You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home
Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cast,
Galen Clavio joining you once again.
It is Friday, October 13th. It's actually fall break down
here in B Town. Hope you're all having a
wonderful October thus far. Almost half over at this point,
and we are heading full steam ahead into the midst of the
start of basketball season. We're in the middle of
volleyball season. We're in the middle of soccer
season. We're in the middle of field
hockey season and of course basketball season about to get
started. The busiest time of year by far
when it comes to I, U Sports and one of our.
Favorite times of the year to just talk through everything as
there's so much going on. Couple things to start off with.
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All right, let's talk I, U and Michigan.
This is obviously, you know, if you if you're looking at the
schedule at the beginning of the year, you're probably looking at
that game and saying I'm not sure that Indiana's going to
have much of a shot in that game.
Michigan came into the season ranked ahead of Ohio State,
ranked ahead of Penn State, ranked among the best teams in
the country, and they certainly looked like that thus far on the
season. They come into this game six
and, oh, and really just a dominant team in a bunch of
different ways. You know, I've sometimes
nostalgic for the Rich Rodriguez era at Michigan when it really
did feel like you could beat Michigan anytime you went out
onto the field. That hasn't been that way for a
while. Even though Indiana did
obviously beat Michigan during that 2020 year.
That's the only time Indiana's won in this series since 1987
and. You look at Michigan this season
and even though they haven't really played a top level
opponent yet, they have been just squishing their opponents
in every single game. In the first five games that
Michigan played, they allowed three points, seven points, six
points, 7 points and seven points.
And then Minnesota actually got to double figures against them.
Last week they allowed ten points and then Michigan's been
blowing teams out, averaging 37.3 points per game.
And only allowing 6.7 points per game scored against it's it's
not looking like a great matchup for Indiana.
It's interesting because last year, obviously Indiana played
fairly well in the first half against Michigan and there was a
statistic that I saw the other day that you know in Harbaugh's
era at Michigan. Indiana's actually played them
the tightest over the course of time with with, you know, a
margin of loss that has been pretty reasonable.
And certainly that was affected somewhat by Indiana winning that
game in 2020 pretty handily. Last year, Indiana lost that
game 31 to 10. It was tied at half thanks to
that Charles Campbell field goal relatively late.
In the in the second quarter actually might have been early
in the second quarter, but anyway, Michigan didn't exactly
blow Indiana out in that game. I took until the middle of the
third quarter before Michigan sees the lead and that was a
really long drive where Indiana had actually pinned Michigan
back on their goal line and of course Michigan was able to
drive 98 yards. But, but overall, I mean, even
though Michigan won that game 31 to 10, it really didn't get out
of hand until the very end of the game.
And you can look at that game and say Indiana, well, they
weren't good. They certainly weren't awful.
Indiana threw a lot of passes that game.
Connor Basil act 25 of 49203 yards, which on a yards per
attempt rate is is pretty bad. But the one touchdown, 1
interception Indiana last year, their biggest problem was they
really couldn't run the ball. Jalen Lucas had four rushes for
45 yards. That was nice.
But Sean Shivers really struggled, Josh Henderson
struggled even more and Connor Basil act kept getting put on
his butt. 7 rushes. And of course in college
football if you get sacked it counts as a running play, which
has never made a whole lot of sense.
But Basil Act was 7 carries for -61 yards last year, which
certainly didn't help Indiana's overall rushing total.
But they ended up rushing for eight tenths of a yard per
attempt last year 25 carries. 19 yards.
Ronnie Bell led Michigan in receiving and and Michigan had a
really good game through the air.
JJ McCarthy 28 to 36 for 304 yards and three touchdowns.
So you know, even though it wasn't a a bad game by Indiana
standards, it also wasn't a game where statistically Indiana was
that close with things and the defense deserved a lot of credit
because that was a game where they they played pretty well.
And I think you could make an argument that that might have
been. You know the last game that the
defense played really well? You know, maybe the Rutgers game
a couple of weeks later, but the the defense really kind of fell
apart down the stretch last year.
This year, Indiana comes into this game certainly not trending
in the right direction. They get blown out on the road
by Maryland a couple of weeks ago.
They had the bye week this last week, and of course a lot of
change occurred with the announcement that Walt Bell was
fired as offensive coordinator. Rod Kerry was hired as offensive
coordinator permanently and given a pretty long contract,
which was interesting in and of itself.
One of the things. That's been pretty prominent in
terms of I U coaches, whether it's Alan or Kerry, talking
about what they're going to try to do to revitalize the offense.
Is they've all said well, it's too late to make big changes,
which is kind of a shame because Indiana probably needs big
changes on offense right now. Currently, through the first
five games of the season, Indiana averaging 20.8 points
per game, only averaging about 5 yards per offensive play.
Their opponents are averaging close to 6.
Indiana is, you know, they're they're not doing very good work
at all on the ground, rushing for 3.18 yards.
Per attempt, allowing 4.74 yards per attempt.
And what's what's unfortunate is that not only is Indiana not
doing well related to opponents in terms of rushing, they're
actually doing worse in rushing the ball than they did the last
two years. They're about the same pace as
they were in 2021. Pardon me, in 2021 they averaged
3.2 yards per carry. And in 2023, they've been at
3.18. Last year they were actually at
3.36, which isn't that much better, but it would.
It's at least better than what you've seen so far in this
season. Indiana is about 1/2 yard per
play ahead of last year's pace in terms of of what they're
doing on offense overall, but the offense is just really
anemic at this point. So the question becomes, what is
Indiana going to do in this game?
How do they find themselves in a position where they could
compete? And I, you know, I think what's
what's upsetting to me and what's been, you know, a real
struggle, I think through most of the Allen era is that that
feels like in games like this, there's just kind of this
preconceived notion that Indiana's not going to compete.
I'm not saying that's coming from the coaching staff, but
anybody who's paying attention is just looking at this and
saying, well, it really, it's hard to find a route for
respectability for Indiana in a game like this.
And you look at this and it's like this really does feel like
one of those games that's incredibly lopsided in terms of
a Michigan's obviously very talented.
I think Harbaugh, for all of his peculiarities as a human being,
has really done a great job of putting together a very, very
impressive and formidable roster.
And it also just feels like Indiana's an entirely the wrong
spot right now, not just offensively, but really overall.
I mean, you look at. What Indiana and Michigan look
like in terms of of overall matchup and I'd highly recommend
going to bite size Bison, the most recent post by Taylor over
there. Looking at the statistical
breakdown between these two teams and it just doesn't look
like a matchup of any sort that you could really rely on Indiana
participating well in, especially on the road.
I mean, on the season Michigan is ranked first in the country
and S&P plus Indiana's 95th. In the country, offensively,
Michigan's ranked 8th, Indiana's ranked 99th.
Defensively, Michigan's ranked second, Indiana's ranked 89th.
Even in special teams, where Indiana is moderately decent,
Indiana's 54th and special teams in S&P plus Michigan is 7th in
the country like they are. They are almost flawless.
Like this is about as complete a team as I feel like.
We've seen. Certainly the most complete
Michigan team we've seen in a long time.
And right up there in terms of the most complete teams we've
seen out of the conference, including those teams that Ohio
State has been producing over the last several years.
Even if you go outside of S&P plus and you look elsewhere, the
breakdown is the same. You know, Michigan is first
overall and Pro Football Focus, their first overall in FEI and
Indiana is 71st and Pro Football Focus and 91st in FEI.
And you go to the individual elements of things, Indiana just
doesn't stack up particularly well.
Statistically, they are. They're 113th in EPA per play.
Michigan is second defensively and EPA allowed per play.
That that doesn't sound or look good.
Indiana is decent in terms of success in passing offense.
Unfortunately, that's something that Michigan does really well,
is defend the past. Indiana's been terrible and
success on rushing plays. Michigan has been amazing at
stopping Russian plays and you just kind of go down the list
like that. You can go and read Taylor's
infographic on this. It's worth checking out to just
kind of highlight how bad this matchup looks.
Michigan comes in as a 99% probable winner with a projected
score in S&P plus of 44 to 7:00. So this is one of those previews
where it's like, I'm not sure, like, specifically what we
should talk about. Because given how both teams
have played, you almost have to unfortunately put the win idea
aside because we've seen very little out of I U this season
that would make you think they'd be competitive.
And so you have to instead think of things from the standpoint of
how exactly does Indiana put themselves in a position to gain
something worthwhile out of this game.
And you know, as Patrick asked for when I asked everybody, what
do you want out of a preview podcast like Succinct Analysis?
What's a Cliff Notes version that I've probably gone way too?
Long in even talking about this to satisfy that.
But I will say that ultimately, if Indiana's going to get back
to the point where they can make something out of this season
where they can, you know, essentially over the span of the
next month win enough games to put themselves back in some
level of bowl comp like contention.
They've got to start in this Michigan game and there's got to
be a mentality shift with this team and you know it has to be.
We're not going to allow ourselves to get blown out in
the opening 15 minutes, which is essentially what happened
against Maryland. That is not just a team like
player thing, that is also a coach thing.
You know, I don't think you could look at that Maryland game
and I've gone back and watched it a couple of times.
It it wasn't just that the players were struggling to
compete against a Maryland team that was, you know, isn't that
much more talented and maybe about the same level of talent.
It didn't look like the team was well prepared to compete in that
game. And for all of Tom Allen's talk
about execution being the issue, his team really for the large,
large stretches of that game was either not set up properly or
was set up in ways where success was going to be almost
impossible for them to achieve. And you know, they they
oftentimes looked either confused or beaten down by the
circumstances they were in. That's really got to change.
And you know whatever the the preparation process has been,
whatever the process that the the coaches have been going
through in terms of trying to get this team up and running and
ready to go. I mean to me that's that's the
beginning part of things. This team did not look like it
felt capable of playing with Maryland, which was a sizable
difference from what we've seen a couple of weeks earlier.
When you know that mean obviously they they kind of
looked that way in the first half against Louisville.
But they came back in the second-half and look like they
were very much of the belief that they should be competing
against Louisville. And I think that, you know, that
you kind of had the reverse of the Ohio State game, where they
look like they felt like they should be competing against Ohio
State in that first half. And then that belief gradually
went away. There's something weird mentally
and emotionally going on with this football team.
And a lot of times that stems from the top.
And you know, we, as much as players matter, the messaging
coming from coaches and the way that coaches are handling their
jobs has to be focused a lot more on figuring out how to
create a mentality among your players.
That they can compete, that they are supposed to be there and
that there's things that they can do even in the face of
overwhelming competition that will allow them to at least have
some level of success. I don't think anybody which
would particularly believe that Indiana's going to go in and
beat Michigan. But there's no reason why
Indiana has to get obliterated by Michigan, especially since
all you have to do is look at last year when a similarly good,
maybe not quite as good, but similarly good Michigan team was
tied with Indiana at the half and and didn't really open up a
a lead of any size until the fourth quarter.
So you've got some some examples that you could point people to.
I just you know for as much as we hear, we hear almost
exclusively from the coaches and everything we hear from the
players is very kind of locked down and and and clearly is
meant to kind of reinforce whatever message is coming from
the top. I don't know how you could watch
this Indiana team and not say to yourself there is something off
with the preparation, there's something off with the the
atmosphere in the locker. And until that gets fixed, you
know, to me that's the big thing.
Like was was enough done in this last couple of weeks after the
Maryland game, after the buy, where that approach has been
changed to the point where Indiana can put themselves in a
position. To start having success again.
So that's really kind of my overall my overarching thoughts.
There were some individual questions that I wanted to get
to from people, some of them kind of time with what I just
said, but I think a lot of these are good.
Let's see, first question, so from Robbie Malcolmson at a
minimum, what progress do you hope to witness with the offense
against Michigan under the leadership of Rod Kerry?
I mean this is probably the hardest potential environment to
be going in and trying to to see any meaningful change.
You've got a Michigan team that feels like they're cruising,
that feels really locked in, and you've got a an offensive system
at Indiana that just hasn't worked so far this season to me.
What I want to see is Indiana having some level of success in
one facet of the offense. I mean, if you look at the last
couple of weeks that Indiana played, you know, Cave and
Jackson had 190 passing yards in the Akron game, had 113 passing
yards in the Maryland game, and then Chris Turner had 67 rushing
yards in the Akron game and 61 rushing yards in the Maryland
game. Those are your statistical
leaders in both of those categories to me, Indiana, you
may not be able to. Score a whole lot, but there's
no reason why Indiana's offense has to be settling for such a
poor showing on a per play attempt.
I I refuse to believe with this, with the talent that is at the
skill positions and it may not be top end Big 10 talent, but
it's good enough talent that it can produce and we saw that
against the Louisville team that's clearly pretty good.
Having just beaten Notre Dame last week, there's no reason why
Indiana can't have some level of success in terms of moving the
ball a little bit. I don't know how much of that
will really see against Michigan for the whole game, but Michigan
is likely in this game. Frankly, do not take Indiana
that seriously. Michigan is likely kind of
sleepwalking through the prep a little bit as they get ready for
Michigan State next week, who they very much want to beat by a
huge amount of money or huge amount of points.
Money too, I guess. But so for me, can Indiana take
advantage of that? And at some point during the
game, whether it's early or whether it's late, can they show
that they can consistently move the ball, even if it gets
Michigan second string? And can they gain some
confidence heading into this upcoming week where they prep
for a very important home game against Rutgers?
That's really all I'm looking for.
I'm not expecting miracles. I'm not expecting the running
game to suddenly start working better.
But I do want to see at least a couple of sustained drives.
There's no reason why you can't have sustained drives like the
The one thing I really have have gotten frustrated with with I U
is this idea that, well, you know, you can't do anything
against Ohio State. You can't do anything against
Michigan. It's like.
It's not true. You know, there are examples of
teams that have multiple times against top five or top ten Big
10 teams been able to move the ball and there's no reason why
Indiana can't be one of those teams not winning the game,
maybe not even covering, but move the ball down the field a
couple of times and show us that there is some additional thought
that's put into what's being done.
You know, I what worries me is the comments out of the press
conference that have essentially said, well, we're just going to
try to focus on what works the best.
The problem is nothing's worked like there's nothing is really
worked particularly well. And what little times you have
seen that happening where something's worked, it's
generally figured out pretty quickly by the next week, by
whatever scouting's been done by their next.
So that's really what I would look for there.
Similar question from who's yours?
What positive signs would look like from the offense under the
new coordinator? And again, and this person
actually said the same thing. Michigan may not be the best
game to conduct that kind of analysis.
You know, if you can move the ball a little bit against
Michigan, even just to get into field goal range, great.
Let's just see that to start with, knowing that Rutgers is
the more important game right now for Indiana.
Because if they lose the Rutgers game, the season's basically
over. You can afford to lose the
Michigan game. You can even get blown out in
the Michigan game. But can you give yourself a
little bit? Of confidence going into that
game against against Rutgers. That's that's the real hope as
far as I'm concerned. Elbows in our our good buddy
asks this question. What are the success metrics or
bars of success for this team right now?
What do we need to see on the field to measure in my best
Galen voice? Thank you.
Not even success, but just progress for the team.
Hope I did that. Okay for you.
Look, I think what I just said about the offense, expand that
to the whole team. Defense is supposed to be the
calling card of a Tom Allen coached team.
Defense was the calling card in many ways of the 2019 and 2020
teams in terms of like that Ben, but don't break style.
The idea that okay, we'll hold you to field goal, we'll get
some turnovers, we'll create some havoc.
Again, Indiana's got some good individual defensive players
that have not lived up to expectations this year.
Yeah, and collectively I think the team feels like it's gotten
progressively worse every week this season in terms of a
consistent 60 minute effort on defense.
That's got to change. So I think for the defense, you
know that you're facing a very, very efficient offensive team in
Michigan. You've got a team that can beat
you at multiple levels, multiple phases of the game.
And so I think a lot of it. Can you make some big plays?
Can you make some plays that can be emotional plays?
Can you get excited about what you're doing?
You know, I've watched so many Indiana, Michigan games over the
course of time that ultimately, yeah, a lot of times they they
kind of Rock You to sleep because it just feels like
Indiana is getting constantly pounded, pounded, pounded by the
physicality of Michigan and Ohio State.
So you counter physicality with speed, and if you can put your
team in a position where they can make some plays and maybe
pick off JJ McCarthy, maybe force a couple of fumbles, maybe
force some three an ounce, get some tackles for loss, you're
probably not going to blunt the edge of what Michigan's doing.
Yeah, I would even settle for overall on defense, Like, just
just try to limit explosive plays.
Michigan wants to, you know, do death by 1000 cuts for the whole
game. Fine.
But what happened at the beginning of the Maryland game
where Indiana, you know, is allowing like 60 yard passes and
Maryland was just making big play after big play?
That is so demoralizing to your whole team.
And I think it, again, it goes back to the basic idea of how is
the team being prepared emotionally and mentally?
How do you try to get the team believing in themselves again?
A lot of it really does come down to this idea that you've
you've got to restructure your approach in in how you tell the
team to conduct themselves and how they're receiving the kinds
of things that are surrounding them in the game.
I don't know. Again, Michigan.
Bad place to start with that. But I just, I think so much of
this Indiana season, if it's going to pivot back to something
successful, is going to depend on Indiana developing some level
of swagger. They have to believe in
themselves and they have to believe that they can do things
and not the type of belief where Tom Allen's running around and
yelling and slapping people on the helmet because that clearly
does not work. We've seen it for the last 2 1/2
years. It does not seem to engender any
level of belief in the team. Something else needs to be
tried, and maybe Rod Kerry's able to do that on offense, I
don't know. But what worries me is that
Indiana in general doesn't look like they believe.
And to some degree, what Alan does out on the field makes it
look like he's trying to make people believe that he and
Indiana believe, but they don't actually believe.
And that's that's a rough combination.
I would strip a lot of that back and I would really try to
instill a quiet confidence in this team that can be punctuated
by explosive plays occasionally on offense.
That would be nice and big plays on defense that keep Michigan
from doing what they want to do all the time.
We'll see what happens. Some other questions or thoughts
here. Fake Mike Woodson.
What's more likely Michigan scores 60 or more points or I U
is within two scores at halftime.
It's a it's a funny question. I mean, look, I the the thing of
it is I think that the latter is the more likely that Indiana's
have been 2 scores at halftime because a we saw last year
Indiana was tied at halftime. BI mean Michigan doesn't score
that many points the last time. The last time Michigan scores 60
points in a game, they came close last year when they played
UConn. They won that game 59 to
nothing. You have to go all the way back
to when they beat Northern Illinois in 2021 to find a game
where they scored that many points.
They scored 63 in that game. So I'd be real shocked if
Michigan was dominating the game to the point where they could
score 60, that they even would score 60 because a I don't think
Michigan. I think Michigan would rather
take the time giving their backups some reps than they
would trying to grind to the end into submission.
They would rather do that against Michigan State.
Like I absolutely could see them hanging 60 on Michigan State and
not batting an eye. I don't think they're going to
do that against Indiana. But so anyway, that would be my
answer there. Hilariously, somebody responded
back. Just Joey, Joey, 2327.
These are both going to happen. I doubt that severely.
Although that would be fascinating if that actually did
occur. I'm always reminded, and I think
I've shared the story a couple of times.
When I was a student at Indiana, I.
Worked, among other places, at the student radio station WIUS
at the time. WIUX now.
And by the way, WIUX will be up in Ann Arbor broadcasting the
Indiana, Michigan game. So TuneIn, if you get a chance,
99.1 FM in Bloomington or go to wiux.org, you can listen through
streaming. But I remember going up there in
in the year 2000. It was me, my friend David
Pierce, who's actually a professor.
Up at I UPUI, Jeff Meredith, the friend of mine and then I think
Sean Llewellyn was the other member of that party.
And Sean, I think it's still in broadcasting up in northern
Indiana and Indiana lost that game at Michigan 58 to nothing.
And that was I did play by play on that game.
That was one of the the worst and hardest games I think I've
ever done. Play by, play on.
It's interesting because it was actually coming off of an
Indiana, Michigan game in Memorial Stadium, not terribly
different than what happened last year, where Indiana only
lost by three and had a shot in the end zone on a Hail Mary from
Antoine Randle L that hit Jerry Dorsey in the helmet and bounced
off. That was the 1999 game, one of
the better losses in Memorial Stadium history to to pull the
Zimmerman corollary back in for a second.
But Indiana turned around and got boat raced in that game, So
I always think about that whenever Indiana and Michigan
play. Like it's always possible that
Indiana could lose 58 to nothing.
But in this season, with the circumstances, I'd be.
Surprised if that actually was what happened?
William Henley asks. How will the play calling change
on offense? I'm actually expecting there to
be probably a little less emphasis on option.
Not that there's been a huge amount of emphasis on option
lately. Beyond that I really don't know.
I mean one of the things that I I'm frustrated by is this
resistance that I U has to passing the ball and this this
animation that. Taven Jackson's the reason why
Indiana is offense hasn't been working well.
You know, Alan again said it in his press conference that, you
know, Jackson's still the starter, but he needs to play
better. And I I mean, I understand in a
very vague manner why that's being said.
And it's not that Taven Jackson doesn't have a huge amount of
room for improvement, because he certainly does.
But I I I'm still very disappointed that that's been
the way that the messaging around the offense has been
carried. Because a, it doesn't really
feel like Jackson's gotten a fair shake in terms of the type
of protection one would need or the type of routes that one
would need. I am going to be curious if we
see Rod Kerry kind of open up the progressions a bit.
Lot of people kind of were shocked in that Akron.
Game that Indiana almost lost. You know there was that wide
open play on the two point conversion in overtime where
Jalen Lucas just like he would. He could not have been more wide
open and Jackson didn't even look at him to throw the ball.
And it it really felt like at that point I you offensively had
really put the handcuffs on Jackson in terms of we're going
to run this play and you're going to either look here or
you're going to look here. I'm wondering if they've taken
the time or had the time over the last couple of weeks to
potentially open up the ideas on offense for Jackson and you
know, giving him more of a a green light to go through more
progressions or or maybe maybe they feel more comfortable with
him doing so after a couple of weeks of practice.
So I, you know, I don't, to answer your question, William, I
don't know how the offense is going to look different.
I wouldn't be shocked if they tried to focus more on the
running game rather than less. I think that would be a mistake
because I think clearly Indiana needs to have an offensive
attack that is focused more on the past if they're going to be
successful, because that's just really what they're built for.
But. I don't think, I, I don't know
yet what we're going to get out of broad Kerry's offense.
So we'll have to wait and see. We'll talk more about it on
Sunday, but I I at this point, I'd just be guessing.
One other thing I'll say on that though is I think offensively
speaking as we continue to watch this Indiana offense kind of
mutate based upon its personnel, I I am really interested to see
if they continue to have a a hook.
For Taven Jackson, where they decide they want to bring in,
you know, Brock Lowry. Excuse me, Brandon Sorosby.
Not Brock Loud. Now they brought Brock Lowry,
and that'd be a separate story. But no.
Sorosby, of course, came in during that Maryland game, and a
lot of people are like, ooh, he looked much better.
And while he did, I'm not going to debate that he did look
better in that game than Jackson did.
I would just remind everybody that defenses prep against the
quarterback that they think they're going to see.
There's a lot more film on Taven Jackson, Maryland.
Was prepping for Taven Jackson, Maryland.
Also by that point, by the time that sores became in the game,
had the game one didn't really care that much about what
Indiana's offense was going to be doing.
So for those people who were like, wow, they should just play
Soresbee because he he looked crisper and he was more
accurate. I would just remind you that.
There were reasons for that. That had more to do with just
who was like, you know how the how he was playing at the time.
I think a lot of it had to do with circumstances, not to say
that you wouldn't necessarily do better with stores.
We don't think we have enough data or information to really
know that one way or the other. But I would really caution
everybody on taking too much out of the.
Last third of a Maryland game where Indiana was out of the
game significantly before that time.
So that's that's the one thing I would note on that front.
Couple other comments. CCW the third wanted a random
reference to Kellen Lewis or Marcus Thigpen.
Well, I've blown the random part, but I need no emphasis or
reminder to, you know, just mention the name Kellen Lewis.
Always one of my favorite players in I U history.
And you know we need we really should I we should do something
in the future on the podcast where we just randomly throw
names of people in from prior seasons.
I'll work on that and see if we can make that a regular feature
of the of the podcast. Let's see Aaron Eisberg asked
how much will we lose by 5060. I don't think I don't think
Indiana's going to lose by that many points.
I I actually if I was going to do a an overall guess on how
this game's going to go. I think it's going to be.
I think Michigan's going to just kind of steadily grind Indiana
down. I I think they're going to
probably keep a lot of their playbook under wraps.
I think Indiana's going to probably try to throw the
kitchen sink at things early and they might get an early score as
a result of that and then things will deteriorate from there.
So I will say as far as a score. Prediction India Michigan's
going to win this game. I'm I think I'll go with 41.
To seven, which sounds awful, but I think that's about where
it's going to land. It's not far off of the SP Plus
prediction because I just think at some point Indiana, even if
they do get the ball moving a little bit, much as I would like
to see Indiana move the ball and be more successful there, I
actually don't actually think they're going to be able to do
it. But I also don't think Indiana
is going to get completely obliterated, because I just
don't think Michigan wants to expend the effort on that.
And you know they've got other games that they would rather be
doing that in. William Fulmer asks.
I always love the tailgate menu discussion this week.
What will you be eating and drinking from the couch while
watching I, U? Well, I was going to do chili,
but now it sounds like I'm going to a a chili football event the
following weekend so I might hold off on the chili.
Might do some kind of a surf and turf nachos.
We're like we've got 1 foot in fall and 1 foot in in like 1
foot in warm fall and 1 foot in cold fall, I guess you could
say. And so you know, I like, I like
the, you know, like a shrimp and steak Nacho combo.
I think that that's always a good one, or maybe I might do
like a shredded beef or something like that as opposed
to the steak, but that's what I'm leaning towards for this
one. I haven't decided on what to
drink yet. I mean, obviously there are
Oktoberfest, like, literally anywhere.
I might maybe I'll crack open a dead guy in in honor of of this
season and also in honor of Oregon joining the league.
I haven't. I need to figure that out.
That's a great question, though. Probably we will be doing if
Indiana drops, if Indiana's losing by 40 or 50.
Might have to break into the Hard Truth Hills Cinnamon vodka,
but I haven't quite decided on that one yet.
Oh, I missed one question from who's your dad at who took
Maryland one drive to see that I U is going to lose.
How quickly will Michigan do it again?
I I actually think Indiana's going to be in this game for a
little bit. I don't think it's going to get
out of hand maybe until the second quarter.
And even in that 58 to nothing game I mentioned earlier on in
the podcast, that game was actually still not completely
out of hand until you got to the end of the first half and that's
that's what I would predict in this one, so.
A couple other items to note who Parazzi asked for a podcast
devoted to I U volleyball, soccer and swim and dive.
Obviously we didn't do all of that, but I will say a couple of
things on on the non I U football side of the equation.
First of all, a huge congratulations to I U
volleyball. They had a huge week.
I mean, you know, they they beat Purdue at home for the first or
be Purdue period. They beat them at home.
But it was the first time that I U had beaten Purdue in
volleyball since 2012 and Purdue was ranked 15th.
I mean, I think Indiana is going to be right on the borderline of
potentially being ranked the next time the polls come out.
Even if they're not, they've got an opportunity to pick up some
more wins here this upcoming week.
They've got Michigan coming in on Saturday.
That's a big game if you. Don't have tickets already?
I think that's it. That one's not sold out yet.
But that is absolutely a game that you should go see.
That's at Wilkinson Hall at 7:00 on Saturday the 14th.
So tomorrow or today, depending on when you're listening to
this. And if you haven't been to a
game in Wilkinson Hall, it is 100% worth the visit.
It is. It's such a cool stadium.
And you know, for those people like myself who went to school
here back in the days of the. The the You, Jim, it's just a
such a different environment. It's so much better as a place
to watch any sporting event, whether it's volleyball or
wrestling, and it's a really cool, you know, and fun
environment and they'll be tickets available because it's
fall break. So if you haven't had a chance
to watch this team, this really does feel a lot like those early
Terry Moran teams for women's basketball.
Like, right, You know, right around when they won the NIT
title, Like, you know that you could tell the team was on the
verge of like breaking through and becoming a national force to
be reckoned with. And that's really what it feels
like here. So get down there.
I think that's that's a that's a really good option for this
weekend if you're in Bloomington or even in Indianapolis.
It's not that long of a drive. Now that would be a big
recommendation for me. And I think, you know, it's
going to be a big couple of weeks here for I, U volleyball
as they've got a, you know, not just that game, but they've got
Purdue again on the road next week.
And they had a great recruiting week.
And we didn't talk about it in the podcast that we did with
Steve Ayrett and Rachel Morris. But if you go back and look at
Talia Goodman's Twitter feed, Talia, one of our student
reporters at I U who has been doing a great job of covering
volleyball this week, it was it was announced that I U.
It wasn't announced. With the news broke, Indiana got
their highest recruiting program history.
Jaden Jager I think is how you pronounce her name.
Five star outside hitter from California.
That's their fifth five star in the class alongside, you know,
several other players that they've pulled in over the
course of of this whole cycle. I mean there's some some serious
talent coming into this program and I'd recommend getting down
there and watching them before it gets impossible to get
tickets. So that's that's an update
there. On the soccer front, women's
soccer is having one of the best seasons in program history thus
far. This women's soccer team right
now 10, one and four on the season, they're four, one and
two in conference play. They have not lost at home yet
this season and they've had a pretty good week so far.
I mean they they they had Michigan State, who's ranked in
Bill Armstrong Stadium last night and they drew 11.
They beat Purdue earlier on this week up in West Lafayette and
then last week they drew at home versus Minnesota.
I mean it's they're they're in a tough part of the schedule here,
but there's a lot of of good soccer left to be played.
They've got Michigan on Sunday as part of a women's and men's
soccer doubleheader at Bill Armstrong Stadium and then
they've got a couple of other games coming up here in the the
rest of the season. They've got one actually this
game against Michigan on Sunday is the last game at Bill
Armstrong Stadium in the regular season and there's still a
chance that Indiana I think could host a quarterfinal game
in the Big 10 tournament. I need to check the standings on
that. But, but overall, Indiana's in
really good shape and and it's played very well so far this
season. The man, if you've been
following, have struggled a little bit compared to what
we're used to. But they are still.
They're 5, three and four on the season.
They just beat Evansville two nil earlier on this week and
they have some really important matches coming up again.
They host Ohio State on Sunday as part of that double header.
They'll be the first game, the game that starts at noon and
then they've got Maryland on the road on Friday of this upcoming
week. They've got Northwestern on the
road next week and then they've got a kind of a the ending of
season get well game against trying.
And then they've got Rutgers at home for senior night on October
the 29th before the tournament starts.
So it's a lot of really fascinating stuff going on with
I U Athletics. And then you add in that Hoosier
Hysteria is coming up on this upcoming week.
I mean, just a lot of things going on with men's and women's
sports, men's and women's basketball getting underway.
Swimming and diving, the other one to mention, and swimming and
diving had their first exhibition a couple of weeks
ago, and then they just crushed Kentucky at Councilman
Billingsley a couple of weeks ago.
They're on the road for a while. Missouri and Auburn, they'll
take them on this upcoming week in Columbia.
They've got the Ohio State Invitational, but they'll be
back at Council and Billingsley on the 1st of December taking on
Cincinnati. So anyway, little all sports
wrap up there for you. All right, that's going to wrap
it up for this edition of Crimson Cast.
I appreciate everybody joining. Once again thank you all and as
always a pleasure. Thanks to our friends at the
Back Home Network. Thanks to our presenting sponsor
Home Field Apparel. We will be back with a wrap up
recap podcast of the I U Michigan football game.
That'll be Sunday sometime. We'll release that normally
around noon or 1:00 in the afternoon.
So keep an ear out for that. For everybody here at Crimson
Cast in the back home network, I'm Galen Claudio saying thanks
for joining us once again. Bring back to bison, so on.