You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home
Field Apparel. Good evening and welcome back to
Crimson Cast. It is Halloween night, October
31st. It's 9:00 PM.
We're going late tonight, but we got to talk IU football.
IU taking on Michigan State this upcoming weekend and there is so
much to speak of as far as this game is concerned, A huge game
for IU football. We're looking forward to
chatting with you about all of it here on the show.
Whether you're listening live or whether you're listening on tape
delay, we're happy to have you in the audience.
I'm GAIL and Clavio and we look forward to probably about an
hour of IU football talk and it's a busy night out there.
Eddie asking how was trick or treating?
It was delightful. The kids had a great time.
I live in the neighborhood that everybody drives to to bring
their kids to trick or treat and this is a long standing
Bloomington tradition. We're happy to be in the
neighborhood and it was great to see all the kids out there,
everybody enjoying themselves. We had one attendee who was
completely decked out in IU football gear.
And then my my good friend Paul Wright, who actually wore the
the signetti towels on either side of his of his shirt and was
going as a signetti towel. I had to tell him like, man,
those things are going for like 100 bucks a pop on on eBay.
You may want to keep them in better condition.
So anyway, it was a great time out there and we got some great
news during trick or treating. We'll talk about that here in
just a second. First of all, just wanted to
remind you folks that we are brought to you by Home Field
Apparel. And in fact, this is really
prescient because we've got Patrick asking what is this
hoodie? This is the never daunted Bison,
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If you didn't see this, it's still available for pre sale and
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If you haven't seen this yet, they went ahead and they did the
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There's so many people are excited about this and
rightfully so. And it's just one of those
situations where you you got to go and you got to get this
thing. You can pre-order it on the site
and it's one of many amazing things that you can find at home
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reminder of you not tuning into assembly call.
You need to. They are right in their element
right now getting ready for basketball to start tomorrow
night. Of course, IU with their first
home pre season game, they already had that really, really
exciting performance over in Knoxville as they were able to
take down Tennessee on their home floor and they'll be
playing Marion big game. Pat Knight, head coach at Marion
coming back and the the the reconciliation just in general
with the Knight family continues and he's been doing a lot of
interesting press. There's a great new stand of
Baden era apparel and artifacts which were put together by our
friend IU Artifacts. You should go check that out at
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It just just just amazing stuff going on all the way around
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Also, just a a quick note, we are of course on Sub Stack.
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crimsoncast.substack.com. We would love to have you in the
audience. All right, let's go ahead and
get into things. We had a ton of questions
already. Everybody's amped up.
Let's hit the big news first. Of course, this was news that
broke a little bit earlier on and this was exciting news I
think for everybody as we were largely in a holding pattern.
Not entirely sure, but the news out of the coaches show over
tonight in in Bloomington. Jack Ankeny tweeting this
earlier amongst others. Kurt Signetti said QB Curtis
Rourke will start Saturday at Michigan State, and that is a
huge load off the mind of a lot of people who were unsure about
Curtis Rourke. A lot of people, I think,
assumed the worst about the injury.
We had some debate in the comments section for our show on
Sunday about how long he'd be out, especially since we had
heard there'd been some surgery involved.
But we'd heard our medical sources here at Crimson Cast
Headquarters had heard that it wasn't that serious, it was more
stitching than anything else and that he was likely to play this
weekend. I'm glad that we were proven
correct on that. I'm just thrilled that we get a
chance to see and hear who the starting quarterback for IU is
ahead of time. That has not been something
we've been used to over the last six or seven seasons.
So nice to actually have that information in front of us.
And I'm excited, obviously, to have Curtis work under center.
No disrespect to Tavin Jackson, who I thought, you know, did a a
good job overall when you take everything into account in in
steering the ship and kind of managing the game against
Washington. But Curtis Rourke, I mean, just
got named I think to the Davey O'Brien top ten list for among
the best quarterbacks in the in the in the in college football.
This is a guy who's a game changer and especially on the
road in what is going to be Indiana's most hostile
environment that they've played in so far this season, having a
veteran quarterback who's not going to be rattled by that is
just terribly, terribly important.
So I think huge news that Curtis Rourke is going to be back in
action and we certainly are looking forward to seeing him in
action as Indiana goes into East Lansing.
Just going to be really fascinating to see how all this
all plays out. So as we head into the, the
preview section of the pod, we'll, we're going to tackle
several different things as we go through some of the questions
that you folks asked about and, and some of the things I know
you're interested in. We're going to talk through some
of the game planning stuff. We're going to talk through some
of the numbers that Taylor Lehman that and I normally would
go through on our preview podcast.
Taylor is doing what I would do if I was Taylor's age, which is
out enjoying Halloween like a normal human being, not sitting
in his room having already enjoyed Halloween because he's
ferrying kids around, which is which is what I that's, that's
been my role this evening. So I'm glad that Taylor's taking
the night out to to enjoy himself.
We're going to go through the numbers, talk through what to
expect on both sides of the ball, kind of an odd match up on
a number of levels. And we'll just kind of see what
happens with all of this is I think we're going to talk
ourselves into some thoughts about this upcoming game and and
what we're going to do. So we're going to jump into
things here in just a second as we go through a bunch of
different questions here. I'm kind of hunting as we get to
let's start with this one. Let's first of all, Matt Kubot
asks, are we heading to East Lansing this weekend?
Yes, we are leaving up for East Lansing pretty early, probably
about 83845 in the morning. Want to get up there?
We got I got a nice cadre of traveling companions going with
me. We're going to head up, settle
down, maybe watch the second-half of Penn State, Ohio
State, then get into the stadium.
Got tickets already. Still got to figure out parking.
But really looking forward. I this is, you know, I've been
covering I us for a long time going back to when I was a
student. This is one of like the two big
holes in my big 10 resume that I've never been to.
The other one being Madison, weirdly, and I haven't been to
Madison before, but excited to check out East Lansing, kind of
curious to see how that campus is put together, how the
stadium's put together. Should be a lot of fun.
I think as as we try to figure out what's going on with
everything there, I'm gonna jump right into some of the questions
that were asked first on on the YouTube channel and then we'll
jump back into the questions that we got on X earlier.
So Patrick asked. Feels like quite a few of the
betting pundits are pointing at this as a trap game moment.
I can't shake that feeling. Not expecting a crazy crowd,
just still waiting for a let down.
Tell me why I'm crazy and just a long time fan afraid to be
vulnerable. So look, I I'll say this.
I've talked with people around the program, around the athletic
department. I think everybody's got kind of
the same thought process that you've got Patrick.
And in fact, when I go back and think about how I evaluated this
season, this was one of the games I thought Indiana would
lose, right? Indiana losing 4 games At the
start of the of the season, when I made my predictions, I said we
were going to go 8 and four. And it was Nebraska thought
they'd lose to Nebraska, thought they'd lose to Washington,
thought they'd lose to Michigan State and thought they'd lose to
Ohio State. So, well, they beaten Nebraska
and they beaten Washington. And now we got this Michigan
State game and it's the Michigan State game is kind of an odd one
because this Michigan State team has had a season that you would
expect given the absolute upheaval that that roster went
through with Mel Tucker getting fired.
And and with just kind of that whole era coming to a close.
They've had some good moments, but they've also had a lot of
moments where they've looked like a team that's in
transition. And on the one hand, you know,
Michigan State is a team that when you think about how they
operate, they're, they're kind of like historically, they're
they're a very good team historically, but they are also
a team that is to some degree a, a slight like a like Indiana, if
they could be Michigan State would be very happy with where
they were at. Like you're, you know, they made
the college football play off. They, they get a slightly higher
caliber of recruit most of the time.
And they, they end up being in this situation where they have
these big boom seasons and then they kind of have bust seasons.
And this is kind of in the middle from Michigan State from
looking at their statistics, looking at what they've done.
If you look at what Michigan State's done on the season, it's
like this weird mix of impressive and not impressive.
Their first three weeks on the season, they beat Florida
Atlantic 16 to 10. They win at Maryland.
The game that I'm I'm I think probably speaks more to Maryland
and how weird of a team that is versus necessarily being
something about Michigan State. They blow out Prairie View and
then they lose three straight games, although, you know, they
were close in the game at Boston College, they only lost that by
four. They get blown out at home by
Ohio State, which whatever, And then they lose at Oregon 31 to
10. And that actually looks better
as we go through the season that they were able to stay that
close to Oregon. They did win at home versus
Iowa, 32 to 20, and that was an odd game.
And we'll kind of talk through why that game was so odd a
little bit later. And then they turn around last
weekend, they lose at Michigan and they really let Michigan get
under their skin in kind of a bizarre way.
And you know, it's this typical Michigan, Michigan State crap
that we always see. There's fights, there's guys
beating each other up and and Michigan wins.
That's that's kind of how their their whole trend line seems to
go with that series. So they come into the game, you
know, they're three and one at home and they're in a position
where they're looking at their defense and saying defense,
you're going to have to carry us because our offense just hasn't
been that impressive, only averaging 21 points per game.
And again, I mean, if you take their, as much as people have
talked about, you take the Western Illinois game out for
Indiana and and it drops their total points.
Indiana's don't drop that much. If you drop Western Illinois
out, you know, Michigan State on the season has scored 168 points
through eight games. If you take the Prairie View
game out, they've only scored 128 points through seven games.
So they haven't really been that impressive overall in terms of
their offense. And you looked at their
offensive output, 16 against Florida Atlantic, 27 against
Maryland, 19 against Boston College, 7 against Ohio State,
10 against Oregon, 32 against Iowa, 17 against Michigan.
So this is an offense that has struggled.
And so for me, a big key and and where I guess I'm a little less
concerned than I was at the start of the week.
To go back to Patrick's question about feeling vulnerable, it's
this idea that when you get right down to it, Michigan State
looks like they can be stymied a bit defensively.
And that's I think a key for Indiana since so much of what
Indiana does really relies on their defense at least keeping
the opposition down for a little bit early so that their offense
and can score points and get a lead out there.
So when we look through the, the overall statistics for this game
and the, and the win probability chart and all of that, the I'm
going to call up the bite sized Bison preview.
And if of course, if you're not subscribed to bite sized Bison,
I, I really don't know what you're doing at this point.
If you're an IU fan, you, you've got to check this out.
So I'm not sure how well you can see this.
I'm going to try to zoom in a little bit so you can see the
numbers a little bit better. Indiana, an 85% favorite in this
game. And this was, you know, this is
S&P Plus, which means essentially, it's not taking,
it's not a betting line. It's just a predictive line
based upon the resumes that these teams have done so far.
And and it's got Indiana winning 32 to 15, which kind of feeds
right into the narrative that we're talking about, which is
that Michigan State, I think can be anticipated to perhaps have
trouble scoring because Indiana's defense, while it's
not the best part of their game, could certainly feast a bit
against the Michigan State offense that has really
struggled in a bunch of key areas.
If you've not looked at these charts before, folks, and I
think most of you who are following us on on Crimson cast
have seen these couple of things I want to note first of all the
colors. I know that when we play
Michigan State, it's weird to have green be good.
But essentially with any chart, you know, the green, the purple
axis, the greener it is, the more, the better the number is
and the more purple it is, the worse.
And, and it works a little bit better than red and blue because
of color blindness issues, not with me, but with, with people
that have color blindness. So if you look at this, you can
kind of see just through the the pictures.
If you look at the Indiana defense versus the Michigan
State offense, which is down here on the lower level, you
know it, Michigan State's offense really struggles in EPA
for play. And then again, just to remind
you that's expected points added over the course of a game.
But on a per play basis, you can see Michigan State 90th in the
country. They have really struggled to
make a lot of winning plays. Their explosive play rate is
really low. Their their EPA per play, you
know, later on in the game is bad.
Their field position is bad. Their conversion rate is really
bad. The one thing they kind of do
well is run the ball, but even that is kind of Hanford by what
they don't do well elsewhere in their offense.
Meanwhile, Indiana's been pretty solid and you know, if you look
overall, you know, where Indiana's been really good is
they've managed to keep teams from converting on 3rd down.
They forced a lot of 4th downs through that process.
They managed to not allow opponents to get a, a, a huge
amount of success in terms of, of rushing the ball.
And you know, while they haven't been awesome against the pass in
terms of like EPA, they have been pretty awesome recently in
terms of generating turnovers. And I think that that is
certainly a big part of what Indiana's going to need to do in
this game on the road. As we look at Indiana's offense,
this is where Indiana can really make hay in this game.
And I think you know what, having Curtis work in there,
what that does, you look at that statistic for the for those of
you who are watching the video, Indiana is number one in passing
success in the country right now.
Like, I don't think that people in Indiana universe really
understand how awesome of an offense they're watching this
is. This is like a an offense that
is about as good as any offense we've seen over the last 25 or
30 years. Not just Indiana, but like in
the Big 10 and beyond. And having Curtis Rourke in
there makes all the difference because Rourke provides so much
sighting of plays before they happen.
He's able to get up there. He's able to to make changes to
the play calls and exploit things that are going on in the
defense. And I think for a Michigan State
defense that frankly has struggled the most against the
pass, there is a real good chance that Indiana could just
feast in the air in this game. You know, what I also think is
interesting is Indiana's one of the best teams in the country
and 3rd down success. Michigan State's one of the
worst in stopping third down success.
Indiana has not one of the most explosive offenses in the
country, but a pretty explosive offense.
Michigan State really struggles on defense to stop explosive
plays. And you, you take all these
things into account and there's just a lot to like.
I mean, Indiana has been great at generating turnovers.
Michigan State's been terrible at losing turnovers and you
know, that it though that's kind of a statistic that may not
necessarily carry over from game to game, but certainly on the
course of the season, it is nice to see that Indiana's able to do
what they need to do to take the ball away from their opponents.
Michigan State has been struggling to hold on to the
ball at times. So a lot of things going into
this game that favor Indiana. And yet, as Patrick notes,
there's a lot of nervousness about, you know, is this a trap
game for Indiana? And, and there are some things I
think that are noteworthy about the game where you're kind of
like scratching your head. I mean, one of them is something
I mentioned early on in this podcast, which is this is the
toughest environment Indiana's played in.
If you think about the two Rd. games they've played, I almost
hesitate to call them Rd. games. The game at the Rose Bowl, there
were plenty of IU fans in the stands making a lot of noise.
The UCLA fans weren't really that into the game, and they got
progressively less into the game.
And that by the end, it was just like IU fans cheering in the
stands. It was a really cool scene.
Northwestern, I mean, it was, I would say 5050 IU fans, if not
more so. And it was a tiny stadium that
didn't have a lot of noise going on.
Cool stadium, but a tiny one. This is different.
And you know, Michigan State in the game versus Iowa that they
played a couple weeks ago, they got almost a sell out of 69,000
fans there. Now, we do know a lot of Indiana
fans that are going to the game, but I think what's worth noting
is like this is the biggest and livest crowd Indiana's probably
gonna face up to this point. Now there was a question that
came in. From from Kenji, do I think a
four and four Spartan team will be you still roaring or Spartan
Stadium will be you still roaring or somewhat depleted?
I mean, I think it could be kind of 5050.
It's weird because this is a rivalry game theoretically, and
yet it's not really. I mean, there's a trophy, the
old Brass Splatoon, which I think all of you are familiar
with. But even though it's technically
a rivalry game, I've never really gotten a finger on the
pulse of how much these two teams really care about playing
each other. And what I think is gonna be
interesting is that, you know, Michigan State just played what
they consider their biggest rival in Michigan and they lost.
And there was a there were fights and there was punishments
and all that. And it, it didn't go well for
them, let's put it that way. And so I do wonder if they come
out a bit flat having just lost that game.
They shouldn't because, you know, Michigan State still does
have a chance to make a bowl at 4:00 and 4:00.
I think they'll probably get there because, you know, they
got Indiana at home, they're at Illinois, they've got Purdue at
home, They've got Rutgers at home.
You would think that they would probably win those last two
games to get to 6:00 and 6:00. But this would be a pivotal game
for them in terms of getting into much better position to
make a bowl. So I do think Michigan State is
probably going to have some energy, at least at the start of
the game. Spartan Stadium will be behind
their team, but this is where Indiana, if they can step on
them early, I think can kill that momentum off.
And especially if there's a decent number of IU fans going
up to the game, you know, maybe that gives Indiana some
additional momentum that they wouldn't have otherwise.
So that's one thing I think worth keeping in mind.
And it's not just a Michigan State thing.
It's also an Indiana thing. Like how effectively can Indiana
deal with an environment like this?
You know, we've seen this Indiana team do so well in
managing expectations, in managing how they are.
Their feel is in the game and not getting too down with
things. But the flip side of that is
there's always the chance that there's some kind of adversity.
There's always the chance that you're going to find yourself in
a position where it's like, OK, you know, we're we're, we
weren't used to this and we weren't ready for it.
It'll be the first time this season, I think that we see that
if it were to happen, 'cause every time Indiana's been
tested, they've really managed to answer back.
And I mean, third quarter against UCLA or you know, the,
the really the beginning of the third quarter, middle part of
the third quarter against Maryland.
You know, we, we saw it a little bit in the Northwestern game
where they got tested in the third quarter and early into the
fourth quarter. And they responded
magnificently. So much of what Indiana's done
has been get off to good starts. I do wonder how they manage this
kind of a situation because Michigan State is, you know, I
mean, this, this is a game that they're going to be marked on
their calendar. It's like we got a chance to
knock off a top 15 opponent at home and a game that could
completely reframe our season. Indiana is kind of in this weird
spot where this is the least important of the four games
Indiana's going to have left in terms of what you would
consider, you know, from a rivalry perspective or from an
attainment perspective. What I mean by that is, you
know, think about the next game. You got Michigan at home.
You know, big brand. Everybody can get up from
Michigan. You got that game at Ohio State,
which people have been talking about for two weeks.
They're going to be talking about it for two more weeks.
That game is so critical for the Big 10 title race and so many
other things. And of course, Purdue, the old
Oaken Bucket game, Michigan State, can, you know, that's one
of those games that folds between the the cushions or the
couch. I don't know that Kurt Signeti's
going to let that happen, that he's been, you know, he and his
staff have done such a good job of maintaining their approach
and their systematic nature. I'm not that worried about it
because I have faith. But it's not out of the question
that you're going to have one of those situations, you know,
where this Indiana team walks into a situation that they
haven't experienced before. And I do think that that's
something to keep an eye on. And you know, Patrick kind of,
you know, notes a couple of things here.
Just looked on Sea Geek, you can get middle of the field pretty
low for $70.00, which that's interesting.
But also, I think, and this is a a good point, part of the
nervousness is also realizing that IU is beating the few
Sparty teams ranked in the teens with mediocre teams.
This game produces unexpected results from time to time.
That's a good point. It is interesting.
Normally when Indiana beats Michigan State, at least
recently, they're ranked, then Indiana beats them, then, then
they their season falls apart. Remember that happened in 2016
that that Brass brass platoon game, really the game that to to
some degree got, you know, Indiana bowl eligibility.
I mean, it was very, very early in the season, obviously, but
that was a game what Indiana wasn't expected to win that year
and they won it with that Michigan State team ended up
being terrible. I think they finished like 3:00
and 9:00 in the conference. So it's a, it's a weird series
like that. And I think Patrick makes a good
point. I had, I didn't, I had forgotten
this until I started doing the prep for the game.
Indiana is on A2 game-winning streak at Spartan Stadium, which
is tremendously unusual in this series history.
Indiana's only won I think 16 times out of the 67 games total
that Indiana and Michigan State have played.
So, you know, the fact that Indiana's won, you know, 2 I
think out of the last three and two in a row at Spartan Stadium
is just really odd as far as the series history is concerned.
So we'll, you know, we'll see how things go with all of that.
But but ultimately, as we as we go through some of the other
items worth noting in this one, you know, the big news, of
course, being Curtis Rourke and the way that Curtis Rourke has
meant so much to this team in terms of passing.
Ultimately, when you're when you're when you're going through
the the way that Indiana has approached their offense, it's
been such a nice balance. And it was interesting how much
Indiana essentially focused on the running game in that game
last week against Washington. They kind of had to because
Washington was really doing a good job of dialing in against
the the the various things Indiana was trying to try in the
passing game. And a lot of it was Indiana not
hitting receivers. I mean, you had so many
receivers catch one or two balls last week because Indiana just,
they weren't able to consistently target anybody.
I've been going back and watching bits and pieces of that
game and one of the things I noticed that there are there's
really a lot of moments where one of three things happens.
Either Washington does a good job of sniffing out the play
ahead of time or two you just get drops.
But there were several plays where Taven Jackson just didn't
put the ball on the numbers and a lot of that was like Rourke's
best throws in that game were generally on sit down routes.
They were on out routes. They were on routes where the
receiver was not moving away from him.
He was struggling a lot with anything down the field or
anything where the receiver was moving away from the offensive
or from the line of scrimmage. Rourke doesn't have that
problem. Rourke's got tremendous touch
and you know, first of all, new life.
Thank you very much. Appreciate that.
I don't know. I mean, it's interesting you say
that they're good against the pass because some numbers say
they're good against the pass, but their overall defensive
success against the pass in terms of EPA is poor.
It's a really odd sort of of thing.
And and some of it ends up coming down to the the the types
of plays that they've faced against the pass.
Michigan State has not allowed that many yards against the
pass, 14190 yards passing allowed on the season, which is
pretty good. But when you actually break down
the individual numbers defensively, what you find is
that a a lot of what Michigan State has allowed over the
course of the season is you know, when there have been
explosive plays, they they tend to to struggle against those or
EPA laden plays. But there have been a lot of
those instances. And this is one of those things
where as we think about Michigan State, we think about the way
they're going to attack things. When we think about the teams
that they played so far, you know, Oregon was able to exploit
some things in the in, in the passing game over the course of
the of the game. You look at the the the numbers
there, Oregon 264 yards in the air, 2 touchdowns, 21 to 34.
So they had about a 62% completion percentage.
Ohio State had one of their better games through the air
against Michigan State, 65% completion percentage, 3
touchdowns, 1 interception in that game and about 300 yards
total in passing. The last couple of games they've
faced offenses that don't like to throw the ball that much.
Oh, Iowa doesn't like to throw the ball.
Iowa only threw the ball for 150 yards.
Michigan only threw the ball for 146 yards, but did get 2
touchdowns through the air. So what's what's really going to
be fascinating as far as how Indiana approaches this in the
passing game. Indiana loves to throw the ball.
I think Indiana would love to try to rack up 300 yards in
passing against this Michigan State team if they could.
And you know, in talking with Taylor ahead of time, I'm really
he's he seems to be on board with the idea that that might be
something that Indiana's trying to do.
So we will see what happens with that.
But I think it's worth keeping an eye on as we kind of go
through some of the other questions and things that we've
got going on here in the chat. Lot of great comments and
questions here. I want to get to a couple from,
from Twitter earlier on. So Indiana edits asked, do we
think Rourke will look like he has looked all season?
Probably not. I mean, I, I have a hard time
believing Rourke's going to be at 100%.
Rourke, I'm guessing is probably going to be closer to 80 to 85%.
I think they'll take it a little bit easy.
Kurt Zignetti sounded really excited, relatively speaking,
that you know, Rourke has gone through his entire week of
progression. Rourke went through all of his,
his pre game prep last week, didn't play obviously, but they
wanted to keep him fresh mentally.
So I like Cignetti's optimism, but I just find it hard to
believe that after the injury that Rourke suffered that you're
going to have full grip of the ball, you're going to be totally
comfortable throwing out there. So I would imagine that we'll
see a slightly toned down version of this with Rourke, but
that's fine. I'd rather see him out there at
80% and rounding back into shape.
And we'll just kind of have to see what goes with all of that.
But I do expect Rourke will play a really good game.
And I think it just gives the Michigan State defense that much
more to have to focus on because we know Rourke can make those
throws most of the time. I am curious to see if they try
to test him early, try to send some pressure on the idea that
he may not be able to make the throws that we've seen him make
earlier on in the year. But I would bet that Rourke, if
he's going to go out there and start, has shown in practice
that he is going to be able to make those throws.
And that is certainly something to keep an eye on as we kind of
go through some of the other questions that were asked.
So Jordan Bailey notes one comment, one question, one.
I'll be attending the game on Saturday and cannot wait to be
obnoxiously pro IU and a sea of daunted Sparty fans.
I I'll applaud that. Absolutely, Jordan.
And then the question in, in, in Jordan's tweet with Rourke back,
his starting quarterback, does IU win by 1,000,000 points or 1
billion points? I, I love that.
That's great. That always reminds me of that
Silver Spoons episode where Ricky Schrader's character gets
like starts gambling with a bookie and starts using like a
computer program to analyze games and tries to talk his
friends into The Jets beating the Colts by 100 points.
That's essentially, I think the the same energy of the question
that Jordan asked there. Well, we'll get to our
prediction at the end, but I appreciate the question
nonetheless there, Jordan. Thank you.
As we wind through some of the questions that we're getting
here on Stream Yard, does Rourke playing versus Michigan State
give you any pause in terms of rushing it?
Trust the staff and Rourke, just curious on your thoughts.
So basically the same thing I was just talking about.
This is from balcony seats. Thank you.
Eric. I don't think they're rushing
him. I really don't.
I mean, I, I, I have to think that this staff believes that
they could put Tavin Jackson out there, design A game plan around
and give him an extra week to prepare against a less physical
defense, a less athletic defense than what Washington threw at
him and feel like they could probably come away with it.
I, but we talked about this when Rorick suffered the injury
initially. It's like you don't mess around
with Rd. games in the big 10. You know, we, we've talked a bit
in the history of this podcast about Indiana and its struggles
in in the road and, and I just want to note that, you know, the
Indiana's won on the road twice in the Big 10 this year against
UCLA and against Northwestern. Prior to that, between the the
2021 season and and this year, Indiana won one total Rd. game.
Now it was at Michigan State, but you know, Indiana winning on
the road just in general doesn't happen that often.
And, you know, famously between what 2002 and 2010, Indiana won
two total Rd. games in the Big 10.
So I, I just think it's less about rushing and more like, if
your quarterback's kind of close to going, don't trifle with it.
Like put the quarterback back out there, put your starter out
there. You need absolutely to get, you
know, everybody firing at at top efficiency.
You can't you don't want to mess around with a situation where
you could have played them but you didn't.
Yes, you get behind. Now the offense is in turmoil
and now you got to try to put the starter back in and he's got
to try to jump start something. If you can play him, just play
him. And I think that that's that's
going to be an interesting thing to keep an eye on, obviously.
But I I don't think they're rushing him back.
Tony noted something that I forgot earlier, which is
Michigan State is going to be missing, you know, one of their
key players for a targeting call from the Michigan game.
So that there's a lot of little bits and pieces in this game,
but I think a lot of it really comes down to focus.
And you know, Jacob notes, just my opinion.
I don't think we see a game where IU hasn't been focused.
Signetti's given us no reason to think the Hoosiers won't be
ready and focused. And that is true.
And again, it's one of those things where I think this staff
and this team have earned the trust of.
We think that they know what they're doing.
We think that they're going to be able to go in this
environment and do what they need to do and not become
overwhelmed by whatever they're facing.
It's tough on the road in the Big 10.
I mean, you know it, it's a it's hard to win on the road in the
Big 10, but it's not impossible. The teams that generally
struggle are the ones that are uncertain about what they're
doing. And, and certainly, I think
certainty has been one of the hallmarks so far of what this
Indiana team has done. It's funny, even on shutdown
full cast this past week, if you listen to that breakdown, I
think around the 28 minute mark, they spent like 4 minutes
talking about how well Indiana has played, how consistently
they played. And I think it was, I think it
was either Ryan Nanny or Jason Kirk talked about how, you know,
this team, they had a bad interception at the beginning of
the second-half against Washington.
And they were just like, OK, well, that didn't go the way we
thought it would. So we'll just keep going and
we'll figure it out down the line.
That's really been the mentality of this IU team and I think that
ties right into what Jacob said It is.
It is going to be interesting to see how they deal with it.
But I am confident based upon what we've seen overall on the
season that IU is going to be able to manage the situation and
not put themselves in a position where they're they're, you know,
daunted to, to use a phrase by the crowd or by what Michigan
State's doing. I do think it's going to be
really interesting as far as how IU comes out in this game.
You know, the this, this, the fact that they haven't been
scored upon in the first quarter and the fact that they haven't
trailed yet has almost become part of the mythology of this
team. It's it's talked about at every
turn. I think it probably is in the
back of of some of their opponents heads.
It's like you get down 7 nothing to this IU team and it's like,
uh oh, here we go again and again, like I'm shut down full
cast. They were talking about how, you
know, it's not like Indiana's just using a great quarter here
or there to push out to a big margin.
I think the the analogy they used on on the full cast was
it's like they just, they just keep depositing money in the
bank every drive or every other drive and it eventually it just
builds up to the point where you can't do anything about it.
So I am really fascinated to see can Indiana make that same kind
of a start early on in this game?
And, you know, I think they've got a a good chance to do it.
Obviously, you never know coin tosses and, and, you know, the
teams going and getting the ball first or things like that.
And we've even seen Indiana not particularly do well offensively
early on in games. It's just that their defense
then is able to bail them out and give them time so that they
can get on the board and score ahead of their opposition.
You know, I would imagine something similar probably goes
on in this one. If Indiana's gonna hit their
maximum level of success. That has been a key part of the,
the overall mentality shift I think with this IU team.
And it's allowed them to have an even greater wellspring of
confidence as they go through each individual game.
And it's interesting 'cause like you go through Michigan State
schedule, you know, they were able, they got up to to a 16
nothing lead against Florida Atlantic.
You know, so they got out of the gate strong there.
They did not take the lead early against Maryland, but they did
take the lead by halftime. And they know they, even though
they fell behind in the third quarter, I think that gave them
the belief to continue on there. You know, they, they've had,
they've had some games. You know, I think that the game
that's the most interesting with them is the Iowa game where
there was a field goal fest. They end up leading 12 nothing
at half. They let Iowa back in the game
like Iowa got back to within five.
It was 1914 at the end of the third quarter and then it was 25
to 20 in, you know, with about halfway to go in the fourth
quarter. But Michigan State was able to
kind of stabilize and put themselves in a position where
they carried it all the way through to the end.
So I, I do, I, I think just the mentality of Indiana's important
here because of how it might affect Michigan State's
mentality and what they're able to do in terms of trying to
answer what Indiana's doing. And this is it's an interesting
spot for IU to be in because it's, you know, it's always felt
like going on the road in the Big 10, especially playing teams
like Michigan State or Penn State, like, you know, teams
that are kind of in, in that tier right below Michigan and
Ohio State. It's always felt like Indiana's
had to be the counter puncher. They've had to be the ones
answering whatever the opposing team is doing.
And that hasn't been the way that it's gone all season this
year. So it's a hard thing for I think
a lot of fans, myself included, to get your hair or your head
wrapped around. That's going to be a really
interesting thing watching Indiana be the team that the
other team is trying to counter. Tom asked.
Given Ms. us up and down pass coverage, do we get Sarat and
and Horton off the schneid in this game?
I don't know if they're necessarily on the schneid or,
you know, I think a lot of it is really the nature of the last
game and the fact that Indiana didn't necessarily need to use
either of those guys. You know, I also think if you
look at the way that Indiana has changed their approach in the
passing game, it's really been Indiana has done a great job of
taking what's been given to them.
And, you know, you look at Elijah Serrat leading, I think
he's leading the team in receptions.
Yeah, 33 receptions so far on the season.
And, you know, he had two great games in a row in the Maryland
game, where he caught 7 balls for 128 yards and a touchdown.
He's caught 7 for 135 at Northwestern, but then three
catches against Nebraska and one catch against Washington.
Now, is that him having bad games or is that the opposition
really keying on him? You know, you think about the,
the the. Passes that he caught in that
Nebraska game, not a lot over the middle, a lot of stuff on
the sideline, like a lot of stuff that was basically the
opposite of what they did against Northwestern.
But I think a lot of that was dictated by the coverages and
the fact that covering him has become a priority with Horton.
You know, Horton's such a fascinating figure.
You know, he's only caught 15 balls on the season and he's
actually over the last two weeks, this was the first two
weeks in a row where he had more than one reception back-to-back.
He had four against Nebraska, not for very many yards.
And then he had two against Washington prior to that, like
go back like he had that UCLA game where he caught 4 for 31.
But he's been more of a of a threat than an actual weapon in
the passing game because he gets used so much in the running
game. And and so they just, they seem
to just mix him in right when they need to.
To me, you know, when I think about this game, I'm really
fascinated to see Omar Cooper Junior continue his evolution
because he has become really a home run hitter in terms of the
type of guy you would throw the ball to.
You look at what he's done in terms of average yards per catch
in the last four games, 21 yards per catch against Maryland, 23
1/2 yards a catch against Northwestern, and then only one
catch in the Nebraska game, but it was 36 yards and it was a
really great catch. And then of course, that 42 yard
touchdown reception that he had against Washington.
So, you know, Indiana has almost allowed the opposition to to
take out Sarat and Cooper in terms of, OK, we're not going to
target them 8 or 9 * a game because they they're happy to
throw the ball to Miles Price or Miles Cross or Keyshawn
Williams. And I think that that will be
probably more consistently what we see in this game, depending
on which what Michigan State does.
If Michigan State like is like, we got to go and stop the run.
That opens up the passing game a little bit more.
And that will be, I think, interesting to see how all that
plays out. Let's let's let's get some other
comments here. DC says, I just like seeing how
Sega has the look of straight killer instinct on the sidelines
24/7 no matter what's happening. I mean, to me, that is such a
key element of Indiana being good, not just good, but like
really good this year. It is this and we, we know it.
We've seen it with Saban, you know, we see it with other great
coaches. It is this striving for
perfection and getting that into your team's head and not
settling for less than perfect. And that is a very unusual thing
as far as Indiana football's concerned.
Historically, that is, that has not been the expectation by and
large that we've seen come from coaching Staffs.
They may say that, but the proof really does seem to be in the
pudding. And yeah, Signetti, I mean, he's
playing the role out there. You know, he's standing on the
sidelines, He's not smiling. He's he's there, he's doing
business. And he expressed his team to do
business. And I that I do think that stuff
matters. I mean, it was always, you know,
like Kevin Wilson had, you know, was, was didn't look like that
on the sidelines and didn't act that way.
He was volatile at times he was, or he was passive.
I mean, he was, he was kind of a all over the place.
You know, Alan was always like, you know, jumping up and down
and going nuts. And we talked about it on the
show a lot. It's like, well, that's great
when your team's doing well, but if that's your role model in
terms of behaviour, emotion can't last for three hours.
It it doesn't last through bad plays.
Like when that gets deflated, it can really hurt.
And I think we saw that a lot out of Allana's teams towards
the tail end. And I and I like the rock like
status that Signetti has on the sideline where he is all
business. He expects his team to be all
business. I think.
I mean, it's worked so well at home and it worked at
Northwestern. This game to me is where it's
going to matter the most because it is intimidating to have
70,000 fans screaming at you. And Michigan State fans are good
football fans. They know what they need to do
and if their team's in it at all, you know you're going to
want Signeti over there providing a calm demeanor, a
stern demeanor, a let's get to business demeanor.
I think that helps Indiana kind of deal with the situation.
Patrick talked about talent or roster.
It's interesting to hear more of those national pundits
referencing I us lack of talent compared to other programs.
At what point does this get disproven?
So this is one of those things that I think sometimes gets
missed in football, especially college football, because of the
way that football has played out over the course of the last
several years, is the idea that you have to have a bunch of blue
chippers in order to be a successful team.
And I do think that ultimately what we end up getting with this
IU team that's so unusual is the idea that ultimately you're
you're dealing with a bunch of cast offs to some degree, or
guys who were at lower levels who have come up to this level.
Yeah. So you got all these JMU
transfers, many of whom were lightly recruited.
Some of them weren't even recruited by FBS schools or
didn't go to FBS schools initially transferred into JMU.
You've got guys that were at ACC schools like Wake Forest or or
North Carolina or guys that were at Texas Tech, like not top of
the of the Heat programs. But what Kurt Signetti has
emphasized over and over again, even with Curtis Roark, is like,
we want guys with experience. We want guys that have played a
lot. We want guys that have won.
We want guys who understand what it's like to be part of a
winning team. And I think this is where the
talent on the roster, if you look at it from a star rating
perspective, yeah. I mean, the pundits are right.
This is not a very talented roster if you take the
recruiting rankings as your sole arbiter of talent.
But what Indiana has managed to do is take a bunch of pieces who
I think individually are are good football players, but mold
them into a unit that's, you know, if you'll pardon the the
the cliche greater than the sum of its parts.
But I think that the experience that Indiana really favored in
the transfer portal played a huge role in that because what
it allowed was Kurt Zignetti and his staff to say, all right,
guys, you know what you should do now we want to see you go do
it consistently. And that can be hard to do with
younger players. And I think, you know, I mean,
with a couple of the players that transferred mid season or
never put themselves into the transfer portal mid season, I
think you were seeing them struggle with that kind of a
transition. And and some of those were the
most talented players that Indiana had on the roster.
If you're focusing on the star numbers.
But if you're focusing on accomplishment, if you're
focusing on what have you accomplished in college football
and how does that play in? I don't think that there's a
reason why, at least with what Indiana's done so far, they
wouldn't be able to compete. And certainly pundits, you know,
you're used to looking at SEC rosters that are stocked with
all of his talent OR you're used to looking at Ohio State.
And, and look, there's, there's a lot to be said and you know,
there's plenty of research on this.
There's a certain number of blue chippers, a certain number of
five and four stars that you have to have in a normal
environment to be able to win at a high level.
And I think that a lot of the questions around the talent with
IU have have centered around this idea that, well, they
really don't have that much athletic talent if you look at
how we judge athletic talent. And yet they've got guys that
can make plays. And so I really think it's a
fascinating thing. I think we're going to be
studying this season for a long time, maybe as an outlier, but
this is what the transfer portal can get you if you pick the
right guys. And I think that that's the key.
It's like Indiana, they spent a decent amount of money in NIL,
but they spent it smartly. And it wasn't just let's go for
the highest rated guy available. It's let's get the guy who's, A,
got the best level of experience and B, fits into what we're
trying to do. We had no idea what they were
trying to do. We could have obviously derived
some of that from what James Madison did in the past few
seasons, but we didn't know how the players that they brought in
in the transfer portal were going to fit.
And yet they all seem to fit really well.
And so that's where the talent argument is a really interesting
one because at the end of the day, when you get right down to
it, it's about execution, it's about belief, it's about
confidence. And whatever this team lacks in
four-star or five star talent, they really don't lack the
confidence and the execution ability.
And that is that's where you want to be at this point.
And that's where you can beat more talented teams.
I mean, Washington by rankings of recruits as a more talented
team, Nebraska, far more talented team, and yet Indiana
was able to clean both of their clocks.
So I think that's a really interesting thing to think
about. We did have a question Patrick
asked earlier. What's the pour?
I, I did want to mention this. This is actually the alpha
bourbon, which is a really, really good tasting bourbon.
This is, this is a, a Starlight distillery special and available
here in in B town at some of the big Reds.
So if you haven't, if you haven't had this before, it's
it's good stuff. Enjoying it with the podcast.
It's, it's quite enjoyable. A lot of other comments have
flooded in here and I think New Life said guys are the chip on
their shoulder. That's a big part of it too.
And I think it's weird because like this doesn't work in
basketball. You you, you know, there are
hard limits, I think on what you can accomplish with a group of
scrappy underdogs that have a chip on their shoulder in
basketball. But in football, because of the
collective nature of the game, if you give them the right
coaching, if you have the right preparation, if you are able to
study film, well, you can you can really use that to your
advantage. I mean, I mean, what about this
offensive line? You know, there was that stat
that came out earlier today. I want to, I want to call this
up because this is it's truly nuts to think about the this
being true. You know, IU didn't have a
tackle for loss or a sack allowed in the whole game
against Washington, which I think the the graphic said it
was the first time since 2013 that that occurred, which is
nuts. I mean, that's like that's
crazy. And especially an offensive line
that a lot of people thought was gonna be the the weak at link in
in this season. Let me I'm gonna call the
graphic up 'cause it's it's a great graphic.
I love the fact that IU Cuban Center is doing this stuff.
Let me let me just put this up on the screen for those of you
who are watching. There it is 0 tackles for loss
allowed in the game for the first time since 2013.
I mean, really, and this is, you know, this is not a group that
people were thinking was going to be one of the best offensive
lines in the country. If they are, did they suddenly
become more talented overnight? No, I mean, they, they, but
they, they're playing a lot better.
So there's a lot of things going on within this mix that I think
is going to be really fascinating to keep an eye on.
A couple of of other items I wanted to note here.
John Jacobs knows I understand from a self-interest
perspective. However, I'm shocked that given
this is a historic year and potentially unbeaten year, that
the Mcculley I think is what you meant and EJ Williams left.
This is something I've heard a lot about and it's you know, I
would look at it this way. I think every player has a a
particular set of things that they're looking for.
And we don't know what goes on behind the scenes with players
or, or what their perspectives are.
And I think if you think about those two players in particular,
you know, both of them were highly regarded recruits coming
out of high school and both of them had their moments where
they had success. But there's a lot about being
like, if you look at what what's made this team click on both
sides of the ball, really in all three phases of the game, it's
been a willingness to step away from being in a primary role and
serve in more of a support role when needed.
I mean, you know, we started off the season thinking we had a
three headed monster at running back with Justice Ellison, Tyson
Lottin and Caitlin Black. Caitlin Black hasn't gotten many
carries at all here lately, you know, and Caitlin Black is, you
know, his he's had 354 and three carries in the last four games,
but he has done other things. You know, you you've seen other
players willingly not catching the ball because they're
blocking downfield. That's what you know, Elijah
Serrat has still been a really key member of the team even when
he hasn't caught a lot of balls because he's doing little
things. Not everybody wants to do little
things, you know, and, and I think it's a big mentality
shift. And especially when you get
players that were brought in by previous coaching Staffs,
they're not necessarily going to be on board with on with all of
that. And that can be a hard thing to
manage. And you only get a certain
number of years of eligibility left.
And if you're not going to participate, you might as well
not be on the team. And it's probably best for
everybody if you're in a position where you're like, I
don't feel like I belong here anymore.
This isn't a team that I feel like I can contribute to.
It's, it is kind of surprising, but it is, I think to some
degree the mentality that a lot of players have.
And that's fine. You know, it's, it's just this
is, you always get this with transitions overall with
coaching and, and how it all fits together.
So I, I, you know, it's a shame because I think both of them
would have been really nice to have on the roster, but IU has
played pretty well without them on the roster at this point too,
which I think is really interesting.
Bradley asks a question. How do you think game day and
Big Noon could impact applications of students in the
next 18 months? Well, you know why you want a
good football program? Because both of those shows,
ESPN game day especially, was a tremendous advertisement, not
just for IU football, but for the cultural experience of being
at Indiana University. And I mean, look, I'm a
professor. This is what I do for a living.
I know how education works. You know, what happens in the
classroom, what happens in the laboratory or what happens in,
you know, in, in research areas is really important.
That's that's why the university's here.
But, but getting people here, getting students to think about,
I want to go to Indiana versus I want to go somewhere else.
Students want a cultural experience.
They want to go somewhere where they can feel like they're part
of something fun. And you can say, well, there's,
you know, there's arts and there's other things that you
should be experiencing. It's like, yeah.
But you know what looks really fun?
Standing with a bunch of people in line at 5:00 in the morning,
getting ready to break down the barricades and go jump in front
of a television camera for five hours.
I mean, that looks fun. The atmosphere, the, you know,
not just game day, not just Fox Big Noon, but the scenes from
those overhead shots of Memorial Stadium during the Washington
game with all the towels waving, I mean that that scene just
looked incredibly fun to be a part of.
And this is one of the things I think that IU has struggled with
historically, like when IU has had its biggest impact in terms
of recruiting students, not not athletes, but students from
across the country, It has largely been when they've had
the most successful athletic programs.
You know, you think about the 80s, I still remember like, you
know, I'm at orientation my freshman year in 1997.
And people are going around introducing themselves.
And there's this girl in in the room and they asked her where
she's from. She's like, well, I'm from
California and we're like, well, why did you come to Indiana?
And she's like, well, because of the basketball program.
Because you know it, Assembly Hall just looks like so much
fun. You know, it is it is a way for
people who would not otherwise think about Indiana to look at
Indiana and say that looks like an amazing place to go to
school. And this is how this is what
works with Alabama. It's what works with Georgia.
People see these things and they want to be a part of it.
And that's not a bad thing necessarily because it doesn't
mean that that's the only reason they're here.
And anybody that went to school at IU, you know, the most people
figure out like, well, I can still have fun and I can also
study and get a good education. You, you can do both of those
things at the same time. And I would argue that Indiana
hasn't done a great job of marketing that, at least not as
good of a job as they should have done over the course of the
last 15 years or so. And it does feel like there's a
new emphasis on football in particular, not just because you
need it to survive financially, athletic department wise, but
because you need it to advertise IU to potential students.
And I, and I do think that that makes a big difference.
It's, it's just one of those things that acts as an
intangible, but it's a good intangible because I think
ultimately it doesn't detract from the academic mission of the
university. If anything, it enhances it
because it means you get more applications, you get a higher
caliber of student, and they realize they're also going to
school to go to school, but they also want to do something fun.
You don't want to go to a place where you're not going to have a
lot of fun because like, why? What's the point when there are
so many other options where you can have fun?
Jacob notes, I've read the rejuvenation of IU football has
sparked the interest and support from boosters.
Football's a cash cow. Yes.
I mean, you know, one of the things about football, if you
want to think about business, it is essentially new growth
business for IU. You think about like all the
donations are centered around basketball.
People donate thousands, 10s of thousands of dollars, hundreds
of thousands in some case cases in basketball.
Why? So they can get better seats in
Assembly Hall. They buy football tickets
historically not to go to football games, but to get
priority points to buy basketball tickets.
I use never really explored football as a a source of
revenue. And they're gonna need that
revenue. You got this $22 million NIL
bill every year that's gonna have to get paid.
Where's that coming from? You know, you've got a, a world
class head coach and a world class staff.
How do you pay to keep them? You know, 'cause people, every
time we do a show, people are like, is Signetti leaving?
That's like, I have no idea if Signetti's leaving, could he
leave? Sure.
I've heard, you know, that he seems to like it here.
And IU has been like, well, we'll match whatever offer you
get. I don't, I haven't heard
specifically that, but that's been the vibe.
IU has got plenty of NIL money. There's so much more money.
There's so many boosters out there who want to get in on the
ground floor of a program like Indiana that looks like it's
going places. A lot of people who would love
to get invested in football but have not really been given a
good reason to. And here they have an
opportunity to do so. And I do think that that's going
to make a big difference as we move forward in terms of what
kinds of things Indiana is able to do in this sport.
If they can hang on to to Signetti and hang on to his
staff. You know, Corey asks, like, what
are the odds Signetti's contracts renegotiate before the
end of the season? What would his yearly total comp
be? I mean, we talked about this a
few few weeks ago when this topic started coming up.
I mean, I don't know if we'll actually see a new contract
before the end of the season. We might.
I, I do think it's important for people to remember, like
Signetti got a huge raise coming from James Madison to IU.
He's making like $600,000 a year at JMU.
His base here is 4.2 million. That's a huge jump for one year.
Now, could he go somewhere and make more money?
Sure. But escalators in his contract
have already gotten, I think his total compensation package this
year up to somewhere around $6 million.
A base of about $8 million a year would put him somewhere
between, I think, 15th and 20th in the country in coaches.
And I think Indiana could easily pay that.
I mean, everything that they're dealing with now is basically
found money. And I think that that's, you
know, this is this is where as Indiana starts to flex its
financial muscle from an athletics perspective, it will
be interesting to see what Scott Dolson does.
I will say this, like Dolson deserves all the credit in the
world for having the foresight and the insight to identify Kurt
Signetti. To let Kurt Signetti have a big
runway, to let him bring his own staff in, to let him bring the
players he wanted in to, to not meddle in the program like you
do get at some other places. And I don't think Scott Dolson
is foolish enough to do do all that work.
Put. Indiana in this kind of a
position only to let that coach walk out the door.
And I think that, you know, the, it's a small investment relative
to what it currently is. If you're already paying Kurt
Zignetti 6 plus $1,000,000 this year, if you had the incentives
in, I mean, to pay him the extra 2 or $3,000,000 or whatever it
takes. And so I'm, I'm really
fascinated to see how this works.
And I think, you know, Jacob, noting here a 70 or $42 million
deal, which would only be 6,000,000 a year.
So, you know, I don't know if Signetti would like more money
than that, but commit a lot of funds to football program,
increase assistant pools. Assistant pools are big.
I mean, I think that's an important thing.
And that's something Indiana's going to have to do.
Continue to ramp that up because that is the arms race that's
happening right now. And ultimately, that's what
Indiana's going to have to do. They're going to have to make it
attractive for those assistants to say, knowing that some of the
assistants are going to be off to coach their own programs
soon. I mean, how long do we get Mike
Shanahan? How long do we get Tino Senseri?
How long do we get Brian Haynes? These, these are going to be
some questions as we move forward that, you know, I mean,
you're, it's kind of like I would, I would liken it to there
was, you know, there, there's, you'll always get situations
where coaches leave and it's like, why did we let that guy go
to a different program? We heard this from Kaylin de
Boer. It's like, well, why, why didn't
we just try to keep Kaylin de Boer?
It's like Kaylin de Boer went to be a head coach and he did that
and then went from there to being a coach in the PAC 12 and
then two years later he's coaching Alabama.
That's why you, you know, you're not going to go to an assistant
and say, hey, instead of taking that head coaching job here,
take $1,000,000 to be our assistant.
That's a different priority pathway then you know what you
might think that it would be. So you, you know, you want to
have assistance that are going out and getting head coaching
jobs. And then the idea is can you
replenish that staff with staff that are just as good or better?
But you have to have the money to be able to do that.
And I think that's going to be one of the interesting things
down the line. We're almost out of time here
with ours. So I I didn't want to go much
longer than an hour. It's Halloween night, I, I got a
long day tomorrow, but I wanted to get this out before midnight
on the podcast channels. But I'll say this, you know, I
think Indiana against Michigan State, it's hard as an IU fan to
fight off the specter of, of what was talked about earlier on
in the chat, which is you always feel like the other shoe's going
to drop. We've talked about it all
throughout the course of this season.
I don't think the other shoe drops here.
You know, I feel like with Curtis Rourke back, that's gonna
galvanized the locker room. I think that IU, the coaching
staff, they've been studying film on this Michigan State
team. Of course they have.
Michigan State really looks underwhelming according to the
advanced statistics. They do have some decent
players. They have some, you know, some
players that could cause Indiana some problems.
Indiana's gonna have to, you know, they got to keep an eye on
Aidan Chiles. He's had a really good stretch
in terms of passing completions. I think he's he's completed like
75% of his passes in each of the last couple of games.
You know, they're they're, you know, K Ron Lynch, Adams, good
senior running back, Nate Carter, good running back, also
a veteran. And then they got Montori Foster
junior and Nick Marsh on offense.
Defensively, you know, missing a key player due to due to
targeting suspension for the first half.
That helps a little bit. But I really feel like Indiana's
going to jump out, take an early lead.
They're not gonna put their foot too heavy on the gas, but I
think they're gonna be able to stay comfortably ahead of
Michigan State. Think it'll be a little closer
perhaps than people would be comfortable with, but I think
that's normal on the road. I do think Indiana's gonna
extend a streak that again, I heard on shutdown full cast, and
I'll leave you folks with this. I didn't realize this stat, but
they sided on shutdown full cast since 1945.
Since the end of World War 2, only three teams through this
part of the season have beaten every opponent by at least 14
points. One of them is 1995 Nebraska,
which is like uniformly known as one of the best teams in college
football history. One of them is 2004 Utah, who
was also really good, and the other is Indiana in 2024.
So I think that dominance is going to continue.
I think Indiana will ease to a 38 to 21 victory, so a 17 point
victory. And I think that, you know,
again, I don't think they're going to throw the entire
kitchen sink at I at Michigan State cause only they're going
to have to. I love some of these other
predictions we've got coming in. We got Corey James saying 4224.
We got new life saying 4214. Indiana salty Pretzel saying 28
to 17. Indiana.
Scott, thank you, Scott, for the tip.
IU beating Spartan, Sparty by 20.
Jacobs saying Hoosiers by 90. Matt Uel saying 38 to 17, and
then we got Jacob, Indiana, 36 to 21 or better.
Huperrazzi 38 to 26. And I'm on record as saying 38
to 21. So we'll see what happens.
I'll be up there. If you're up in East Lansing,
let me know. Drop us a tweet.
We'll we'll try to be around the stadium ahead of time.
I'm looking forward to seeing all the IU fans up there.
I will be in something red and hopefully Indiana will be in
something red as well. And I will look forward to
having a great time up there and hopefully coming away with
another victory, a third victory in a row at Spartan Stadium and
a victory that would take Indiana to 9 and oh, on the
campaign. I would like to sincerely thank
all of you who tuned in this Thursday evening, this Halloween
night to talk IU football. Really enjoyed all the comments.
Really enjoyed some of the thoughts.
I'm sorry I wasn't able to get to all of them in the comments,
but some really good stuff in the chat.
Appreciate everybody keeping it civil and having some good back
and forth in there. My thanks to all of you folks
listening after the fact, as hopefully you're listening to
this while you're getting ready for the game or while you're
driving up to East Lansing. A lot of fun potentially to be
had here and certainly a huge November coming up for Indiana
as they turn the page on another month in this season for the
entire cast and crew here at the back home network and Crimson
cast, I'm Galen Clavio saying thanks for joining us once
again. We'll catch you folks with our
normal post game wrap up on Sunday.
Be sure to tune in for that and be sure to check out all of the
shows on the back home network. Until then, we will catch you
folks. On the flip side, bring back the
Bison. Stay Never daunted.
So long everybody. Bye, guys.