You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home
Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cast,
Galen Clavio, Scott Caulfield joining you.
It's Sunday, September 3rd. Happy Labor Day weekend,
everybody. We are coming off the first game
on the Indiana football schedule and it didn't quite go according
to plan, but kind of did at the same time.
We're going to talk about that and talk about Scott's
experience at the game, my experience watching the game
well after it was played and what we took away from what was
kind of an odd weekend when it came to I U Football.
Scott, first and foremost, good to see you.
How are you doing this morning? I'm doing great, man.
Good to see you again one of these days.
Like, I think maybe we just podcast until we beat Ohio State
in football. Look, man, I got retirement
planned in like 25 years. Okay.
I don't know. I mean, what if they haven't
beaten them by then? And one could say, wow, that
sounds pessimistic. On the other hand, I could say,
hey, the last time they beat them was the Reagan
administration. So that you know, this is, this
is, I don't think it's funny. When I was doing my prep for the
game, I was looking at the the list of times I U has beaten
Ohio State and they've beaten them 12 times total in the
series, which is sad. What's sadder is that most of
those wins came preworld War Two, and of the 1210 of them
took place in Columbus, which seems like a bridge too far
these days. I use only beaten Ohio State
twice in Bloomington. One of them was 1988 and the
other you want to guess what it was.
Probably like 1927 or something that 1927 is optimistic of you.
I think it was like 1904 like it was, it was literally like, you
know, pre Woodrow Wilson if if we're sticking with presidents.
I like, I like the idea of you know the the six listeners who
followed us on football this whole time like they they they
go through the next 20 years. We somehow do beat Ohio State
and then it's just like the you know it's like the the Moose
isn't here. It's like Wally World like just
that's like sorry the guys the pod shut down like I can't wait
to hear what Scott and Galen say.
It's like sorry we're done like you and I are.
We don't we don't even do a recount pod.
We just we just cancel the whole thing.
You know we call Connor at home field and say look man we'll pay
the money back. It's fine, you know, you know,
but yeah, no, I let's, let's keep dreaming on this.
That's about the best thing we can do.
Those things happen. We lost 23 degrees, so we're
back. You're stuck with us anyway.
So we're going to chat about the game.
We're going to chat about how we feel in the aftermath of the
game in terms of, you know, we we gave our preseason
predictions last week and and wanted to update those based on
what we see. So we'll talk about all of that,
but first just a reminder, we're brought to you by the well we
part it. We are not brought by brought to
you by. We're part of the home field.
Geez, no, I've screwed it up completely.
Scott, let's start over. We are part of the back home
network. The back home network is brought
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guy. I'm more the trucker cap, and
I'm definitely a dad who wears caps, but I have a great home
field story. Oh, here we go.
We're sitting in our tailgate at which I want to talk to you
about and my wife is like, I need some new gear.
Like I just, you know, I want some new gear and it's like go
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So it was nice to to see somebody using it and somebody
that I know and like a lot. See, Scott finally found a way
to beat the system. This is awesome to see.
I know it's it's great, you know, because you see so much
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Anyway. Home field apparel.com.
Go to check them out folks. Sponsors of Crimson Cast and the
back home Network. All right I U Ohio State.
Let's talk about the game first and then we'll talk about the
other stuff including your tailgate stitch afterwards.
So Indiana loses this game 23 to 3:00 and it's one of those games
where I I think this is going to be a Rorschach test for a lot of
people in the fan base and in the media.
You're going to read into it what you want to read into it.
I think if you are a pro Allen, you know, pro program trajectory
person, you're going to take a bunch of positives out of this
performance and there are positives.
If you are an Auntie Allen, you know, I don't like the direction
the program is going type of person.
There's a lot you could take out of this game where you'd be like
I I I feel bolstered in my opinion.
You're trying to look at this from a a more neutral
perspective. I'll say this, Indiana both
satisfied some of my concerns and created new ones in this
game, and I didn't have the the pleasure.
I'll put that in in scare quotes of watching the whole thing
live. I saw the first quarter I had to
leave for a work function. So I listened to a lot of the
game on the radio. I came back and watched the
whole thing late last night and, well, I knew what I was getting
into because it wasn't like a surprise.
You know, I didn't try to be like, Oh no, don't don't check
social media because people who do that are just kidding
themselves. But I I went back and watched
and you know, I think the big thing also start with the
positives. The big thing that stood out to
me, obviously was the play of the defense.
Not just that they were able to stymie Ohio State.
Not just that they were able to impose their will physically,
which felt weird. I, I, I a couple of times
checked to make sure that I hadn't accidentally DVR'd a
different team, but they really looked active and all over the
place and we had a lot of questions about the defense.
You know, we knew Andre Carter was probably going to be good.
We weren't sure about the rest of the pieces, but you know, for
a team that looked adrift on defense the last two years, this
was a major statement game, even in a loss.
And you know I have to say I I'm really excited and you know it
looks already like the hire of Matt Guerrero as defensive
coordinator has paid some dividends because they there was
a clear plan on defense and I we didn't really see that the last
couple of years. No, I mean, no question the
defense looks good. That was obviously going to be
my positive as well. And and you're right, I mean at
the game. You know what you don't know is
like how checked out or not checked in was Ohio State.
But even like 1/2 checked in Ohio State is probably better
than a lot of teams were going to play this year.
But you know the thing that we didn't see, that you see in so
many of these games that you keep it close?
And then, you know, like in the past, Ezekiel Elliott breaks
for, you know, 280 yard runs and it's like suddenly it's 21.
Three. Ohio State never really had
those big plays and either they weren't really going for them.
Again, don't know if Ohio State just wasn't, you know, opening
their playbook or if IU was providing enough issues on
defense. That they weren't doing it.
But you hold Ohio State 2 for 12 on 3rd down and a lot of the two
of those were really short downs which unfortunately is why Ohio
State was 2 for three from 4th down.
But you know and the the yardage numbers you know 237 passing
yards, 143 rushing yards like those are you hold them to 23
points. You have Marvin Harrison Jr.
I think you held two catches. Well under his thanks.
You know, I appreciate the defensive effort.
I kind of wish you would have let Marvin Harrison get over 93
1/2 yards based on my gambling aspects.
But just you know seconded. Yeah, I think I only can only
can win so many things But you also hold Ohio State to 23
points and that is you know if I just tell you that Galen last
week like hey, nothing else we're going to hold Ohio State
to 23 points. I take that and I run with it.
And so, so I completely agree. The defensive effort, they look
crisp, Chris. They look good and and like you
said, they they kind of pushed around Ohio State at times.
Yeah, I mean, I think you brought up a point.
I don't know if Ohio State was checked out.
I think is the wrong word. I don't think.
I don't think they were checked. However, however, I will say
this is clearly not the same Ohio State team from a personnel
perspective. You know, you don't have,
there's no Justin Fields, there's no CJ Stroud.
You had two quarterbacks and honestly, you know these look
like John Cooper era Ohio State quarterbacks, not modern day day
quarterbacks. You know, I mean, I don't know
if that's what they're rolling with.
They're going to lose two or three regular season games this
year. I mean McCord was just really
met and the other guy, Brown, I mean they were hyping him up
when he came in the game. Like this guy's Uber athletic.
And then I think he was in for like 5 plays and really did not
impress. So I think Ohio State certainly
has some offensive problems that they're going to need to sort.
But even putting those aside, Indiana holds Ohio State to 380
total yards on offense. That only happened to them twice
total last year. One of them was against Iowa,
but they won 54 to 10. The other one was that game at
Northwestern that that kind of had everybody questioning
whether Ohio State was really good.
They only had 283 yards. They still won that game 21 to
7. You know, Ohio State does
occasionally have games where they don't play that well, but
it hasn't been that regular. I mean, you go back through the
rest of 2022, you go through 2021.
I mean, they're normally at at minimum at like 450 yards on
offense, if not more. So I think from my use
perspective, yeah, Ohio State isn't up in Top Gear yet, but
that hasn't stopped them in the past, you know, And and so I'm
not, I'm not the type of person who's going to be like, well,
Ohio State didn't have their own game because I do think that
Indiana had a lot to do with that.
It's not like Ohio State chose to score 23 points.
You know, this is not the type of program where they're like,
yeah, sure, we're just going to, you know, pull some punches.
They have no punches to pull, I think, at least in the short
term of things. So all of that said you know you
look at the performers on defense, I think Aaron Casey you
know clearly stuck out. Rita looks like another really
good middle linebacker in the mold of the Micah Mcfadden's and
and you know some of the other folks that have been here.
You also got the no, no sacks on the day but you got some tackles
for loss. Andre Carter was in the
backfield a lot, lot of plays blown up before they started and
even some of the past defending, you know, I mean, Jacob Mangum
Farrar had two passes defended effectively.
Kobe Minor played well. Louis Moore played well.
Nick Toomer played well. Josh Sangredetti had that nice
breakup at the end of the first half, you know.
So these were all names that we were looking on the depth chart
and couldn't quite get our heads wrapped around.
Okay. How are all these pieces going
to fit? And they all seem to fit pretty
well. Like there was a clear role for
a lot of these guys and they seem like a system that could be
a little bit flexible in how it was being applied.
So I don't want people to gloss that over because that was a big
issue the last couple of years without you.
It's early yet, but if that's the baseline that you're going
off of, you can feel pretty good.
Well, something we talked about in the season preview was the,
you know, like in 2020 that the big thing was the takeaways and
how last year it really flipped. You know, this year, you know
this game I, I call it 20 because that that that what was
called the interception or incomplete past the end of the
first half was definitely a fumble.
It just was. But you know, I, you also got an
interception. So I mean, you, you got to turn
over like the defense also got to take away and really they got
2 takeaways in the first half. And that's again like, you know,
2 takeaways in there, you know, 1 1/2 takeaways in the first
half and 23 points. I would take that from the
defense all day long. So no, I'm I'm with you.
You know, I just I was pointing out you know Ohio State did seem
to be playing a little bit vanilla.
But again a vanilla Ohio State is still probably top half of
the big that still might be the best opponent, you know one of
the best opponents we play all year.
So you know like you said both teams are playing both teams,
you know, no matter whether you're playing vanilla are
trying to score and I you look really, really good on defense.
So that that is very encouraging.
So then we jump to the other side of things, which is the
offense, which I, you know, I listening to it on the radio, I
was like well, maybe this isn't that bad if you watch it, maybe
the the way it's being talked about it, I'm just not getting
the picture in my head. And then I came home and watch
the game and wow, this is not a functional Division One offense
that Indiana's running. It's just not 153 yards of total
offense in this game. I was texting back and forth
with Taylor from Bite size Bison last night as I was watching the
game and I think we've determined and he may have done
additional work and and and clarified this further.
Since 2006 Indiana's only had one game where they had that low
of an offensive a total offense total.
That was the 2021 game at home against Ohio State, where I
think they were at 118 yards of offense in that game.
Now you have to keep in mind that game, Indiana, they've
lost. Michael panics.
They the season had basically been set on fire and left to
drift through the harbor. And that was one of the worst
weather days I think we've ever had for a game at Memorial
Stadium. It rained all day.
Jack Tuttle couldn't get any grip on the ball.
Indiana could do literally nothing on offense.
The fact that that's the only other games since 2006 that had
a worse offensive output than this one in perfect conditions
is real concerning. Indiana didn't look like they
knew how to throw the ball and it and they clearly looked like
they knew that they wanted to run the ball.
But the problem was they couldn't.
They couldn't block for the run. They couldn't find holes.
They, they kept doing the same things over and over again, I
guess expecting different results and those results were
not there. They tried to run a triple
option. They ended up running for 2.2
yards per carry and 71 total yards.
That's not going to get the job done.
And you know, you can look at it and say, well you know, gosh,
that's it's Ohio State. How could you, how could you
think that you could do that? And I'd just like to note that,
you know, all of last year nobody had that low of a yardage
total playing against Ohio State.
The closest again was Iowa. But Iowa, you can't even
consider them really like an offensive football team.
They're they're more like they're like a really bad I PO
on offense as opposed to being an actual, like, offensive
company. You got to go back a ways other
than that Indiana game in 2021 to find a game where teams had
this few yards. Like one of them was Miami of
Ohio in 2019 against Ohio State who had 130 yards.
This was, you know, I'm not expecting I you to win this
game, but I you have to have a functional offense if you're
going to compete. And you know, Allen's
explanation in the press conference seem to be, well,
it's, you know, we're still trying to work the quarterbacks
up. Like, no, that's that's not
sufficient. You have to have a functional
offense in a Big 10 game. And frankly, it's it's
incredibly frustrating that Indiana gets a defensive
performance where they only allow Ohio State to score 23.
And three of those points were due to another issue, which
we'll talk about later. So that you really kind of hold
Ohio State to 20 points on the game and you are still 2 score,
3 scores away from winning because your offense is so inept
that all you could do was put a field goal on the board that
almost bounced out as opposed to bouncing in.
So you know, not to say that the offense is irredeemable, but if
you look at what you saw out there and you saw it in person,
so you saw more than I did, it looked really bad, like at a
level that is not going to be sufficient for the season.
Yes, Doctor. I mean, I I will.
You'll point this out. I actually didn't notice.
Like I just. Didn't realize this till the end
of the game. I you never was in the red zone.
Like just never made it to the red zone all game.
To me. I'm going to encapsulate it all
into kind of 1 little series that I think shows the issues
and maybe just is the I'll I'll hit on this.
So I wanted to get to the quarterback back and forth but
you know so it's in the second quarter.
It's nearing the end of the second quarter.
Indiana is in the game. It's seven to three as Ohio
State 7:00 to 3:00. We get the ball on our own 42.
We have a great field position. We we run up the middle for six
yards, run up the middle for one yard, run up the middle for six
yards. Great.
It's now first and 10 on the Ohio State 45.
There's like 2 minutes left in the first half.
You are still, it's a seven to three-game.
And by the way, you've now somehow gotten first down,
running up the middle three times.
You then run up the middle for two yards, run up the middle for
three yards, run up the middle for one yard.
You you leave 11 seconds on the clock.
When you run that last place, there's still 42 seconds.
And then you call. Ohio State calls a timeout
because they know what's going on.
You then do a short pass to Carter, which is not it's
already going to be short of the line.
It gets broken away. Ohio State immediately gets the
ball, dries it down, almost scores a touchdown, save some.
Again, good defensive play. This is what bothers me.
Is that? So Jackson was under center at
that point and you could say, well, you know, he only threw
for, you know, one for five, but it's like one of his two series
before that he threw like a 40 yard pass to camp camper that
wasn't there. But like they did open it up 12
seconds ago. And this is, you know, in the
postgame, Alan even said, you know, we were way too vanilla on
offense. And it's like, OK, but you?
You've got to change that real time.
Like the game is 7 to 3. Now I'm I'm not saying that
there were opportunities like maybe Ohio State what they're
doing on defense isn't giving you the ability to throw, but
you can still call play where you just you'll go back and just
throw it to the just try one play that's not a run up the
middle try something. You know, if if history is shown
us, you know, we talk about these games where Ohio State
gets beaten by a Purdue or by, you know, an Illinois, you know,
lower level teams. It happens because there's some
of these crazy freak plays that just happened and they're not
going to happen with you running jail and Lucas up the middle
between the tackles. Like, I'm sorry, it's that's the
unlikeliest of of where it's going to happen.
The fact that you didn't take any shots there, you know, maybe
you're able to get it to 6:50. Maybe.
I don't know if you win. It's a different feel but it
does feel like we were playing so much.
Just hang on to attend A73 game and then you see the difference
or how state in 40 seconds just plows onto the gas and goes for
it and it it. That's the frustrating part for
me is it felt like and I was listening to the postgame show
or the postgame calling people are calling in like you know do
you think we were holding back our, you know, holding back our
playbook for Indiana State and Louisville.
And it's like I don't, I don't know if that's the case.
But if that's the case, like that is idiotic.
Like you actually are in the game with Ohio State in the
second quarter. It's seven to three like you are
there. Now is the time to throw
everything you have at it And if all we have at it is like is
runs up the middle that I'm very nervous.
So it did feel like we were holding back or playing vanilla
or not not willing to let our guys at least take one shot.
And that's what that's what frustrates me is like, I'm not
saying it's got to be an all air raid, but.
Like take you, you have 7 plays there.
Take one shot, one shot at the end.
Yeah, I okay. So there's two parts to this
that I think we have to consider because you're right, not taking
a shot there is on the face of it, wild.
I think the issue is that I you does not have the offensive
line, nor do they have the quarterback.
To actually do what you just described.
And so then you get into the issue of, well, should you be
trying to take shots when you know that you've only got like
like last year and like the year before, maybe 2 1/2 seconds in
the pocket before it collapses. You know, you saw that with this
that sequence at the end you were talking about.
I mean, Jackson had to get the ball out pretty quickly, even to
try to get the pass. Go out because he wasn't going
to have enough time. Now that's a systems failure and
that is a preparation failure. And this is where it has nothing
to do, even with the mentality in the game itself.
It has more to do with the way that the offseason was set up
and the way that the players are put together, The way that Allen
decided to pursue or not pursue quarterbacks.
We talked at the end of the year about Allen wants to be now a
running team. He wants to, he wants to run the
option. He wants to use the run to
support the quarterbacks, I guess to pass.
That's kind of what he said. But he had an ingame interview
with Jenny Dell where it was like late in the second quarter
and there was some kind of question about the quarterbacks
like, well, you know, our plan was to play both.
Thanks Tom, for telling us that. And you know, we need to run the
ball to help the quarterbacks out.
That was his exact words. So if you take that and you're
like okay, that's his mentality. We got to run the ball.
He doesn't have a team that can effectively run the ball to
support the passing game, and he doesn't appear to have
quarterbacks who are able to pass the ball to support the
running game. That's a real problem, and
that's a team building issue. And I'm sorry.
I look around the country and I see all of these teams that
brought in quarterbacks who were throwing the ball, we're running
offenses that were taking advantage of their weapons.
I look at all these weapons that Indiana's accrued, you know,
both in the backfield and at the wide receiver.
Session. You know, areas.
Cam Camper, EJ, Williams, Dequees, Carter.
Donovan, McCauley, Anderson, Kobe.
I mean, that's five good receivers.
You know that group of players ended up combining for 8 catches
total out of the nine that Indiana had.
Sorry, 7 catches out of the nine that Indiana had.
And. There was no real attempt to get
them involved in the passing game.
They were being used to block for a running game that was
nonexistent, in part because there's no tight end that you
can reliably have out there as part of that process on the
roster. So part of the offensive issue
in terms of things is the is a team building thing.
The other though, I think the mentality is we want to play to
not lose up until the point where we can play to win.
And that's a terrible mentality. If that's what Alan did against
Purdue last year, where he was so fired up to essentially run
out the first half, When you knew that if you watched I U
football and you watched I U under Alan, you knew that Purdue
was going to make adjustments. They were going to really push
the envelope offensively in the second-half, and they did.
You knew Ohio State was going to continue to score.
Going in whether it was 7 to 3:00 or 2:50 was not going to be
enough. And so you do have to try
different things to try to get the ball down the field.
And you can't simply say, well, Indiana's not capable of doing
that. That's that.
You have to be able to like the idea that Indiana is just
incapable of doing anything that goes to Ohio State is not
acceptable, Scott, like it's like every other team in the Big
10 was able to figure out at least how to do something on
offense to score a touchdown against Ohio State last year.
It's hard for me to get my head wrapped around the idea that
Indiana was so inept. In terms of how things were
structured that they couldn't be able to at least try to do that
in this game. And yet most of the play calling
was about as conservative in vanilla as you can get.
And as you said, you you got to adjust to that in real time when
you are that close. Yeah.
I think your your turn of phrase is perfect like you're playing
not to not to lose until you have to play to win like that
that's what and it you definitely felt that in the
stadium. It's just like we're like it's
like we're really happy to be 7 to three of Ohio State.
Like that's not going to do it. Like you're not going to get
three more field goals and win nine to seven.
Like it's not going to happen. You know the thing with the the
option that is it was tough. So I watched part of because it
was hot we went to the like the nutrition center which is where
you you did the you sat there last year above it.
So kind of that behind the end zone looks.
So it was actually a really cool way to watch us play the option.
And you know, there was multiple plays in the second quarter
where Jackson made the wrong. And I'm saying this very lightly
because it's not like he's a freshman.
It says he's trying it, but it's like he made the wrong reading
the option. And like, had he kept the ball,
he would have gotten the first down.
Or had he pitched it in the other situation, he would have,
he would have had the first down.
That's fine. I'm not, this is not a criticism
of that. What It's more criticism or the
system of it is like, you know, this idea of like we're suddenly
gonna become like a double or a triple option team.
It's like if you went to go see Aerosmith and it's like, hey,
Joe Perry wants to play drums tonight, it's like, well, this
is, this is really hard to just do overnight.
Like, yeah, he's a musician. Like it could maybe go all
right, but, like, can we just get guys back normal and dream
on? Like, I'd like to just hear
dream on. You know, it's the option takes
a long time to learn and if you're getting quarterbacks who
didn't play it a lot in high school and you don't have it and
so again, it's not. I'm not knocking the players.
They look like they were running the option for the first time
against a really good team. And and then it's like, you know
exactly what happened is what I thought would happen is Ohio
State gets up what is it, 14 to three in the second-half.
And it's like, all right now we're going to bring sores me
back, and now we're going to suddenly run a traditional
offense where we're throwing a lot because.
We we can't go three and out every time and it yeah so.
So there's all those things I do want to circle back to the to
the quarterback like yes, Tom Allen.
Oh sorry. One thing real quick on that
because I think it's important to point out I mean we get
frustrated with Alan on this show and I and it's not.
I mean, other people get frustrated with Alan too, but
like our frustration a lot of times simply comes from Alan.
Has got to understand how all the phases of the game work as a
head coach, but he has consistently shown an inability
to really understand how the offense works and how it should
fit into things. And it it, you know, we had this
complaint earlier in his time at I U.
Where it almost felt like the offense was supposed to be an
adjunct supporter of the defense and you know, under the board it
felt that way. And then he hired Kaylin Debour
and it felt like, oh, maybe things have gotten better and
then the last couple of years the offense has just been bad.
I'm really concerned that his focus on a a running game is
because it supports his defense or or Gary's defense now.
When he doesn't have the personnel to pull off what he's
trying to pull off, like you can't just snap your fingers and
say, well we're going to be a power running team, we're going
to run the option. I mean that is that is you know,
it's a particular type of player that you're recruiting.
It's a lot of training. It's a lot of prep.
We know this offensive line has struggled in all phases of
blocking. They were not awful yesterday in
the traditional sense, in that, you know, it wasn't a free for
all to the quarterback like it traditionally has been, but a
lot of that was because we were. You know, rolling out and
running these these option reads.
So they were pursuing anyway and it kind of masked what we've
normally seen, pass rush wise, pass rush wise it's.
But it's frustrating because we've talked about this.
We know this. This is not a team whose
personnel set is focused on being that type of an offensive
squad. They haven't recruited for it.
They really didn't get the players in the portal to support
it. And they've got all these skill
position players that are really good.
And you know, instead of really trying to focus on, for
instance, getting Jalen Lucas into space and throwing him the
football and putting him in a position to succeed, what he
doesn't have a bunch of. Tacklers bearing down on him
when they're going forward and he's going laterally.
Instead we're making him go laterally or we're plunging him
into the line. I mean, Gary Danielson, I think
it was, or maybe it was. Brad Nesler made some comment on
the broadcast about if you have to establish the dive, if the
option is going to work. And the other one said, well,
you normally don't dive a guy who's 57, you know, you know
that 190 pounds, which is what you're doing with Jalen Lucas,
it's. The personnel that we have does
not fit the offense that Indiana's trying to run when the
Jalen Lucas thing is like the the the returns that he has are
electric when we're not getting holding penalties that are
pulling them back. But his his kickoff returns are
electric and he's amazing. Wow.
And he watched that and it's like we need to get him in
space. And you're right, like we're
doing everything to like, hey, can we minimize space and get
more people around him. It's like just, you know, we
threw behind, like I mentioned a bunch of times, we threw behind
the line basically 70% of the time last year.
Like just do that. Just have Jayla Lucas out in
the, you know, out in the on the, you know, wide receiver out
in the corner. Just throw back to him and it's
one-on-one and like maybe that'll work.
And you know, the last thing I'll say about the offense is
like we did run a little like triple, like a triple reverse, I
think in the first. Quarter, the second quarter, it
wasn't a triple reverse. It was, it was just a jet sweep
basically. Yeah, like, but you know, I
think it went for like -1 yard, which is fine.
And on the radio they were saying like, you know, you know,
sometimes these don't work, but sometimes you're just setting
up, you're setting up the defense and I'm like for what?
Like we set it up for like to basically then just run up the
middle of the rest of the game until we were down 20 to 3:00.
But yeah, the the Jalen Lucas thing is frustrating because
when you do see him out in space on kick returns, it's like dude,
this guy is he's he's breaking tackles he's you know missing
getting guys to miss like he is unbelievable.
And then our offense it's, you know again the triple option
doesn't normally get people in space or a power running game
does not get people in space and it doesn't really feature guys
57 and 120 you know £154.00. So it is it's frustrating and
and you know I end with this it again, it does feel like at
times being like you know this is you know it feels like the
coaching staff is like this is what I want our offense to be
without looking at what the the personnel is.
When it's like you should look at the personnel and be like,
OK, based on this personnel, what kind of offense can I build
around that? Well, and and look, the argument
for the people who think that we're being overly negative is
like, well, look, it just going to take time for these
quarterbacks to settle in or we got to wait for Dexter Williams
to come back. And I have two responses to
that. Hey.
You can't throw away games in the big 10 which is it felt like
that's what Indiana did. You waste a great effort by the
defense because your offense is not ready for prime time that
that's one issue. The second is, I mean look, I
was more impressed with Tavin Jackson than I thought I'd be,
even given how bad his stats actually looked at the end of
the game and and there was 1 stat and I'm sure you can read
about this in Bite size Bison later, but.
If you look if you look at player usage, Jackson was only
used on 14% of I use offensive plays.
He was really in there to hand the ball off.
By and large, where is Soresby was used more, he was used on
more passing plays. Jackson did have that one nice
pass to Camper, but he also had some throws that didn't look
that great. I don't see either of these guys
as being able at this point to get up to the level that you
would need to be. I you know better than
replacement level Big 10 starting quarterback.
And at least this year, I think in the future different story.
They're both young. They clearly both need a lot of
seasoning and I don't think waiting for Dexter Williams is a
reasonable thing to do because a.
We've had experience recently with players coming back from
major knee injuries and the idea that that he's going to be ready
10 months after that injury happened to go out and run a
triple option attack effectively.
I have my questions about that, Scott, but I also have the more
fundamental question of Okay, What if he is 100% back?
He was, you know, he was in uniform, he wasn't active.
That was a good sign. But even if he's 100% physically
ready. Again, Indiana does not appear
to have a personnel set that is well suited to run the kind of
offense that Tom Allen and Walt Bell apparently want to run.
That's a real concern as we move forward.
I'll take a step back, but I will make one of my favorite
jokes. I was like you know Galen how
many, how many committees are in the Indiana You know university
Sports Hall of Fame. Like not a lot.
And you know we we joked, we joked about this under Kevin
Wilson like when it's like oh gosh you know quarterback guy
committee. I think it was a Trey Roberson
Sudfeld year where it's like we're going to have two.
And those were diametrically opposed to quarterbacks, which
was also a bad idea. I'm I'm nervous not even because
of their play but just I would I'm I'm really parsing my words
here but it's like this is what you do to a fan base when you
you don't name a starter you play games with that and then
you come out and you basic you know you start sores be you have
two kind of you know DOA drives and you bring in Jackson.
The offense seems to be moving at least a little bit better And
then it's like you know I I looked at you know the in the
third quarter you know you're now down I think you know 14 to
three or something. It's a really important drive
and you bring stores be back in. Now that drive did go 14 plays
51 yards so you know it did workout but it's like the most
important play you're not going to go with the quarterback who's
been play like I just don't know what is our plan for quarterback
and are we looking at A2 quarterbacks.
It's not suddenly Tom Allen is named Jackson the starter for
next week. So great, like we're now, we're
now in naming starter mode. But it's like is this going to
be we're going to run Jackson for a while until we need
passing guards and we're going to bring sores be in like it.
It it feels like we're in a platoon quarterback system,
which is not good. And to your point like if we if
if they need seasoning, you know let them have their full season.
Again it's one game. It's Ohio State.
I don't want to take too much out of it, but it does.
It makes me concerned if we're like, hey, we're just going to
platoon until Dexter Williams comes back and then we're going
to bring it. It's like, all of that sounds
like you don't have a plan at all for quarterback.
I'd much rather say, hey man, Jackson's our starter or
Sorosby's are starter. We're going to like we're going
to. We're just going to run with
that. I think more fundamentally, the
problem is Indiana. With all the other things
Indiana has to contend with, with, you know that they're
rebuilding their offensive line. They're, you know, they're
they've they've struggled the last couple of years to have a
functional offense, period. I still think it is baffling
strategically that I you didn't go out and get an experienced
quarterback in the portal and build their offense around that
quarterback. It is so much more efficient to
be able to throw the ball if you can give that quarterback some
degree of pass protection. We heard a bunch about Bob
Bostad, the new offensive line coach.
You know, there's a lot of hope about what that would provide,
you know. So on the one hand, I mean, Tom
Allen in the postgame press conference says, you know, it's
not fair to judge Jackson and sores be based upon what they
played in. So I state 100% agree, yeah.
And. You know, my judgment about them
maybe not being ready for prime time this year is more based on
the idea that, you know, Soresby has barely, had barely a year
and a half of experience at quarterback at the high school
level. And Taven Jackson is clearly
still very raw. Because I think if he was more
polished, he would have been probably wouldn't have
transferred from Tennessee. He would have been in the mix
for starting quarterback there. This is clearly two guys who
have a long way to go and need a system where they can be brought
along gradually. You know, you absolutely, in my
opinion, looking at what Indiana is now trying to do on offense,
you you really had to say what's going to help Indiana the most
offensively to move the ball and to be in games.
And it's not this offense, it's this is this is the wrong
offense. This is an offense that a
Wisconsin that's had Barry Alvarez and then has had, you
know, other people of their ilk. You know, coaching for years and
has built a system up. This is not something you can
just decide to do because you had a couple of good games
running the ball at the end of last season.
You know, forsaking the passing game to the point where you
throw 20 passes total for 82 yards isn't going to get it
done. And I don't buy the idea that
that's Ohio State's. You're the team you're playing
against because. I mean, it should be easier to
throw even short passes against Ohio State than to try to run
the ball into the teeth of that defense.
It just, it feels selfdefeating. And it also feels like, yes, you
know, you're going to move forward, you're going to play a
lot of teams that are not as good as Ohio State, especially
defensively. But I don't see the
infrastructure on this team to win.
Well, you know, many more games with their offense.
I think their defense is going to keep them in more games.
If they play like they played against Ohio State, that's going
to keep them in more games than perhaps I thought.
And that's great. That's encouraging.
But you have to have the offensive side of things up and
running. And the way that they decided
from the end of last season until now to set things up.
I got a lot of questions about what direction they're planning
on going because it doesn't look like a good trajectory right
now. And the last thing I'll say is I
don't, I don't agree with you, but like, I just don't agree
with that idea like it's Ohio State.
What are you going to do? It's like because they, they
basically stop passing for like 1/4 and 1/2, like the end of the
second quarter, all of the third quarter.
Then by the end of the third quarter, like I said, they bring
in stores before that drive. It's 14 plays, 51 yards.
They're, they're passing to the point that on the rate they're
talking, you know, they're they're picking on Ohio State's
second, you know, safety number one.
It's like they they keep on going to that side.
They're getting passes. They're moving the ball.
It's like you can like there is almost a crisis of confidence
with his offense like hey you you like stop looking at Ohio
State as they like you can move the ball like it's still a 10/3
game or 14 three at that time. Like this is not over.
Like move the ball and go score. Like take some shots, but it.
That was the and. Anyway, I think I'm I'm sounding
more negative because I will take a step back like I came
away from this game, you know, thinking like hey, the defense
looks good. The offense has some issues.
But I I'm, I'm concerned because this offense has got to get
things figured out, and they have to, they have to open it up
just a little bit more and be willing to take some risks.
And maybe there's some sacks and maybe there's some
interceptions. But that's kind of better than,
like, laying down your king and just saying, you know, hey,
we're we're done. Well, my thing is this, like if
if they, and we don't know this, if they really were pulling
punches and keeping it vanilla because they didn't, they wanted
to save stuff for later. That's stupid, and it's stupider
when it's a 10/3 game at halftime at home against Ohio
State. If the and I maybe that isn't
what they did, but a lot of people have been saying, well,
you know, they didn't want to bring it all they did.
People have said that if that's what happened, that it A, it
fits what's happened here over the last few years and B is
really not smart and really disheartening as a fan.
I'm tired of just acting like we sorry, I You can't compete
against Ohio State or can't compete against Penn State or
Tom Allen. Just wanted to keep the podcast.
Going I'm sure that's I'm sure that was the idea anyway the
other thing I'll mention the other the one other negative
that I I took away and we we've talked about this the last seven
years the the and really longer than that the lack of.
Of discipline and focus in key moments.
The lack of strategic play calling in key moments again
rears its ugly head. Did any of it matter?
Ultimately, where was Indiana going to win if those things
didn't happen? Probably not, but it certainly
didn't help first play of the game.
Sores be. Doesn't know where to throw
their pitch the ball on an option.
They get tackled behind the line.
You know they have a key penalty that negates a good play a
little bit later on. They you you see another penalty
later on which is part of that whole thing that happened at the
end of the first half where Alan like catastrophically mismanages
the clock. You know at that point it's
clear Indiana is trying to run it down there.
It's 7, three. They get a couple of good plays
in a row. Camper that was the camper pass
was earlier, but they had some nice runs up the middle and.
They're in Ohio State territory with under 2 minutes to go and
it's like, well go, this is great, you know, run the clock
down and then leave yourself time to run a few plays, maybe
get into field goal range, maybe you can get it to 76.
They're snapping the ball with 20 seconds left on the play
clock. With the clock running, it's
like what are you doing? They they run a give up play on
3rd down and then Ohio State calls a timeout like you
mentioned earlier. At that point, you punt the ball
because you're you're not in field goal range, you've shown
you've shown no ability to complete a pass.
Instead, Allen decides to opt for a fourth down attempt.
That was not a great play, you know it was, it was essentially
an out pattern by I think, dequees Carter.
And there was no real chance that Jackson was going to be
able to get the ball there, because Ohio State knew what was
coming, and now you've given the ball to Ohio State at midfield
and then you commit. A dumb penalty on the very next
play, another undisciplined penalty.
We see these five or six times a year.
You know this. This team just has a way of
shooting itself in the foot at key moments, whether it's
taunting penalties or personal fouls.
I you got really lucky. And also unlucky they got lucky
that Ohio State wasn't able to drive down and score a
touchdown. They got unlucky that that the
the fumble that wasn't a fumble was called an incomplete pass on
the field. But you know this happens all
the time under Allen and we know that when we say this team is is
not organized well or it's not mentioned the losing to Jaylen
Lucas returns based on a block on the back.
Absolutely different. Two different times the same
penalty. I mean you're.
No, I mean I'm, I'm glad you mentioned that because it's not
just one area of the team. It's it's offense, it's defense,
it's special teams. It is endemic to the team.
Yes. That they they make mistakes and
I you as we talked about time and time again does not have the
margin for error to make those mistakes but they always seem to
make them And you know the the game management we've we've
we've criticized Tom Allen about his game management in the past
and this is another example and again I'll reiterate I use not
winning the game if. They play that end of half
differently. That's not the thing that made
the difference. But at that point, if you have
the ability to pin Ohio State deep and go into half seven to
three, if you took the names off, if you took the coaches off
and you just put that stretch of plays, the time that things were
done, the time that things were snapped, you put that down on
paper and you asked a football person, does this make sense,
They would say no, that's idiotic.
That's that's the problem. That we see over and over again.
And I keep waiting for it to get better and it never seems to get
better. The the, the decision.
I mean Gary Danielson, if you go back and watch the broadcast was
aghast when Indiana snapped that ball on 4th down.
He could not believe. And I'm not a big Gary Danielson
guy, but in this case he was correct.
Like what are you doing? So look, we we say every year
they've got to clean that stuff up.
They never do. It always ends up costing them
games. I'm afraid that we've got
another year where that's just part of the equation.
Yeah. No, it's it's true.
And it gets, especially against these top tier teams, it's you
can't have any of that. And like you know the the
taunting penalty was, I don't think it should have been
called. But The thing is like we as
Indiana, you've mentioned this many times like you're just
you're not going to get the benefit of the doubt.
So don't even put yourself close to that situation.
Yeah, like it was a hairline trigger call.
They're not, you know, I I'm talking like, you know they
wouldn't call that in the BCS. You know in the the final
four-game it's like, yeah, but like where are you?
Right. It's like that's like you don't
like, don't even get close to the line.
Anyway, what the last positive I'll say, yeah.
James Evans I mean the the punting from I UI mean it feels
I'm so happy you mentioned it. I mean punts were amazing and
there in real time like dude this guy is crushing it.
I mean to the point that I think in the you know the third
quarter Ohio State had three you know two returns and then the
the the third return in the second quarter they started fair
catching it. It's like I mean it's in that to
me like that's a huge win. It's like you're getting Ohio
State to fair catch punting. They were high they were no his
punting. I'm so happy this punting was.
Unbelievable. I mean, look, I you looks
legitimately good, at least in 2/3 of of the special teams
area. I mean, Jalen Lucas is a punt
returner, is a kick returner. That's that's a big spark and
that's awesome and I'm glad that they're doing that.
And James Evans, I mean, he had that one that was so long, it
was like a 70 yard punt in the air and he was mad at himself
afterwards because it ended up being a touchback as opposed to,
you know, being something that pinned Ohio State back a little
bit more, but that. Especially with as bad as this
offensive system looks right now that's that's going to keep
Indiana in some games because that will bail them out and put
the onus back on the opposite the on the opposing team's
offense to do some things. And I just didn't want that to
get lost in the mix, that is that is great to see And so I'm
hoping that. I mean, I hoping, I hope Indiana
doesn't have to use James Evans as a an offensive weapon,
essentially, but that. Maybe what they have to do and
at least they have that on the roster.
Great call. So anyway, so coming out of
this, you know, I think we know some things that we didn't know
before. We know Indiana's defense has
the capability of playing at a pretty high level.
We know right now Indiana's offense apparently does not.
That could get slightly better. But as we mentioned, I'm not
sure with this system offensively that they've chosen
to go with if that's really plausible.
And you know, I think. Again, it goes back to what I
said at the very beginning of the podcast.
If you're a negative person, you're going to take some things
out of this and that'll cause you to be more negative.
If you're a positive person, you're going to take things out
of this and that's going to make you more positive.
You know, I think the the trap a lot of I U fans, ourselves
included, fall into is we see one thing succeed against a good
opponent and we assume that I U will play at that high level for
the rest of the season. And that is rarely how it
actually happens. And so.
You know, it's it's one thing for the defense in the first
game of the season against the top five rated opponent to play
as well as it did. I'd love to think that they'll
be able to replicate that against every opponent this
year. I would pump the brakes.
But similarly, it may be that we're overreacting offensively.
It may be that they've got some things that they will work in
that they're able to do. You know where the offense won't
look as putrid as it did in this game.
So I think at this point you can hold your powder.
I just, I'm more worried about the offense because we've seen
the offense not be effective now for a couple of years in a row.
There's a lot more evidence that it will be bad.
Then there is, you know, evidence that it's going to be
good and you know it. So at this point we'll see how
it plays out. But anyway, that's kind of my
final thoughts on the game. Anything left from you on the
game itself? No.
I mean we probably sounded more, I probably sounded more
pessimistic than I really was. You know, I I said beginning of
the season and I still stand by it.
You're just you're not going to take much out of this game and
next week's game. And you know we we played it and
there's obviously things to take out of it, but I think you're
dead on. It's like the the offense
probably isn't going to look this bad the rest of the season.
I hope the defense looks similarly good, but it's like
you know Ohio State is just a different team.
I just I my biggest take away is like it it it felt like we went
into the game already being like the it's Ohio State we can't win
and then the the game presents itself as an opportunity where
it was a really close game and it didn't feel like we had we
were ready to like take advantage of that.
But I'm I'm not as negative as I probably sounded on this pod.
The only thing I will say going in the next week, that'll just
be a little bit like grading to me is if against Indiana State
we start running a bunch of random, you know, crazy throw
plays and you know, passing plays and stuff.
It's like any of these would have been fun to watch last week
against Ohio State but but in the end, you know, you equipped
yourself well against Ohio State.
You kept it under the spread. You look good, nobody got
injured. You know, hopefully they can
clean things up a little bit and.
It's funny, I generally agree. I'm a little more concerned
about the offense, I think, longterm.
Because of this game. So I, you know, I don't think
it's an overreaction. I think if you score 3 points
and have 153, I know. But I also think that of the two
teams, you know, both of them leave this game with some big
question marks. And and if I'm Ohio State, I'm
looking at at the way I performed against an Indiana
team that couldn't do anything offensively.
And I only scored 23 points. I only won by 20.
That is not going to get the job done if you are Ohio State
against what you've got to face this year and that's that's
going to be really fascinating to watch.
Now they get a couple of really easy games, but they got to go
to Notre Dame on the 23rd of September.
You know that's immediately you're going to be presented
with a team that's going to give you some problems and you're
going to have to score against. And I don't know, given what we
saw out of Ohio State, if they're going to be able to rise
to that occasion. So we'll see.
I mean, you know, if I'm looking at their schedule right now, I'm
like, God, you know, at Notre Dame, at Wisconsin, at Michigan,
you got Penn State at home, This was not a good.
Showing by a team. I don't.
I'm not worried. They'll be fine.
Yeah, we'll see. I I would really, if I'm them.
I'm really worried about my quarterback situation.
Yeah. Anyway, my Indiana.
So just in general, rest of the experience, how was your time
out at Memorial Stadium yesterday?
It was great. Ohio State fans were were there
plentiful, but they were all pretty nice.
You know, I think they had the same feeling going in.
I did a tailgate and I was thinking it's very you know, my
analogy is and this is probably too close to real life too like
I'm very much like the guy who hasn't worked out in a while
going into the gym and just, you know, trying to throw a couple
weights around, doing it lightly.
And it's like you could make fun of that guy.
On the flip side, you could be like, hey man, at least he's
here and he's doing something. And so my tailgate was very
small. We have a little, we know, Weber
cue, we did hot dogs and chips and had some store, bought
cookies. I brought everything except for
I forgot a table. I even made a list last year of
things I need to bring. I didn't reference the list.
So that's bad coaching on on my part.
But no, we had a great time. We made some hot dogs, brought a
game of washers. We were playing there, had a
tent, had some chairs, had a really good timing.
Very, very small. I was, I was thinking I had you
in my head of like what? What can we do that we don't
need plates and forks and so you know dogs and brats and drinks
and chips kept it real small. But we don't we had a great
time. The atmosphere was great.
The weather was great. Everybody was was having a
really good time. And so I was definitely the the
guy in the gym that you could make fun of.
But my I look at it much more is like, hey man, at least I'm out
there and I'm trying. I mean, that's that's what
matters. That was a tough game.
To do that in, you know, I mean it like it was a hot like the
the conditions we didn't get to tailgate yesterday for instance.
And I was. I mean it was soupy.
The moment that we it was it was hot and in our, you know, my
original, sorry, you know the fans to break the veil.
My original plan was we'll get there at like 1231 o'clock,
which we did set up. We'll have a couple hours to
tailgate. We'll go in and then we'll
probably leave at halftime. It's kind of my thought again,
I'm not a fair weather fan. I have a 10 to 7 year old.
It's hot that, you know part of my experience is based on their
experience and how much they want to stay.
And at half time I look at my wife and I was like we should be
leaving by now. Like we're not because it's 10,
three. Like I'm not leaving.
I stayed through the third quarter into the 4th, which the
the boys were less than enthusiastic about, We'll say
after a long day. But yeah that was my original
plan. But no, we I we had a great
time. It was.
It was awesome. Good.
No, it looked like a good time. I mean, some people were
complaining about the lack of attendance.
I mean, first of all, you know, the, the reported attendance was
50,000 with great when the game started.
Yeah. No, I mean, you know, the the
beginning shots, there were some openings in the corners.
It was real hot up there from the people that I talked to.
I thought, look, I thought Indiana fans showed out an
e-mail. They let you bring in water.
Yeah, no, it was. It was a nice adaptation from
the Cincinnati game a couple years ago when there was no
water and people just were baking.
In the stands. So what's going on at Coachella
right now? Go out there.
It's Burning Man. But yes, yeah, actually, I like
the idea of an I U football Burning Man.
We got to figure let's workshop how we set that up moving
forward. Can we get the doc The doc deal.
We can do the Like the Fire Festival Fire.
Fire Yeah No. I U Football 2023 by Crimson
Cast via Home Field. Yeah, I like that.
Yeah, the Fire Fire Fest, that's, that's what we want to
aspire to is you heard there's another one of those coming.
I did, yeah. Tremendous.
We should do that together and vlog it just to see, you know,
how it goes. But anyway, that's good to hear.
I mean, overall, you know, for for I U, these these home games
are tough. People freak out about playing
Ohio State. People freak out about it being
hot outside. There's not really Indiana.
Of all the schools in the Big 10, I feel like might have the
worst kind of. Home game weather set up because
it's generally along with Maryland probably the hottest
but Maryland has no culture you know so I you you're you're
trying to tailgate and it's baking hot for the first three
weeks of the of the season and then it's nice for like 3 weeks
and then it's insanely cold and awful and rainy the rest of the
time it's it's just it's a bad set up but it was nice to see
the number of people that went out there and and part hook in
not just the tailgating. You know, from what I was
getting from people, but also the game itself and the fact
that people stuck around as long as they did, given how inept
Indiana's offense was and how, you know, really by the time
Ohio State scored that first from that first drive in the
third quarter, you kind of knew that where this was going, like
Indiana was just showing no signs of life.
I thought the crowd you know did what they could for as long as
they could before it kind of became inevitable that what they
were doing wasn't going to make a huge amount of difference.
I I completely agree I've. Yeah.
The the crowd it's it's at some point you know you you can't the
argument is you know it's 2:50 I know we weren't going to talk
about it but now we are you know it's like I'll be real quick.
You know it's like it is 2:50 it is Ohio State.
It is a beautiful day. It's a hot day it's a nice day.
So. So all of those should should
you know people shouldn't leave like you're there.
I I do understand that in a vacuum like for this game like
yes. Ten to three against the number
three team in the country. But it's like, that is forsaking
30 years of baggage that most fans have where it's like, I've
seen this movie 30 times and let you know what's going to change.
It's funny, I had a kid sitting behind me who's like, you love
this. He's like a student with his
parents. But he's like, you know, talk
about how he went to the Ohio State, Michigan game last year.
It was awesome. And he's like, I just, I want to
change the culture here. Like, I'm going to change the
culture. We're going to make it better
here. I'm thinking like, hey, like
yeah, that was me 20 years ago, man.
So like hope you have a better 20 year run than I did.
I started a podcast. What are you gonna do?
That's right. But you know my other thing is
like all it's gonna change is wins.
It's like it really is very easy.
Like you know how you change all this?
You know, you get fans stick around like you win the games.
Now the hard part is how do you get this team to win?
I don't know the answer to that, but like how do you change the
culture is super easy. Like put together 10 plus years
of winning 10 plus games. It's all going to it that that's
going to change everything. Like that's the answer.
But anyway that that's my thought.
It's like yes, this in a vacuum people probably should have
stayed but most people have seen this movie a million times and
unfortunately once again like the the movie ended the same
way. So at some point in the end even
if I you were to win this game it's like the next time it's not
it's it's going to take multiple times of them winning games like
this. But again I hate this
conversation. It's like.
No, but well, look, ultimately I and we've talked about it many
times. You know, ultimately the big
issue that I have with it is you have to stop blaming the fans
when I U gives them no reason to stay in the stands.
Now there have been games when, you know, fans have left early
and then I U has managed to stay in it, but they almost always
lose those games, you know. So ultimately, you know, I U
went or yeah, they went through this big thing this summer where
they sent out this marketing. You know survey about the
Memorial Stadium experience and which is a whole other podcast
but but you know the the the idea of improving the culture at
I U Games. It really all comes down to
you've got to win these games or at least be close like give
people something that feels competitive.
Just the score being close is not a good enough metric for
whether or not people should stay in the stands, because if
the atmosphere around the game is one of.
Well, yeah, we're close. But the chances of Indiana
actually pulling something off are minimal because they've
shown no actual, like, ability to get close closer than what
they're currently at. You know, that's the problem as
far as I see it. You're you're asking people?
To take on faith things that they are at this point probably
long since having having given up on in terms of reality.
And so I just I look at it and I say to myself ultimately you're
you're going to have to just win one of these games at some point
or or still be competitive and trade scores.
I mean, we've, I remember back was that I think it was 2010,
that Michigan game against, you know, when Ben Chappell was the
quarterback. People didn't leave that game.
Why? Because both teams are
happening. People are driving down the
field. Stuff was happening to expect
people to sit all the way through the fourth quarter.
When you've never really won a game like this, you know against
this level of opponent, when fans are in the stands, at least
not in recent memory, is a bit of an unfair ask, I think.
And I agree and and I sorry, the last thing I'll say is like the
other like, yes, Penn State with Michigan, we won those games in
2020. There weren't fans, but it's
like you won those games. But like it wasn't like the
Pennix play. You know, if that was this game,
it's like that that wasn't the. The first time they were in the
red zone, like they had done other things that game.
Like this is a game where like literally, you know, I'm okay
with people leaving because it look like at times the offense
didn't want to be the. It's like like they're just
comatose. Like you're never in the red
zone. Indiana went past the Ohio State
40 yard line twice in the whole game.
They they they got to the 24 on the field.
Plays. Did they run when they got
there? Right?
Exactly. So after a while, people can't
just sit there hoping and waiting for something to happen.
Something actually has to happen.
And that that's a key thing anyway.
Anything else, Scott, before we wrap up for the show?
No, I mean I I don't you know, we we may or may not talk before
Indiana State. You know I I think that is just
a completely classic like you just got to win.
Like it would be really nice to put them away.
I, I know it's like you don't want to be in the same thing
with Idaho you had last year where it's like wow we're really
going to you know piss this game away and lose it.
Like this Indiana State team. I think they lost like 20 to
nothing. Yes, last week or something.
You know it's. But to me it's like it would be
really nice to put them away. I just think it doesn't matter.
You just obviously you got to win that game and I don't think
style points matter. It would be nice to not be in a
game with them but that's what you have to do is you have to be
one-on-one going into a little well, not only actually I do
think style points matter because at this point I think
the onus is on the team to demonstrate that offensively
that this was somehow some kind of an aberration as opposed to
reality. You know if if they go out.
And so for instance last year we tried to explain away the Idaho
game by saying oh you know the weather was bad and you know
that it was tough for anybody to get anything going in that game.
When in reality that was a great indicator of what actually I U
was going to be like on offense for most of the season.
They were not able to get things going until the second-half.
You know the IT was not a situation where I U just had a
bad game. That was their offense for most
of the year. And what worries me if you don't
go and really blow out Indiana State, you know you don't show
some teeth on offense. You don't show the ability to
throw the ball effectively. You don't show the ability to be
effective in this running game that you've now committed the
program to. That to me is a big red flag
going into Louisville. Because the idea a that you
would at this point hold things back.
You don't need to hold things back.
You need the guys to get reps in game situations running what
they're running. The subterfuge, you know, I the
subterfuge didn't work against Ohio State.
It didn't the all the subterfuge was around who was going to
start at quarterback and guess what?
It didn't kick her and it didn't work because Indiana scored
three points and had 153 yards of offense and couldn't throw
the ball. And you can talk about how will
all these different programs, you know, they hide who they're
starting and this and that. Fine.
It didn't help. That's, that's the whole point.
It didn't help to not start. Name a starting quarterback.
It may just be that you don't have a starting quarterback,
which is a problem, and that's not something that you can hide.
And so my thought on this is you better not hide things by not
running them against Indiana State.
You need to give your team game practice because they clearly
are not comfortable yet running this.
And if they were, they wouldn't have only accrued 153 offensive
yards against Ohio State. So that's my hope is that what
we see is Indiana goes out and hang 60 on Indiana State.
Not because I dislike Indiana State, but because I really want
Indiana to feel confident in their offense.
Because I don't know if you watch that Louisville, Georgia
Tech game over the weekend, Scott, or actually I guess it
was Thursday, Louisville. It took a little bit of time for
them to get going and once they did, they look real scary.
You go out and you do 153 yards off.
It's against Louisville. You're going to be hurt.
You do double that. You're probably still going to
lose because you're not going to be able to keep up with
Louisville offensively. So that's that's my big want
going into this week. Take the brakes off, focus
everything. Worry less about hiding things,
and worry more about getting your players comfortable with
this system that you're asking them to run, I guess for the
whole season. Well said.
All right, working at on that point, last thing we'll say,
just a reminder, if you've made it this long, that must mean you
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So our thanks also to home field apparel and all of our friends
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week. We'll have a preview of the
Indiana State game and we'll also talk through some other
things going on in the I U sphere.
Scott, great to talk with you. Good to see you.
Thanks to all you folks for listening for Scott, I'm Galen,
this is Crimson Cast. We will catch you folks on the
flip side, Bring back the Bison. So long, everybody.