Your list. Feel apparel Welcome back to
Crimson Cast Galen Clavier Scott Caulfield with you.
It is September happy September everybody as we've wrapped up
August and Indiana's one and O in the in the record books they
they pick up their first win of the season as they knock off
Florida International yesterday at Memorial Stadium.
We are going to talk in depth about that game and about some
of our reflections from what we saw in the game.
And Scott overall, really kind of a perfect day.
A little sunny at times, which was I think a little unexpected
given how the the day started off.
But a pretty good start to the new era here, the Kurt Zignetti
era at IU and just nice to have football back, nice to be back
in the stadium. It, it did feel good having
been, you know, out of it and all this anticipation that's
built over the course of the spring and the summer.
It was nice to finally actually be in the midst of it all.
Yeah, and see a team doing something that that was
different. And it was funny for us because,
you know, we have season tickets, had them for years with
with two younger kids taking them to the games.
We kind of checked out last year and didn't go to a lot of games.
So being back, it's like, wow, it's like really, I feel like we
haven't been here in two years even though we went to a couple
of games last year, just didn't feel like we had been there a
while. Some new changes in Memorial
Stadium, some new food vendors. They've done a couple of some
upgrades which are very well needed.
But no, it was it was great to be back and great way to end the
day with a win. Yeah, it was really nice.
And we'll talk about some of the game day experience stuff
towards the tail end of the podcast today.
First though, we wanted to remind everybody that we're part
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Crimson Cast Substack community. So Scott, let's go ahead and
dive into what we've got going on today.
We'll recap the game and let's just start with that process.
Indiana picking up their first win of the season.
And that in and of itself is not abnormal.
I mean, outside of years where Indiana has to open with, like
Ohio State, IU has has pretty traditionally won their first
game of the season. But there was a lot of intrigue
around this one. Obviously, you know, purely
because it's the first game for Kurt Signetti as head coach.
It's the first game for most of his assistant coaches at IU.
It's the first game for a lot of players, including some key
players. And everybody, I think, was kind
of curious what they were going to be getting out of this IU
team. And I tell you, you know,
everybody had to feel really good over those first 30 or so
minutes of the game, 25 minutes maybe, where it just looked like
Indiana was going to dominate the entire game in both phases.
The offense was both crisp but also methodical.
It was clear they were trying things out.
The defense was swarming and really creating problems for
FIUFIU, as we talked about in our pre season podcast.
Not a good team, maybe the worst team in FBS depending, you know,
at least as far as pre season predictions go.
But you know, we've we saw teams struggle in these last two weeks
with FCS opponents, with other opponents.
Anytime you can kind of throttle an opponent the way Indiana was
throttling them in the first half, that's a real positive
thing to look at. And I certainly was vibing in a
very positive way in the stands there, Scott, as as we entered
that last possession of the first half, I was like, this is
about as good as I could have possibly scripted it.
I agree. I was trying to think of like
how how can I be a little more objective because I came away
really positive with what I saw. And The thing is, it's one of
those where you look at the score, you know, the final score
of, you know, 31 to 7 doesn't exactly look like what Purdue
won, like 56 nothing or, you know, 50 to nothing or 60 sixty
to seven. Like one of those kind of scores
we've beaten Indiana State in years, like, you know, 73 to 7.
And those are games where you look at the score like, oh, my
God, that must have been a throttling.
This is one where the score didn't really reflect how much
we were just kind of dominating Florida International, You know,
it was 21, nothing. They had done nothing on
offense. You know, in the first half,
they were showing, you know, in the stadium.
There was like, you know, a hundred 200 yards to 12 or like
14, like Florida National had done nothing.
You know, there were a couple of mental lapses.
They had the one drive where they got the touchdown.
But then, you know, Indiana kind of came back and put everything
together and continue to throttle them again.
And you know, it, it it was, it was really impressive to see,
especially on the defensive end. And then we'll talk about the
offense as well. The offense in my mind, and
again, I'm looking at this from a very positive lens.
It looked really good, even though you could tell they were
doing really vanilla stuff. They were kind of running the
same three or four runs every single time, but they were
getting yards out of it. They were moving the ball
around. So no, to me it was a
unbelievably impressive showcase for a team that really looked
like they were not bringing everything they had to offer in
the game. Yeah.
You know, so it's one of those things where and I was, I've
been trying to track some of the post game commentary and you
know, both from media and from folks in the in the Twitterverse
and elsewhere. And I think if you were going in
expecting Indiana to just like dominate offensively, as we saw
like Ole Miss do last night playing against Furman or, you
know, as we saw some teams doing this weekend, you probably left
disappointed. You know, I I saw a couple of
people's comments like, well, this looks like more of the
same. And it's like, well, it wasn't
like an offensive showcase. And, and I think we do need to
talk about some of the struggles of the offense was clearly
having and what those were and like what the nature of them
was, you know, but but I look at it from the standpoint of, I
think if you were going and expecting Indiana to just wallop
FIU, that was not a reasonable expectation because of how new
this mesh of personnel was for Indiana on both sides of the
ball. And you've got new coaches,
you've got new players and you're playing against live
competition for the first time. You know, there were certainly
some things that needed to be cleaned up at least on offense.
But I will say that in terms of like being positive, a lot of
people are expecting to be one over.
I think by being hit over the head with Indiana being really
good, I think this is going to be an incremental process.
And it's why having these first two games of of the season,
being against FIU and then Western Illinois is really
important 'cause I think it was clear yesterday, especially on
offense, that this team is going to need some time to round into
shape as far as being a really efficient group.
The pieces all look like they're there, but they don't seem to
have the timing. They don't seem to yet have the
the the command of what all they're doing and their
teammates are doing play by play.
That's really how it felt on a lot of the penalties.
It felt that way on a lot of the drops that we saw.
You know, and I think he listened to Kurt Stignetti's
comments afterwards and he was clearly frustrated with the
number of points or the number of big plays that IU left on the
board just through mistakes that they made on their own as
opposed to being forced by FIU. Those are good things to have in
a first game where you win anyway by 24 points because it's
like way we won and we still got a ton of things we got to work
on. I think that that's almost the
ideal Stew for a team like this coming out of Week 1.
So 1 signeti thought I'd like to share at this point.
And and this is there's there's no other way to talk about it
than the contrast where we were. But I'm not here to re litigate
and talk about Tom Allen. But it's, it is just, you have
to, for me, it's like, I cannot not notice the difference.
I was watching Signeti a lot on the sideline just because last
year I, I, I didn't want to look at Alan in the last couple years
as much. But he was hard to not look at
because every time something happened, it was either total
exuberance or complete despair. And he would be slapping helmets
and going nuts or he'd be screaming and yelling and it was
like highs just complete peaks and valleys, high and low, high
and low. I was really struck by how
professional Signetti was on the sideline and how the team
reacted. As such.
I was also really interested to see, you know, when there would
be a time out and the offense was gathering.
Signetti was not in there. He might stick his head in and
say one or two things. He would then pull back and just
kind of walk down the sideline. And it's like, oh, you're
letting your coaches coach like you're letting your offensive
coaches coach the offense. You're letting your defenses
coaches, you know, coach the defense.
And, you know, there was one play where we have like a, you
know, false start. And he was pissed.
And he just kind of walked up and on the side and came down
and, you know, yelled at a player.
But I, I do think it was really refreshing to see a coach kind
of have a a firm grip on the team, not letting them get too
high, too low. And you know, you, you felt it
in it was very much, you know, we, we get up 21, nothing, you
know, Florida International is up.
You know, they, they score, they start the second-half with the
ball and in, in other situations we've had it suddenly it's like
you could feel that the team tense up in previous years,
like, Oh my God, like if they score here, it's 2114, like, you
know, that half the fans are gone.
Like this is not going to be good.
You never felt that. It's like, all right, you know,
it's almost like a, you know, a, a cat playing with his food a
little bit. And it's like, all right, well,
now we're just going to go ahead and just we'll continue to
throttle them now and we'll be done with this.
And you never felt the team get too high or too low, but it was
definitely you. You felt it coming all from
Signeti on the way he was handling himself on the
sideline, which is just such a change from what we've seen in
the last couple years. Yeah, and I mean, he's just his
propensity for just standing by himself.
This was pointed out by several friends of mine.
I I was, I'm I was sitting on the side of the IU bench and
didn't really have a great angle, so I wasn't really paying
attention. But the people who were were
like, yeah, it's really interesting watching where
Signetti's standing, how he's reacting.
And what, what what I thought was great just kind of in
general about how Signetti approached the game was, you
know, again, as you said, it was a very Workman like approach,
but it was also one of those approaches where he was clearly
very frustrated by a lot of the mistakes.
And even in the post game, like his post game interviews were,
were pretty no, no BS. It was like, well, we got, you
know, we played OK, but we've got a lot of work to do on these
things. And I'm frustrated by this.
You know, I think part of the issue with Alan a lot of times
was it it really did feel in press conferences and and in
interviews that he was unwilling to lean into the idea.
His team really need to do a lot better, like with specifics.
And Signetti clearly had a lot of those things in his mind
already. Like he was he had standards
that he was trying to uphold even with a game like this where
the game was largely out of reach within the first half.
Now, I think Indiana's got a ways to go.
And we were very curious coming into this game, Scott, about
where Indiana was at in terms of that development and meshing
process. And I think, you know, it'll be
interesting because I'm sure some people will seize on what
happened in this game and say, well, this isn't really what we
were hoping for. We were hoping for more.
But there was an alternate scenario here.
Let me try speaking in English. There was an alternative
scenario here where IU look like absolute garbage for 3/4, kind
of like Wisconsin did against Western Michigan earlier on this
week where you're just like, uh oh, this really could be bad.
And I, I never got the sense at any point that Indiana was ever
in trouble in this game. It's more like, OK, there's some
things they're not doing yet or not able to do yet, but I never
got the sense like, wow, they got a lot of fixing they've got
to do. It's more tweaking and
finalizing execution as opposed to, Oh my God, there's like
tremendous problems here that need to be addressed.
And that's for a new coach with this many new players,
especially this many new players in key spots.
I'm actually a little bit buoyed by how far along they are,
especially on defense. And you know, there's even a
little tweaks. This was I I thought a really
good point from if you if you're not subscribed to bite sized
Bison folks, we're going to just annoy you all season about
subscribing. But Taylor did a good job of of
writing out his initial thoughts, looking at some of the
advanced statistics. One of the things that he noted
was that Indiana, I'm going to quote the the newsletter here,
Indiana was fantastic in run defense, particularly keeping
dual threat quarterback Keon Jenkins contained.
Part of this was because compared to Tom Allen's
defensive scheme, the linebackers were actually
available to spy. You know, they were like little
things like that where there were play breakdowns or it got
to the second level. And normally like we've gotten
used to the last couple years to be like, OK, well, now there's
real trouble. Now Indiana's got a problem.
But then there was always somebody there it felt like to
clean things up. And even offensively, I mean,
there's there's the the, the, the pass blocking could have
been a lot better. But the flip side of that is for
a team that is not necessarily run first, this team looked
amazing running the football all game last year and the year
before with Indiana trying to establish a running mentality.
They never looked anywhere close to this good running the ball.
And I think that, you know, these these are the kinds of
things where it's like, I think people are going to dwell on the
negatives. But to rack up over 230 rushing
yards, which I think it was and really just look like they could
have moved the ball whenever they wanted running the ball.
I'm not used to that. Like that.
We got to go back to like Tevin Coleman, divine writing era IU
for me to really feel like we were at a time when we had that
kind of running attack. No.
And you talk about this being kind of the perfect way to win.
You know, again, they, they were never really threatened.
I, I watched that Michigan State game Friday night.
Like there's a team that with a new coach where they could have
lost that game. They're like 3 plays away from
losing that game. Also having like 12 targeting
penalties. It's like Michigan State's just
ready to take your head off at all times.
But that was they, they could have lost to Florida Atlantic.
And you know, this this is a situation where you you know,
they've made IU has made enough mistakes and looked non crisp
enough to give signetti enough to work with.
But it wasn't like now, Oh my God, we really got to get
together like this Looks like a team that should win three of
their first four games. You know, UCLA will talk about
separately, but it looks like the other two kind of quote UN
quote Gimme games should be wins now.
So now it's like, all right, we can breathe a little easier
because that wasn't the case for Indiana last year with Akron.
Like we we've had issues with this before.
I'm not saying it's going to happen.
And you know what happens this season will kind of reflect back
on this game as to whether this is a mirage or just like, well,
FIU sucked and you know, we weren't that good.
But all we can look at is right now, the thing that I, I looked
at from offense in this game is, you know, we've had a couple of
years, like you said, of, of it looks like Indiana's trying to
get the running game going with just runs right up the middle
and you'd run it up the middle and you would get nothing or
you'd get a yard. And that was always so
frustrating to me. And it also didn't work, by the
way, just side note, never worked in the in the red zone
because we'd be 4th and, you know, first and goal from the
one and we'd run four times in the in the red zone and we would
lose. We wouldn't get a touchdown this
year, you know, So this game obviously we're keeping a lot,
you know, they, they kept a pretty vanilla playbook.
They ran a lot of RP OS. But First off, they didn't run
them right up the middle. They ran them to the side.
But I thought it was interesting that even for a team where you
could tell, like it was like we're just kind of trying to run
some plays to kind of get things going, they were still getting
234 yards every time they ran an RPO and sometimes they would
break it. I mean, they finished the game
you mentioned with 239 rushing yards, the average 6.2 rushing
yards a play. They're 6.2.
Yeah, rushing yards to play. I went back and looked like
Akron last year, just one example, Like they were like 4.2
yards a play, you know, and that's a huge difference when
you're, you know, second and six instead of 2nd and 10.
Having just gotten slammed. I I was very impressed by that
because my thing is like, I think they were running the same
two or three RPO plays every single time, which is fine.
You're not going to open up your playbook, but they they
obviously have a different playbook because they had the
one flea flicker in the red zone where was a the half back
through it for a, you know, the guy was wide open for a
touchdown, but he threw it like 5 yards short.
I have some crazy plays and there's not going to pull them
all out here for FIU. But I that's the thing that I
was most impressed by is that, you know, in previous years,
even against subpar opponents, when we would try and get the
run game going, we really couldn't get it going like we
were doing yesterday. Even when we were kind of
running the same type of running actions every day, everybody.
I know it's easy to, you know, essentially not take the
statistics that you rack up against FIU seriously, but
Indiana last night, this is the official rushing per like the
average per rush, 40 carries, 234 yards, 5.85 yards per rush.
The last time IU had that good of a rushing attack was the game
at Michigan State in 2022. That that bizarre game.
And a lot of that was like Jalen Lucas breaking that huge run
where they chucked off like 80 yards.
The last time they had that high of a total against anybody was
against Idaho. But if you go back and try to
find a game where Indiana rushed for more than 5.85 yards against
an FBS opponent, you actually, believe it or not, have to go
all the way back to 2019 when Indiana played Rutgers when they
averaged 6.84 yards per carry. So.
And is you anybody really breaking a lot of like 80 yard
runs, right? Yeah, that was the thing.
I mean, you know, it was impressive I think yesterday
about the way the rushing attack worked was that it was a lot of
a lot of five to six yard gains, but it was pretty consistent.
And they had a couple that were better than that obviously and
that was nice to see. But I I just look at it and I'm
like, you look at the mixer. Which is something to feel like
we just haven't had for years. Like it's like we will just run
up the middle. We get stopped and like our
rushing comes from like when there's just a complete
breakdown and then we we have an 80 yard run.
And like you really didn't see that.
Like you saw a team that looked like they knew how to run, run
to the holes, make blocks and and make openings.
Because 5 or 6 yard runs to me consistently is almost more
impressive than getting 180 yard run 'cause that's normally just
a blown coverage or somebody made a mistake that you can't,
you can't help on every single game.
Right. The other thing that is
impressive is that Indiana had three players with well, I'm
going to take Curtis Work out of this cause all of his runs were
essentially either scrambles or sacks.
But 3 running backs with at least 5 yards, 3 running backs
with at least 50 yards, excuse me, 5 carries, 50 yards.
So Elijah Green, 5 carries for 82 yards and a touchdown.
Tyson Lawton, 16 carries, 74 yards, 2 touchdowns.
Justice Ellison 10 carries, 68 yards.
You know, so to be able to spread it out, and I'll note all
three of those players were not here last year.
You know, Elijah Green transfers in from North Carolina, 5th year
player Tyson Lawton came from James Madison, but he was at
Stony Brook for three years before that.
And then Justice Ellison was at Wake Forest for the last four
years before coming here. And you know, these are all
essentially this is Indiana's rushing attack right now.
So even that, it's like, well, here's 3 capable ball handlers,
you know, three guys that you can give the ball to, three guys
who I think everybody was wondering how are they going to
fit into this attack? And I still don't think we know.
But for all three of them to be that effective when Indiana has
struggled to have any running backs being effective for any
length of time in some of the previous seasons, that was good
to see. The other thing on the offense
I'll mention, so we're we're driving down, we're listening to
your preview with Taylor from bite sized Bison.
So there second time we'll try and get like 5-5 mentions in a a
podcast because Taylor is awesome and as is bite sized
bison. But like I'm like asking the the
boys. My, my oldest son is starting to
get into podcast. He likes like NB, he's NBA guy,
like NBA podcast. I'm like, hey, do you want to
listen to a preview for for this for this game?
And he's like, yeah, he's like, this is the podcast you're on.
I was like, we yeah, but I'm not on it.
And we start playing. He's like, oh, that's your buddy
Galen. He's like, he sounds really
chill. He's a good podcast like.
He doesn't you, you haven't been to a game with Galen.
Like not chill in a game. I will say I have new seats this
year, as I do every year, mostly because of my lack of chill in
the stadium. But I was pretty chill in this
game. And I'm fortunate in that
there's at least three people in my section who are significantly
louder than I am right now. And there's still early seasons
early, My friend. I am trying to take a new
approach in the stadium. I really am.
I I need to chill out more and just to relax and I'm new era.
I'm gonna try to dial it down. Just gonna try to vibe with
what's going on in the stadium. The only time I got mad like
really mad the whole game was that ridiculous roughing the
passer penalty that they called in the first quarter.
I think it was like that was that was worth yelling about.
But the rest of it your your son is correct.
I'm actually very chill now. This is.
James So James thinks you're chill?
James is definitely a a fan of Chill Galen.
This. Is the one love era of Galen
Clavio? So but you guys, you and Taylor
were talking about kind of lamenting the days when we would
pass the tight ends and we would pass the ball around and then it
was great to see. You look at the receiving, how
that was passed around. There are there's 87 receivers
who got receptions yesterday, three of which Zach Horton are
tight end, great little plays for 36 yards a touchdown.
And you know, again, I'm reading into this.
I'm very positive with what I'm seeing.
But it felt like they ran those plays to Horton and it's like,
oh, those work. Like, all right, we're done
doing that. Like we're not going to do any
more of that and show that on tape.
Like we'll save that for UCLA or Big 10.
Because all three of his plays, he was wide open.
It's like he was just wide open. But it was really nice to see us
pass the ball around, pass to a tight end, have a passing attack
that seemed to be. Calculated as opposed to just
kind of throwing it to wherever we can, you know, while we're
trying to get it out. Yeah, no, I one of the things
that stuck out to me just in general about the game was
everything felt competent and measured and that it's hard.
It's a hard thing. And I think for for many people,
it's likely to be something that they don't acknowledge.
Because I think I'm trying to think of how to delicately put
this. A lot of people don't carefully
watch the games and I don't blame them 'cause I mean, you
really have to watch a lot of football over a long period of
time. And, and I think be focused on
like what the full equation is supposed to look like with it.
And, and most fans are just not armed to do that.
I'm I'm and it took me a long time to even get to the point
where I felt close to doing that, But I was really happy
with how this was not like let's throw the kitchen sink at
everybody and try to like show how much we can do.
It really did feel like, especially after the second
touchdown Dr. and really even the second touchdown Dr. itself,
it was like, we're not going to just go down the field.
Let's try all these things out. Like you were saying, let's see
what works. Let's see what how we're doing.
And, you know, I think there were clearly things that needed
to be fixed with that. And, and the penalties were a
big one. I actually think Indiana could
have rushed for like 400 yards in this game if they wanted to.
But they purposefully ended some drives preliminarily because
they were trying to get their passing game working and they
were trying to see what they could do.
And look, I, you know, I think some people, a lot of the, the
messages I got from good football observers afterwards
were like, well, Rourke still seems like Atba and I, I think
we'll see. And it may be a situation where,
you know, maybe Rourke is, is a TBD in terms of how good he
actually is. But I thought he looked good.
I thought his fakes looked good. You know, he, he had a very
mechanical approach in the pocket, which I think will
contribute well to making the RPO sell better.
He seems to have the arm. A lot of the balls that were put
right where they needed to be were just dropped.
You know, there were several drops where, you know, I'm just
yeah, I think the the first drop I was like, well, that's too
bad. By the third one, I was like,
really? And then there was even one
later in the game where, you know, there was a nice
completion or should have been a completion.
I think the miles price over the middle that he dropped and it's
like it's right there. I think that'll get fixed.
But I'll also say I think it was interesting how if you look at
the way the stats broke down, Indiana really did not try to
target their their best receivers very often.
Donovan Mccully. I actually was texting with with
Taylor at one point during the game.
I was like, has Mccully even been targeted yet?
Now literally as I hit the send button, they threw the ball to
Mccully and he caught that ball for 9 yards.
But I don't know if he got targeted again the rest of the
game. Like he was just kind of out
there as part of the collection. Elijah Sarat saying thing.
With an with an injury, right? He was like, not medically
clear. And it was right.
It was right when that that that happened.
He didn't come back, but you know, but it was just it was
interesting with Sarat, the same thing where it's like they're
they were targeting different people.
It was great to see Zach Horton, the tight end, the transfer from
JMU get in there and and catch a couple of balls over the middle.
And it was just cool to see the tight end position being used
again. That was nice.
But you know, they they clearly were, you know, they there's
more things that have to do with the passing attack.
The blocking is going to have to get a little bit better and I
just think the timing is going to have to get better and
obviously the catches are going to have to be there.
But overall, given that they didn't need to show anything
else, you know, I think people were hoping for maybe a bigger
blowout. And I certainly love big
blowouts in these sorts of things.
But at the end of the day, they covered, they win 31 to 7 and
they were in control the entire game.
And a large part of that, Scott, I guess the flip sides of the
ball was on the defense and the defense really did look awesome.
And I think it's what's really fascinating to me is most of the
statistical leaders on the defensive side were not guys
that were here last year. You know, you, you go down the
list. Aiden Fisher, transfer from JMU,
led the team in tackles, had 12 total tackles, had four solo
tackles, had a sack. You know, he so he he's a
transfer from JMU. Jalen Walker, transfer from JMU.
He was the second leading tackler.
D'Angelo Pons, another transfer from JMU, third leading tackler.
Sean Asbury, transfer from Old Dominion was, was high on the
list of tackles. Tyreke Tucker was a a James
Madison transfer. Like the only guy in that list
of tacklers that was here last year was Isaiah Jones, the
linebacker. He he didn't play very much at
all last year. He had two total tackles last
year he had six. Sorry, that was two years ago.
That wasn't even last year. So the the import of talent
really showed out early and there were guys I think that we
were expecting to see play that just didn't get much play at all
in this game. Now you know it.
I mean, there was a a big play made by one of the walk ONS in
this game. It's really interesting, like
how there's a tiered system it appears already in terms of who
Cignetti's going to play on defense, what players are
getting opportunities, what schemes are being run.
And I think that's it. It's just revealing with so many
players that were on the team last year, most of the
statistical standouts came from people who weren't on the team
last year. Yeah.
No, I mean, and the defense was, was swarming.
I was going to say this, there probably is a stat for this now.
But the thing that I was very happy to see that had kind of
gone away and is always my, my indicator of how well the IU
defense is playing is there's the first defender who touches
the other team, tackle the guy. Because for so many years we've
seen it where it's like you go and you know, they go for the
tackle and they grab them and it's like he just pulls away.
And then it's like if he breaks 3 tackles, he's gone.
Our, our first guy who tried to tackle was tackling most of the
time, which is good. But you look at, you know, it
it, it's also the offense. The offense held the ball for a
lot. But you know, FIU, their first
four drives, it was 3/3 and out -5 yards 6 and out with 16
yards, 5 and out 16 yards. They did get a touchdown in
their last drive. They only had four drives in the
first half, only one drive in the second-half.
In the second quarter, 12 yards, they only had two drives that
had more than 10 plays. And the second one that, you
know, 1 was a touchdown for 12 plays.
The other one in the third quarter that had 10 plays was an
interception. I mean, so their, their drive
chart for Florida International was all under 10 plays.
You know, the Indiana kept them off the off the offense kept
them from running any kind of drives and everything was three
and out or six and out. It was really a a pretty
stifling defense that had kind of one laps and that was it.
No, it was it was impressive. And it it again, it it like you,
I I love blowout wins, but you know, it's kind of fun.
I came home and then I watched UCLA and Hawaii and no great
shakes there. You know, we're we're probably
not going to see another blowout against Western Illinois.
It does feel like this team, this IU team is kind of keeping
things close to the vest. But watching UCLA, it's like I
watched that. It's like I don't I don't see
how they're much better or worse than we are.
Right. Yeah.
UCLA looked pretty bad. I mean, they they had to really
pull something out at the end there against I guess Hawaii
last night. I mean, here's the thing I I was
thinking about this like there were some teams that really did
struggle quite a bit. There were others that did not.
But I think for Indiana in particular with its particular
set of circumstances, you almost, it's a completely
different equation from most of the other teams in the Big 10,
UCL as A-Team. That's kind of in the same boat
as IUI. Mean, you get a little bit of
credit because they were playing on the road and that that's a
long flight to Hawaii, obviously.
But they had some continuity, whereas I us had very little
continuity in terms of their coaching staff, in terms of the
players that are out there. I mean, it's just like a brand
new team out there. I mean, think about on offense
too. You know, it, it wasn't it
wasn't just the defense where I think 7 like 7 like six of his
top eight or seven of the top 9 tacklers weren't here last year.
But on offense, you know, Curtis Work starting quarterback, but
wasn't here. Elijah Dream, Tyson Lott and
Justice Ellison, Miles Price not here last year.
Zach Horton, not here last year. Miles Cross, I don't believe was
here last year. You know, I mean, it was like
Omar Cooper Junior I think is the only guy that was back out
of the statistical leaders on offense and.
In the postgame radio and they talked to one of the players at
JMU transfer and he was talking about how like, yeah, we're
trying to, you know, we're trying to keep the, the, the
we're trying to push the JMU, you know, ethos here in Indiana.
It's not like we're trying to push, you know, Indiana on JMU.
It's like, no, JMU is trying to push Indiana on, you know, on to
Indiana. So it really is a, an
interesting spot. Like you said.
I mean, it's 95% of the contributors in the game
yesterday were not here last year.
And it wasn't just JMU people. I think this is the important
thing because that's they've they've dominated the
conversation. But it's like the ACC guys and
the the Mac guys, you know, I was who was the other one that I
saw CJ W who was at Kent last year.
It's just, I think it's less the, the JMU ethos as we've
heard talked about and like that level of work that has been what
they wanted to bring in. But it's also been just the
basic concept of you're going to practice hard and you're going
to bring it in practice or you're not going to play.
And it does kind of feel like there's some churn going on
where it's like, well, if, if, if what we saw out there is an
indication of who's playing hard in practice.
And those are the people that got the opportunities.
It does say a lot about the status of the roster that
Signetti took over and where they're still at in terms of
trying to get all those people on the same page from an output
perspective. And this is, you know, the the
last thing I'll say about one of the last things I'll say about
the game is, you know, you saw it in the end of the game where
and again, it's a different talent, you know, breakdown
here. But you also have a team from
Florida where they should be used to hotter, you know, hotter
sunny or weather. It looked like for international
was kind of just wilting and getting tired.
They were just kind of walking around on defense.
We had one of our explosive, you know, runs at that point.
I think it's a good sign that, you know, it felt like we were
continuing to kind of almost like a, you know, a, a, a snake
like constricting on that team. And it did look like if that,
you know, the game went another quarter, we would have won, you
know, 64 to 7. Like it didn't look like Florida
International was bringing anything more like they were
beat down. They were tired.
It was nice to see that we were not tired.
You know, obviously they're doing the right thing in the
offseason in the workouts because we look like, I don't
say we're getting stronger, but we we look like we were keeping
up the intensity throughout the entire game.
And we definitely, you know, broke and wore out for
international, which again, no great shakes.
Maybe one of the worst teams we're going to play this year,
but we we still did it and that was impressive.
So you know, Indiana, as they as they recap what goes on in this,
there's, there's clearly a lot of things that they'll want to
fix. And the nice thing is they've
got another week to fix those things.
Half the. Almost a week?
Well. I, I actually kind of like that
even better because, you know, they're gonna have to do a short
week, which means they're largely gonna stick to, I'm
guessing many of the same things that they were planning on doing
in this game. They'll be a weaker opponent
that they'll play in this next game, which should allow them to
do a little bit more in terms of getting timing down.
And, and I think that's the thing it, it was so many of the
mistakes that were self-inflicted on offense were
really, as I said earlier, they were detail oriented things as
opposed to what we can't execute against this FIU team.
And the defense just in general, I think that is that is a
renewable resource when it comes to football.
If your defense goes and shuts down the opposition in such a
way, again, they'll have a lot of opportunities to try think
some different coverages out and some different approaches and
what they're doing, but also maybe to get some more depth out
there. And you'll also get an extra
week where it's like, well, OK, you've seen we mean business
when we talk about you're going to have to practice hard if
you're going to be on this team again.
It's like it's a gradual building of culture and a
gradual changing of ethos. And for IUI think that's so
important because it was so clear in the last couple of
years, really the last three years of the Allen era that the
culture, something in the culture had broken.
And the the level of output you were getting out of players was
it was not just a matter of we're making mistakes.
A lot of it was we're just not executing properly.
And so it's, you need this sharpening.
And this is where this whole month of May, of May, the whole
month of September May end up being like, I don't know,
there's been a more critical month in terms of an early
trajectory of an IU team in a while.
Like we talked about this in our preview podcast where it's like,
you know, you can get off to a good start and you can win while
you're fixing things and getting things into shape.
You really do set yourself up for a good rest of the season.
If you can get through these first four games, four and O or
even 3 and one with a close loss, that's what I saw in the
game against Florida International tells me that that
pathway is possible. I mean, we talked kind of, I
don't say talking out of our butts or anything like that, but
we a lot of it was what we think this is how this is going to go.
We'll see how it actually goes, but we hope that this is the
direction we're going to bank on that as being what happens.
Well, having seen what we saw in this first game, with the caveat
that there's still a lot to work on, it does feel like the
trajectory that we've talked about is possible.
Because again, you look around college football and the Big 10
in particular, and I'm just not seeing the level of dominance
from a lot of the other teams in the conference.
And I think Indiana, there's there's a talent level there and
there's a mental approach that seems to be setting the scene
for the ability to build on it as they move through the season.
And that is about as much as you could have asked for, I think,
coming out of the first game of this new era.
Yeah, I'll, I'll go back to something you said earlier that
I definitely felt, just felt professional and like a Workman
like attitude. And you know, we if you go back
and look at some of, you know, Signetti's teams and James
Madison, they didn't run, they ran a more dynamic offense than
we saw yesterday. And so that that's the other
thing is like I, I would be shocked if this is all we see
from the offense all year, like we're going to see more.
They definitely kept some stuff in reserve.
And so no, I, I, I agree with you and I, I look at this as
like, all right, walked away, be like, all right, we're we're
going to be 3 and one worst case going into game 4, which I, I
don't think I felt as as good about some of those Gimme games
last the last couple of years based on where the team was.
And I, I'm with you. I think that's a good thing.
And it also feels like, you know, some of those kind of, you
know. Announcers speak things that
you're like, oh, the most, the biggest improvement you see is
from week 1 to week, from week 1 to week two.
It felt like we never really met those things in football.
It's like, well, but not an IU, We don't, we don't seem to do
that. It feels like maybe we are going
to start doing some of those things or like a real program
has real improvement from week one to two.
Maybe we'll see that. Maybe we see it in week three
against UCLA. But it does feel like, oh, we
might be on the trajectory of a real football team.
It's like Pinocchio, Galen, the the, it's turned into a real
boy. We have a real team.
But no, it, it does feel like we might, you know, the, the, it it
again, I'll go back to the math. It feels like there's a steady
hand on the wheel kind of leading this thing.
Well, we'll see what happens. I mean, obviously, you know,
you're not going to learn a lot new in terms of how good the
team is on Friday. This is more about all right,
let's sharpen what we've got and figure out where things are AT
and try to avoid injuries. I mean, the the only other
things I'll note statistically that we're worthwhile out of
this game. No turnovers.
You know, that was nice. There were a couple of fumbles,
but they weren't lost. I don't they weren't even
actually recorded as fumbles. You did get the one
interception, which that was nice.
So Indiana did turn FIU over once that Yeah, you know, the,
the no turnovers thing is almost more important to me than the
penalties. The penalties weren't great. 9
penalties, 80 yards and and just some sloppiness on the
penalties. It also didn't help, frankly,
that I'm not sure if any member of that officiating team had
ever officiated a football game before that.
That was a that was a struggle and not, not just with bad
calls, There were a few of those, but just like the basics
of hey, where should the ball be or hey, what was the clock
supposed to be? Or that that whole stupidity
with the lateral towards the end of the game, it's I mean, just
like stuff like that where I'm just like, what is going on with
this crew? I will say, watching a lot of
college football this weekend, that was a problem everywhere.
It wasn't just limited here, but I, I, so I don't know how much
of the penalties are actually penalties that wouldn't get
called, but were in this case and how many of it was something
that actually needed to be fixed.
But that is certainly something that they're going to have some
improvement in. It's one of the maybe it's a
good offseason pod. It's like it's all this stuff
happens, all this money, all these conference changes and NIL
money. Like at some point maybe we have
professional refs, like for a 2 to $3 billion industry that's
putting out a product, like maybe we don't have guys who
were just, you know, contracted and working 12 games.
That's a totally different, you know, totally different
discussion. The other thing I would say is
the numbers weren't, you know, eye popping, but James Evan at
punter, his punts, you know, he only had three of them, but they
were really high as punch should be.
But just he was, he looked crisp and that the punting unit looked
good to something I listen to on the pot, your podcast coming
down, just how special teams always seem to make a mistake
along the way. We didn't have a special teams
mistake yesterday either. And that was nice to see.
Yeah. I mean just little things,
little, little detail. We've talked about this for
years with the Allen era, we talked about it with the Wilson
era, we talked about it with the all the eras, all the eras.
The details are the devil for Indiana and to watch Indiana
have a pretty good day where you know what what problems they had
detail wise. It didn't really hurt that much
and they were able to do a lot of good things, especially with
run blocking. I I was so impressed with just
the little subtle things that opened up holes in the run
blocking game for IU. There's so much to build off of.
I'm just really excited about it.
So any final thoughts from you, Scott or anything else that was
worth noting for in terms of the on the field play?
No, I want to talk atmosphere, but no, not on the field, no.
Let's talk atmosphere. So I got to say I love the new
section, the new student section where they moved to start the
game. I told my wife we were both
like, this feels like a college game.
Like I've been to tons of games in Royal Stadium.
The the way the students were before.
It's just a slight change. Just kind of moving the students
to behind the end zone there on the North End.
It it felt louder. You can hear the students
starting chance and like it continued it it's going to be
good. Like that's a really good
change. I feel like the students have
ownership over that section now. It just I was like, wow, this
feels like a really loud student section that's way more involved
by just kind of adding that little ribbon because the other
area is still there. I will also say like I I don't
understand how things work sometimes my friend, because
like Marlboro is still a company that exists that is a multi
billion dollar company. They don't sell as many
cigarettes in the US. The the student section shirt,
the signetti with the Marlboro logo for those of us who are old
enough like, oh, Penske and Marlboro, like I remember that
logo. It's a great looking shirt.
Like I was like, that's awesome. I'm also like how I I don't
think I you got, you know, permission from Marlboro to use
the logo. Like how was this possible
without getting into a copyright infringement thing?
Not that I want to be captain bring down, but I just.
Mean. How does this stuff how how are
you able to do this like this is this is a big.
I'm going to, for those of you who are on the YouTube channel,
I'm showing you what this the shirt look like.
So you have some visual aid. And yeah, it is an absolute
Marlboro RIP off. It looks like the top of a
cigarette box. Yeah, it's great.
I mean, look, I I love it. It looked awesome.
It's fantastic. It's got like Elio's first
winning car in Indy. It's fantastic.
But I just, I see that and I'm like, how like do you want to
use the Disney font too and just go for like pissing off
everybody who can sue you? But I I love it.
It was awesome. It's a great start.
But no, the, the students section where they were was
awesome that the crowd at the beginning of the game, it was,
it was a really good feel that probably the best feel for a
game of that kind of opponent I can remember in a long time.
I, I, I, I word it that way because obviously, like, you
know, first games you played Ohio State a couple times, like
that's a great crowd, but just for a, for kind of a nondescript
first opponent, that was a pretty fired up crowd.
Yeah, and I mean, it wasn't a huge crowd.
I mean they announced attendance was I think 44,000 something.
There were definitely not many people in the southeast corner
of the stadium and the attendance was even a little bit
pumped up because it was band today.
So you had a bunch of high school kids with instruments in
the stands. But I'll say this, I think the I
agree with you, I was sitting very close to the student
section. There was a lot of energy on
that side of the field. I thought that overall the in
game experience was good. You know, it was a pretty
constant flow of energy throughout.
It really never felt like it lulled too badly until about the
third quarter. The overall presentation was
good. Like the introduction was nice.
There was a, you know, the, the coming out to Thunderstruck and
it, it felt like a little more of an occasion.
So you know, then, then, but it's also, it was like middle of
the afternoon. So it was you didn't have the
full dramatics of coming out at night and things like that.
Well, the thing that I'll say with that, I, I, I, I wrote a
note about that. Like I, I remember going to the
Iowa game. I think they play, they play it
back in black to enter. It's like you can tell they've
been playing that for years, right?
And everyone's fired up and they know, oh, this is the sound.
It's like, you know, Metallica, you know, like Enter Sandman for
Mariano Rivera coming in. And I, I, I took a note like
this is the problem of kind of a lack of consistency or any real
ethos with IU footballs. You just, you have a different
song every two or three years. You have a different intro set
up. I'm with you.
I also liked the intro. I liked having the video with a
minute left kind of doing the, the, you know, the the Mets
closer horn song. I like all that, but it's like
we need to stick with again, we need to coach, we need something
just kind of stay and stick because all this stuff is good.
But we've done Metallica before. We've done all of these songs
before we and they keep changing.
And I think fans like just the only thing that stays is like
that stupid first down March and like the up and down arms, like
somehow that that won't go away. And the Jaws theme on 3rd down,
third down. Those will not go away.
But I agree with you. I liked it, but it doesn't
resonate because it's like, oh, it's always new.
And it's like, oh, well, we'll have a, you know, a new one in
three years. But anyway, it's just like
that's where we need some consistency with football, but
it it will come with success. Anyway, sorry, I interrupted.
You no, it's a good point and it's one of those where it does
feel like we hit the reset button like every three years on
the in stadium experience. So it's like this time it's
going to be better and it's rarely the problem of the
experience itself. It's that it never mores to any
success on the field. And and so you end up people
really get down on the team, they're not there.
The the atmosphere is bad because of that.
And then you got to build it back up again.
And so you almost have to do the reset regularly.
And I think that'll continue to happen until Indiana just has a
5 or 6 year run where they're successful all the time.
And that that will really be I think the key element as we
think about all this moving forward.
But I thought for for an A reopening I guess on.
The outside team, it was good walking in the tunnel, which I
always think is cool. Yep, yeah, it's there's just,
there's a lot of little quality of life and there's, there's
other things that go on behind the scenes.
I think the video board shows are better just in general, you
know, there'll be, there's some kinks to work out, but they,
they tried to make the on field promotions a bit more fun, as
fun as you can make on field promotions.
I think on field, on field promotions like that was one of
those things that like in the 80s and 90s, it's like, oh,
guess what? We could have people come on the
playing surface and then and then everybody's tired of it by
now. So within what you can do there,
it was nice to see. And then when we were in
college, they're like, we can bring people in inflatable
mascot costumes, like weird inflatable IU guys.
I will say that my 8 year old hot dog gun is high on his list
of things like that. Came out once and then was like
every time I was like, are they bringing the hot dog gun back
out? Like when's the hot dog gun
coming back out? Like I think that's one time
only my friend. Sorry, Gray.
Let's talk about the rest of the stadium though.
New a lot of new food options. Did you get a chance to to try
any of those out? I didn't.
But I did, we walked by a lot of them.
I like the the quick that right out of our gate 8:00 they have a
quick serve section where you can just grab and go, which is
like, Hey, this is a great idea for, you know, 2017.
Like I'm happy we brought this in a lot of new vendors that,
that I saw, which is really good.
So I, I like, I like that they're doing that to me.
The quick serve thing was, was so necessarily needed just a
spot to grab popcorn, hot dogs, drinks and beers.
And they've also, they zigzag the lines.
It used to be the lines just go straight out on the concourse,
which would create this huge mess.
They kind of zigzagged them. So a lot of nice little things
like that, which I thought were this, Oh no, I was very happy to
see all of those. Things yeah, I I found the
social cantina tent that was nice and got a chick got some
tacos over there and got I mean it was just it was good overall.
Like they're all the all the old favorites are there there's some
new stuff there. Buffalo Louie's has a stand on
the the concourse area right when you enter on the the very
North End of the stadium. And that was pretty much hopping
the whole time. So it was just it was neat to
see all those different options. I will pause for a minute and
just remind everybody that we had a great tailgate before the
the game started. And that was in large part due
to being able to enjoy it with Who's Your Game Day Logger, the
official beer of IU Athletics from Upland.
Who's Your Game Day Logger, sponsor of the podcast as well.
And just the iconic I was, I was in line at Social Cantina and a
woman is coming up to her husband who's in line, who's
buying beer and he's asked what does she want?
And she says I want the candy stripe can beer.
Didn't say who's your game day logger.
He said I want the candy stripe can beer.
But you know it when you see it folks, because it does have that
candy stripe pattern on the can, a really delicious, easy
drinking Vienna style lager. Absolutely something you need to
have at your next tailgate. You can pick up who's your game
day lager at any of Uplands locations throughout Central IN.
You can also pick up who's your game day lager at every big red
in Bloomington, pretty much anywhere that you can buy beer
within Central IN you're going to find who's your game day
lager. It's also available at the
stadium. So be sure to check out Who's
your game day lager next time you're in Memorial Stadium or in
the parking lots getting ready to tailgate or out of the bar
getting ready to watch an IU game.
But no, I was pretty impressed with everything in terms of the
lines weren't too bad. Felt like there was a nice
traffic flow. I'm over on your side of the
stadium now again after a long hiatus and I I was pleased with
how everything was spaced out. I am interested to see what
happens when there's eight more 1000 people in the stadium so
that. Thing is, like everything looks
good in these kind of environments.
Like the stress test comes when Maryland, Michigan or Ohio State
comes and you, you're, you're suddenly pushing the limits.
Like then, it seems like that things fray at the end, but
we'll we'll see. Yeah, Maryland is is probably
the because that's the best parents weekend.
So you're going to have a ton of people in like it's already, if
you haven't bought parking passes folks yet for that
Maryland game, I wish you a lot of luck.
They are, they are really, really expensive even on
SeatGeek right now. So keep an eye on that.
And as we move forward with, you know, the, the look, I just, I
like the fact that IU continues to make small but meaningful
changes to the way the game day setup is, is working.
That's going to really be what is the key, I think, is adapting
to that as they move forward. And it does, it is nice to see
so many of the local vendors now in there doing what they're
doing. I think that makes a big
difference because I think everybody within the IU orbit
can agree the standard like IU concessions items are just not
good. They're, they're, and they
haven't been good for a long time.
It's nice to have something different and and actually tasty
in the stadium. I, I, to the point that like,
you know me like I do a huge tailgate, we had, we had
probably over 100 people that came through the tailgate over
the course of the six hours we were out there.
And I was so intrigued by what was in the stadium from a food
perspective. I didn't even bother eating
lunch at my own tailgate. A bunch of other people did.
But I was like, I really want to try at least something in there.
And I, I'm glad I did. It was nice.
Good. Good for you.
Yeah. So I, you again want to know
they'll be taking on. We had we had one or two
questions that might be worth getting to.
Let me let me track those down real quick.
So Patrick noted it's one game inevitably quote, don't want to
show too much, but thought run blocking was pop promising
thought pass protection was concerning and the work deep
ball incomplete data. There's there's something to be
said for that. But Patrick, I guess I'll go
back to what I was saying a little bit earlier.
A lot of it I think is I'm I'm choosing, at least for the
moment to say, let's not show too much of the playbook and
also let's work on short and intermediate stuff.
The pass protection does need to get better.
And I think that that's that's going to be an interesting thing
to see. I do think that in a game like
this where the pass protection isn't working, but the run
blocking is working so well, I think they probably just run the
ball even more. Like IU almost look like they
put themselves in a position where they were going to be
likely to lose yardage because they wanted to see if they could
run certain plays. I think if they were actually
trying to gain maximum yardage on every play in this game, the
play calling likely would have been different.
But it's still something that needs to get fixed as we move
forward that that's going to be an interesting thing to watch.
I agree with Patrick on the the I'm happy mentioned the pass.
The pass blocking was rough, like the pocket was never really
clean for Rourke. I mean, the the positive side is
work looks like he's able to move around the pocket very
well. He kind of he he doesn't get
stuck in a spot. He also has kind of a great up
and under move to get out of out of sacks.
Like he had four or five where he just kind of like just dips
down low and then comes back up and gets out of a sack.
But he he was, it was a very, very not clean pocket for F for
a team against FIU that you I'd like to see that cleaned up a
little bit. Yeah, no, it's there's so many
little things that are going to have to be fixed, but you'd
rather be in this position to fix them.
And that's really where I think we're at with everything.
Yeah, and I was wrong. That was the only questions we
had. Everything else was about
tailgating and we've already talked about that.
So did you have, did you tailgate a bit before the game
did? And so we.
Came down and we we do not do what nothing close to what you
do. We are in the the Mack of
tailgating or we're not ready to go to the big, big time
conferences. I'm not no, we, we it was great,
though, a couple of teachers that my wife teaches with also,
we realized we're kind of close by.
So we had probably about like 7 to 10 people kind of hanging out
around ours. It was fun.
We had can jam set up, had a couple friends walk by say hi
and the kids brought some chalk. It was awesome.
My my son took a huge thing and just said IU tailgate, just come
in and chill. So he's the he's writing letting
people know where to come in. It was great.
We had we had a really good time.
I had some dogs and brats. I mean we are definitely doing
the small scale just, you know, bag chips, not generic.
We went with the some some really good BBQ.
Oh God, the place out of Pittsburgh wise wise chips
really good. I'm not.
Familiar with those? They're good, but not, not
generic. And then also the the hint of
lime Tostitos I'm a big fan of. So no, we had a really good
time. It was fun.
We had a, you know, the people are like we're going to come
back. And so I think, I think we we're
starting to get our little tailgate crew together as well.
So we had a great time. That's great.
Well, we're looking forward to more of course, coming up this
week, a Friday game for IU of a Friday evening kick, which I
know is a huge. I will say this, I'm curious
from your perspective, first of all, since you come from the
north side of Indianapolis, how was the transit yesterday like?
What was the process like? The the the opening of I-69 and
465 was awesome. Like it, it saved a ton of time.
My my one thing to anybody with N dot who's listening, you have
a huge ceremony. It's been, I don't know, 50 plus
years. I've been hearing about 69
connecting to Indy and you know, three years of getting this last
section figured out and they had a huge ribbon cutting ceremony.
So I'm I'm excited. Like we turned the music down
like, all right, kids, like we're all I had not driven it
yet. Like super excited.
We get there. It's like 2 lane exit, but of
course one lane has cones on it. It's already in one lane shut
down. It's like I've been waiting
three years from this. Like if you're going to open it,
just open it like open the whole thing.
If it's not ready to be open, then just don't open it yet.
Like why is one lane already closed on this exit?
So it was like jammed up and there was a little bit of a
backup getting off. But that said, it made, you
know, from my house up here in Westfield, once I got on
Meridian, there was not a stoplight or a stop until I got
to Bloomington, which was just awesome.
So it shaved, you know, from up here in Westfield, I plug it
into Waze, it's like an hour and 9 minutes to Memorial Stadium
from my house. So it, it shaved a good 3035
minutes off the route. Getting out wasn't bad.
We left with probably about like 4 minutes to go in the game.
So we miss in and I think the stadium was kind of clearing
organically as this as the game went along.
So there wasn't a big traffic. We'll see about how it is
getting out. But you know, getting out again,
you just get on 69, you're good to go.
So no, the, the drive for anybody up here who's been
thrown off by the traffic or the construction on I-69, it is done
and you, you are, you're free to go and you're doing 80 miles an
hour all the way down. And it is.
It's awesome. Yeah, it's I, I thought overall,
I mean, I got there so early and I, you know, we, we ended up
leaving with the with the kids got horrifically sunburned.
That was the one, the one downside to yesterday was I
didn't just didn't think about, hey, the clouds are out.
Typical Indiana stuff, right? Like, I have no idea.
It's that very, very Indy 500 kind of thing.
So we left a little bit early. But yeah, the the set up at
least in Bloomington was, was good.
But I was curious how your experience and those of the
experience of people leaving were like, because you're going
to deal with that on Friday, obviously coming down for the
game and then trying to get out. So I'll be curious to see how it
is there. But but good, good to see at
least most of an open in the Interstate between not here in
Indianapolis and long overdue after what, 5 decades of this or
whatever. Yeah.
I. Mean it's been 10 years of
actual construction and then another 40 years of talking
about it. It's nice to finally have it
done and the the exit out is in. I mean, they're they're going to
take some time getting that that work rate figure out, but it's
it's open. It's nice.
Anyway, we will have coming up later this week, we'll have some
content related to IU taking on Western Illinois, a game that
will mean a lot for the season in terms of they win that game
and they will be 33% to bowl eligibility.
And I mean, no, it's true. It's true over numbers.
That's a real number. But also just a way for this
team to continue to improve itself and a way to get AI
think, a clearer handle on who we can count on in this season
and who's going to go out there and give effort regardless of
the level of the opponent like does Indiana.
Is this a team that ends up having a trouble with taking
their foot off the gas? There's a little bit of an
implication of that from Signeta yesterday when it came to like
the way his team approached the end of the first half and then
most of the second-half and this whole idea of you got to play
and learn how to play with the lead.
They're going to have the lead a lot against Western Illinois.
We'll see what they do with it there.
We'll see how they're able to improve as, as we know, you only
get one more week of this and then you're in conference play
and you're on the road. So a lot to learn in a short
period of time. On the road game, you and I are
both going to be there. Our schedule might get a little
bit jacked up that week because that is a, it's a, it's a long
trip. But I will also say talking to a
lot of people before the game, couple during the game, you
know, there, there's excitement about that UCLA game and you
know, a couple people I know are going a lot of people I talked
to that I told them I was going like, damn, I wish I could go.
Like I was really looking at it like I, I, I think the energy is
real. And I continue to say I think
the turn out there is going to be is going to exceed
expectations as the Indiana crowd in in Pasadena.
But I just, it's, that'll be a really, really interesting first
Test. But the, the interest around
this, you know, two years ago, you, I don't think you got
anybody to fly to California to see IU football.
Now most people I talk to, they're either going or they're
really bummed they're not. Yeah, it's, it should be fun.
And I mean, I keep hearing there's going to be a ton of
people out there, but we've got we'll talk more about that the
following week. But it is not.
It is interesting to think about how much is going to happen with
IU football over the next 4 weeks with with. 12 days.
Yeah, I know. So anyway, that'll wrap it up
for us. We appreciate you folks joining.
We appreciate the folks at Home Field Apparel for sponsoring and
we will be back later on in this week.
You'll be able to catch Crimson cast preview shows throughout
the course of the week. Also be sure to check out bite
sized bison and the entire back home network for Scott.
I'm Galen, this is Crimson Cast. We'll catch you folks.
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