You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home
Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cast,
GAIL and Clavio joining you here along with Scott Caulfield.
I think this time I'm here. Can you hear me?
All right, we got it. We had some technical issues and
had to abort the first recording of this, but fortunately,
Scott's back. We're back and IU football is
back once again. Five and O on the season,
knocking off the Maryland Terrapins on this past Saturday
in what was one of the more fun, if not the most fun experiences
that I can remember having at Memorial Stadium in my lifetime.
Scott, I don't know how you felt about it, but it was a
rollicking time in the in the mist, in the rain as the
Hoosiers knock off the Terrapins go to five and overall and two
and O in conference play. Scott, first of all, good to see
you. Happy weekend.
How are you doing? I'm doing awesome.
I echo a lot of your comments. This is going to be a a fun
podcast for those people who have been fans of Indiana
football, fans of our coverage of the.
The football program, I think this is going to be a fun
podcast because we're in a good place.
There seems to be a lot of blue skies ahead.
It's good times, man. It's really good times.
Let's dive into things. But first, let's remind you that
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fashions, the softest fabrics, the coolest designs.
And Scott, I couldn't help but think while I was standing out
in the rain yesterday, man, one of those waterproof coaches
jackets would have really been handy.
I I was not quick enough when I was ordering.
At the first go around. So I'm hoping that there's some
more coming relatively soon. But I'm also like if Connor's
listening like it's time to like whatever, whatever box you kept
the nine win Indiana shirts in, like break that box out like
it's time to you can take those off the clearance rack and put
those on the new like high price rack, like 9 win Indiana is it's
it's possible and like we need to get some shirts around it.
I something tells me that he knows exactly where that box is.
I'm just just saying. But anyway, check out home field
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I got a nice text message the other day about some IU stuff
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Also a reminder folks that we are sponsored by the official
craft beer of IU Athletics. Who's your game day Lager
brought to you by Upland Brewing Company.
Had a few of those at the game yesterday and it was a nice
compliment to watching IU go out there and gradually put a
chokehold on the Maryland Terrapins.
Who's your game day logger? A delightfully balanced Vienna
style logger. A lot more flavor and balance
than what you'll get in a lot of those adjunct loggers that are
served on other taps, or cans for that matter.
You can get Who's Your Game Day Logger all across Memorial
Stadium, anywhere you buy alcohol within central and
southern Indiana, as well as Upland's many locations
throughout central and southern Indiana.
Again Who's Your Game Day logger in the iconic candy stripe can
make sure to pick up a six pack for your next football viewing
adventure. Please remember to drink
responsibly. Again, Who's Your Game Day
Logger from Upland Brewing Company.
And with our next game being a road game, I was at Upland on
Friday. I highly recommend the Pig and
the Fig. It's a great like burger with a
nice like fig spread on it. I go, I asked the arugula
because that's the way I roll. But with our next Rd. game, you
know, Saturday being a game, 3:30 at Northwestern.
If you're not going up there, go to one of their locations.
They have a great one here in Clay Terrace in Westfield and
like enjoy the Hoosier game day logger with a little bit of food
watching the game with your closest friends at Upland.
How can you remove the arugulo you're you're like a.
I'm not a rabbit, it's just. It's just not adding it.
It's like. Arugulo is amazing.
I I refuse to stand by for Arugulo.
Is great on a burger or a sandwich, but like.
Come on, man, Arugula's got soul.
Come on. It's.
That soul. But it doesn't taste good on a
burger. Amazing.
It tastes amazing on a burger actually.
Sounds like little sticks and straws like it's too much.
Now it's. Amazing on pizza as well, but
we'll we'll get back to that that's.
That's a that's a heresy. Well, maybe.
Maybe I'm buying generic arugula.
I don't think Upland has it. But maybe because you hate
generic chips. Maybe I need artisan version
Artisan. Arugula you you.
And arugula tailgate. See who shows up.
That's Scott and I's off the books indie band, an artist and
arugula dude. Great band name playing at the
hi-fi this weekend in Indianapolis.
Anyway, Also, just a reminder folks, we're on Substack.
Hit us up at crimsoncast.substack.com.
It's free to sign up. You get our podcast delivered
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All right, Scott, let's dive right into it as Indiana with
another decisive victory in the Big 10.
I could get used to this. I really, really could.
The Hoosiers, 42 to 28 victors over the Maryland Terrapins.
We went into this game and it almost went exactly the opposite
of how I thought it might go. Because before the game, I'm
thinking, well, you know, I think Indiana is the superior
team, not by an immense margin, but enough that, you know, I was
comfortable with the seven point spread.
And I thought, well, this is an IU team.
It's probably going to come out and really establish themselves
early, get an early lead, not dissimilar to what happened in
the UCLA game. And then, you know, maybe
there's a little fighting back by Maryland later on it.
It almost went the exact opposite of that where neither
team could get a foothold in this game.
It was really back and forth for almost the entire first half and
really even into the first part of the second-half.
But Indiana, despite shooting itself in the foot on multiple
occasions, really put their stamp on the game in the
second-half and went from a 2121 tie game to a 4228 victory over
the span of basically the last quarter and 1/2.
The defense really deserves most of the plaudits for keeping
Indiana in this game early on as the offense continued to make
mistakes. But then the offense really got
into a stride as we went into that second-half.
And you know, you look at the statistics afterwards and you
say to yourself, well, this look like another really dominant
performance from Indiana in terms of offense.
And yet it didn't feel like Indiana was a dominant offensive
team until the very end of the game.
Essentially, one of those games where Indiana acted with a
maturity and an unflappability that I am just simply not used
to seeing out of IU football team.
Scott, what were your initial impressions of how this game
went? He.
Had to not start off well. I mean, here the high level take
away for me is this. We had four turnovers in the
game. Our first six drives were
included, three turnovers, 2 interceptions, back back-to-back
interceptions. We had a fumble and two punts
and one touchdown in our first six drives.
Maryland had that one big. They had a one play 75 yard
touchdown. Dr. They had that one big play.
That always seems to happen against us.
A lot of the breaks went toward Maryland.
You know, in that play, unfortunately, a referee got
bumped into an IU player, which kind of helped open the hole.
That's a bummer. They had that play in the end
zone. Great catch.
Like the a tip ball, the tight end like tipped it back to
himself, caught it. The point is all of those
waffles fired up. That dog freaking out.
Hold on. On my door, Grayson, open this
is this is. There you go.
Now close the door. That's awesome.
All right, that's my son. Sorry, it's it's Crimson cast.
He's there listening to the script.
All those things happened and we still won by 14, which is
unbelievable. Like in any other hiss any other
game that we've had, even the good seasons that we've had
those kinds of things happen in games where it's like, well, you
know, we we would have this podcast by gold Galen.
Things are going well, but this was like about as bad as, you
know, everything small systems failure.
You're going to chalk it up to just, hey, man, that was a bad
day for everybody. Not only did we win by 14, we
never trailed like we, I was thinking this in the third
quarter, like we never really relinquished control of the
steering wheel. Like I think we went up 28 to 21
and then Maryland immediately had that 20 that that 75 yard
touchdown. But you know, other seasons,
like we would have like gone 3 and out and had Maryland kick a
field goal. It's like you lose, then
suddenly you're like, now you're coming from behind it.
By the way, we've never trailed the season like just think about
that. But it to me that's the high
level take away is felt like we could have won by 21 or 28.
We still won by 14 against a good Maryland team and we didn't
play even close to our best. But we we were able to make
adjustments, make changes. But through all of that, again,
it's like we just never lost our grip on the steering wheel.
And this is something that I'm going to mention many times in
this podcast. There's something different
here. Like it's just there is
something different here. You can feel it in the game, in
the stands, the way this team plays, like you can see in the
numbers, you can see in the winds.
But even just kind of somebody who's watched football for 30
years, watched IU football for 30 plus years, you know, it's
something is changing for the positive.
Yeah, it absolutely feels like there's just a different aura
around this team when it's on the field and that you know, it,
it really is starting to get into the crowd.
I I think there was clearly a a hesitancy on the part of some
people to get too excited during the Charlotte game or even show
up for the Charlotte game because it was just perceived as
a lesser opponent. And look, I was a little upset
at the beginning with the crowd yesterday because it wasn't as
full as I would have liked to have seen it.
But by the time everything filled in and the students got
all the way in there, which took about until the five minute mark
of the first quarter, that was a really nice crowd.
And the way that the crowd responded to the team was
indicative of the difference in vibe and the difference in aura.
You know, there's this flow right now where this you keep
waiting. If you're an IU fan that's been
watching football for a while, you keep waiting for that other
shoe to drop. You keep waiting for the bottom
to fall out and for IU to to panic.
It looked at the beginning. I mean, those two interceptions
that Curtis worked through, the first one I didn't think was
that big of a deal. I think it was just a mystery.
The second one was just a bad throw.
And I was right in line with it. And we're looking around and
like, oh God, here we go. But, you know, not just the
defense responding and essentially rising to the
occasion while the offense sorted itself out and while
Rourke got himself back to to where he needed to be, but also
the offense not getting so down on itself that it starts making
silly mistakes, which has always been what's happened with IU
football. Like even in the good years,
when things start to go wrong, it's like the whole thing just
starts to fall apart. And I think we talked about this
a little bit after the UCLA game as well.
But it feels like Signeti and Brian Haynes and Mike Shanahan
and Tina Ciceri, like this whole group has instilled this level
of calm and perspective in the way that team operates where
they just don't freak out. And look, there are programs
that do that on a regular basis and have for years.
It's not, it's not necessarily a Unicorn kind of thing, but it
does feel so unusual, given how up and down IU football's been
for as long as we can remember, to have this type of a game
start the way that it did, go the way that it did, and have IU
come away not just with a victory, but with a decisive
victory. I think that like a 99% post
game win percentage that is. It's rarefied air for IU
football in general. It feels like an undiscovered
country for this program at this point.
It's something you and I have been talking about all season
because we're lifelong IU football fans.
We have that history of like, we're waiting.
We keep saying, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the
anvil to fall. Like, all right, here's the
moment where we fall apart. And, you know, thinking about
this in the drive home from the game, they were talking about,
you know, just the the influx of JMU players.
And it got me thinking, it's not the best comp because these
teams both won titles. But like, you think of the the
early 2000s Red Sox, they had, you know, those teams had so
much built up and a lot of those teams, you know, the the Boston
fan base would get so, you know, pressured, pressured, pressured.
And obviously there were good teams, but it's like you had
just a bunch of guys like Kevin Millar and Johnny Damon who just
didn't care. It's like there's dudes who just
go out there and play. And you know, Manny Ramirez is
like an ultimate, just like he didn't get the pressure because
he was just afheim didn't know where he was playing.
You think of the Cubs, like there's a ton of pressure on the
Cubs. And then you get this team of
like, you know, Rizzo and just a bunch of guys were like, hey,
man, like, who cares? Like you have a very kind of
unconventional manager and you know, this can happen.
You can have a bunch of people come in and I'm thinking of the
JMU players and just the change of culture where it's like it,
it just they don't buy into that old IU.
Here comes the anvil. And it's like they're so just
from a different mindset and don't, it doesn't even phase
them and doesn't even pick up on it.
And, you know, maybe it's just the guys like you and me who are
just the ones thinking of it and the, the the team and the
students are just like, Hey, we've only been here for 18
months. Like, I don't know what you're
talking about this team sucking. It's like, you know, four years
ago we were ranked in the top 10 should be.
And so I, I was thinking about those, the Red Sox and the Cubs
as kind of somewhat, you know, analogs of this where it's just,
you get a bunch of guys who are just like, hey, man, we're not
even going to engage in that nonsense.
Right. Well, look, a lot of it is
program mindset, and we've talked a lot about how, you
know, Kevin Wilson's teams often times like they were great play
designs. It was a really intelligent
approach from a coaching perspective in terms of straight
X's and O's. But that team really seemed to
struggle with consistency. And a lot of that felt like it
could be attributed to leadership in the way that the
way that the team was coached and managed Allen's teams when
they accomplished great things, there was generally a lot of
emotion involved, except for that 2019 season when the entire
Alabama coaching staff was in charge.
And, and, and you could see there, it's like, wow, there's
some great tactical stuff, but you think about like.
We also had a top ten quarterback, NFL quarterback,
yeah. We're part of the season, yes.
But you know, but the point is like, you know, those, it's wild
to think about. Yeah, those approaches, you
know, I think both of those approaches were limited.
And I'll note that, like IU and what they're doing right now,
they're doing it with a talent level that is probably less than
either of those teams had in terms of like recruiting
rankings and things like that. And you mentioned all the JMU
transfers, but it's also all of these kind of mid tier transfers
from Power 5 schools. I'm just fascinated again week
after week and I think even more so after this game, about how
this coaching staff has managed to bring all of these different
folks together, get them on the same page and have them not
panic when things don't go their way 'cause it includes players
that were on the team last year for Indiana who did tend to
panic when things didn't go their way.
That that's. The guys to pick different roles
like he of Donovan McCauley, I think played one snap that the
entire game and he called a touchdown and he looks super.
I mean, obviously everyone's happy when they score a
touchdown, but it's like getting guys to play their roles where
Donovan McAuley was a big pick up this offseason and could have
come in this year with like, hey, man, you needed me.
Like I was getting big offers like this ain't good enough.
We're not there day-to-day. But he he had one play, seemed
very happy to have his like, knew his role.
And that is the sign of a very functional football team where
you have guys playing different roles and maybe what they
thought, but being very, you know, playing them at a very
high level and being happy to play those roles.
Yeah, I mean, I just keep coming back to the turnover mark and,
and how impressive it was. I mean, Matt Blaska, who's, you
know, an extended member of the Crimson cast mod family, noted.
I've watched a lot of bad football in my life.
I can't recall A-Team being -4 in turnovers and never really
feeling like they were in danger of losing.
And, and it really did feel that way.
I mean, there were moments where you expected maybe it would go
downhill just based upon history, but then Indiana would
go back out and almost immediately correct course and
figure out a way to bring things back to a where it at least it
looked neutral in. What something we've talked
about in this podcast ad nauseam for years is it always felt like
IU has had this problem where they would get one side of the
ball humming. It's like, all right, we got
offense going and then defense would just completely crap out.
And it's like they get the defense set up and then offense
would go 3 and out, three and out or fumble or punt.
You know, it was noted a lot in the post game on all four of
those turnovers, Maryland went three and out and the one they
didn't, they went four and out. Like our defense immediately
locked in and stepped up when they had to.
And it's like they're working together, which is really nice
to see. And obviously you love a three
and out every single time. That's not going to obviously
happen every single game in the Big 10.
But you can see it's like, all right, they ratcheted up.
It's like, all right, we know that, hey, we got to pick up the
other side and now is the time we got to do that and it it
didn't in previous years, that doesn't happen.
Like that's where both sides kind of system failure.
That was really nice to see. Like all right, man, our offense
is not doing well. Our defense is going to really
lock in and three and out and get you another shot at it.
I think to me as I look back on the game, there were a bunch of
really key sequences in the game.
But to me the the the key sequence happens, you know, so
you know, Indiana takes the 14 to 7 lead at halftime.
Those are really, really important drive where, you know,
Indiana 3 plays, 63 yards and you know, essentially they, they
jump start their offense to the point where they're able to go
out and take a 14-7 lead. And it was kind of perfectly set
up, I think for IU to be able to go in and the coaches could say,
well, look, we're leading, but we played about as bad as we
could play. And then you look at the
sequence that happens as they come out of halftime, Maryland
gets their best drive of the whole game, A10 play, 75 yard
drive. They look like they just carved
right through the IU defense. They tie it up at 14th.
Indiana comes back, seven play, 75 yard drive, takes 2 minutes
and 21 seconds. Now they're back up by 7.
Then Maryland has the the play where they get the block from
the umpire on the very next drive.
One play, 75 yards, 10 seconds, it's 2121.
And you're just kind of like, uh oh.
Maryland looks like it's going to be able to match Indiana
punch for punch in the second-half.
But then. This next sequence is what I'm
getting at Indiana. I think I'd forgotten this.
They go out and they 3 and out on the next drive, 3 plays, 4
yards, they have to punt. But then the defense comes out
and they 3 and out Maryland. Now, some of that had to do
with, you know, there was even an offsides there like, you
know, Indiana had a a self-inflicted penalty, but
they're able to force Maryland and do a mistake.
They have to punt Indiana. Three and out with negative. 5
yards, Yeah. So then Indiana comes back out.
Nine play, 63 yards, touchdown. Then Maryland down 7, three and
out. They have to punt.
Indiana 5 play, 65 yards, touchdown.
Maryland 12 place, 45 yards, Turnover on downs.
Even with Indiana fumbling on the next drive as they're
driving in, they're able to again force Maryland out on
downs on the next drive and by. And then they score a touchdown
and the game is essentially over at 42 to 21.
That sequence right there. Like it's almost like Indiana
was like lying in wait, waiting for everything to kind of
consolidate at the same time and at the same point.
And suddenly both the offense and defense are playing their
best ball at the same time in the game, you know, and
Maryland, I think, deserves a lot of credit.
That was the best defense Indiana has played so far.
That was an aggressive, physical defense.
They made it very difficult for Indiana to run, and it showed in
Indiana's post game EPA on the running side.
But Indiana did a nice job of essentially taking what Maryland
gave them. And once they settled down
offensively, figuring out how to take advantage in the passing
game and on the defensive side, the aggression with which
Indiana was playing defense and the way they made it difficult
on most drives, not every single one, but on most drives for
Maryland to do what they wanted to do was just really
impressive. And and again, there's just like
a resiliency with this team and the way that they approach
things that I think is encapsulated in that sequence
there in the third quarter heading over into the fourth
quarter. You know, it's one thing to do
that early in the game. That's what they did against
UCLA. To do that, that late in the
game in a, in not ideal weather conditions against an opponent
that has looked more or less equal to you in most phases
throughout the course of the game up to that point, that's
really special. Scott Like I I have a real hard
time remembering a lot of games where Indiana did something like
that over the course of a third and fourth quarter against a
team like Maryland. Yeah, well, I preparing for
this, I also wrote down my key sequence and that was it.
So I'm going to I'm going to let you just let that not going to
try and step on perfection. So I completely agree with you,
but I, I, I will say this that, you know, you're right.
It happened a little earlier in the UCLA game, but it kind of
happened based on UCLA just not being ready.
Like it's just, it's 14. Nothing in that UCLA game before
you know it. But as we talked about, you
know, after half time again, third quarter, it's when UCLA
scored that touchdown and it wasn't as tight.
This was a tied game. But IU did the same thing in
that UCLA game where, you know, they, they score, they hold UCLA
to two long drives like, you know, field goal, field goal, IU
score, score. And then it's like it's
completely blown up, blown out. And this is kind of becoming the
MO of this team, which is awesome of like we're going to
play at a certain level, but then almost be like a a cobra
that'll strike. And like at some point we are
going to just constrict on defense and come at you on
offense. And like there's going to be
this 8 minute stretch where we're going to just take win the
game. And they did it in the UCLA game
twice and they did it in this Maryland game in that in that
sequence you just talked about. And it is really special to be
like, you know, there there was that moment when Maryland got
that long score to make it 21 all where I'm like, man, like
this is going to be a nail biter.
Like it's going to be fun. But I just, it's going to be.
And then at the end of the game, I'm like, wow, we're like, we
have 5 minutes to go. We have this thing in the bag.
Like it's just how quickly you go from 1:00 to the other is, is
really amazing. But it's also, I think a
testament to just what this the mentality and the psyche of this
team where they don't get too high and they definitely don't
get too low. You know, you have to give it up
to the offense and Curtis Rourke, they started out awful
and they just did. And and Rourke was still kind of
missing guys throughout the game.
Like he did not have a good game, but he he turned it.
What he did have was a great game and that he was able to
realize like, all right, and it's still not over.
Like I don't need to freak out. And they were able to pull
things together. And what I thought was really
cool was they didn't just abandoned the pass.
You know, Rourke wasn't having a great day through two
interceptions. Some other coaches might be
like, we just got to run the ball, like, all right, we're
just done throwing. It's like they didn't do that.
And they didn't even stop throwing long.
Like they they really were just like, hey, this is our game
plan. And it felt like he just told
Rourke, like, you're good, like we're still going to run it.
You're fine. And it it it's also amazing, I
think of that Donovan McCauley play.
You know, you mentioned how there were great play designs in
the Wilson era. There's some great play designs
here because like there are guys wide open all.
Over the field, a lot of times it's unbelievable how open
they're able to get guys with these play calls.
Taylor Lehman from Bite Sized Bison sent me a.
You you said it first. You win the you win the bet this
week. He, he sent me a a little note
earlier this morning. Indiana owns the top four wide
receivers in EPA per target in the whole conference.
That is a combination of great play calling, great play design
and also just having some dudes. I mean, one of the things that
I've found so amazing, you mentioned Mccully, who, you
know, one catch for a touchdown, you'll take that.
Mccully's almost become like a a luxury item that you use in
particular situations and you think about like it's it's such
a, a diverse and talented wide receiver room.
But there's two that are clearly separating themselves from the
pack right now. One of them is Elijah Serrat,
and the other one is Omar Cooper Junior.
You know, both of those guys are just such fascinating receivers.
You know, Serrat is just a, it's hard to explain because he's
fast, but he's also he's he's sizable.
You know, he's a guy who you feel comfortable with running a
pattern on because he can get open, he can move in the open
field. Omar Cooper's really coming into
his own. But to be able to have Mccully
out there, to be able to have Miles Price or Miles Cross, you
know, you get all these different change ups with these
different players. Deshawn Wilson would also like
I'm sorry, Williams, like absolutely, you know, so it's
the the idea of. This team is well disciplined,
but they also have great play calling and even and I think
defense the same thing like what you're seeing on defense, the
amount of penetration that IU was able to get against
Maryland. You, you think about it and it's
like the, the one touchdown that Maryland scored in the first
half was entirely just the product of a mistake by Indiana
because prior to that they had Maryland at like what, 2nd and
31 or something like that because of all of the pressure
that they were getting. That, you know, the, the big
question mark and the big concern most people have is the
secondary at this point with IU, but having a front seven that
can put the kind of pressure on that this Indiana team is able
to. I like the fact that that is a
possibility that you can move forward on.
And what I mean by that is like IU is probably not at the point
yet where you can say, Hey, they're going to be great in all
phases of the defense. And certainly, I think there's
going to be teams that are really, really focus on the
passing game to try to take advantage of some of the
potential problems that Indiana might have in the secondary.
But realistically speaking, Indiana's ability to get
pressure to bottle up the run, you know, these are things that
are likely to travel really well over the course of the season.
And I'm just really impressed with, again, how this coaching
staff has been able to not just use the talent that they've got
effectively, but also the overall design that they've had.
And most of the the game planning they've had against all
of their opponents so far has been very, very difficult for
their opponents to deal with. You know, Scott, somebody noted
this in the post game and I forget who it was.
Like Indiana so far this season, like the team that's held them
on offense to the fewest points is FIU.
And that was the first game of the season.
It was a game where Indiana was clearly not showing a lot of
their hand, but was also trying to figure out some rhythm
things. And I, yeah, I think we came out
of that FIU game thinking, well, that's not going to be good
enough. This season.
They have gotten progressively better.
I think if you factor in competition level every game in
terms of how they're running plays on on offense and the way
that their defense has been able to move around and figure out
how to find angles for penetration to try to both
disrupt the passing game and the running game.
It's just a really exciting Stew of things that we've seen so
far. And if you were waiting or if
you were thinking, well, gosh, they just haven't played against
very good competition. You can't say Maryland wasn't
good competition. I mean, Maryland was, I think
top 35 or Top 40 in S&P plus coming in.
Yes, this was a home game, but that's a that's a Maryland team
that is, is got a lot of talent. Is, is a team that, you know, I,
I as much talk about Tango Vailoa leaving and Billy Edwards
coming in as quarterback. He looked like a really good
quarterback for them. I think they're going to have a
lot of success with him and I think that that's a a Maryland
team that'll spring an upset or two down the stretch this
season. Indiana doing what they did
against that Maryland team and pulling away like that, it's
really a testament to the scouting and the longevity that
the game plan has for Indiana right now.
And I think that's something that travels as well as you go
through the rest of the schedule for IU.
So the first thing is I know Taylor listens to the podcast
Taylor sent send me some info Monday morning before the pod,
like just you're feeding GAIL and all this great stuff like
Hook, hook a brother up like once every three.
I expect something Taylor calling you out, bro.
I expect some kind of great nugget.
Whatever, whatever he puts on the table.
I'll I'll match an added dollar. OK, just just to let you know,
I'm gonna add upland wheat. I'm gonna add 1 upland cream and
Crimson wheat and maybe a an unmarked home field promo code.
No, the the two things I will say like on the defensive side,
you are right. The secondary, it is something
that has to be and we're not gonna become a top, you know, 1
defense in the Big 10 overnight. But you're right about the
pressure in that. In previous years, our secondary
was a problem, but we also couldn't pressure the
quarterback. So then the quarterback just had
all the day and all the time in the world to then pick apart
that secondary. I think it's, you know, the fact
that we're able to pressure the quarterback the way that we are
and that frontline is doing as well as it is.
That kind of helps some of the secondary.
And you know, this is where you have to give the coaching staff
credit. You know, they probably
understand that like, all right, we've got to focus more on
schemes that provide more pressure because we know our
secondary can't, you know, cover as well as we want.
So that's where we got to put that pressure to the offensive
side. What, what kind of I thought
about on the on the way home as well was, you know, what the
first couple of games you and I were talking about the rushing
and how good the rushing attack is.
And we kept saying, you know, it looks like this team is is
holding a lot of things back. And they are.
But they like, you know, we, we had 359 passing yards in the
game against Maryland, 151 rushing yards.
You know, when they needed plays, they definitely went to
the pass. But GAIL and this is still a
rushing offense after five games that is averaging 5.2 yards a a
a rush every single time they do a rushing play.
It's it's still like it in a weird way.
You still have this great running game kind of on the back
and we saw it against UCLA. It's obviously what other teams
are scouting because they came in trying to to all out stop the
run and we're able to carve them up from with the passing.
And as you know, guys are getting wide open.
It makes you wonder as you go along this season, this is kind
of into the, you know, we're we're playing chess now.
Are are other teams going to start stopping trying to stop
the passing game, which will open our run back up?
And that's something where it's like, I don't think I've ever
even in our best days, remembered an IU team where it's
like we have both things humming even in the 2020 seasons.
Like, all right, this is this is a lot on Pennex.
Like there's a lot of it, you know, play calling on Pennex
here, you know, in the in the Wilson area, it was like a lot
on the run. It was all Tevin Coleman and run
guys. I don't ever remember a team
where it's like if they start stopping the pass, we have a
really good running attack. If they start stopping the run,
we have a really good passing attack.
It it it, it's Galen. It's amazing.
We're here where we were nine months.
It is unbelievable that we're here where we where we were nine
months ago. Looking at some of the the
standout statistical performers, you know, as much as Curtis Work
got a little bit of criticism for two interceptions early on,
still finished 22 at 33359 yards, 3 touchdowns.
I mean, it's just like, that's wild.
It really is. You know, Indiana with again,
this, this running back broom, this 3 headed beast that they
have. It was Tyson Lawton's day in
terms of the yardage. 19 carries, 93 yards.
Justice Ellison 12 carries, 51 yards.
Both of those guys have a touchdown and then you look at
the receiving room, we mentioned Sarat 7 catches, 128 yards and a
touchdown. Omar Cooper Junior, 4 catches,
83 yards and a touchdown. And even some great individual
moments that, you know, maybe there weren't huge statistical
outlays, but we mentioned the Donovan Mccully touchdown.
That kind of sealed things for IU.
Zac Horton with an incredible catch on the goal line.
But you know, Horton did so much great work with is blocking
throughout the course of the game is run blocking.
We talked about that last week. Like he is really, really
impressive in terms of his ability to contribute in both
phases of the game. Another game where Aiden Fisher
leads the team in tackles, 12 tackles, five of those solo.
D Angelo Pons coming back playing a full game after being
suspended for the first half against Charlotte, 10 tackles,
seven of those solo. You know, just again, a a
rotating collection of the defense going in there and
performing when they need to. It was really exciting watching
Indiana go ahead. What?
Special teams punt block. Yeah, I was going to.
That was exactly where I was going, like it was no, no, it's
fine. Like it was, it was exciting
seeing Indiana special teams having to do something for a
change. You know, they didn't have to
kick a field goal in this game, but James Evans, 4 punts, 47
yard per per punt average, including a 58 yard long punt
and two punts inside the 20. And then of course, you
mentioned the punt block and really Indiana was pretty good
in the return game as well. I mean, Miles Price had three
punt returns. That was, you know, the old 10.7
average on those. You'll take that most of the
time. Again, just a really, really
good collective effort by this Indiana team.
And, you know, look, ultimately they, you know, they got a
little bit fortunate in that they, you know, there were
problems with Ty Felton. I think he went out with a
concussion or something like that earlier on in the game.
He only ended up with five catches for 38 yards to say
only. But they really contained him
well and they kept Maryland from kind of breaking out.
In general. They they hold Maryland to 3.7
yards per rush. Maryland deserves a lot of
credit because they held Indiana to 3.6 yards per rush.
But the difference is Indiana scored three times on the ground
and whereas Maryland only was able to go for 289 yards passing
with 11 yards per attempt, Indy, sorry, 11 yards per completion,
sorry, Indiana, 359 yards through the passing game, 16.3
yards per completion and three touchdowns.
So, you know, looking at the numbers and looking at the
statistics, it's really amazing. I mean, Curtis Rourke is, is
clearly the person who is the the key to the offense in terms
of the distributions. But the fact that the supporting
cast both keeps rotating in, in terms of who's making
contributions. But also you're starting to see
some patterns settle in where Sarat and Cooper are the go to
kind of lead receivers. But you've got these other
receivers that Rourke's been able to sprinkle in the fact
that the running backroom seems so democratically oriented in
that they are the contributions are coming from all over the
place. It just feels like Indiana's in
a really good spot right now in terms of having come together
and figured out how they're supposed to perform as a team.
And it you mentioned like the the blue sky aspects when we
talked last week about this middle portion of the schedule,
Maryland, Northwestern, Nebraska, Washington, Michigan
State. And I guess maybe you could
throw Michigan in now given their statistical performances.
They only win by three at home versus Minnesota yesterday.
Like all of these games, all all all of them.
Now all the remainders. Indiana is favored at least via
FPI, which means they'll be almost certainly favored on the
betting line. And when you think about the
fact that we looked at the the statistical analysis and it said
Maryland was probably going to be the toughest game out of
those games to win this decisively and to feel like you
probably should have won by, you know, you should have put 55 or
60 points up on the board. Signetti even mentioned that in
his post game comments. You know, you're not trying to
get greedy, but it's like Indiana underperformed in terms
of execution, overperformed in terms of statistical analysis,
Probably should have won by more.
As much as we try to hold ourselves back, Scott, it really
is one of those things where you're looking at this team and
looking the road in front. If they can execute at this
level, if they can maintain this consistency, the sky does really
feel like it's kind of the limit for this IU team.
And that just, it feels like I'm going to get punished for saying
that by some cosmic force. But it does.
It does feel like the trajectory is about as positive as it could
be at this point. Like, I don't know how Indiana
would have played this first five games any better than what
they've played them up to this point.
Agreed on all of that. You know, I'll, I'll kind of
just continue on that same theme.
You know, this game started in kind of the way that I I used to
joke. It's like this is how I would
when I was playing the you know, I don't do it as much.
But when I was younger playing NCAA Football, it's like this
would be the start where it's just like I'm restarting the
game, like I'm just turning off the play, turn off my
PlayStation, taking the disc out, putting it back in and just
like we're restarting. That's just that was the
computer wanting me to lose. That's the way this game
started. And to your point, you know,
when you look forward, you know, the other games, you're playing
a road game at Northwestern, which is a very funky stadium.
It's not a traditionally tough Rd. environment.
The other Rd. game is at Michigan State after they're
going to have gone through a brutal stretch.
I think they play like two or three more.
Like they could be on A5 game losing streak where that's a
tough place to play. But they could just have all of
their soul ripped out by that point.
And then the other three games are at home, Nebraska,
Washington and Michigan. And you know, again, this is
also this is probably the worst weather you could assume for a
game like this. And so, you know, the crowds
will be this will have an even better home field advantage for
those three future games than you had here.
Everything was conspiring for Indiana to lose this game.
And it's not just that we could have won by more.
We played bad. I mean, we just didn't play
great for, I don't say long stretches, but for stretches of
this game. And we still won by 14.
Galen it's it's it's wild. And I'm I'm with you like it is
the idea of 10 and O going into that Michigan game.
It it's almost. Heresy to say as a pot, like I'm
just waiting for us to be like shut down as a podcast.
I mean, well, no, your broadcasting board actually shut
down on you before we started the podcast, so maybe we've
already seen this. I just need to know.
Yeah, like Spotify is like doing the transcript.
It's like I you 1010 and O like like that's not, but it's it's
like they any other team would look at this and just be like
that makes like that's the way it should go and that's the way
it it's going to go. It's it's wild.
Here's the thing, I am so tired of not enjoying my football team
because of some feeling like I'm not supposed to be able to, or
that I'm supposed to get like an anvil supposed to drop on my
head while I'm walking down the sidewalk.
It's it's OK to just be giddy. If you look around the country,
football team fan bases do not constrain themselves when their
teams are playing well. You apologize afterwards.
You act braggadocious while it's happening.
It's OK. We can do that as a group.
Let's work on this together. Let's work on just being
ridiculously optimistic. I'm, it's funny, like even after
the game yesterday, there were still people that were making
comments on social media like, well, I've seen stuff like this
before. And it's like, well, first of
all, no, you have not. You have not seen Indiana play
at this level before. You have, I'm sorry.
Even if you were alive for 67, Indiana was not this dominant in
1967 through their first five games.
You have, you have not seen these performances by an Indiana
football team before. And I understand the idea that
it could all fall apart. We almost saw it fall apart in
the first half versus Maryland, but it it it's OK to be
irrationally optimistic about your college football team.
Indiana right now is one of the best stories in college
football. They're getting some of the best
performances from a variety of players in college football, not
just their quarterback, not just their star on defense, but their
wide receivers. The offensive line play has been
understatedly really, really good all season.
Indiana over the last four games has scored a a ridiculous number
of points. You know, I cannot emphasize
this enough. Indiana on the season has scored
31774252 and 42 points. Those are, as you would often
say, Scott, those are video game numbers.
Those are things that we have not seen Indiana do to start a
season and and their game. I think we scored more
touchdowns than every other team except for Texas.
And I'll note Indiana in the five games they played has
allowed seven points, three points, 13 points, 14 points and
28 points in a rainstorm. Essentially.
It wasn't really a rainstorm, but it rained old game after
their offense gave up four turnovers.
They only allowed 28 points in a game against a live Big 10 team
that's probably going to go to a bowl game at the end of the
season. So it's OK to be optimistic.
It's OK to be having fun with this.
And I understand where people are hesitant to do so.
But I would say just we may never get a season like this in
in the next 20 years. Like sometimes things just
cosmically happen and and things come together.
And one of the comments I keep seeing from people who are not
IU fans is like, wow, you guys seem to have caught lightning in
a bottle. And that is exactly how it feels
to me. It feels like it.
It's different than even 2019, which was, you know, a great
season by any stretch of the imagination.
It was a season where I felt like a bunch of things came
together. That came together pretty slow.
It really wasn't until the end of October that you felt like
Indiana had really come together as a team.
It feels like they've come together as a team right now.
It feels like they're not satisfied even with the good
performances they put in. Just embrace this.
These feelings don't come around that often and they don't often
last. Like sometimes you only get
these feelings for a month, but it ending at some point is not a
valid excuse for not feeling the feelings in the first place.
I'm going to quote you on on X, I'm just going to read this out
because it's it's it was perfect.
This is Galen. That was probably one of the
most fun IU football games I've ever attended.
The weather, the vibe, the way the team played, the crowd
getting further and further into it as the game went along.
Just perfect. I like I just want to end the
pod on that. Like that was it's, it's so well
said. I stayed for the my my wife, my
two kids. We we were there, stayed for the
entire game. And I completely agree with you
for those who were there and there was I mean a lot of people
were there. A lot of people stayed.
I said it multiple times and I, I keep like, if you were there,
it's like, First off, I think we all like experience something
very cool. But also it's like I kept
telling my wife, like it feels like something is changing like
this just feels different. Like the way the team is
playing, the way the crowd is reacting.
I do have a thought on the crowd, but the way the crowd is
reacting, the way the students started chanting, like, you
know, we took like, who's your daddy?
It's like, all right, like we'll take that, we'll own it like and
throw it back on you. I'm like, that's great.
Like the, the students were electric.
Like if they were fired up, the, the all the rest of the fans
were fired up. I mean, it was loud.
People who were there stayed and you, you just like, it's like
this is like being forged in the fire almost.
And I, I just, I, I walked away from that.
Being like this feels way different.
You know, we're, we're walking out of Memorial Stadium.
People are singing the fight song and you're chanting IU.
And it's like this something just nobody lived through 2020.
Unfortunately, nobody was there. So we didn't get to see that.
We all kind of did that obviously do that virtually.
2019, like you said, was a fun season.
I never felt like things are systematically changing on like
this just feels so different and if you were there, I I think
it's hard to walk away being like that felt like every other
IU normal win like there was something really different in
that win. The way the students are are
galvanizing around this, that the letter Signetti sent to the
students both the night before and the day after, like I, I
echo everything you said and I will just come back to like
something is changing and something is really happening
here. Does that mean we're going to
become the best team ever? No.
Does that mean we're going to be undefeated?
No. But like it, it feels like this
is the change we've been looking for for.
Years, but that was a unbelievable football
experience. It was awesome.
Yeah, I I got a little teary eyed towards the end of it a
couple of times, which sounds goofy, but it's true.
I mean, it was like the after the Mccully touchdown where you
knew the game was essentially over and, and just the, the,
the, the loudness of the crowd and the joy in the stadium and
the fun that people were having. It just was like, this is what
you've always wanted Memorial Stadium to feel like.
And it's been very rare that it's felt that way even in big
wins. You know, I mean, everybody
always points back to the Michigan game in 1987, that game
in the rain where Indiana wins 14 to 10.
And that was certainly, whether you were there or whether you've
watched that game on television, like that was a really special
moment. Clearly, there haven't been a
whole lot of games like that in Memorial Stadium where Indiana
played a game that mattered. The people knew mattered.
That was really important to the program, building towards
something where Indiana played well for the, you know, for the
majority of the game and then came away with the victory.
And the crowd was just really fully into it.
You know, I've gone back and looked at prior games.
I mean, most of most of the games that I can remember having
the most joy watching with Indiana have been games that
were really close. You know, I mean the Wisconsin
game last week last year, that was a that was a fun game.
Indiana won. It was great to beat Wisconsin,
you know, but it was a game that was really touch and go and it
was like you had to, you got to the middle of fourth quarter
like what they might pull this off.
That's not the feeling that I'm talking about in the stadium.
This was a stadium where as you got through that first quarter,
like a lot of IU crowds would have gotten backed off of their
marks because of the way that the game was going.
It was almost like it went the opposite direction.
It was largely because like. Started like helping him out and
yeah. But it was also the way the
defense got the, the crowds fired up.
And it's the way that the players after making big plays,
were running into the end zone and kind of pumping the crowd
up, particularly the students section.
That moment at the end of the game where the teams come
together as the, the, the, the gun goes off and the, and the,
and the, the players start running over to the students and
start, you know, jumping up in front of them.
Like that's the kind of organic building that you're talking
about where you get people invested.
And we talked about this for so long, Scott, like the, the, the,
as much as I've been a critic of certain aspects of the IU fan
base with football, I've also said over and over again in the
whole 1516 years we've been doing this podcast, it is not
particularly fair to expect fans to show up in a vacuum and be
loud and excited. You have to give them reasons to
be supportive. You have to give them an
emotional bond. It's what made IU basketball on
the men's side so successful for so long because you would go to
Assembly Hall and there would be special moments that would
happen even if the overall season didn't necessarily go the
way that you wanted it to at the end.
Often times, though, it did. It's what's made Indiana women's
basketball so successful and so popular among so many people
because you go watch Indiana women's basketball and they
deliver more often than not, especially at home.
This is the kind of game, the kind of performance, the kind of
emotion that causes people to say, wow, that was incredible
fun. That was something that I want
to get more emotionally invested in.
That is what is going to help build a culture around IU
football. It's not slogans.
It's not marketing approaches. It's not, oh, we hired this guy,
so therefore you have to go out doesn't support him.
It's games like this and performances like this and
experiences like this that make people say, I cannot wait to go
back to a Memorial Stadium and cheer this team on again.
And that was probably that was what may be the most emotional
because like for those students, you know, and the young alumni,
like the number of people who after the game said something
along the lines of I've never experienced anything like that
before without you football. Now you have.
And you know, what's exciting to me is that that this team's
poised and positioned to be able to provide that on more than one
occasion down the line, especially in this month of
October. You've got two immense games.
You know, you got this Northwestern game, obviously,
but that's a road game. It's a little bit of a different
circumstance, but you've got two immense games coming up on the
home schedule in the middle of October.
Weather's going to be perfect and that the the what Indiana
was able to build out of this Maryland game, if that can
connect to the Nebraska game and then connect to the Washington
game, that's where this season could go to a truly special
level. I am fascinated to see not just
how it goes on the team side, but how the fans continue to
react to what this team is doing.
Agreed, My card stop. Agreed All that the the one
thing that I was thinking about that is needed.
This is where it's great with IE football because so much of the
culture is a blank slate. You know, we went to the Rose
Bowl game we did between the third and fourth quarter.
They play California by Tupac and they do some cool stuff with
the lights, like it's a cool feature.
You go to Assembly Hall, there is, you know, obviously the flag
time out, the under 8 flag timeout.
Not that you go there for that, but it's like, you know, you
have something in the second-half to kind of as a fan
to kind of, you know, a fun little thing to, you know,
Easter egg. You know, Wisconsin has jump
around by House of pain. You know, we tried the flags for
a while at the Memorial Stadium between the 3rd and the fourth
quarter. You know, this this year, it's
like I I they're they're playing.
We Will Rock you by queen with like a picture of hip rocks.
Like there's a moment there like you now had like that's a that's
a spot where now that people are staying and are going to stay
like you have a good moment there to do something.
And it was kind of funny because like we started the fourth
quarter. The fans like, you know,
everyone does this. The four.
The fans are kind of like whoa, like getting fired, like we got
it like fourth quarter. And then it's just like, all
right, here's Queen, We Will Rock you.
It's like the the the kind of cheering.
Like there's a moment there like there's some, I don't know what
it is, but we could do something there that becomes a signature,
something to be done there. And it's not.
I mean, We Will Rock you by Queen.
Well, look, I think. These things grow organically.
You know, we we see these things in other stadiums and they've
they've evolved over time. And I think there's some trial
and error involved in it. It's it's tough to do like, you
know, we're we're watching the Alabama Georgia game last night
or you're watching it was the IT was the other game.
It was the Penn State game. And it's like it's hard to do
the cool light thing with the sound at noon.
You know, we kind of get screwed by the kickoff time.
Like I would love to see, I would love to see this team
playing a prime time game in Memorial Stadium at some point
just to happen this year. Maybe we'll come back to that in
a second. But I will say you're you're
skipping what has weirdly has been consistently like the best
tradition in Memorial Stadium, which is the students singing
don't stop believin. You know which what you know,
it's almost taking a different turn now from a a meaning
perspective. Maybe we're building something
off of journey. I'm not entirely certain, but I
I was sitting next to my buddy Dave, who came down from
Chicagoland for the game. He had a great time by the way.
He thought the atmosphere was electric, but he was really
taken aback at how everybody in the stadium knew all the lyrics
to that song. I'm like, yeah, I know.
It's it's kind of inexplicable. I'm not sure if you can build
around that song as an anthem, but we'll have to see what
happens. There's other little seeds,
though. And I agree with you in general.
Like Indiana is just kind of learning how to crawl.
But it's like it's a blank canvas.
It's a great, it's like huge blank canvas that you could do
something with. So I hope something grows in
that space, yeah. It, it was just so much fun and
you know, for those who couldn't make it for one reason or
another, hopefully you can make it for the Nebraska game.
And dude, moving the students has been like an A+ move.
It is it really? Be more engaged, more like
they're, they're coming up with more chance.
They are louder. I mean, I was on the other side
of the we had some unique seat. We had some, we were on the, on
the on the field, which was very cool on the opposite side, but
you could hear them on the other side.
It was loud or we're normally very close to you.
And they're they're loud, but like that, that's been a great
move for the stadium. Yeah.
That that reorg, as much as people were were dissatisfied
with it on social media. It's turned that end of the
stadium, which is also where my seats are into so much fun.
And then and that enclosed. And I mean, there's the students
are really into it. I don't know.
I mean, students are an easy target.
People have been blaming students for things, you know,
since time immemorial with IU athletics when, you know, really
the finger should be pointed at alums and and casuals.
But man, the students were way into this game and it was
really, really fun watching them getting up over and over again
and cheering this team on. And I think having them with the
band is a really nice touch. Like having them kind of
surround the band. That's made a big difference as
well. Yeah, there's there are the
seeds of of a really cool stadium atmosphere starting to
really be planted at IU. And unlike 2021 where, you know,
there was this big runway into that season and really the two
games that mattered, the Cincinnati game and the Michigan
State game, Indiana just didn't deliver.
Now Indiana has delivered in a game where everybody was there
and, or at least most of the people, certainly all the
students were there. You can build off of that and
and you'll have to continue to deliver, but that doesn't
necessarily mean you have to win every one of those games.
People want good experiences. People want meaningful football
and they want Indiana to play good in meaningful football
games. And it feels like Indiana is
armed to be able to do that at this point.
And that is really exciting to be able to say.
Agreed and not we don't want to go down this don't just not down
the rabbit hole, but a quick moment of saying, you know, now
it's always like, you know, which comes first, you know, the
fans or the team, Like the the team has done everything they
need to do. Both Nebraska and Washington
should be sellouts like just hard stop.
I mean all Michigan should be too.
And Purdue like there's the rest of the games and the schedule
should be complete sellouts and 100% full like it's just there.
There is no other reason why it should be that way.
You're being named opponents. They're all big games.
You're playing for something. You know, if you win this
weekend, all of them, you're not just playing for a bowl.
You're playing for what, walking out with my, my son James, who's
still like understanding and it's like he's I'm like, so if
we win next week, like we'll be eligible for a bowl and like
he's like, so then and like that means that like after that we're
just getting better bowls as we win games.
And he's like, so that normally it's like, normally it works
that way. Like I've never been in that
situation. Normally we're just like
squeaking in and like, dude, can we just get in Detroit and call
it a bowl? It's just wild to think, you
know, beginning of end of September, we could be getting
bowl eligible. It's it's wild, Galen.
It is wild. As we think about a couple of
other things here, I know I'm the the bowl eligibility thing
is just nuts to think about and the fact that next week they
play Northwestern at Northwestern 3:30 Eastern kick
on Big 10 Network and they could be bowl eligible on October 5th.
I think it is. I mean, I believe other than 67
doesn't count really because bowl eligibility worked much
differently back then. This would functionally, I
believe, be the earliest that IU has been bowl eligible in a
realistic manner in its entire history.
And that's important to keep in mind that like prior to about
1984, there just weren't that many bowls.
So I have, I know you're asking, I have the the tickets left if
you want that and those numbers. Yeah.
So anyway, being if if Indiana wins that, we're going to come
back and talk about the Northwestern game in just a
second. But if Indiana wins the the
Northwestern game, they get a buy they go to the Nebraska game
for homecoming week. What what is the ticket
situation look like for Memorial Stadium in Indiana?
So. For a total shout out to Tony
Adrani who came up with this great formula.
Like just people are awesome. There are 7100 tickets left for
the Nebraska game, 8900 tickets left for Washington, 5500 left
for for Michigan, and 8700 left for Purdue.
I think 600 tickets were sold yesterday for Nebraska or today.
I'm not sure what today is like, if it's yesterday or today
thing, but so 7000, there's still two weeks left.
I, I feel like we can get that cleared out in the amount of
time, but you know that that's still a good number of tickets
for 7000. Let's get those sold now.
Yeah, I'd say both. I mean, the the Washington game,
you know, I think that'll be mostly IU fans.
There aren't going to be a whole lot of Washington fans, but
Nebraska fans will travel. Yeah.
And and this is where I do think it's important if you're
listening to this, you know, buy some tickets for that game.
Let's get majority or, or almost exclusively Indiana people in
the stadium. You know, I think that the, the
idea that you're going to get invasions of other fans is still
a thing because I think IU fans are still, you know, if you're,
if you weren't jumping on buying tickets right away, like the the
Michigan game, for instance, there is only 5500 tickets
remaining, whereas there's 9000 essentially remaining for
Washington and 7100 left for Nebraska.
So that should give you a little bit of a sense of what you're
looking at. But this is where IU fans like
this is we, we said it before, we said it going into this week.
This is a team worth buying tickets to go see it go, go take
advantage of the opportunity. And you know the if I don't know
what else they need to do at this point to earn a day.
And yes, I know we get we've had complaints and I understand the
complaints about issues with parking or issues with
concessions. I'll say this like get there a
little early. I have not seen a lot of issues
with the parking and concessions at all this year.
Concessions for me have actually been in my area 'cause I'm over
in like Section 11, Section 12. That old setup is great.
There's a lot of room, there's a lot of places to go.
It's a much different experience than it has been in previous
years. And parking wise, I mean there,
there's a lot of it is people I think waiting too late to try to
get down there and then things kind of get scrambled.
That's not to to downgrade the issues that some people have
had, but I do think that if you give yourself a little extra
time, the the fun before the game is actually been really
good. Like that whole atmosphere.
I think IU athletics has done a really good job of putting
things together that have made it a fun place to go and
experience in the hour or two before the game.
It's probably worth, you know, taking advantage of that to get
yourself into position earlier. I would echo everything you
said. I would say anybody who's saying
that you that, you know, I would say, have you been to a game
this year? Because I, because I will say my
experience this year has been drastically different than the I
I've had season tickets since 2008.
And I used to go obviously when I lived in Bloomington from like
85 to 2000. This is the best experience I've
had at Memorial Stadium in all of those years.
And I mentioned to you yesterday, you know, we had a
soccer game up here. It got cancelled late.
And then of course, the two kids were running out of the house
late. We didn't get to Bloomington
until like 1110. I was not, not, I was very
nervous what we were going to get to a little bit of traffic
on the bypass getting in, but it moved quickly.
We were parked by 11/22. Had time to walk around the
stadium, kind of talk to a bumped into a bunch of friends
and then, you know, just my reptilian brain is like we
should probably leave with like 3 minutes to go because I'm just
like, I don't want to get caught in traffic out here.
We park right in like lot 8 or 8 or 9, but like we're right there
next to the to the Mellencamp practice facility.
It's always tough getting out of there.
So we stayed my and again, credit to my wife, who's
probably way the better half of our relationship.
She's like, no, like we're staying to the effing end.
And I'm like, you're right, you're right, you're right,
you're right, you're right. But we stayed had a great time
and then we get out and it's like I got out in like 10
minutes. Like within 12 minutes I was on
I-69, which is like this is I text you like this is
unbelievable. Like we left the stadium I think
at 422. I was at my house at 5, like 40.
It was banana. Scott.
When Scott texted me, I thought he needed me to come like change
a tire for him or something, you know?
There's no way you're actually home.
Yeah. And people coming from Indy like
the, you know, the 69 thing is just it's a it's once you get
out, it's unbelievable. But normally it's like would
take an hour to get a Memorial Stadium.
That's not the case now. Maybe they just maybe there was
enough people, a perfect amount of flow yesterday, but there's
still a lot of people. There's like 35,000 there when
the game ended. So all I can say is if, if
you're basing and same thing with concessions, they have the
quick, you know that the lines you get water, beer, hot dogs,
you can scan out real quick. You know, if, if you're hearing,
Oh, it's still tough, the traffic stuff to get out.
Like I would say, have you been to a game this year?
Because I've been to all of them and are all but one.
And I've had the best experience in parking, in food, in the, the
enjoyment. So like again, I go back to
things are changing and they're all changing for the better.
Yeah, it's, it is a much better experience.
And I think and even like the, the, the, the video board show
in the stadium, it's a lot more in line with what you would
expect to see at a, at a power 5 or Power 4 conference team.
The, the whole experience has been upgraded significantly.
So if you're on the fence about coming down because of bad past
experiences, I, I had a similar experience.
Scott and I live in Bloomington, so it's not that long of a
drive, but we didn't, we didn't leave.
We waited till all the players came off the field.
My, my daughter was standing down there like, you know,
waving at the players and stuff like that.
We took our time walking back to lot 12 and the, the, the, the
departure was very simple. Like it was not like we were
stuck in traffic for long at all.
We were out on to, to feed lane very quickly and got home in a
very reasonable amount of time. So that would be the message, I
guess like let's, let's get people buying tickets and coming
down here. I don't know what else you're
waiting for at this point would be my, my primary message to
people. So, Scott, we mentioned the the
Northwestern game coming up this upcoming week and I mentioned
earlier, 3:30 PM Eastern Northwestern is is not very good
this year. This is a Northwestern team that
if you were paying attention in the offseason, you know,
Northwestern's one of those teams where they just have these
random seasons where everything goes right.
Not not too dissimilar to what Indiana has dealt with last
year. You know, for a season that
started as bad as it could for them with Pat Fitzgerald getting
fired before the season started. They ended up 8:00 and 5:00.
They won a bowl game like they, they had no business doing that.
Given that, you know, they barely, they, they only scored
22 points a game. If you were paying attention,
you're like, this might be a regression candidate.
And wow, have they looked like it so far this year. 2 and 2.
They had a bye this week, but they they lost 24 to five at
Washington. They lost 26 to 20 at home to
Duke. Duke's a decent team, but
they're only averaging 17 points a game.
They've only allowed fifteen points a game, which they get
some credit for, but they have the probably statistically at
least, the worst quarterback in the Big 10.
Jack Lausch, only a 48% completion percentage.
He's got the lowest EPA per play of any team, of any quarterback
of any team in the conference. This looks like on paper a game
where Indiana is going to be a prohibitive statistical
favorite. They're already a betting
favorite that opened at 11 1/2. I can't remember the last time
Indiana was a double digit favorite in a road conference
game. Scott, I mean, do you have a
recollection of this? I certainly do not.
But obviously a game that's going to be played in a unique
circumstance in that lakefront stadium that they're playing in
for temporary purposes while they renovate Ryan Field.
And again, it's one of those games where Northwestern, as bad
as they have often been on offense, they tend to cause the
other team to make mistakes. You know, they tend to not make
a tremendous amount of mistakes themselves.
You wonder, you know, with a with a week off to study a lot
of film, Northwestern's not a team that's got a tremendous
amount of talent, but they're also not complete pushovers.
They wouldn't have gone 8:00 and 5:00 last year if they were.
You feel really confident about Indiana in this game.
But it's also a game where, you know, Indiana can't take it for
granted. And I think that that is the
message that certainly the coaching staff will be pushing
across to these folks. The last time Indiana won in
Evanston was 1993. They're oh, and eight since
then. And you know, this is a place
and it's a different stadium, mind you, as as my doctor
pointed out on on Twitter, like there are no ghosts of old
lacrosse players under the lacrosse field that Indiana's
going to be playing on. But I do think it's worth
noting, like this has been a weirdly hard team to beat on the
road for Indiana. All the stuff is lined up in a
positive way right now for Indiana in this game, But
Indiana just needs to make sure they take the game seriously
from beginning to end. I'm a lot more confident in
their ability to do that under this coaching staff than I would
have been in other seasons. So for all of your friends out
there who are giving you crap about Indiana's schedule, I
would just say this that you know, the Big 10 let us out of
the Big 10 E, which is nice. But to start the the meet of the
Big 10 schedule, we play Maryland.
They're coming off a bye, we play Northwestern, they're
coming off a bye, we play Nebraska, they're coming off a
bye, we play Washington. But yes, most we are too in the
Nebraska game. Yeah, but then we play
Washington and they're coming off a bye.
That's five week, 4 weeks in a row the team we're playing is
coming off a bye. That seems a little bit unfair
that everyone just gets two weeks to prepare for us during
the meet of our schedule. But I guess that's the way I
guess it's like, all right, you don't get everything I you we're
not going to give you. But anyway, that that sucks.
But I you know, I'm going to go back to what you said, like it's
OK to be a little bit fun and cocky.
We're a better team than Northwestern.
It's fun pulling up their schedule and looking at their
attendance. It's like 12,011 thousand,
10,000, like they're trending in the wrong direction.
They only had 10,600 of their last game.
It's a temporary stadium. There's not going to be a lot of
fans there. You know, when Northwestern
basketball was bad, that kind of became Assembly Hall.
NA, lot of IU alums in the Chicago area.
I could see a lot of IU fans there and you know, again, being
a little bit confident with what we have.
I I think this was the perfect way to win the Maryland game is
you won the game. You won kind of handily, but you
made enough mistakes where it's not like signetti and the staff
is going to have a tough week getting the guys focus.
It's like, hey, Curtis Rourke, you had a good game.
Remember the two picks you threw back-to-back plays?
All right, let's lock in, let's quit.
I just you you kind of had that perfect blend of like more than
enough mistake. Hey, defense think you guys are
big. You know, tough shit.
Remember the one play 75 yard drive.
All right, let's let's lock in like.
And I think that the way that this team has played and the
seriousness which with which with this team has kind of taken
these games lends me to believe I don't think they're going to
take games off. They're going to forget about
who they're playing. And does make me very confident
that, you know, we joked about for UCLA, but it's like this is
a business trip. That's the way Signeti
approaches these things. He doesn't look like the kind of
coach who's suddenly going to be like, all right, man, let's have
a party. Like we're going to go in there
and just who cares? Like I think he's really focused
on winning all of the games, which I know is what coaches are
supposed. But it's like I I think this is
what he wants to do. And it doesn't seem like he has
a let's party and have a good time Switch.
It seems like, all right, we'll take 12 hours.
Enjoy this win. I'm going to write my letter to
the students. And now we're focused on
Northwestern. Like I even saw, and I'm sure
most teams do this, but I even saw that the post of IU football
had a picture of, you know, Affleck as the players were
going to the student section. They had already changed the
imagery toward the locker room. That's like next game's
Northwestern. Like so the minute they're
coming off the field, it's like, all right, we're focused on
Northwestern. So this team and this staff has
given you nothing to think that they're not going to come in
prepared and ready to play against Northwestern.
And if they do that, like they should win and they should win
by probably 10 to 14 because they are a much better team than
Northwestern. I think you said it perfectly.
I agree and my if I'm if I'm hesitant at all it is simply
because weird stuff sometimes happens in Rd. games in college
football period. But this game is set up really
well for Indiana. Like, I don't know that Indiana
could be at a higher, you know, emotional or mental state.
They really do like they look like they're coming together and
winning this game. Really.
It completely fundamentally changes the way you think about
the remaining part of the schedule because, dude, to be
able to play this game and and look, and we keep saying this
and you keep knocking on wood, Indiana comes out of yet another
game without seeming to have suffered any like sizable
injuries. And also, and I think, you know,
especially in light of the UNLV thing, you're now in Game 5,
which means that you you know, if if anybody was going to jump
ship because they wanted to red shirt and then be in the portal,
that's done as well. So it looks like Indiana's got
their full Yeah, people they. Like six guys.
Do that. But it's like they were they
were not, they were not major players, correct.
So it does feel like Indiana has come out of this first part of
the schedule intact. And, you know, now they go into
an October where they play three games and then they have a
November where they play 4. And, you know, to be 5 and O at
this point and to be in the position that they're in right
now, you could, as I said earlier, I don't know what
Indiana could have done better than they've done over these
first five games. You can only play the schedule
that's in front of you. I don't think anybody expected
UCLA to be this bad. UCLA lost to Oregon at home last
night. I'll note that Oregon beat them
by a smaller margin than Indiana beat them by might be, might be
meaningful. But to beat Maryland the way
that they did this past week and now to be able to play
Northwestern and have that be one of your that you've got 3
Rd. games left in the whole season.
And that was another question. You have two.
It's wild. It's nuts to think about.
But Indiana over the course of the last six games, four of them
are going to be at home. You know, you, you couldn't set
the table better for Indiana moving forward and that is
really exciting. So we'll have more talk
throughout the course of the week.
The last thing I wanted to hit on you.
You. Had a night game, you said come
back to it. I mean, here's the thing, like,
you know, Nebraska did our we were joking significantly in the
stands as the scores kept popping up in the first half.
And it's like, how is it scoreless between Nebraska and
Purdue at half? Like, like God, I, I, I'm glad
Nebraska came back and won that because they have a fascinating
game. This upcoming week, they host
Rutgers. Rutgers pulls off the win
against Washington this past week.
How well Rutgers travels, I don't know.
I expect Nebraska to win because it'll be a home game, but I love
I love I'm getting a little back into social media in areas I
love the meme of like the Andy Dufresne and the.
Rams, where it's like Indiana and Rutgers out of the Big 10 E,
it's like. But, you know, but I mean, that
becomes a good win for Nebraska if they can beat Rutgers at
home, a A6 and O Indiana team and A5 in one Nebraska team.
Like that seems like a 730 kick. That that seems like the kind of
game that they would put 'cause I mean, a lot of it really
depends on, well, what are the other games that you're going up
against in a given week? And if you go to, you know, that
would be Week 8 and you look at the other games that would be in
line in the Big 10, you've got Michigan at Illinois.
That will probably be the the premier game.
I'm imagining that might end up be like being like the 330 kick
in that game or that that week. But you look down the rest of of
the lineup that week for the Big 10 and you know, you got
Nebraska and Indiana, you've got who else is playing that week.
It's it's kind of a weird week in college football in general.
Like, it's Georgia, Texas, which should be a really good game.
Alabama, Tennessee, Miami at Louisville, Auburn at Missouri,
TCU at Utah, USC at Maryland. I don't know if that's really
that marquee of a game other than the fact that USC is
playing, you know, that maybe becomes a 730 kick.
That would be the one thing that might hold Indiana back from
being able to play in that kind of a game.
But I do think Nebraska with the huge television audience that it
has, especially if they are ranked again by that point and
Indiana's ranked, that would be the advantage it would have over
USC, Maryland in that Maryland is almost certainly not going to
be ranked. UCLA plays at Rutgers.
I don't think UCLA has been good enough to warrant, you know,
being on that late. And you got Wisconsin at
Northwestern and Iowa and Michigan State are are the other
two games in the Big 10 that week.
It's like Nebraska, Indiana's like probably like the best game
or maybe the second best game in that line up that week.
What about the Indiana Michigan game?
Does that get bumped? Hold on, I wanted to do
Washington IN next 'cause I think that cause Nebraska, Ohio
State is the premier game of the following week, but that has big
Noon kick written all over it, no question.
As far as I'm concerned there Penn State at, at Wisconsin,
Illinois, Oregon, Washington and Indiana, it feels like Indiana,
Washington's going to be kind of 4th in that line.
So that really feels that's but, but again, because you're
playing a West Coast opponent, that's probably not a noon kick.
That's probably a 330 kick, which is great.
I love 330 kicks, especially when we get to this time of
year. Now when you flip forward to the
Michigan game, I'm pretty sure that's not a prime time game.
I'm pretty sure that's a big noon kick that week.
I, I, you know, when I look at the, because it's, again, it's
like Purdue at Ohio State. I think Michigan and Indiana by
that point is going to be a bigger game and I think a.
Question about that game. I really got to ask you.
There's a like it's no longer fever dream.
We're getting into like, you know, the, the, the, the
thermometers in the in the orange, not the red.
If we're 10 and O going into that game, are we ranked higher
than Michigan Well? So Michigan's an interesting
case right now because I mean, they won this week and and they
get credit for winning this week, but man, they they just
don't look right offensively. And I mean, they're, they're
taking pride and like we won despite only throwing for 85
yards a game. Like eventually that will not
work. You guys were champions last
year. Just don't forget that.
And I think what's what's low key fascinating about that
Michigan game is so they've won. They beat Southern Cal at home
2724. They beat or sorry, USCI know
they hate it when I say Southern Cal.
I apologize to to our our West Coast listeners.
They're in the Big 10 now they can deal with.
It they're they beat Minnesota 2724 again at home.
Their next 5 games are at Washington, then a bye, then at
Illinois, then Michigan State at home, then Oregon at home and
then Indiana on the road. That is, that is a like in this
Big 10 this season, that is, you know, four really tough games,
they lose 1 or. Two of those and we go 10 and O.
Right. We should be ranked ahead of
them. You maybe, maybe.
And I think and right now if you look at FPI, which again is just
a statistical projection of things, it's it's you know, we
and the ESPN uses it, if you go on their schedule page to look
at, you know, what the match up numbers would be right now.
Right now with Michigan at 4:00 and 1:00, Indiana is a 68.1%
favorite according to FPI to beat Michigan at home.
I mean, so yeah, I this is where it's like, I don't want to get
myself emotionally 2 down that pathway, but it is really
fascinating the way all of that like shapes up.
And I do agree, like if if the projection simply that the
computers are throwing out there.
Hold up, Indiana could be Tenano in that game and and I think
they would be not just favored, but probably ranked ahead of
Michigan. I will say this, if the one
thing about the fever dream stuff that would just be a
little cautious about is that game at Michigan State is not a
game that should be slept on or taken lightly.
And I feel like a lot of people are right now.
And, and look, I've I've been as guilty of this as anybody in
terms of overlooking that game. Overlooking the Northwestern
game to some degree, quarterback has something he's he's
electric, he's young. I think they have a good coach.
Like I think they're a year away from being a really good team.
But those are teams that normally when they're a year
away, it means they have a couple of games where in the
season before it's like, oh, you could see the highlights like
they they are. Well coached and have a really
good young quarterback. Yeah.
So anyway, my, my point is like, don't get too far out over your
skis, just in general fans, but get somewhat over you see, like
be optimistic. And again, I earlier I just
tried to people for not just enjoying it.
So I'm clearly talking out of both sides of my mouth here.
But but I in terms of like rankings, we're the right
amount, the game amount. Well, my point is more like
don't don't assume like Indiana's going to be in the top
10. But I do think that just on the
numbers and the way the statistics are trending, Indiana
does, they're playing better and the computers are evaluating
them better than Michigan is right now.
And you can say the same about Northwestern.
You can say the same about about Nebraska.
You can say the same about Washington.
Like a lot of what we're seeing out of Indiana so far, just it's
not a mirage. And I think the people that
thought, oh, it's a mirage because of the competition, now
you've got live competition. They just beat, you know, a top
six quarterback in the Big 10 and a team that is going to be
right on the borderline of 6/7 wins probably this year.
If you're still questioning that.
The one thing I'll continue to say is outside of Ohio State,
who Indiana does have to play, unfortunately, and Oregon, who
Indiana does not have to play. I think all of the other teams
in the Big 10 right now are essentially on the same level or
slightly lower than what Indiana is.
I mean, if you go down the list, like, I don't think, I don't
think Penn State is that good. I think they deserve a lot of
credit for the way that they beat Illinois yesterday.
But I don't think that they are like head and shoulders better
than everybody else. Washington's got issues,
Nebraska's got issues. Illinois's pretty good, but
they're clearly not invincible, as we saw yesterday.
We just watched Indiana beat Maryland.
Rutgers is still a bit flawed. USC, Michigan State, Wisconsin,
I mean, that Michigan, that's the group that you're talking
about there. And I think the way Indiana's
playing is as good as any of those teams.
And that's why I don't think that the 10 and O or 11 and one
talk on the season is out of the realm of possibility.
It's not, it's not fever dreams. It's not the Scott fever dream
room. We need like a lounge or
something for that like. A lounge.
The lounge is better than the room.
Yeah, Room. Sounds, yeah, but but it it's
really boring out of just performance so far.
And at this point, if you're going to say that other teams
are going to continue to perform based upon what they've done
statistically up to this point in the season, you got to say
the same about Indiana. In Scott's Fever Dream Lounge,
we only serve, you know, artisanal arugula, just so you
know, like that's all we have there in the room is just this,
this little buskets arugula. Last question for you.
Given the timeline we're in right now, do you think we will
get ranked this week? Yeah.
I do, and by the time this pod hits, we may already be ranked.
I know Brett Mcmurphy, who didn't have Indiana ranked last
week, had Indiana 24th. I think Indiana will land about
24th, maybe 23rd, which is fine. You know, And it's funny because
on the one hand, you can say, well, rankings don't matter.
They do matter to Indiana. It's happened so infrequently.
It is recognition on a national stage, which helps recruiting.
It helps fans be excited. It helps alumni be excited.
It helps students get excited. It helps the team feel like
they're really accomplishing something.
I mean, I do. We talk so much about
confidence. We talk so much about how
important feeling like you belong is to football teams.
For IU to be able to go into a game and say we are a ranked
team, it doesn't mean that they're necessarily going to
play better, but I do think that it helps boost the morale of the
team and saying all this hard work is paying off and we're
getting recognized nationally for it.
And that does matter. I think in the big scheme of
things, rankings don't matter to teams who get ranked all the
time. Indiana does not get ranked all
the time. So I I think it happens this
week. I, I, I would agree.
I, I kind of have enjoyed not being ranked, just kind of being
quietly, you know, coming up on people.
But I, I think it, it would be a very flawed system if we don't
get ranked at this point, especially like so many of the
teams now have one loss. And it's like you get to a point
where after 567, you know, we're at 5.
It's like, all right, there's, there's two conference
opponents. Like at some point you just got
to stop the schedule talk. It's like we just, we're winning
games and, you know, Illinois has a loss.
And it's like, at some point wins are more important than
losses, no matter whether that you talk about strength of
schedule. So I don't see any reason why,
you know, Illinois should be out and we should at least be in
that spot. The last thing I'll say before
we finish this was from Taylor earlier on of the FP More.
More info you're getting. No, no, this was publicly
tweeted. You could have accessed this
too, but I gave you I gave you 80 minutes and you didn't bring
it up. So I have no sympathy for you,
Sir. Indiana in the FPI, the the
power ranking that ESPN does, the computer based one, LSU
jumped them. So they're up to 16th or down to
16th. I guess Indiana is, but Indiana
is now projected to win 10 games.
They have 100% chance to win six games.
We're, I love how we just, people just brush that off like
what, what, what planet have we landed on?
They have an 8.3% chance to reach the Big 10 or to win the
Big 10 championship in the regular season.
They have a 39.6% chance at being in the College Football
Playoff, which is essentially a 40% chance.
Wild. It's wild to think about.
And a 2.9% chance to reach the national championship.
Now, I'm not I'm not counting that.
Yeah, that's probably probably. But but again, it's like if you
finish eleven and one and your one losses to Ohio State, it, it
is a really fascinating like, you know, pathway to walk down.
It's like, are you a favorite to get into the College Football
Playoff now since it's 12 teams? It's just, it's almost I don't
even know how to approach that topic.
It's like it's like jumping from learning how to start a fire to
quantum physics for IU football. I I I don't even know how to
calculate. And then again, it part of it's
like we've I haven't had a 12 team playoff before.
We have no clue what it's functionally going to look like.
But if Indiana keeps winning, they end up being as wild as it
is in that conversation. And I don't know how that plays
out. I don't think anybody really
knows how like strength, the schedule's going to get factored
in. And, and really, it doesn't
matter unless Indiana wins at least 11 games in the regular
season as far as I'm concerned. But the fact that that's even on
the table and that eleven wins is only one win away from what
FBI is currently projecting is nuts.
It's nuts, Scott. It's nuts considering in our
preview pod, we were both optimistic at 8:00, but we're
having a discussion of like, well, you know, if we make a
bowl like maybe Detroit or, you know, the Nashville Bowl, it's
like if I would have just said, well, Galen, what about the
College Football Playoff? You'd be like, all right, You
would have like paused the pod and like, hey, dude, like let's
let's like I know you're the fun crazy one.
Like let's take a take a breath. We're going to come back.
I'm going to edit this out. Like, I mean, to go from talking
about, you know, getting a Detroit Nashville bid to be like
or the College Football Playoff, like there's not a lot of teams
that have that variance from one year.
I mean, this is a team we haven't made a bowl in three
years. We we won what, three games last
year, 4 games the year before. It's it is wild to to see this
happening right before our eyes. And I again, it's if we don't
make those heights, that's not a bad season.
Like I'll take a breath and a step back.
We're probably going to win six games this year.
I say probably just because we haven't done it yet, but 100%
chance to win six games. That's not nothing like all this
is awesome and raising the floor is something that doesn't like
this is where I'll say it doesn't happen in one season.
So suddenly now next year College Football Playoff isn't
the floor like the floor for IU football for the foreseeable
future and probably under the signeti era given his age.
If we say it's you know, 7 to 10 years is just making a bowl like
that, that is where IU is going to be at for 10 years.
Like if we have a 10 year stretch where we just make a
bowl year in year out or we're in competition for a bowl most
years, I think we're still in a spot that's a really good
season. And the fact that we are
basically there at the end of September is something that
needs to be really thought about and and lauded.
Like that's amazing. What's interesting also is
Indiana, they, their strength of schedule has not been strong,
it's 108th right now. But their strength of record,
which is the, the ESPN calculates essentially the
chance that an average top 25 team would have this team's
record or better given the schedule, Indiana's 14th in
strength of record. So they are performing at the
level of a top 25 team. Their remaining strength of
schedule is top. They have their, their remaining
strength of schedule is 31st in the country.
And that is that is roughly the same that Oregon is going to be
facing. It is slightly worse than what
Penn State's going to be facing. It's slightly worse than what
Michigan's going to be facing, but it's better than what like
Illinois is going to be facing. So whatever Indiana does the
rest of the season, they will have earned it against the
schedule that they have remaining.
And, you know, I think that that's really exciting.
Nowhere hour 20, but it's like I'm, I'm, I am tired of the
strength of schedule thing because it's like in 2021 we had
a very tough strength of schedule.
That team wasn't great. We went 2 and 10.
So I, I always say to people like who give me any kind of
that argument, Like, Hey, we had a really tough strength of
schedule. We were two and 10.
Nobody came to my defense said, hey, man, I use pretty good.
They're just playing like you're just like, hey, man, that team
sucks. Like what's more fun having to
debate with somebody like, hey, don't care, Like I can't hear
you through all the wins. Like all I do is win, win, win.
Or do you want to just suck and be two and 10, but be like be
able to rest on your laurels of like, oh man, we we play a
really tough schedule. Like we it, it's this is way
more fun. The the one.
So there's two more stats. I lied.
I've got two more stats since. Why?
Why not go to an hour and a half?
Because people have stuck with us that long.
Hopefully you find this as joyous as we do.
ESPN also has a stat called Game Control Rank, and what game
Control rank is, is it reflects the chance that an average top
25 team would control games from start to finish the way that a
particular team has done, given the schedule they've played.
Indiana is fifth in the country in that the teams that are
ranked ahead of them. Right now, Ohio State is 4th.
Alabama, excuse me, Texas is third, Alabama is second, and
Tennessee is first. That says a lot like this
Indiana, it's not just that Indiana's winning games.
It is that they are choking their opponents out in these
games. And there were very few teams in
the country that are doing that. I mean, even other Big 10 teams.
I mean, Penn State's game control rank is 22nd.
Oregon's has been pretty good and they're 12th.
Georgia is only 16th in game control rank.
And again, it's it's a reflection of you can only do
what you do against the teams that you play.
You can't really control who you're playing, but what you can
control is how you're playing against those teams.
And for Indiana to be 5th in game control and 4th in the
country, an average in game win probability, which is the other
really outstanding 1. And again, the teams that
outranked them there are Tennessee, Texas, and Ohio
State. Really great company to be in.
I am fascinated and really excited to see how Indiana fares
against tougher competition because if they maintain these
patterns, you know, that would be probably the most exciting
thing that we've, we've seen with IU football maybe ever.
Not just that they're winning, but it's like, you know, go back
to 67. That team won a bunch of games
in, in in close fashion. 2019 was the same way that team won a
bunch of games in close fashion. This has been different and
that's what makes this team like both so joyful to watch, but
also kind of hard to get your head wrapped around 'cause it's
like a different team has put Indiana uniforms on.
And to some degree that's the case.
Like this, just this team just just plays in a very different
manner. Even when Indiana's been good,
we have tended to watch them being good.
Almost like it's almost felt like it was an not an accident,
but like a little bit of luck was involved.
I mean, even going back to 2020, which was statistically
Indiana's probably best season and you know, within, with the
exception of the end, that team was game control ranked 15th on
the season for the whole year. And that, you know, that we, we
still look back at some of the performances that year.
And it wasn't just that Indiana was winning, but they were
winning handily. So that's going to be something
to keep an eye on moving forward.
Last thing I'll say, and this was again something that Taylor
just tweeted out. Do you want to take this one
just so you can say that you read something that Taylor
tweeted out? No, you could say no, you're
batting, you're batting 1000. Keep it going.
So Indiana is so Taylor's tweet is Kurt Signetti is currently
leading the biggest year one turn around in IU football
history, which isn't surprising. Indiana's 29th in the latest S&P
Plus rankings, which is a 46% turn around from last year.
The previous high in any head coaches first year at IU is 33%
increase and the highest in the 21st century has been 30%.
So my point being like, this is unprecedented for IU just in
general what Signetti is doing, and I'm fascinated to see how it
continues, starting with this Northwestern game coming up over
the weekend. I think it's fair to say at this
point I'm going to go out on a limb.
I think the Signeti hire was a good hire, Galen.
I feel comfortable. I think I'm comfortable making
that call now. I think I think we made a good
hire. Yeah, between I think it was, I
think I saw it as AB plus on some sites.
I think it was AB plus. It's a good B plus hire between
that and Curtis Rourke. I mean, you know, like Rourke
coming in and you know his I, I can tell you his nil number is
not nearly as high as a lot of quarterbacks that were brought
in to be quarterbacks at Power 4 schools this year.
I mean, he is third in the country I think in EPA per
passing attempt, something ridiculous like that.
You know, Signetti was a tremendous hire, Rourke was a
tremendous player to bring in and you can kind of go down the
list. So many new faces to IU that
just looked perfect in terms of what what the fit has been and
how they performed so far. Yeah, we're good Blue skies
ahead and I hope for more. I think we're going to have more
positive podcasts like this moving forward.
I think so. I hope you coach.
Thank you, Coach Sig. And the last thing I will say is
I texted this to you later. Like the other really fun thing
that's going on is there's a great subculture of signetti
merchandise and just logos out there.
Like just just go search and look around.
There's some really hot stuff out there that's really good
with Signeti. Yeah, there's a lot of really,
really awesome stuff. I will.
Last thing I'll note, another new tweet.
This is from Alec Lasley, ESP NS Experts projecting who's going
to make the College Football Playoff as of this morning, the
29th of September. One of our favorites, Bill
Connolly has IU as the 11 seed in the playoff, and Harry Lyles,
Junior has Indiana as the 10 seed in the playoff.
My brain can't compute that. I'm not sure I could understand,
do I? We, we have to go to that game.
I I. I don't even know when is that
game where is play like how does that work?
Well, and it's also it's fascinating because in in in one
match up, according to this, you know, long time in the future
projection, it would Harry Lyles junior's projection would have
it be Georgia versus Indiana in the College Football Playoff
first round. And Bill Connelly would have.
Because of course he would. Tennessee versus Indiana in the
College Football Playoff? First a Gator.
Bowl a Gator Bowl a Gator Bowl rematch.
Oh my God, I'm not sure my heart could handle it.
But anyway, all right, we, we've gone long enough.
We'll go ahead and wrap up for this week.
A lot of programming coming up later on in the week, so be sure
to tune in. We've got Bison chat on Tuesday
night. It'll be night this time,
normally 6:30 PM. We're going to bump it forward.
We're aiming for about a 930 start Eastern Time on Bison
Chat. So if you haven't watched the
Tuesday night Bison chat yet, TuneIn, it'll be live.
We'll have the stream on the back home network YouTube feed.
We'll also have a tweet that'll go out on X about it.
So set your calendars to that myself, Joe Cronin, Emily Fox
producing that. We'll have some special guests
this week. Should be a lot of fun.
Crimson Cash coming out Thursday of next week or Friday of next
week. Scott, probably, probably
Thursday. OK.
And then we. Might be able to grab one more
podcast before we get on Crimson cash.
We started a new segment just because Indiana's been doing so
well call to the Hoosier hot streak.
So every week James is betting Indiana and then Cat adding a
team parlay. So this week we bet Indiana
money line, Michigan money line. We won.
And so next week he's got to add 2 teams to it.
We're just going to see how many he can stack in a row and then
we'll go back if he, if he, you know, shoots craps out.
But I, I think, you know, if you're listening, you're making
some money in these parlays and it's fun betting with Indiana
because right now it's. We're all on a hot streak, so
check out that and check out the entire rest of the line up on
the back home network. We got basketball talk starting
up once again as practices started this week.
The start of the season, at least on the pre season level,
only a month away, which is hard to get your head wrapped around.
So all of that and more coming up this week on the back home
network. We appreciate you folks tuning
in once again. Indiana victorious 4228 over the
Maryland Terrapins 5 and O on the season.
They face Northwestern this upcoming week.
My thanks to you, Scott, As always, a pleasure.
Thanks to all you folks that we met all throughout the weekend.
Really appreciate you folks coming up and saying hi for
Scott. I'm Galen.
This is Crimson cast. We'll catch you folks.
On the flip side, bring back the bison.
Stay. Never daunted.
So long, everybody. Goodbye YouTube.