
It is synonymous with the brand right now.
There was so many bomber jackets and hoodies and T-shirts up at
Spartan Stadium for both teams. Not just for Indiana.
But you Indiana fans, go check it out.
Use the code HOME 23. Get 15% off your first order.
Real. Quick, I texted Connor after the
game, just nine win 9 win Indiana and he just texted back
like we did it Scott, we did it we launched the the Saturn 5
rocket or. Something you know, and this is
essentially from the Earth to the moon, the Indian football
version. So it's it's tremendous.
And The thing is, I'm almost hesitant to buy one because 9
Indiana feels like it's falling short of expectations at this
point. Well, Connor's got more shirts.
We got 10 Indiana and 11 Indiana.
The College Football Playoff Indiana.
Just keep them coming. Yeah, we're also brought to you
this season on our football podcast by Who's Your Game Day
Logger? Brought to you by Upland Brewing
Company, Who's Your Game Day logger?
The delightful, easy drinking Vienna style logger in the
iconic candy striped can. You can find it all across
Memorial Stadium. For football home games, you can
find it at any place that Upland sells beer, including many of
their in person locations throughout central and southern
Indiana. And of course, you can find it
at my tailgate if you stop by. We've always got a nice cachet
of Hoosier Game Day Logger available.
Go check out a Hoosier Game Day Logger today.
It is a significant step up from those adjunct loggers that you
get at the other concession stands.
Again, Hoosier game day Logger brought to you by Upland Brewing
Company. Please drink.
Responsibly. I have an upland.
I have a Hoosier logger. I can't wait.
Let's hear. And Daniel in the chat already
asked what did Robert think of yesterday's Indiana wins?
So those who don't know, one of my really good friends and
neighbor named Robert, he went to Michigan State and his I have
I have a whole bit on him and his view of it, which I think is
interesting. But he he was enjoying some of
our Hoosier game day logger. Like we all had him out and he's
like, fine, I'll take one and then he's drinking it and then
Indiana scores a touchdown and kind of jokingly he's like this
tastes like piss. But then.
Immediately. You know, like, I mean, just
joking. But then he immediately grabs
another one, opens it up and like, drinks three more
throughout the game. Usually.
I hate this can I hate it's, it's awful, but kept drinking
it. So he he joked me that it was
awful. It was not awful, but he kept,
he kept indulging in the candy stripe and even as we were
kicking the living shit out of this team, it was, it was
pretty. Remarkable stuff and I, I
certainly have enjoyed it throughout the course of the
season. Hopefully you folks are as well.
Also, just a quick reminder, folks, be sure to check out our
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You can sign up. You can get delivered right to
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Crimson cast Substack community. All right, Scott, let's dive
into this game. Indiana coming in.
We talked a lot throughout the course of the week about how
this game was a potentially a trap game.
It was going to be the toughest environment hypothetically that
Indiana had played in. Not hypothetically, it really
was. I mean, if you look at the two
Rd. games that Indiana had played prior to this road game,
those were not exactly what I would call tests.
UCLA, that was a pretty sedate crowd.
It was not a full stadium and UCLA fans are kind of in a self
loathing mode right now. So so that the energy just
wasn't quite there, although they shouldn't be self loathing.
They just walked in and beat Nebraska at Nebraska.
So the transitive property, I don't know if that makes
Indiana's win over UCLA better or makes Indiana's win over
Nebraska worse. I've given up trying to figure
all that out. It doesn't really matter.
Nebraska's bad now, but UCLA is good.
I can't figure it out anyway. Now, they weren't good at the
start of the season. They they were good until they
played Indiana. Then they were bad for a while,
but now they're good again. Indiana doesn't get credit for
any of that. None whatsoever.
Anyway, they also played it. Somehow, Illinois will still get
credit. For Illinois will get credit for
that yes Indiana, of course, given you know the the
environment at Northwestern, that was a really interesting
one, but there were a lot of IU fans in the stands.
This was a it was not a full Spartan Stadium, but it was a a
Spartan Stadium that was 80 to 90% Michigan State fans.
So this was an environment, especially in the first quarter,
where you kind of wonder, like, how would Indiana react coming
off the big wins at home against Nebraska and Washington?
How would they exist in that kind of a circumstance?
And we've talked over and over again about how this Indiana
team, you know, it's so easy. And we've seen this happen with
so many teams in in college football and Pro Football and in
other sports. It's easy to get caught up in
what you're doing. It's easy to overlook an
opponent. It's easy to put yourself in a
position where you're not mentally prepared.
And Indiana came out in this game.
And frankly, Scott, they didn't look like they were ready to
play. They had some tough early
possessions on both sides of the ball.
Michigan State, while they got a little bit lucky in spots, look
like they were moving the ball kind of at ease.
And, you know, with about two minutes left in the first
quarter, it's a 10, nothing. Michigan State, Indiana's given
up their first points in the first quarter.
They've trailed for the first time all season.
And you're thinking to yourself, wow, Indiana's offense looks
like they are not connecting with each other.
They can't run the ball. Curtis Rook's shaking his hand
coming off the field. It's like this is not adding up
as something that might be good for Indiana.
And then Indiana goes into full death blossom mode and scores 47
unanswered points over the course of the last three
quarters of play. Absolutely smothers Michigan
State in the crib and picks up one of the largest Rd. wins that
Indiana's had in the Big 10 in a long, long time.
Scott, you know, I'll talk about my reflections from inside the
stadium, but watching this game and watching that complete flip
in how Indiana was playing, what was the reaction in the
Caulfield household like How, how were you processing all of
this? I had, I had a fantastic viewing
experience. So my, my son is playing
basketball and I'm coaching his team.
And we had some scrimmages on Saturday that that my scrimmages
started at 3:10 and went to 3:45-ish.
And I was like, the minute we were done, let's go, let's go
get in the car, getting car. I didn't trust Peacock to be
able to watch DVR stuff just because that app is really,
really poor. So I'm like, you know what, I
will just, I'm going to miss a little bit of the first quarter.
I will just miss it and, and pick up and I'm probably hope I
don't miss much. We're down 10, nothing as I'm
driving home and I'm like, oh God, this is unreal.
And I had about probably 7 or 8 friends and neighbors coming
over with their families, three of the whole crew coming in.
But the minute that I turned the game on was our first drive
where we scored. So for me, I just watched the 47
to nothing game. Like it was great.
I didn't watch the 10 the the the O 10 going down it.
It was unbelievable watching this team live and hearing, you
know, Robert's obviously a Michigan State fan.
His take on the game was interesting.
So we talked about it beforehand and he was like, look, we're
going to this is a very Robert thing because he's very Michigan
State focused. But I thought it was actually an
interesting point. He's like, look, we're going to
see what Indiana is because when you look at Michigan State's
record, the, the teams that are kind of mid that you would say
like, maybe you know, Iowa or Michigan, you know, they had
close games and you know, it was, it was kind of a, you know,
Michigan State was able to do some things that it was tight
games. Like the teams that are the best
in the Big 10, Ohio State and Oregon, they kick the shit out
of us. He's like, so if you guys beat
us, that's great. If you, if you have a hard time
beating us, like you're probably a top 25 teams, like if you kick
our ass, you're probably a top five.
Team and and. That ended up kind of being the
the case and you know, he was taken away and me too, like the
defense, our offense is great. Our offense is methodical.
It gets plays. He was always he was joking like
every time he had as you can say has backed up like third and
nine. Just like slant.
I know it here comes a slant and it's like, Yep, there's a slant
for 16 yards. I mean, it was fun watching the
life get pummeled out of him, but it's it's wild.
We were arguing like, what looked better?
Was it the offensive line? Was it the defensive line, was
the defense, or was it the offense?
And the answer was like all of the above.
Oh, not to mention the special teams, which also just
completely, you know, took over it.
It was awesome. It was just unbelievable.
And you know, my high level take away is I'm kind of done even
joking about the fever dream stuff.
You know, this team, I think of that Maryland game where work
comes out, I think throws 2 picks and two consecutive
possessions or two out of three or two picks very early.
Which, you know, I almost want to end saying it on this
podcast. That's where the old IU fans
like, Oh my God, this is going to be a tough game.
This game I went back and watch, it would come out flat.
We have 2-3 and outs. In all previous histories of IU
football, a game like that on the road that would have been a
trap game where you're at another stadium, you give the
other team life. It's like, all right, well, this
is going to be a slog for the next three hours.
Maybe we can get it to 10/7 and then we're fighting and no, it's
just like, Nope, sorry, like we will sorry, coach, like we'll
get out of our haze and we will snap back.
I've never I I really said I've never seen an IU team snap so
quickly back to good like that. And so I'm I'm done with the
fever dream talk. I think we're going to beat
Michigan. We obviously are going to be
Purdue like it this team urges you to have trust in them and
they they require you like have trust.
We are going to be just fine. But yeah, that that switch is
something unlike I've ever seen in a lot of college football,
but definitely with an IU team. I think what's most remarkable
from a statistical perspective for this team, you know, looking
at this game yesterday, so in the first quarter, as we talked
about Michigan State at 128 total yards on the C on the, on
the on that quarter, they had 106 passing yards.
They had 22 rushing yards. All that came in the first
quarter. The next 3/4 were so bad that
they ended the game with 205 total yards.
They only gained 99 yards total from the end of the first
quarter to the end of the game, and they went from.
Plus 22 rushing yards to -24 rushing yards in that same
amount of time. You know, if you look at some of
the other statistics, the game, sorry, they finished the game
with -36 rushing yards. That is taking into account like
sacking a punter and some sacks. But it's like, well, those count
and you're not supposed to do that as the other team.
But back to the kind of, you know, looking at like opponents,
every other team Michigan State has played this year has
averaged basically 120 or more yards rushing against them.
Some, you know, Iowa got 212, Ohio State held him to 47,
Oregon held him to 49. We held him to -39 if you just
look at that and you take the teams off, it's like, all right,
well, those are three really good teams.
And then there's one team that has a phenomenal defense, and
that's us -36 for a game is unreal.
Yeah, if you look at what Michigan State did down the
stretch and I was, I was texting with with a couple of people
about this. After the first two drives,
Michigan State had ran 44 plays for 75 net yards.
I mean, that's, that is not. And I got to tell you, being in
the stadium and watching the defense just snuff out Michigan
State and what they were trying to do.
I, I, I'll say this again, I said it on Twitter earlier, but
I'll, I'll keep saying it. I don't.
And I've watched Indiana football for a long time.
I can never remember a defensive line performance like what we
saw out of the defensive line in that game.
It's it is just, it's remarkable to me how good this defensive
line has become. And you go down the list.
I mean, obviously Mikhail Kamara, I mean, that's a guy
who, you know, I think we'll see playing on Sundays.
That guy has been involved in 454 snaps so far this season on
defense. He has been such a havoc maker
throughout the course of the season.
But it's still Lanelle Carr, it's also James Carpenter, it's
also CJ W, it's also Marcus Burris Junior.
It's also Tyreek Tucker Landino has come in, Mario Landino's
come in and played well. Jacob Mangum Ferrar has played
well. I mean, there's such depth on
this defensive line, but there's also top end guys.
You know, it's not like it's not like, you know, when we've seen
kind of two different things with Indiana defensive lines in
the past, We, we don't talk enough about the defensive line
and how important it is. And actually, Madhul kind of
took where I was going with this.
But like Adewali Agunli would do this for 1/2, but not
necessarily consistently. But that's in large part because
Adewali Agunli didn't have team mates playing at this high of a
level next to him in most games. Adewali Agunli didn't have depth
behind him where he could take a couple of snaps off, get himself
recharged and get back out there.
You know, the lines and we've talked about this for I don't
know how long, Scott, the lines. We, we've always said like this
is where Indiana struggles to recruit, struggles to attract
talent. And now it looks like kind of,
if you really want to put it in the historical context, has
struggled to effectively coach this talent because they've
always looked like they've come up short against not just the
Michigan's and the Ohio States, but the Michigan States and the
Iowa's and teams like that. And what this coaching staff has
done and what these players have done to mold what a lot of
people were worried was going to be a weak link into among the
strongest units that we've seen. And for them to do that on the
road against a team that was considered dangerous, a team
that had beaten Iowa by 12 points, you know, a team that
had been at least, you know, somewhat competitive in most of
the games that they played, except for the Ohio State game,
you know, just on the defensive side, that is really remarkable
to me. And to watch them be able to
create as much havoc as they created in this contest is I,
you know, I just I'm running out of superlatives to talk through
how impressive it really is. You know, if you if you haven't
read bite sized Bison recap yet, you absolutely should.
You should be subscribed to bite sized Bison, bite sized
bison.substack.com. We'll have Taylor on later this
week to help preview the Michigan game, but I'm going to
steal something from his ETA roundup.
Indiana recorded a havoc rate of 26%, which was the in the 99th
percentile of all the performances that any defense
turned in last year. And what that means is if you
know, if you want to break it down like Havoc plays on defense
are plays that result in, you know, tackles for loss,
turnovers, sacks, 15 tackles for loss in this game, 7 sacks, 11
different defenders made some kind of a havoc play in this
contest. And of course, you also have to
add in the two interceptions that is exemplary and.
We are not used to seeing these types of defensive performances
and the fact that you're also coupling a great offensive
performance in is amazing. And we'll talk about that in a
second. But I just wanted to give a
shout out to the defensive line in particular for how well they
played in this game. You know, it's funny, we were
watching the game and Robert was like, dude #8 is everywhere.
Like, and his stats at, you'll see JW stats don't actually do
justice the game he had 'cause he was in almost every play.
And then as the game went on, you know, Kamara started having
like sacks and some great plays and he's like, wait, is that
number you you have a number six and the number 8?
He's like, dude, both of those guys are everywhere.
And the other cool thing was, you know, obviously things
change in Michigan State went to their backup, although you see
they had a player named Carson Hyphen Wentz on their team.
There's a player named Carson Wentz.
And my buddy Robert's like, cut him immediately.
Like, I don't care. Just cut him right now on
general principle. Get him off our roster.
It's not good for the team. But it it, it definitely looked
like, and again, these are just things we haven't seen it.
It looked like our defense just we figured out Michigan State
completely. So when we rushed just the line,
I would say we were getting pressure, you know, 90% of the
time. And then near the end, it was
just like the, the team was almost the defensive
coordinators, like let's just try some stuff.
What if we, you know, blitz 3 guys and it's like, oh, that's a
20 yard sack for loss. Like let's try blitzing too.
One of the last plays they blitzed everybody.
They're just like, let's just get them.
And it's, it's really cool to see that aggressiveness, but it
definitely felt as if they were almost trying out some things
they're going to use later on because it was like, this is a
game where we've been able to set the the difficulty level to
freshman. This is, you know, we, we are
easy. We know what we're doing.
This team is broken. We have them figured out and
we're just going to try a couple of jailbreaks.
And this, this looked like a game that we've seen Indiana be
on the other side of hundreds of times where our quarterback goes
out, we go to our backup, suddenly we could not able to do
anything. And the team, just the other
team just just stomps us into oblivion.
We did it, man. We did it on the road, yeah.
It's it's what's amazing to me with all of this is just how
what you just said I was talking to.
So I was up there with with several friends.
IU artifacts drove up with me. Austin render drove up with me.
We saw Sam Rumpsa up there. We saw a ton of you folks in the
audience, which I'll get to a little bit later, but I was
sitting there with Sam and and with IU artifacts and with
Austin and I was like, this is exactly, this is a reverse
Indiana game. I've seen Indiana on the the the
wrong side of this game more times than I can count where you
go up by a score or two against an opponent that you are not
expected to win against. Everybody gets excited.
You know, the Michigan State students are chanting overrated
at IU at the end of the first quarter.
And then reality starts to set in and, you know, immediately
you start to fall behind and fall behind and you or it's like
you're stuck in quicksand and you're watching yourself drown
and you can do literally nothing about it.
And that is exactly what Indiana just did to Michigan State.
But that is what Michigan State and many other teams have done
to Indiana over and over and over again.
And I'll note that that comment you just popped up from Tanner
about, you know, and it's funny because like being in the
stands, nobody was really that upset.
The Michigan State fans were not that upset with running up the
score because they understood they've done that to us before.
And Indiana doesn't have a choice at this point.
They have to run up the score. They have to score style points.
It's just we are not used to that.
We're not used to being in the position where we are like where
style points would do us any good essentially.
So it is, it is really interesting to be on the other
end of that. But as we as we think about the
way that Indiana processed this game, we'll talk a lot about the
defense and the, and the defense was exemplary.
And I really wanted to shine a light on on them in this because
of of just how hard they made it on Michigan State.
Tommy Schuster has to be questioning like life decisions
at this point. That guy comes in after Aidan
Childs gets knocked out of the game and he could do nothing.
And he looked absolutely terrified every time he took a
snap. And it was just like it built on
every snap where it's like he's like, please do not call a
passing play. Please let me hand the ball off
to somebody. But they couldn't, you know, a
lot of. Levis throw there too where he's
going down and just chucks. In, I mean, you know, Caron
Lynch, Adams, who's had a pretty good season for six carries, 10
yards. Nate Carter 8 carries, 6 yards.
Makai Frazier, one carry -1 yards.
You know, Ryan Eckley, 2 carries -21 yards.
It it was just a a bloodletting for this Indiana defense.
Aiden Fisher 9 tackles, 5 solo tackles, half of a tackle for
loss. Mikhail Kamara 2 1/2 sacks, 4
1/2 tackles for loss in this game.
You know, Sean Asbury had six tackles, Isaiah Jones had five,
Jacob Mangum Ferrar had four and a sack.
And you just go down the list like you really, you almost have
to mention everybody on the the defensive roster for how well
they played in this game. And of course, Amari Ferrell
with the two interceptions, I mean, they those Indiana, I
think once they got their feet under them was going to win this
game. But Ferrell being able to pick
off those two interceptions just absolutely broke the spirit of
Michigan State at the time that they happened.
And, and actually that first interception I think was the
highest ranked EPA play in the game like that completely swung
the win probability because at that point, Michigan State was
still kind of in a position where their win probability was
around 5050. And that really shot at the
opposite direction, the. Thing with Kamara, I'll just say
is this is, you know, again, one of the James Madison guys to
come over. But you know, you see this every
year in the NFL draft, NFL way more than like NBA draft.
There's lots of guys in small schools who get drafted every
year who, who end up becoming NFL players.
And so you, you right now there's tons of guys not playing
in a, you know, in the SEC or the Big 10 who are NFL talents
who need to be showcased the right way.
And you look at this guy just like this is he's a, he's an NFL
talent right now. But you're also putting him in a
scheme and in a, and in plays where he's able to highlight
what he does well. And you put him around other
guys. And I think this is that, you
know, it's, it's funny looking back, it's so silly to, to look
at this and be like, you know, are, are, you know, group of
five players going to be able to play at this big 10 level?
And obviously some can't. But I think that on, you know,
any good power, you know, Group of five team, some of those
players are good enough to play at the next level.
You see it every single year. Yeah, and, and that the way that
this staff has been able to forge this team and we keep
talking about it every week, but the way they've been able to
forge this identity that this team has about what they do and
how they're doing it and, and what exactly, you know, their
jobs are. And we hear it.
It's almost it's a little corny a little, you know, in in press
conferences or in the, the, the post game availability that
these guys have had. But every single time they say
the same thing like we're just, we're just going one and O we're
you know, we've got, we got a job to do this week.
And that mentality is what allowed them to bounce back so
quickly when things didn't start particularly well against
Michigan State. There is this belief on this
sideline and it doesn't make sense that it's there.
We've talked about how little it makes sense that any of this is
happening on multiple occasions now, Scott.
It doesn't make sense that it's there.
But this team has such an intrinsic belief in themselves,
in the coaching staff. There is a real belief that
whatever happens, they're going to be able to figure out how to
make it work. And I think we heard Aidan
Fisher in the post game this time around say, you know, coach
has a plan and if we follow that plan, we're going to be fine.
That is exactly what you want out of a team.
It is incredibly hard to keep a team with that mentality
throughout the course of the season.
And it's even more incredible to have a cobbled together team,
roster pieces from various spots.
And as you said, guys that have come up from a level that isn't
supposed to be able to compete with the Big 10 or with other
power conferences and look at what they've done so far in all
three phases of the game. Well, we, we, I, I personally
keep going back to Tom Allen's coaching tenure, but you have to
'cause it is just a 180 in, you know, how just how calm and
collected Signeti in this staff is that they don't get too high
and they don't get too low. And you know, that was
definitely not the way it was under Allen.
We got really high and then we got really low.
And you know, when, when you have that a game like this,
suddenly you feel like, Oh my God, you know, I want to restart
this game. It's 10 nothing.
What are we going to do? It really, really felt like
Signeti was just like, hey, guys, can we just get up 1410
and then we'll be able to put him away.
And, and they did. It's just like they scored it,
you know, they, you know, we'll, we'll get to recite the drive.
But after those 2-3 announce they have a touchdown, punt
touchdown. And then it's just like drive,
drive, drive. But it really felt as if like,
look, guys, if we can just get up by 5 by 4 points, we'll be
better on this team. And they just did it and they,
they're so calm and collected and they, they get hobby, they
get fired up and excited and it's like right back down.
Like their blood pressure is a standing rate of like, you know,
62 beats a minute. And it doesn't matter what's
happening. And you go back to again, I, I
referenced it earlier that the two back-to-back interceptions
against Maryland. Any other season, we're talking
about that for the entire season of like, God, do you remember
that? Like if you just change that
differently, you can forget it because we won that game by 24
points. This is a game you're never
going to remember, you know, two or three you probably will, but
two or three years from now it's like you're not going to be
like, Oh my God, that was so close.
We were down 10. Nothing, we're nervous like no,
it's just a complete ass kicking and start Spartan Stadium.
But any other year this would have been something we would
have talked about for the entire podcast about how you can't get
off to this rough start. You can't put your team in this
position. They had to really claw and
fight for it for that game. And it becomes kind of this 5050
toss up game where it's going to go.
No, it just, they turn the corner like let's just get up
1410 and then then we can just put the foot on the pedal and
just be done with it. Yeah, let's also talk about the
offense. I don't want to give short
shrift to the offense because it was a great performance by them
as well. So Curtis Rourke, he's back.
Scott, he's back. He's looks healthy.
It was a little bit concerning early on and he talked about how
he was having a little bit of trouble getting grip on the
ball. But man, if you just looked at
his stat line, you'd have no idea. 19 for 29263 yards, 4
touchdowns and and spread the ball around to some of his
favorite targets. Kashawn Williams 6 catches, 86
yards. He was the possession guy
throughout the course of the game.
Elijah Sarat, he's back. Scott, 4 catches, 59 yards, 2
touchdowns, including a great catch in the end zone in the
second-half. Miles Price 3 for 42 and a
touchdown. Omar Cooper Only one catch for
21 yards, But Omar Cooper, that amazing 16 yard touchdown run in
the second-half, which I don't even think we properly got to
celebrate because a, You couldn't believe it was
happening as it was happening. You kept waiting for him to go
down. He just never went down.
He kept going and B, like there was a penalty thrown and we're
like, oh, that's got to be coming back.
And then they're like, Nope, not a block in the back, it's a
touchdown. So I feel bad Omar didn't get a
chance to celebrate that more than he did 'cause it was an one
of the more amazing runs we've seen so far this season.
Indiana, they only run the ball 129 yards on 29 carries, which
that's not as good certainly as what they did against
Washington. But I think it illustrates what
we were trying to talk about on the pregame podcast on Thursday,
which is that the way to beat Michigan State was not running
at them. The way to beat Michigan State
was to throw the ball against them because they were bad
against the pass. All the advanced metrics said
that. And it took a little bit of
time. There were a couple of drops
early, but once Indiana found its rhythm with Rourke and the
receivers, you didn't need the running game.
And that was really where Indiana disintegrated Michigan
State's defense for their part. And again, it's what's
fascinating to me and what is so invigorating about this coaching
staff and the way that this team plays is that they've now won
back-to-back games, Washington and Michigan State using two
entirely different approaches offensively.
They went ground and pound downhill running against
Washington and put that game away.
They go to the air again against Michigan State and they put this
game away. This level of versatility, this
ability to adjust on the fly, this ability to game plan and
know what their opponents can and can't.
Do and to exploit those weaknesses again, Scott is not
something that we are really used to, no.
And if you look at the game log, you see it, you know, against
Nebraska, we we have 215 yards on the ground in this game, we
have 122. Washington's gone up the middle.
We have 188. You look at passing yards,
Nebraska, he's got everything, you know, 280, only 124 against
Washington. He had 263 against Michigan
State. That that is what that is what
is nuts here. And, and as we've said just over
and over again, you have a, a, it's wild to say it in the end,
but you have just a plethora of riches.
You, you have all of these great pieces.
There isn't one piece that that stands among the rest.
And I think Curtis Rourke is probably that piece, but it's
not like he's just a singular talent.
He's just a great quarterback who has a, a great ability to
make seemingly the right read almost every single time,
whether to tuck it or pull it. You know, one of one of those
throws, he had an RPO where he pulled it back and he ran and
like tucked it, but it was the best RPO I've ever seen.
Like he's so good at hiding the run and then pulling it back a
couple times on Peacock. They had the wrong, the, the
wrong side of it because they, they thought he tucked it or
they couldn't tell me. He's so good at that.
But, you know, it's it's not like this is one of those where,
OK, you know, Tevin Coleman isn't playing well.
So we got to find a way to, you know, get the ball in the air.
It's just it really is this this coaching staff is we know what
the game plan is. It feels like they're going into
every game. They understand what they need
to do. But that's what a good team does
and that's what a good coaching staff does.
We just haven't seen that where this team is so malleable.
But it's also cool because they come at it from basically the
same set. You know, they're running kind
of the same pistol formation for everything, but they're able to
have variations all across the board on offense for all of
these things. Not like they come out in a
Wildcat sometimes they're coming out in shotgun.
You can definitely tell what they're doing.
They're basically running the same starting set and then
having hundreds of plays off of that, which is, again, this is
not anything amazing for a college football team, but it is
amazing for an Indiana college. Football.
Oh, I don't know. I think it's pretty amazing for
an for any college football team.
This is one of the most efficient offenses that we've
seen in the last five years of college football.
Stop. End sentence.
This is not like, oh, this is great for Indiana.
This is great. Yeah.
Period. Exclamation point, Ethan noted.
And this kind of picked up what you were saying.
Rourke's RPO reads that is run pass option.
By the way, for those of you who are not up on the lingo are so
good. He consistently fakes out the
camera and it's Jordan Bailey who was in the stands.
We didn't get the chance to see Jordan, but I know he's on the
other side of the stadium. He was faking me out live in the
stadium. Watching him.
It was true. It was like Michigan State was
clearly confused, and this is what Rourke provides, right?
That Jackson just doesn't have that ability and most other
quarterbacks don't. It's no knock on Jackson.
Like, this is not something that's normal, but this is what
you have when you have a quarterback with this much
experience and who's playing this well.
His ability to make the read, it's so important.
And it puts so much pressure not just on the opposing team's
defense, but on the opposing team's offense because Indiana
has consistently found a way, 46 points per game of way to score
over and over and over again. And I think as Zach Osterman
pointed out in his piece today, that puts so much pressure on
your offense because now you can't afford to go conservative
Every three and out that you have is a chance to have Indiana
go score a touchdown on the other end.
And now you're screwed because now you've really got to start
pushing. And that's where a lot of these
interceptions have started to pop up over these last few
weeks. You can see opposing offensive
coordinators and opposing quarterbacks being like, we got
to get every single one of these things right or we're going to
be in trouble. They haven't gotten them all
right, Scott, and they've been in trouble as a result of it.
That that is, again, we're not used to watching Indiana be the
chess master in these games. We're we're used to Indiana
having to respond and to be on the front foot even in this
game. I mean, when Michigan State had
to settle for that field goal on that first drive, I was like,
OK, this is actually good because it's going to put more
pressure on Michigan State down the line.
And, and I mean, it ended up not mattering.
But that's the kind of thing where, you know, they probably
hated having to settle for that field goal because they knew
they were going to have to continually score touchdowns
against this Indiana team. Here, all that 100% true.
It's what I love about this team.
They just choke teams out with their efficiency on offense.
Here's just a very interesting thought.
I never thought we'd be here as a podcast.
We have, you know, maybe the best offense in the country.
We're averaging 46 1/2 points a game nine games into the year.
If I told you that and then I said, but we're going to start a
podcast after a game and really sing the praises of the defense.
Like, that's insane. I mean, that that is what is so
wild about this team is I came away from that Michigan State
game being like, I think our defense might at that times be
better than our offense. It's an offense that's scoring
46. You know, they scored 47 that
game. They scored scoring 46 points a
game. It's it's just wild to think
about that because if you told me we had the best, yes, Ryan,
we all, we are all in there. Welcome, welcome.
I mean, we are all just, you know, we're brains in a big
pile. We've all walked into the same
fever dream. But to the idea that we have
this offense, you'd be like, all right, well, our defense has to
be giving up 42 points a game. We're just playing a ton of
shootouts, you know, no, and you know, our defense isn't putting
up the numbers that would be historically good.
But this, this might be one of the best defenses I've seen
Indiana have in the last 20 years.
It just gets overshadowed by the offense.
But again, as we said today, we started with the defense because
they were just unbelievably good.
So I'm not trying to switch it back to defense, sorry.
But it's wild that we're so good on offense and yet we're still
at a point where we can talk about how good the defense is.
Scott, it's time for everybody's favorite segment.
Recite the drive, yes. You got it right this time.
All right? Hey, who's who's?
Who's bringing it to us? This, I think, I think this
one's being brought to you by Shalhoubi's and by
communitycars.com. So let's go ahead and dive in.
Parted a credit. No, we haven't signed that
contract yet. So let's let's run through
Indiana first as we go. Punt, punt, touchdown, punt.
Now that's you look at that and you know, you forget after that
touchdown Dr. that they had that got them back within 10/7.
That Horton touchdown pass from from Curtis Rourke.
You forget that like they punted again and it was still 10 seven.
You know, Michigan State there for a while.
Yards. On three drives up to that
point, if you take out the touchdown drive.
But then Indiana comes back and they go touchdown, touchdown,
they punt towards the end of the half and that was that was kind
of crap that I almost want to take that punt out of there.
I have no idea how on earth the replay official actually deduced
that they could see the ball and say, well, you know, that's a
foot before the lot, but give me an effing break.
Good every time we, we've had so few problems, relatively
speaking with the Big 10 officiating this year compared
to previous years. But occasionally it like pops up
and you're like, no, go away bad Big 10 officiating that that was
terrible. Anyway, we're going to take that
one off the board. On the, I will say one of the
interceptions, it does look like it might have been bobbled and
they just went, we went through it.
So yeah. We're only going to focus on the
things that are not OK. But then second-half Indiana
goes touchdown on A6 play 65 yard drive, field goal on a nine
play 44 yard Dr. touchdown on A2, play 21 yard Dr. touchdown
on A5, play 37 yard drive, and then an 11 play 17 yard drive
that ate up 8 minutes and close the game out.
I mean, what a that's that. This is another game, Scott,
where Indiana was able to outscore themselves in the
second-half versus what they did in the first half.
But man, to go touchdown field goal touchdown touchdown choke
out to close the game is pretty darn incredible.
That is, that is really remarkable.
And again it. Goes to the versatility.
We've had multiple games where we have these choke out drives.
We we just get to a point and it's like, all right, we're
going to end the game. We're just going to have a 9
minute drive. And it's wild, like, again, the
versatility of this offense. To, you know, some of those
touchdown drives, you know where, you know, one was 49
seconds, the other one was a minute 37, then a minute 43.
And then it's like, well, we'll just do one that's 8 minutes.
We'll just go ahead and just end the game by holding the ball for
2/3 of the fourth quarter. But we've done that multiple
times. It's it's unbelievable that
this, it's just unreal, man. It's unreal to see an IU team
doing this and just putting their foot on the there's a
world where I I do wonder, like should he have gone for just 56
or 63? Just kept, kept going and going
and going. I think at that point, you know,
you have your backups in. It's just like, listen.
But you don't, that's the thing. You did a choke out drive with
all your backups in. And that was the thing.
I mean they had so many backups in on defense on that.
Those last couple of drives for Michigan State and Michigan
State on those two drives went 3 plays -19 yards and then they
had a punt on A6 play, 23 yard drive because they just weren't
getting anything going. If you go through Michigan
States drives, here we go 8 plays 52 yards field goal, 13
plays, 71 yards touchdown. And then the sun went down
Michigan State and they go three play. 26 yard interception, 5
plays, 20 yards punt, 3 plays. One yard interception, 3 plays,
5 yards punt, 3 plays, 13 yards, end of half, 4 plays -14 yards
block, punt, safety. 8 plays, 30 yards turnover on downs. 6 plays
-4 yards, turnover on downs. 3 plays -19 yards, punt. 6 plays,
23 yards, punt that. That needs an NC 17 ratings that
that collection of drives. My God.
I mean, that's talk to your children about that.
Goodness. Yeah, that was that was not
nice. And The thing is you can't even
say this happened. All the interception happened
when Childs was in there. So it's not like, oh, the backup
went in and you're just playing a scared tentative backup.
I mean, all the interceptions happened when their starter was
in. It was just all of the -44 yard
sacks when their backup was in. And you, you had what, 2 blocked
punts in there, 1 tipped and then one, one that should have
been blocked for a touchdown. You know, just, he looks the
wrong way, but that should have been a touchdown blocked punt,
just just a complete ass kicking.
Like I said earlier, what's wild is we've, we continue to do
this. We did this against Nebraska.
You look back at the score, it's like we'll look at Washington
and think that was pretty much a, a butt whooping too.
It's it's, it's wild. There when I did the the preview
podcast on Thursday, it's I, I, I'm not trying to call this
person out because I actually really do enjoy the back and
forth with the other schools and and the people that are
advocating for their teams. So there was a a Spartan
commentator because in that preview I was like, I think
Indiana's going to be fine. Michigan State's actually pretty
bad statistically. They've had a lot of trouble on
offense. I think I picked Indiana to win
like, I think it was like 3821 a little did I know?
But but the comment that he made was, you know, when I said this
is an offense that struggled, his comment was, well, imagine
Indiana playing Ohio State, Oregon, Iowa and Michigan in
that order. What do you think the offensive
output would be? The reality is Indiana's played
a pretty weak schedule compared to Michigan State.
And it's like, well, the, the problem with that is you're not
taking into account that Indiana might just be that good and
hasn't had the opportunity to play top teams, statistically
speaking. You know, when you looked at
Michigan State, they were going to have to make big plays,
athletic plays. They're going to have to
leverage their their players in ways that were going to create
problems for Indiana. And they just couldn't do it.
And I, and I think what makes this game such a, a fascinating
product is just how much Indiana was able to gum up what Michigan
State did. As much as I was critical, not
critical, but just pointing out that Michigan State had
struggled on offense. They haven't struggled on
offense to this degree all season.
Like, this was just another level.
And it does make you wonder. It's like, OK, well, you played
Ohio State. Ohio State's really the one team
that you can go back and look at Michigan State's season so far
and say, well, you know, they've they've not they, they didn't
play very well in that game. They lost 38 to 7, which I'll
I'll note was not by as many points as Indiana beat Michigan
State. Just just want to throw that in
there. But you know, they scored as
many points against Oregon as they scored against Indiana.
They, you know, they they've been a team that struggled some
on offense at various times. But to watch Indiana do what
they did and choke them out like this and also be able to score
as much as they did was really impressive.
And I think Indiana deserves a lot more credit nationally than
they got for this game, at least in what I've seen in the recaps,
I saw somebody put like top 10 most impressive performances and
they have Indiana in the top ten.
And I was like, Indiana just went in and beat what at the
time was a four in four team right by 37 points in their home
stadium. This was not like a one in in
eight team. It wasn't like they were going
in and beating Purdue or somebody like that at this point
in the season. Like it's the Michigan State
team that's got some bounce. It's the Michigan State team
that is probably going to make a bowl.
They've got Illinois, Purdue and Rutgers the rest of the way.
They only need to win two of those three.
I mean, to smack that team around by 37 points, that is,
there's a level of impressiveness to this that
Indiana fans realize. And I think Indiana media have
really started to embrace. I'm talking about the
independent media. But you know, nationally,
they're still not getting credit for doing this because when they
win these games, it's like, well, now that team must have
sucked because Indiana did this to them.
Not Indiana took that team and stole their soul, which is
really what it's felt like has happened in these last three
games that they they have gone in there.
Look at what Washington did. I mean, is that Washington team
bad? Not that U not that USC is
necessarily great in terms of record, but they're what, 17th
and FPI? You know, Washington, yes,
they're playing at home, but that was a competitive game that
Washington beat USC. Indiana did not let Washington
feel like they had a chance in that game for the last 25
minutes. At some point, Indiana needs to
get some kind of credit for being as dominant in these games
as they've been. I, I was saying this yesterday
that if you looked at, if you just look at Penn State, they
did play Ohio State. They played them at home, I
might add, and we are going to play Ohio State.
So we'll get there. Look at the rest of Penn State's
schedule. I mean, Penn State started the
season ranked 5th, so that's why they're ranked so high.
But you look at the rest of their schedule at West Virginia,
Bowling Green, Kent State, Illinois, UCLA at Southern Cal
at Wisconsin and then Ohio State, none of those games.
I think there's there's there's connections to what IU has done
all across the way. Yes, they play, you know,
Illinois is ranked. I would say that they're kind of
in the same category phylum as Nebraska.
Penn State beat them 21 to 7. We beat the hell out of
Nebraska, like 57, whatever, 3 or whatever.
If if you just swap those two, it's going to be really
annoying. If we come out with the rankings
today and we're not ahead of Penn State, which which will
probably might be the case just because they started ranked
ahead of us. But you, you start looking at
other teams outside of, you know, Georgia who just played
everybody. You look at other teams around
the country, nobody else, nobody else is playing a murderer's
role. They'll have one or two really
tough games. And by the way, we still have an
Ohio State game coming up. So we're still going to play
those games. It it, it is annoying, but it
also it, you know, just just keep winning, keep going.
I think this week, not to jump ahead, but this week is going to
be key because I don't think Michigan's very good, but they
have that name recognition. You know, they have the name the
Michigan. I think we're going to get way
more credit for beating Michigan than we will for, you know,
having beat Maryland. But I'm not sure there are
really any different teams outside of just the helmet and
the logo that we're used to seeing.
Well, Ari Wasserman had a great tweet yesterday where he said
like Indiana has been free money in the betting world for the
whole season. Every every spray.
Solely because of the logo on the side of the helmet, right?
I mean, that's the thing, and it is interesting.
And we'll talk about the Michigan game here in a second.
There's a couple of the reflections I want to get about
the Michigan State game. But you know, Indiana did open
as like an 11 1/2 or 12 1/2 point favorite against Michigan,
which is the first time Indiana's been favored against
Michigan since 1968. I think it is.
But to put this Michigan State game into one last piece of
context, and I just, I just double checked this with Greg
Campbell, the sports information director for IU.
Indiana wins by 37 points on the road in a Big 10 game.
Now, we've talked a lot about how hard it has been for Indiana
to win any games on the road in the Big 10.
And, and just to highlight that I actually have a, a, a chart, a
a spreadsheet that Scott has seen that I've been cultivating
over the years since 1997, Indiana does not have very many
wins on the on the road in the Big 10.
I think the, the number now with this game is 21 Rd. wins on the
Big 10 total in the 24 seasons that have existed within this
Millennium. This was the largest margin of
victory for Indiana in a road game in the Big 10 since 1988.
That was the season that they beat Purdue at Ross Ade 52 to 7.
That's how long it's been since Indiana won by this margin of
victory on the road in the Big 10.
So again, I just want everybody that was there or anybody that
watched the game to just take a step back and savor that for a
little bit. To be able to go in not to a
terrible team in the Big 10, but a mid table team in the Big 10
and beat them by 37 points on the road is a a historic
accomplishment for this Indiana football program.
I'm I'm letting that just sit. That's he said it perfectly.
I agree, yes. I also want to just a little bit
talk about the crowd that was there beforehand.
We had a, an interesting drive up to East Lansing.
The Michigan Department of Transportation, for whatever
reason, decided to just close Interstate 69 between the part.
Well, it was not the entire length, but like about a Six
Mile stretch between the border and Lansing, which involved a
lot of of taking side roads and things like that.
I've never been to East Lansing before and I gotta say the
people were very friendly. I was really impressed with how
friendly the people were. They're kind of.
They've left into my top 2IN friendly Rd. fan bases, at least
for traveling. Iowa #1.
Nebraska, Nebraska, those folks were incredibly friendly when we
were there, at least the people that we saw.
But the Michigan State people were generally really friendly,
although their students need to work on their insult game.
Like I was walking out of the parking lot, we were walking
through the little residential area north of where that
commercial strip is. And you know, there's some dudes
on the lawn across and they, they yell across the street,
hey, the salon is that way. And I'm like, what I, I'm
assuming they're referring to the hair, but I mean, come on,
you gotta come up with some better burns than that.
Like that's, that's not gonna, I'm gonna be like, thank you.
I'm gonna go get a a rinse and, you know, maybe a little bit off
the top before I go into the stadium.
But you know, the we, we, we're at a bar with a bunch of IU fans
ahead of the game. That was a lot of fun.
We got a chance to hook up with some of our friends, saw Jordan
Brock out there, saw several people.
It was one gentleman that I met whose name is escaping me while
I'm on the pod here, but has been to like 105 IU football
games in a row, which man, I mean, I, I bow to that person
and their personality. Like city road games.
Yeah, they've been to right. I mean, that's.
Part of the IIU athletic staff like.
Is it paid to do this? But saw so many great people in
the stands. We had Lucas Kite came up and
said hi to me in the stands. It was great to see Lucas and
just a a ton of people that we took pictures with in the end
zone after the game. Had some folks run up and take
some pictures up in Section 8 with me as well.
It was great to see everybody and just it was a jovial and
excited and, and for the most part, not rude IU fanbase.
Everybody was just happy to be there in terms of like watching
Indiana perform that well in, in every aspect of the game.
It was really cool to see and again, it's like, you know,
we've seen this with UCLA, we've seen it with Northwestern, we've
now seen it with Michigan State. Indiana has travelled very well
to these games and I expect to see that continue.
This is really a fun team to follow.
But as Huperazi points out, he was up there, We saw him post
game. The parking was terrible.
That was probably the worst parking situation that I've ever
experienced for a football game. And I've been to a lot of places
that don't have a lot of parking.
I mean, I used to go to games at the University of Miami when
they were in the Orange Bowl, which there was no parking in
Little Havana. I can tell you that this was
worse than that. Like we went, we spent 40
minutes looking for a spot. We finally found a spot at the
the, I think East Lansing High School or whatever it was.
So it was, you know, but it was a fun trip.
We really had a great time. It was great to see so many IU
fans there. And it was just one of those
situations where you couldn't help if you were an IU fan, but
just it was so life affirming, especially after the game.
I mean, watching the the team come over, you know, get the old
brass platoon, bring it over to the fans that had traveled there
were there were some students in the mix.
There was some younger alumni. There were older alumni.
Everybody cheering them on. Signeti coming off the field and
leading that go IU chant that he's decided he's going to
adopt. You know, he acknowledges the
crowd across the board. Scott Dolson's out there, you
know, Pam Witten was out there. I mean, it was just like it was
cool to watch that collection of of IU people and the fans that
were there. And that there's this fun in
person connection that I've seen now in all three of these Rd.
games where the players are acknowledging the fans, the fans
are acknowledging the players. There's an immensely communal
sense between this fan base and this team and the people that
are coaching it and running the athletic department.
And it's a it's a special, it's an emotionally special kind of
thing, especially if we've watched these two groups, the
fans and the program not always really be that close with each
other. It's been a lot of tension over
the course of. Time.
I feel like there should be a stat like a Bill Connolly stat
of like opposing stadium clear outs 'cause you look at UCLA and
Michigan State, that's two of our three big 10 Rd. games.
We have cleared out their stadium by really the fourth
quarter 'cause you were there watching on TV by the fourth
quarters, like there's nobody there.
It's just IU fans are left. We've done it back-to-back
weeks. I do feel like if you're able to
do it at at Ohio Stadium, that that should be like a, you know,
worth 4 points versus doing it at Michigan State.
But you know that that's a. That's a great stat, 2 out of 3.
Big 10 Rd. games. You cleared out the stadium
because you were beating the team by so much and we were
noticing it. Eric Knabel, who a lot of you
know, he was texting me, he's like, I predict we're going to
have a lot of spare seating available to us when the fourth
quarter started. And he was right and it was cool
to see. And again, I give all credit to
Michigan State fans. They they were actually very,
very cordial with us. We got a lot of, hey, good luck
the rest of the season. Please beat the hell out of Ohio
State comments. So that was nice.
What was really, please beat the hell out of Michigan first.
Please, please also beat Ohio State.
So it was it was nice. It was a good experience
overall. Any, any final thoughts about
this game, Scott, before we move forward to to talking about
what's going to be coming up this week?
No, I'm, I'm ready to talk about the next I'm, I'm already fired
up for the next game. And finally, you know, we, we
flew back from our fall break trip before the Washington game
got in like 2:00 AM and that was a, you know, noon kick off where
I, it was college game day. So I had to leave at 7:00.
Not a quick turn around. I'm, as I mentioned before, I'm
coaching my son's basketball. Our first game is on Saturday,
although I don't know the time because the commissioners a
little bit underwater trying to get things out, but I'll be
coaching game that morning sometime at 9/10 11:00.
I was like, please don't make it a noon game.
Like just help me out because I don't know, my son will want to
play basketball. I'm like, I don't know what I'm
gonna do. The 330 kick really helps me.
So just thank you to the TV networks for helping out Scott
on Crimson cast. It's it's much appreciated.
Thanks for doing me a solid. We're gonna talk about that, but
we need to introduce something. I I hope this works.
I, I, I don't know if it's actually gonna play.
And if it doesn't, I'll just say what I'm going to say, but I
wanted to play this first. Let's see if this works.
Hold on. I'm not sure if that actually
came through. That was that was of course
still playing in the background. Just play it on a loop.
But that that is signetti, of course, saying back in December,
Purdue sucks, but so does Michigan and Ohio State.
Scott, I don't know if you've checked the schedule, but.
That's our last three games. Hold on, I am going to declare
officially this is this is suck month walking everybody to suck
month. We're we're playing the three
teams that Kurt Signeti highlighted in that clip as we
go down the stretch here with Indiana already 9 and O welcome
to suck month. I welcome you to and how you
feeling Scott? I'm I'm.
Ready to suck. Please don't clip that.
I I'm ready for them to suck. I think is the the answer you're
looking for us to kick some ass. I, I mentioned this on an
earlier pod. It might be one of the Crimson
caches. You know, when I first heard
signeti say that it was awesome, but I also just thought, all
right, that is, you know, our rival and then you're just
picking two of the top teams in the big 10.
I'm I'm past the point of I, I'm giving signeti credit for
everything. Our schedule was out at that
point. I, I wonder and I really do
think he might have looked at it and been like maybe we're going
to be 9 and O going into those last three games.
And I mean those are our last three games and those are the
teams that all suck. I I'm not sure it's a
coincidence that he just picked those teams out of thin air.
So I think let's let's show Signetti that they do suck and
let's go out and beat the three of them.
Signation. Yes, Jordan.
So let's let's talk through this because this Michigan game is so
pivotal and we're going to have a lot about this Michigan game
later on in the week. There's a couple of things I
think we need to to to highlight before.
You get into a little bit of a preview.
Can I just say one thing? Yeah, go ahead.
Because I think I think he deserves it now.
But I do think that what's on the table here, just based on
the fact that it's Michigan and it's a name and if they're
defending champs, I do think when Indiana see, I'm changing
my tune. When Indiana wins this game, I
think this is when Signetti locks up Coach of the year.
I I think he should already have it locked up, but I think this
is the game that locks up national coach of the year.
I, I don't know what the argument would be for anybody
else at this point. I mean, you know, this is, it's
not UCF going from like O and 12 to whatever they did in terms of
record. But again, it's like you've got
such a history of not competing at this level at Indiana and all
of the changes that have occurred over the course of this
last 11 months. I mean, it's all happened in
this the last 11 months, Scott, This is not, this is not
something where it's like, well, we laid the foundation for a
year and then we kind of got, I mean, it's, it's wild to think
through the implications of everything that Indiana has done
in such a a short period of time.
And look, the players deserve a ton of credit.
The assistant coaches deserve a ton of credit.
Scott Dolson deserves a ton of credit for making the hire.
But Kurtz Signetti is the guy that had the plan.
I don't know how you look at what has gone on across college
football and don't say this guy deserves coach of the year right
now. I don't care what happens the
rest of the season. I totally agree.
But I I think this win a lot will lock it up.
Well, so let's I mean, let's talk a little bit about this.
Ultimately, Indiana's facing a Michigan team that they are now
either an 11 1/2 or 12 1/2 point favored over.
And that is largely because Michigan has struggled so badly
offensively. You know, we just played
Michigan State. Michigan State's averaging 19.8
points a game. Michigan is only averaging 21
points per game. Michigan on the course of the
season, if you look at what they've accomplished, their
wins, they're five and four on the season.
Their wins are against Fresno State, Arkansas State.
USC by three at home, Minnesota by three at home in a
controversial game, and Michigan State by 7.
That's their wins. That's all of them.
They're, you know, their losses. Their losses have been to to
fairly good teams. Texas at Washington by 10, at
Illinois by 14. And then of course, the game
that they play with, they played fairly well against Oregon, all
things considered. So there's two things to think
about here. A, And I think Patrick had this
in a comment earlier, this is a brand that is frightening.
This is a team that Indiana has beaten once since 1987 and has
beaten twice since 1967. It is a brand that you don't
have to work to get worked up about.
You like you don't have to convince somebody to play hard
because Michigan's going to be on the other side.
It's a team that has a ton of talent across most of their
play, but it is a team that has struggled at the quarterback
position, has struggled to score.
This is going to be the biggest test for Indiana because it's,
you know, in terms of like just a mental hump of being able to
say we can go out and beat Michigan.
Michigan's no better than us, but we have to execute every
play. Now.
We've seen Indiana do this over and over again this season.
We're going to talk through a lot of individual statistical
matchups as we go through the rest of the week.
But you know what makes this such a tough game for Indiana?
It's kind of what made the Michigan State game ostensibly,
but not in reality, a tough game for Indiana, which is the
building of pressure and expectations and the idea that
if Indiana wins this game, they're going to tend to know
for the first time in school history, right?
They will have almost locked up a College Football Playoff at
large berth. If you go through the selector
and you go through some of the other things that are happening
in college football or will happen in college football and
they'll be doing it in a marquee television window on CBS.
Like this is, you know, you get the the, the Jingle that comes
in at the beginning that that CBS college football Jingle
that's always been associated with SEC football.
The eyes of the college football world are going to be on Indiana
in a way that they haven't been all season because of the fact
that they're playing Michigan, because that's such a big brand.
This is going to be a huge game. And again, this is where Kurt
Signetti and his staff have a tremendous task in front of him
this week to keep their players grounded and level headed.
The players have a huge task in focusing on the film, focusing
on how they can exploit Michigan's weaknesses.
Statistically, Indiana is the superior team.
There's no question. That's why the lines have opened
up where they have. That's why they're likely going
to stay there. But again, this is one of those
Dragons that you have to slay on route to whatever the final boss
battle is. You have to be able to beat
Michigan. And it's just something that
even in seasons where Michigan hasn't been that good, Indiana
has rarely ever done. And so, you know, I think we're
going to have to be going through a lot of this
psychologically as a fan base this week.
But I also think that for the team and the coaching staff,
this becomes one of their biggest challenges because you
get over this hump and it opens up an entirely new set of vistas
that you would have never even imagined before the season
started. I agree with all of that, but I
also think as we've seen all year, that the the concern of
previous IU football seasons affects us, the fans.
It's not affecting Coach Signetti or this team that they
are just immune to it. They move on with it.
And if you look at, yeah, you look at Michigan State, like I
mentioned earlier, as a bellwether team, when they
played mid level teams, they played them pretty well and
lost. When they played really top
level teams, they got their ass kicked.
You look at Michigan, it's the same thing.
They beat bad teams. When they play good teams like
Texas, Washington, IL and Oregon, the best teams on their
schedule, they have lost. So you look at this and it, it
really, you know, this is where I'm, I'm real really ready to
shed some of the IU fan base, you know, just armor that's been
built up year over year because this team has shown nothing
that, that it's not going to be prepared and ready.
Michigan State was a, was a real trap game in my mind.
That was a tough environment and it played out about as bad as
you could expect for the 1st 10 minutes of the game.
And they turned it on a dime and won.
So I'm even, you know, they could come out and throw 2 picks
again and get down 14 nothing. I'm not going to be awesome.
I'm not going to be in a great mood, but I'm I'm I'm never
going to feel like this team can't come back and just start
kicking ass again. And it does really feel like
Signeti understands all of this. You know, the only thing that
that gives me pause just because we don't want to talk positively
the whole time is and I don't have the schedule in front of
me. You can pull it up.
James Madison schedule last year.
You know, they they kind of had a similar rise last year.
They get game day there. It's like they they are at the
precipice of seeing the new vistas, as you said, and then
they lost, I think, to Appalachian State.
So there, there is, you know, this Signetti has kind of been
here before standing on a precipice of do some doing
something that has never been done before and he wasn't able
to do it last year. Now, I, I, I think we all should
have the utmost faith in Signetti.
And I'm actually happy that happened because I, I don't
think Signetti's the kind of guy who's like, well, you know, not
him, that that's a fluke. Like I think he really has
looked at that. What did we do wrong?
How do we prepare for that game incorrectly?
How can we change how we're going to prepare?
So I, I think it's actually a blessing in disguise that
happened last year. But that would be the only thing
is when you look at that last year, you know, James Madison
had that moment and they were not able to, to cash in well.
And you know, I think it's interesting and to some degree
it's it's a great point and I agree with that.
But I'd almost argue that Signetti and this staff and many
of these players, having been in a position where they were on
the precipice and they end up losing a game at home to an
Appalachian State team that that was good.
They weren't, I mean, they weren't a great team.
They finished nine and five on the season.
They they scored like 32 points a game.
That was a really good Appalachian State team having
been through that experience that really will, I think, help
the leaders on this team and the coaching staff know what to
avoid as they go through this week.
And look, game day's not gonna be here.
Big Noon might be here even though it's a 330 kick for for
Cbsi don't totally know yet how. Wild is this IU fans like Big
Noon might be here, man, who cares?
Like, you know, just normal Saturday.
But but, but I do think that that you, you really do bring up
a good point. We we worried about this before
the Nebraska game. Like, wow, all this attention
sell out. Like is Indiana going to be able
to navigate the emotional hurdles?
We worried about it for Washington game day is going to
be here. You don't have your starting
quarterback. Can they navigate those hurdles?
You know, you feel like they're going to be able to navigate
this. It's a different type of hurdle.
It's a different type of hurdle because they've now thrived in
the spotlight a couple of times. Can you keep doing it?
That's the mark of really great teams and that is something that
I think is going to be really fascinating to watch as we go
into this upcoming week. 330 start is I think it's our first
3 did. We have one earlier, obviously
1st 330 start in the Big 10. I, I think it's going to make
for just an, you know, great tailgating for you and the
tailgate crew. I'll be coming down after
whenever my basketball game is, but I, I think this is the
perfect time for a real frenzied crowd because sometimes the noon
kickoffs can be a little tough for people to make it down.
The 3:30 is just at the perfect time.
You'll get the sun setting and hopefully the weather is good.
But I, I do think this is going to be a great crowd.
And I, and I also think, you know, one of my, I unfortunately
have a lot of friends who are Big 10 fans.
My buddy Danny, who, you know, him and his parents, he's coming
down with his family. He's always, he's a Michigan
grad. He's always come to the games
and I've I've told him like, dude, be ready.
It's going to be different. Like I don't think there's, you
know, he's he's used to having a bunch of, you know, Bishkin fans
in the stands healing go blue and stuff like that.
And like, dude, it's I don't think it's going to be like
that. Like Nebraska didn't bring
anybody. I know they travel really well.
I just don't see a world where Michigan brings the kind of fans
they they did in the past. And I told him like, it's going
to be loud. And again, I think you you hit
it the best. Our stadium is not going to
scare Michigan. Michigan has been in really
tough environments. They've played in, you know,
Ohio Stadium, they've played in tough places.
What it what it does is it buoys our team.
It gets our team fired up. And that's the most important
thing. We had a great question from one
of my former students and and an avid listener of the podcast TA,
Asking for soccer fans like me, what's the soccer equivalent of
Indiana's football season? Leicester City's Premier League
title run in 2016. I actually think that's a great
comp, like a team that was not picked to do anything like this
Indiana team was 16th or 17th in most of the preseason
projections in the Big 10, not nationally.
In the Big 10, they're coached by a manager who has won things
at lower levels but is still kind of viewed with suspicion or
a, a, a lack of respect at the top level.
In Leicester City's case, it was Claudio Ranieri who, you know,
won Serie A, say, which is the third division of Italian soccer
with Calgary, won Serie A Bay, which is the second division
with Fiorentina, had won the Copa del Rey with Valencia.
But these were all lower level things for the most part.
He comes in and takes this Leicester team and they keep
winning and everybody's like, well, they're going to collapse
eventually. They're going to collapse
eventually. They're going to lose this game
or Chelsea's going to catch them or Tottenham's going to catch
them. It was a weird year that year in
the Premier League and it never happened.
And you know, they, they keep winning games down the stretch
and at the end of it, they're Premier League champions.
And it is the most improbable thing I think arguably that's
ever happened in the top four or five major leagues in European
soccer. This would be at maybe, you
know, it could be a higher level of improbable if Indiana were to
actually carry this through go 12 and O go to the big 10 title
game. It's mostly the out of nowhere
nature of it and how it just kind of this team of players
that people didn't think was going to be able to compete, not
just competing, but meshing into a unit that people took shots at
all the time. People thought, well, they're
not actually that good because of the brand name.
No one took Leicester City seriously.
Nobody thought of them as a contender, but they come out of
nowhere and they win the league. I think it's a great shout, Tom
and I'm I'll think about other thoughts.
I'm sure Zach Osterman, if he listens to this podcast, will
maybe have another comp that he would throw in there.
But that would that would be about as good as I could think
of with this one. I don't watch soccer, so I, I, I
don't know Tony Meola like that. That's as far as I'm going to
go. I don't know.
I, I will say my buddy Robert had a great point.
He's like, I he's like, now I hope you guys win the national
championship and you never go down by anybody else.
So the only team that was able to get a lead on Indiana was
Michigan State the rest of the season.
And and as you were saying that, I do think like, here's my fever
dream. That is funny.
Now, if we make a run to the College Football Playoff and get
to the national championship game, it will be funny just to
see how much they move the goal posts Again.
It's like, well, Indiana played the first they were at home.
You know, that's that's they played Illinois, not good and
they played BYU. That's not a great team.
And then, you know, Texas that maybe it'll be like others.
You know, it's like it'll be funny just to see the goal post
moves all along the way. It also is, you know, people are
talking on the chat a little bit about the Ohio State game.
I'm already pre annoyed because if we go 11:00 and 1:00, which I
think we're going to do, I think we could go 12 and O we'll talk
about that next week. But if we go 11 and one and even
if we play well against Ohio State, there's going to be a bit
of well, I told you like they can't play the good teams.
Like nobody can't like not everybody can beat Ohio State.
Like the idea that, you know, people are asking me, you know,
God, if you lose to Purdue is the season, is this going to be
just kill your heart? It's like we have nine wins.
We've never been here like this is this is the highest level
we've ever had. Like I thought we were going to
win eight games. I thought we were crazy.
My goal every year is to win 6 and go to a bowl.
Like that's not that's not changing until we have 567 years
of this. Then maybe I'll go to like seven
wins. Like I'm the idea of these
heights are are nuts. And I never go into a year
thinking, well, we got to beat Ohio.
State on the road. Well yeah I know it's it is wild
and it's hard again as I talked with a lot of IU fans yesterday
at the game I've talked with many of you as I've seen you
around Bloomington or we've been chatting on these pods.
It's you almost don't know what expectations to have like you
know how are we supposed to feel what are you supposed to think
this is this is uncharted territory for this program and
its fans it's uncharted territory for people outside the
program who don't know how to address a nine and O Indiana
that has an 86% probability of making the College Football
Playoff right now as a margin of victory of what like 2829 points
a game. I didn't want to There was a
comment from Allison Dalton here.
I wish my late husband was here to see this.
Of course he has better seats than I do.
Well, Allison, you know, I, I think about my dad with this all
the time. And I know a lot of other
people, you know, feel the same way, like the, the people that
we know that have loved or have followed IU football for a long
time. And this was never even in the
the conversation as a possibility.
This is, it's why this season has been so special.
It's why this Michigan game is so like it's, it's, it could be
such a a key exclamation point on what Indiana is able to do at
home. I mean, it's been amazing that
atmosphere in Memorial Stadium the last three games, This one
is going to even top that because there is such a
psychological thing that you have with Michigan and they have
been the tormentors for so long. And to come in and This is why
this game is to some degree kind of a concern.
But it's also one where you kind of have to have confidence at
the coaching staff and the the players are going to figure it
out. But like for IU fans and the
ones that are no longer with us, who have been through all of
these seasons that have been so terrible to be in this position
and, and watch this, You just wish everybody that ever loved
IU football, that you you ever spent time with, was able to
enjoy it the way that you're able to enjoy it in person like
this. Completely agree.
I also again, this is, you know, embarrassment of riches, asking
for too much. It is the only thing that that's
that's it. It sucks that it's not the right
word, although it is suck month. The only thing that's that's you
know, about about these games is we're we're not going to have
that moment. This has been such a great
season where we can, you know, rush the field or take down the
goal posts. I almost think given the
history, you know, if we're ranked, you know, 9th or 10th in
the country and we beat A5 and three Michigan team, you can't
rush the field. But it does feel like that's the
only thing we didn't get this year is that one statement game.
And in a way, this is it. And if you beat Michigan for
exactly all the reasons that you said, there's a world where it's
like storm the field, man. Like this is this is the the
culmination of everything. And yeah, normally the ranked
team doesn't storm over beating a non ranked team.
But these are not normal circumstances.
And Michigan really is that that bugaboo for us?
Yeah, it's them in Ohio State and you got a real opportunity
here during suck month Yeah, to to to right a lot of historical
wrongs. It's it's man what a what a what
a circumstance let's. Matt, Matt, Matt.
UL question. Another towel design.
What do you think the towel's going to be?
So we had, you know, stay up and study or whatever, or, you know,
don't study. There was the the signeting and
there's a. Signetti, just the great
Signetti. You know, Marlboro, do you think
they go back to one of those two or you think we're getting a
different one for that in Purdue?
I, I have been given advance notice on the, the, the towel.
I'm not going to reveal it here. I want it to be a surprise when
it is revealed by the athletic department.
So it's a good one is all I'll say.
It's a good one. Crimson cast Recite the drives.
Recite the drives towel would be amazing, although probably would
would be better suited for like a home game against like Indiana
State or something like that, you know?
Yeah, yeah. So let's let's dive into the CFP
stuff before we wrap up. We're going to go another 10
minutes or so here, but the first College Football Playoff
reveal show is this Tuesday. And no one really knows what
we're going to see in this, but we do know that Indiana is going
to be in the College Football Playoff rankings somewhere,
which that's a big story in and of itself.
Now, if you go to the College Football Power Index on ESPN,
which we refer to often, and you sort the teams and their
percentage chance of making the playoff, I want to note the
following. The team that has the best
chance of making the playoff right now according to this is
Oregon, 95.6% chance. Miami is second at 92.8% chance
to make the playoff and Georgia is 3rd 92.3% Ohio State's 4th at
91.3%. Indiana's fifth have an 86.6%
chance to make the playoff, which is a higher probability
than Texas, Tennessee, Penn State, Boise State, BYU, Notre
Dame, Alabama, SMU, Ole Miss, Iowa State or LSU.
Indiana has a a better than four out of five chance going the
rest of the way to make the playoff.
And again, as we've talked about, you know, it's not just
about what Indiana's doing, it's about what everybody else is
doing as well. What we'll see moving forward is
going to be interesting. But Scott, if you were drive,
you know, if you were home like you were after watching the IU
game or if you were like me driving back and listening on
SiriusXM to the games going on around the country.
Yesterday was a really good day for Indiana football when it
came to the College Football Playoff.
Iowa State loses at home to an unranked Texas Tech team.
Texas A&M. Texas A&M loses on the road bad
to South Carolina. You know, you had.
Yeah, Penn State lost, which was a big one.
Obviously. You know, you had Clemson, which
is a huge 1 loses at home decisively to Louisville.
And now you and, you know, Tennessee struggled a little
bit. They ended up winning that game.
It would have been a perfect night if Tennessee had somehow
lost that game to Kentucky. But what you see right now, just
based on the numbers and based on what we think the College
Football Playoff committee committee will do, Indiana is in
really good shape if they can take care of business over these
next three games. And as Zach Osterman pointed
out, like now, it's if you can beat Michigan and you can beat
Purdue, then it's a matter of, well, your ceiling rises with
the Ohio State game. But it's not like you're out of
the College Football Playoff if you lose to Ohio State.
Like that's where Indiana is at right now in this whole mix.
The, the thing that I've been trying to figure out is if, if
we beat Michigan and Purdue lose to Ohio State and then we, I, I
don't think in that scenario, we make the Big 10 championships
because I think Ohio State would make it over us and Oregon
would, would still make it. But my biggest fear is I
definitely see a world where we go 11:00 and 1:00.
If we make the Big 10 championship and then lose to
Oregon, I could see them leaving Indiana out in that scenario.
I know something you've talked about a couple times in the past
and it's, it's annoying because that same scenario, if that
happens to Penn State, they are in that this is where the brand
hurts you. And again, we're going to be in
the best bowl we've ever been in, whether we make the CFP or
not. But you know, that to me is
probably the worst case scenario is you're, you're letting the
voters have a choice. And, and I think they might
leave us out. But again, it's, it's, there's a
lot of lot of pieces that have to happen between now and then.
So I'm gonna run through some things real quick.
I tried to make a graphic out of this this morning.
I couldn't. I might be able to share it in
in notes form though. On screen for those of you that
are watching along and for those who are not.
You'll just have to, you'll have to take my word for it.
Hold on a second. I'm gonna, I, I don't wanna show
you what all of my, my notepads look like.
That would be really disastrous, I think, for, for several
people, including myself. But let me salon appointments
for the salon appointments. OK, I'm gonna pop this up and I
hope I'm gonna, I'm gonna zoom in on this a little bit.
Here's the thing about everything you just said is, is
correct. However, what I also think you
should note is the following. Here's the following things that
are guaranteed to happen elsewhere in college football
between now and the end of the regular season.
All right, so I might be able to zoom in a little bit more here.
Texas or A&M are guaranteed to have another loss.
Either Texas is going to have two losses or A&M is going to
have three. Alabama is either guaranteed to
have three losses or LSU is guaranteed to have three losses
because they play each other. Georgia is guaranteed 2 losses
or Ole Miss 3 because they play each other.
Georgia and Tennessee play each other, so that means two loss
Tennessee or two loss Georgia, Notre Dame or Army play each
other. One of those will get another
loss. Clemson is either going to have
three losses or Pitt will have two.
Iowa State and K State play each other.
You also have to add in that one of Georgia A&M, Tennessee or
Texas will pick up another loss in the SEC Championship game.
Either Miami or SMU is guaranteed to lose a game in the
ACC Championship game, and either BYU, Iowa State or
Colorado are guaranteed another loss.
And this is where when we talk about the projections, it's easy
to look at Indiana in a a nutshell or in a bubble and say,
well, gosh, if they don't do this or that, they're going to
be in trouble. But Indiana going 11 and one,
even if we accept that they might, that they would lose to
Ohio State, which I'm not ready to do anymore.
We'll talk about in a week, but yes, same or two weeks.
Even if you accept that that occurs, Indiana is going to be
in really good shape compared to most of the other teams that are
going to be in the mix for and in.
And This is why going out and winning 47 to 10 on the road at
Michigan State and maintaining these margins of victory becomes
so important because when you can't say, well, our strength of
schedule number wise is better, Let's look at the style points.
Let's look at how much you're beating everybody else.
And that is where Indiana's got a real advantage because, you
know, if they can win two out of three or even all three of these
remaining games, they're going to be in such better shape than
most of the other teams around them based upon what we've seen
the College Football Playoff committee favor in the past.
And then that's going to be the big question is how does the
College Football Playoff committee navigate what
Indiana's resume is going to look like compared to, I will
note, Scott, teams like Miami or BYU, who frankly don't have any
better level of results than Indiana has.
And even teams like Penn State where, you know, should Penn
State be ranked ahead of Indiana?
I mean, what have they done? They've beaten an overrated
Illinois team at home and they barely squeaked out a game at
AUSC team that has a losing record like where else?
And they have a loss, by the way, which Indiana does not
have. Like what is Penn State actually
accomplished? What is BYU really accomplished?
What is you know and, and this is where you start to get into
the Clemson's, the LS us, the teams that should be rightfully
underneath Indiana in the pecking order.
There's a lot of potential scenarios and directions here,
but I just want to let people know that right now, if Indiana
takes care of business, I think Indiana is in pretty good shape.
It's just absolutely wild. It's also frustrating when you
you sent this out almost every week now when you look at the
full AP vote, it is wild to see people still in the AP vote
putting Indiana in the 17 to 20 range, which I think is what's
dragging down our ranking. And it's really frustrating
because there's there's no reason why they should be there.
But I agree with you. I think this is, you know, we we
should jump Clemson, we should jump Iowa State, we should jump
Texas A&M. Just those alone makes us 10th
in the country. And then I really think we
should jump a couple of those one loss teams like I, I'll ask
you this, you know, where do you think we are ranked after this
week going into the Michigan game?
I, I think it'll, it should probably be six or seven, but
it'll probably be 8 or 9. So I went through and tried to
anticipate what the pollsters as a whole we're going to do given
the results we saw right now. I think Indiana's going to end
up 9th in the poll this week. So I have it Oregon, Georgia,
Ohio State, Miami, Texas as the top five and then Tennessee,
Notre Dame who does not deserve to be BYU, who does not deserve
to be 8th, Indiana 9th and Penn State 10th.
I won't be shocked if they rank Penn State ahead of Indiana and
it's and it's Penn State 9 and Indiana 10.
And then I got Boise State, Alabama, Ole Miss, SMU, Iowa
State rounding out the top 15. That would be how I think it
will go. I, I don't know what your, what
possible justification you could have at this point to rank Iowa
State or Clemson ahead of Indiana given the results that
occurred over the course of the weekend.
I don't know how you would rank Texas A&M ahead of Indiana.
You know, based upon what happened this weekend.
They're already ranked ahead of Alabama.
They're already ranked ahead of Boise State.
Nothing that happened this weekend should change that.
I could see them doing something stupid like putting Ole Miss in
the top ten, right? But I really think Indiana's
gonna be in that 910 range. Brett Mcmurphy's poll, the Rider
from the Action Network had them at 7th.
I, I think you know the question for Indiana.
Indiana has had pollsters voting them 456, but they've also got
people voting them 1718. At some point those people are
gonna have to like turn on a television and watch football.
Maybe they'll see the error of their ways, but.
Just look at the records like all right, Clemson six and two,
like at some point. You know, and, and again, it's
like there's so much moving of the goal posts among the
pollsters. And this is where I'm really
interested in what the the CFP committee does 'cause as Tanner
points out in the comments, people keep talking about how
weak Indiana's schedule is. But they didn't lose to Northern
Illinois at home. They didn't lose to Kentucky,
they didn't lose to Arkansas. They didn't lose to Vanderbilt.
You know, they, they haven't been like Miami where they
needed the officials to gift them two games in order to
maintain an undefeated status. So that is where ultimately, you
know, I'm really curious to see what the CFP does.
We know that the AP poll, the, the voters there, some of them
are undaunted, some of them are very daunted.
We just need to get the ones that are daunted to be slightly
less daunted as we move forward here.
Because while the polls are BS, as Bull points out in the, in
the, in the comments, they're not totally BS because the polls
indicate public perception. And at the end of the day, the,
the committee is not a room of computers.
It's the committee is a room of people.
Don't you have the AP list somewhere on their desk?
Correct. So that is going to be the big
question mark. And while the pole is
functionally useless, it is useful in terms of the framing
of how teams exist within people's minds and those and
people matter in this equation. And and, you know, that's just
something that I think we need to keep in mind as IU.
Fans, I also think, you know, one of the things we should
really be shooting for is it would be great to host one of
those first College Playoff games in Memorial Stadium.
It's again, this is wild. I think us getting a bye, we're
back into fever dream territory. But I mean you you beat Ohio
State, you're now in bi territory.
Now all you got to do is win the Big 10 title.
But I do think 11 and one, you know, with tie breaks being out
of the big 10 title game, I think that's a that's enough to
get you a home game in the first round of the College Football
Playoff, which is which is wild. And we were we were discussing
at one of the tailgates last week.
You know, if you have that, it'll be middle of December.
Obviously you play it immemorial state.
But the idea just kind of, you know, thinking up like, is there
anywhere world where, you know, you move it to Lucas Oil just
for the the the weather conditions and just trying to do
it. And it's just like, I don't even
know the rules of this. Like does it have to be at the
home site? Like I I had not thought to
learn the rules of the College Football Playoff and how things
are going to happen and, and now we are there.
But as you said, it all comes down to beating Michigan because
I don't think Michigan is any better than Nebraska or
Washington, but they are a name brand and that will hold a lot
of weight. And I think we beat Michigan the
same way we beat Michigan State or Nebraska.
We'll see a huge jump in the rankings probably that's been
deserved for four or five weeks. But people will just see that.
And some people who aren't watching the games, you know, it
was funny last night, went over to some other friends house to
just have some drinks. We're staying up late.
One of the TV's just had Sports Center on and no highlights of
the Indiana, Michigan State game.
It's all the South Carolina game, it's all the Ohio State,
Penn State game. You know, you, you still have to
kind of seek out Indiana if you want to see them play.
And unfortunately a lot of the games are just such ass
kickings. I'm, I'm sure a lot of people
got no, no point in turning it on.
This is a game I think people will watch and I think a lot of
the AP voters will watch and look at this score.
And so this one really does stand among but.
I got it, Scott. I got to give you credit.
You've managed to do 2 things in the last few weeks of the
podcast that have infuriated some of the fans listening.
One of them is your the suggestions that Indiana move
the playoff game out of Bloomington.
I'm not saying we do it, just it was it was an idea for weather.
No, they're not. That idea is off the table.
In fact, I'm gonna, I'm gonna burn the table and throw it out
the window. That's how off the table it is.
The other one. And I and I, I wanted to mention
this 'cause I got several people in the DMS yesterday, including
Lauren Powell, who said tell Scott I'm coming for him after
his let's get it out of the way comment about trailing at some
point this season. Well, I don't know the way.
I think I had seven or eight people at the game yesterday
bring up the fact that you they were like, well, Scott must be
happy now. I just wanted to say you're the,
the it's, it's fun. I'm enjoying.
I'm enjoying the repartee that you're developing between
yourself and the fans on some of these things.
We, we are all on the we're all not daunted.
I, I am not daunted with these comments.
We are all all together not daunted.
I I will say every time I every. Time you Every time you bring up
the weather in December in Bloomington, I'm reminded of the
end of my first semester freshman year when I'm driving
back home from from teeter and I get in the car and it's I think
it's December 19th and it's 66° and sunny outside led the
windows down the whole way driving up you never know I will
say though, I think we this defense and the way that this
this passing game plays with the precision they do would would be
amazing in any weather and I think that that there's a real
advantage you want to take advantage of this you really do
and I think the fans I was just. It was literally just you can
look at all coins. If we are not keeping an open
mind in this, in this election season, I'm talking keep an open
mind all all things. Let's let's just let's come
together as a fan base. Let's not be divided.
I completely agree. Moving it would be insane.
They're not going to do it. They shouldn't do it.
But let's have discussions. I mean, by the way, it's stupid.
The idea of us going 10, you know, 10 and O would have been a
stupid discussion at the beginning.
We were doing our preview podcast.
I'm like GAIL and I really want to talk about how important the
Michigan game is going to be. We're nine and O.
You'd be like, Scott, shut up. What are you talking?
It's amazing, I love it. Just a quick note, B town Uber
driver noting on Twitter that CBS is predicting Indiana will
be 7th in the poll. Again, they're right.
I just don't think they'll be correct.
We'll see what happens though. So all right, we got a lot
coming up this week. We will keep you folks posted.
We'll, we're, we're going to have obviously our preview
podcast coming up probably late Thursday evening or Friday
morning. So keep an eye out for that.
We'll have some other shows. We'll have Bison Chat coming up
Tuesday night. We'll have Crimson Cash coming
up later. We'll try to sneak some
additional podcasts in throughout the course of the
week. Sorry, we didn't have more this
past week. It was pretty busy at work and
we do have day jobs that we have to participate in.
So just want to keep everybody. We're going to do our best.
We're going to get the content out there and we will continue
to do so. We appreciate all you folks
sticking with us. Scott, any final thoughts from
you before we wrap up? No, I I mean.
I'm excited to what, what is your tailgate plan?
What, what are we doing? Just give us the real quick.
So I've been, I think we're going with BBQ shakes this week.
So you know, this is of course the, the solo cup with pulled
pork, Mac and cheese, coleslaw, little BBQ sauce drizzle.
You mix that up. It's, it's really delightful.
Might have a couple other things at three.
I'm excited about the 330 'cause I get to finally cook lunch.
I've been cooking a lot of breakfasts over the course of
the tailgate season so far this year.
I'm looking forward to cooking some lunch.
And if you want to stop by the tailgate folks, we're in lot 12.
I'm sure you'll be able to find us.
Anyway, Scott, really appreciate talking football with you.
As always. It's been a joy and a pleasure.
And thanks to all you folks. Over 350 live viewers at various
times throughout the course of this stream.
And of course, many of you who are listening afterwards 'cause
you couldn't catch us live on Sunday morning.
We appreciate you whenever you are listening to Crimson Cast.
And certainly please keep coming up saying hi, taking pictures,
love meeting all you folks out there.
It was great to see so many of you up in East Lansing and we'll
look forward to seeing you all down here this Saturday as
Indiana takes on Michigan, hopefully top 10 Indiana both in
the AP poll and in the CFP poll, hosting Michigan.
Huge game program, altering game potentially for Indiana coming
up this weekend. And you need to show up, show
out, be loud, be excited, help this team get over the hump and
get to 10 and O. And that'll wrap it up for us
again, for Scott, for the entire back home network crew, for our
title sponsors at home Field apparel and of course, the folks
over at Upland. I'm Galen Clavio saying thanks
for joining us here on the show. Indiana 9 and O, they host
Michigan this upcoming weekend. We'll see you all out there.
We'll catch you folks. On the flip side, bring back the
Bison. Stay never daunted.
So long everybody. Bye folks.
Thanks for joining us today. It was really great.
Bye, guys.