Good defense inside your own territory. We'll see if the Indiana can crack the code. Here, third and seven at the Bama twenty one yard line, Mendoza in the shotgun, all out blitz. Mendoza drops back to.
The end zone.
Becker puts down Indiana.
The Hoosier strike first.
In Hollywood, a twenty two yard Charlie Becker touchdown reception.
Six twenty seven hundred WLW. The college football playoffs kickoff tonight Miami versus Old Miss. Tomorrow night, the Indiana Hoosiers take on the Oregon Ducks. My first guest has taken this journey with the Hoosiers, calling their games on radio in Bloomington. He was at the Rose Bowl. He's in Atlanta right now preparing for the call of the Peach Bowl. He is part of the first family of broadcasting in Cincinnati. His grandfather of the Hall of Fame reds announcer, his
father You here mornings here on seven hundred WLW. What a treat to welcome in, Luke Brenneman, Luke, how we doing.
I'm doing great. I'm thrilled to be on your show. Lance.
I really appreciate you having me on and down here in Atlanta. Got in early this morning, and I'm really excited about the opportunity for yet another It's hard to believe even say it, Indiana College football playoff game.
Yeah, I mean, Louke, how how cool has this ride been for you? Can you believe you've been riding the wave and experiencing all this?
I truly cannot lance. I remember when I was a freshman at Indiana.
You know, it gets cold and the fall in the winter, and Indiana was in an overtime thriller in football with Akron. My buddies and I were watching in our dorm room. You could in one hand, with one finger, you could point out and count how many people were in the stands. There was truly no emotion, there was no pride in it. And to get there at the time I did and experience that for a full season, and then I covered
the team as a beat reporter last year. So the emergence of Signetti and then that was kind of parlayed with everyone saying this Indiana team, they had a light schedule, they got by, but they lost when they played a big team. And now I'll be sitting here fourteen to oher as the favorite to win the national title now in the semifinal round.
This is pretty surreal. Luke, give a listeners some background who aren't aware. What year are you and I you and how did all of this come about that you're doing these games.
So I'm a junior now at Indiana, and Indiana has a extremely dynamic sports media program.
There's a lot of really talented students.
So early on freshman sophomore year, you're calling a lot of you know, wrestling events. I did field hockey, track and field swimming. And then once you kind of do your time and you continue to put in the work, you help others out. I'm the co director of our student radio station that's ninety nine point one FM in Bloomington, and these playoff games it's kind of a return for the work we do throughout the year setting up events,
getting credentialed. We broadcast all the women's basketball, men's basketball, obviously football, men's and women's soccer are on the radio. So there's a lot of people that deserve credit for making this happen for me, but the student radio station has definitely been my spot when it comes to Indiana sports media, and I'm just so thankful for it.
Luke, are you I assume you're not out there as a one man band. You've got a crew out there, correct.
We have a couple guys, so really appreciate mister Dave Abbott from seven hundred WLW. He actually reached out and gave us sideline equipment for this game so that we could even include more people. So it'll be myself. The co director of the station is Ben Holler. He's a senior from Mason, Ohio. He had their high school really get going. When it comes to high school broadcasting, that's an extremely rare thing all over the country. So Ben
and I will be on the call. And then we have a third member of our crew who's on site, Andrew Hillsman. He'll be our spotter but also filling in on the pregame shows halftime with our studio host Jack Schneider. He's in Sane EXE kid from Cincinnati. And then Graham Nasho's from Los Angeles, will be on the sideline for the game.
Unbelievable, What an unbelievable experience. Luke Brennaman checking in tonight in advance of the tomorrow night's call the Indiana Hoosiers, take me back to the Rose Bowl experience what it was like, and it felt like an army of IU fans had invaded Pasadena.
For that thing. It truly did.
I got out there, i'd say two and a half three days early, and you felt it immediately because all you hear about, especially growing up in the Midwest and Cincinnati, is you know, the Alabama Faithful, the Crimson Tide, and it was all Indiana fans. And you know, I don't have any bias when I'm calling these games, obviously, but at the end of the day, I'm a student at Indiana, so I was excited to see how many Hoosiers have
shown up. And I think a lot of people with this football success are finally realizing Indiana, out of all public universities, has the largest alumni base in the United States of America. So these people have kind of been a sleeping giant. And we know how the Big ten in the Midwest loves their football, and there's finally something to celebrate. And in a season like this, it's hard not to say this is like the most once in
a lifetime thing ever. But then you dive into the numbers, it's like, well, Kurt Signetti is going to be at Indiana through twenty thirty, so is it. But right now it's as surreal as it gets.
I mean, there's really no other way to put it.
You've you mentioned all the different sports, you've called, you called the Cape Cod League last summer. You've been around a lot of coaches, managers. Ever been around anybody like Kurt Signetti?
Truly nobody who can dominate a room like that. And Lance, I'm so lucky growing up being in you know, NFL production meetings with quarterbacks, but when it comes to a coach, and especially these college football coaches, whether it's the portal or just recruiting in general, I always thought that they carried themselves like politicians because if you say one wrong thing, you know, there goes the five star quarterback, because he's got five other options that have two hundred million dollar
facilities and that are now paying him just as much money. And with coach Signetti, I covered the team last year, so I went to the Big Ten media days in the summer and he went up there and kind of had another one of his famous press conference moments where he said, every time they've been picked in the bottom of the league, we end up winning the league the next season. Well, he came close last year, and they
won the league this year. So to see that unfold and just kind of being the only media in the Monday availability, the Tuesday coaches press conference, he was just the student media, the sports information directors, obviously, the local writers and those guys do great work. But now it's every single time he's talking, there's a Molly McGrath in there,
there's ESPN Radio in there. And it's unbelievable because he still has that same swagger and he's not doing it all for clicks, because a lot of the stuff that he says that generates these clicks. You actually turn on the TV and you see it. His team plays sixty minutes, whether they're up by thirty or up by three, and I think in large part it's led to the success.
All right, let me get to the important stuff. How does your dad appear to be handling his the Ohio State Buckeyes suffering back to back losses to end their season.
Oh man, this is the sensitive topic in the household. I mean, who would have thought. I give my dad credit. He's a heck of a fan, but you know, some of my buddies are looking at me. They're like, your dad's a Buck Guy fan, but he's got to be rooting for Indiana. You know, his son goes to Indiana, and I wouldn't want my dad to change his fandom just because of where I go to school and to join my team. My dad is so supportive of everything I want to do. I mean everything. If you listen
to the broadcast tomorrow and anything good. At least I've learned from him when it comes to calling these games, so he helps me where I want the help. When it comes to fandom and Indiana football. I'll leave him to the second place Buck guys in the big game. Ah, very well done, Very well done.
So give me a thought look ahead into your crystal ball for tomorrow night. Just give me a thought on the matchup that you rematch between the two tomorrow night.
Oh, it's going to be a battle.
I think a lot of people are looking back to the first matchup in Eugene back in October. Indiana won that game by ten, so I think it's a little bit off putting. Oregon missed a sub forty yard field goal in that game. Indiana had a backup kicker, drill a fifty nine yard field goal. Dante More ended the game with back to back interceptions. This Orgon team's better than that, and it starts at the line of scrimmage. When it comes to keys to the game, Organ's gonna
have to run the ball well. They're one of those teams like Indiana that runs it extremely well but has a top five pick caliber quarterback where once they start getting four or five six yards of carry on first and second down, it opens up the explosives. And that's where these defenses. I gotta give the edge to Indiana. They're obviously the best defense in the country in just about every single important metric, but I think it starts up front and then who's gonna hit the big ones?
Because third down has been so key when it comes to this time of year. Indiana is the number one team at converting on third down offensively, and they're number two in the country when it comes to getting off the field on third down. So those third and fourth down, those critical situations. Both coaches throughout the press conferences this week have really said that's when we need to be our best.
Luke, are my listeners able to check in and catch your game tomorrow night?
Online they can so.
Our student radio has a website it's wiux and then in the upper left hand corner there's a little button on our website that says listen. We have a couple of different stations, but our FM station is ninety nine point one, and if you click that right there, it'd be it's a twenty four hour or twenty four to seven live stream of our radio station. It's just like ten to fifteen seconds behind the actual station because of the internet delay, but it matches up pretty well.
All right.
Last question, another important question, as you're aware your grandfather and Amanda they're like globe trotters.
They're everywhere.
Do you know at this very moment, it's six twenty nine, do you know what city, state, country, continent, Providence, Providence they might be at at this very moment.
I got asked this question a lot.
Well, thankfully I can be a primary source because I had dinner last night in Cincinnati, Ohio with Marty. He was willing enough to send me out and give me a couple kind words. I know that they're in town right now, but hey, if Marty was here for dinner last night, he might be in the US.
Virgin Islands by mid afternoon tomorrow, very Well said, Hey, this was a blast. I am so glad I was able to hook up with you and you were able to make time. I'm so happy for all you're doing. Just soak all this in and have a great broadcast tomorrow night.
I am thank you so much for having me Lance. He was a blast. Take care, Luke, see up all right, there you go.
Luke Brenneman on the call tomorrow night for the Indiana Hoosiers and Oregon Ducks.
Oh man, I'm so excited for him.
Let's take the time, I get a check on news. Let's talk Bengals with Richard Skinner Skinny around the Corner, RNL Carrier Sports Talk presented by Kelsey Chevelet, seven hundred WW