You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cast, Galen Clavio. Here it is Wednesday, October 18th. Good to have you joining us once again, a little midweek episode. God, there's so much going on with IU athletics and it's a really big weekend on A. Number of levels. So we're going to talk a little bit about that. But mostly this podcast tonight
is AQ and a pod. I put the call out on the Twitter account and a couple of other places and we got some really good questions, some interesting questions, some questions that I think are intended to get me in trouble. In some way I'm, I'm kidding a little bit on that, but I know a lot of a lot of interesting questions and thoughts and I really appreciate everybody taking the time to write in and ask and so I'm going to try to answer as many of them as
possible. I can't answer all of them, but I will try to get to as many as I can and then hopefully can get to a few others later on in future episodes. But first of all, just a reminder folks that we are actually on sub stack now on Crimson Cast if you haven't had a chance. Go ahead and subscribe to us. Go to crimsoncast.substack.com and you can subscribe for free. You get every e-mail that we send out, has a podcast in it, and we send it right to you before we put it out on Twitter
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The the podcast will always be emailed out for free, but we do have a subscriber option on sub stack where you do get some additional goodies. Some of our subscribers got a special set of goodies in the mail and hopefully they're enjoying those right now. Those will be revealed to the broader audience next week. You can wear them. So that's that's the the the, the key. I guess that's the the little clue on things.
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here. It's it is back home network season across the board and you probably know this but if you don't it's obviously Hoosier hysteria which means our basketball podcast really kick up in earnest. Not just Crimson cast but also of course assembly call back in action, do the work back in action.
We've got the Crimson cast women's basketball show, Amanda Foster back hosting that and we're pleased to announce that we've got a Co host for that show, Kevin Vera, another very talented individual going to be joining us as a Co host on the women's basketball show. We have a couple of other folks that will join throughout the course of the year, so be sure to be following all of the back home network feeds.
And just a reminder that the entire back home network is brought to you by home field apparel. Your place to go for the finest in college fashions, the softest fabrics, the coolest designs. We had one question. I don't know if the question got deleted. I can't find who sent it. So I apologize to the person that sent this because I can't seem to locate who it was that sent it. But they asked me what is your favorite piece of home field apparel?
It's a great question and my answer is not what you think it is. A lot of people think that my answer is the Bison Hoodie. I love the Bison Hoodie. The Bison Hoodie is great, but realistically my favorite piece of home field apparel by far is my IU script Oatmeal hoodie, which I'm actually wearing right now as I do this podcast. Just one of the most comfortable things I've ever purchased in my
life. I've been gently chided by the owner of home field because of how faded my oatmeal hoodie is for wearing it in public. But I wear it out of love because it is so comfortable and it has been around for a while. You know I I've, I've had it through the pandemic. I've had a pre Pandemic, I've run into football games, basketball games. I love all the stuff in the home
field apparel, IU collection. My second favorite piece of home field apparel, by the way, is my Tulsa Baseball Three quarter. Tee that that is just an absolutely awesome design as well. There's so many great things on the site. If you're in Bloomington, you need to come down to the Graduate Hotel on October 20th from 2:00 to 6:00 PM or October 21st from 7:00 to 12:00. So of course that's this Friday from 2:00 to 6:00 or this Saturday from 7:00 to noon leading into the football game.
Home field will be there. They've got a pop up shop and you can go purchase home field apparel in person. If you are a student, you get 50. Percent off all home field apparel for the first hour. If you have a valid IU student ID, that's a huge deal. That's incredible. You get 10% off your next stay at graduate hotels if you use the code home field. These are, I mean these are some some great deals all the way around that we want you to take advantage of.
And just a reminder folks that at any point if you would like to make your first purchase at Home field apparel, you use the code HOME 23 and you get 15% off your first order. So home field apparel, Trying to put merch in your hands? Go down to The Graduate here in Bloomington on Friday or on Saturday. Take advantage of the pop up shop and if you're a student, obviously. You're going to have the opportunity to save 50%, which is incredible. So anyway, we're going to go and
dive into things here. Lot of different questions. I'm not going to start with football. I had a lot of football questions. I'm actually going to start with some basketball questions and some other sport questions and then we will lead into football because we've talked a lot about football over the course of the last month. I need a little bit of a breather, but we will get to the football questions in a minute,
so stay tuned on those. So first question, Royville, Ballers, ladies basketball, women's basketball, Better that was reading the tweet, better than last season. Underrated and hungry question mark. Well, I don't know if they're underrated. I mean, they're ranked 9th in the country, which is pretty good. You know, is are they going to be better than last year in the regular season?
No. And in fact, I would not be surprised if the women's team was slightly not as good as they were last year because last year was an incredible year for women's basketball here at IUI. Mean, you know, probably, I think without question in terms of regular season, the greatest season that IU has ever had, you know you you lose Grace Burger off the roster, that's a huge loss. I mean that's a that is a generational player for IU women's basketball that is just not here anymore.
I mean playing in the WNBA and playing overseas, I mean 28 and four overall, 16 and two in the conference Big 10 champs. You know, you look at what they did throughout the course of last season, I mean the amount of games this team won impressively, winning at home versus Iowa, obviously, you know, winning at home versus Ohio State by 13, winning versus Michigan, winning versus a ranked Illinois team, winning
versus a top 10 Maryland team. I mean, they played out of their minds last year, almost the entire season. And you think about it, that team only lost four games the entire year. And of those four games, you know, one of them obviously was that, you know, relatively unfortunate game up in Michigan State where you know they were, they were still dealing with injury and and people coming
back. One of them was that game at the end of the season at Iowa where Kaitlyn Clark hit that ridiculous shot where they would lose by one. One was that unfortunate game up in Minneapolis where they lose to Ohio State. But Ohio State's a really good team. Obviously they come into the season as one of the top rack teams of the countries and then of course they lose that game against Miami in the NCAA tournament. Here's what I would expect with
this women's basketball team. I mean, they still have such amazing talent coming back from last year. You've got Mackenzie Holmes back, you've got Sydney Parrish back, you've got Chloe Moore McNeil back, You've got Sarah Scalia back, you've got Yard and Garzone. I mean just that right there that that that is one of the best returning starting fives that you can have in college basketball right now. And then you add some really intriguing pieces across the board.
But I also think it's going to be really hard for IU to maintain the level of success that they established last year in the regular season, the Big 10 arguably even stronger than it was. And you know, you've obviously got Caitlin Clark back at Iowa. Iowa will look a little different this year as they've lost some key pieces. Ohio State is really highly ranked. You know, you're going to have some really tough competition. And I think unlike last year, the target is 100% on Indiana's
back. Everybody is going to be gunning for them and it's hard to win as many games. But I think if Indiana were to lose, you know, 6-7 games in the regular season, that's not the end of the world. It's not a sign even that the program's gotten worse. It's that Indiana had a lot of games last year where things went their way and that won't always happen. But I do think that where this team will be better is in the
postseason. I think that the loss to Miami, I wasn't shocked when that happened because a lot of times teams that have that level of success through the regular season and you know, they enter as a one seed. You know, if they haven't had consistent success, and even though Indiana went to the Elite 8A couple of years ago, you know it's we're still looking at a program that is becoming a major
player in college basketball. You know, you you you you lose in the Elite Eight, you lose a Sweet 16 game on the road. But keep in mind, I mean Indiana only beat Princeton in the 2022 season at home by one point. You know, Indiana is still learning how to be a dominant team in the post season. I do think that the lessons that they learned out of that Miami game last year are going to really help. Them as they go through this season. So I think this team's going to be really good.
They're going to be fun to watch. They're going to be a team that everybody wants to keep an eye on. And I'm looking forward to seeing what they do. And I think they probably won't win the Big 10 this year, but I think they have a real chance at going farther in the NCAA tournament than they did last year. We had a couple of questions about soccer. Matt Zimmerman asks what's up with men's soccer this year? We had another question
regarding soccer. You know, basically this is from Tyler Hellman men's soccer to the top of the table in the College Cup. And that was actually Tyler Hellman who asked about my favorite home field apparel piece. So there you go. But to answer Matt's question about what's up with soccer, I've gotten this a lot. You know, the men's soccer started the season ranked pretty high.
I mean, I think they were second in the country and they lost a couple of games early and I think a lot of people just kind of looked at that and said, oh, this team is in trouble. Well, this team is 6, three and four right now. They've only lost three games on the season. They're two, one and two in conference play. They're on a three-game winning streak and it feels like they've
picked it back up again. And you know, with men's soccer, you know, I think it's important to remember, first of all, you know, they they lose to Washington in a game that really they should have won. They scored a goal that was disallowed and then Washington scored late and that was just a kind of an unfortunate game for them. They go down to Tampa and play South Florida. That game was a little hard to explain just in terms of the
struggles that they had. And then of course they lose up at Michigan State, which is not a bad loss. Michigan State's a really good team right now, but since that, Michigan State lost, They drew against Michigan, they drew against Kentucky, they beat Penn State on the road, they beat Evansville, and then they beat Ohio State.
They take on a Maryland team who's normally really good this Friday, and Maryland's really having a rough year, you know, so. If they win that game, they get Northwestern on the road in Evanston. And Northwestern is a team that has been one of the best in the conference. But. That's a team Indiana has proven they can beat over time. And then they get Rutgers, who of course beat them in the Big 10 championship game last year at home on senior night.
I think men's soccer is fine. They are a little bit behind the 8 ball right now in that their RPI is too low at the moment to guarantee that they would get into the NCAA tournament. So they're going to have to win these next couple of games. They need to beat Maryland. And that won't help their RPI. Huge amount. They need to beat Northwestern, probably, or at least draw Northwestern.
And then they need to win the final two games, and they probably need to win at least a couple of games in the Big 10 tournament. But look, I at this point, I think this team is going to be just fine. I think they're going to end up with maybe 10 regular season wins, 9 or 10. This is one of those teams that kind of reminds me of. I think it was the 2016 team that just had trouble scoring. And the nice thing, and the nice difference I guess, between this team and that team is that team
never really figured it out. This team feels like it has learned how to score again, as in the last three games they've scored two goals in each of them, Penn State, Evansville and Ohio State. The offense is humming. They were able to, you know, they they gave up a goal and it looked like I was going to head for a draw against Ohio State. They ended up picking up the goal and picking up the victory. I think that ultimately they're going to be fine.
Keep in mind this team last year was not expected to get to the College Cup and they made it all the way to the final, made it into, you know, overtime, shootout and that team felt ahead of schedule when doing that. This year's team, I think to some degree time caught up with them a little bit, but they've gotten their feet back under them and I think if they can piece together enough wins where they're in the NCAA tournament, even as an at large.
They're going to be really, really dangerous in the tournament because Todd Yagley, I think has demonstrated he knows how to get a team through the NCAA tournament and get them to the College Cup. That's that's pretty much the pedigree of this program. So I I think they're going to be fine. We had a lot of basketball questions. We're going to switch over to that and I promise we'll get to football here in a in a minute.
We had a question regarding. From this was regarding recruiting from Corey Stroud, a lot of people have criticized past coaches in IU basketball for being unable to recruit top talent. Do you think that is fair being that NIL is available now that Woodson is head coach, do you think that Woodson would be able to land top talent without NIL? OK that's an interesting set of questions.
I I feel like there is a. Recruiting is such a fascinating game at a place like Indiana because for a long time Indiana, you know, prided itself on. You know, we follow the rules. We, we, we, you know, we don't do recruiting inducements. And you know, however much that was true, they were clearly behind the Kentucky's, the Kansas's, the Louisville's, you know, while they were up and running the Dukes, the North Carolinas, in terms of the extra financial inducements.
But I think that. Far more critical to the core of things for IU is that I just think they had a series of coaches that were not as good at recruiting as they needed to be at a place like Indiana. And I think that goes all the way back to Mike Davis. I mean, as much as Mike Davis got lauded as the guy who landed Jared Jeffries alongside Bob Knight, you know, the guy who landed, you know, a lot of the core of that team that made it to the title game in 2002.
You know, as much as people want to give Mike Davis credit for that, the reality is those players came not. You know, they came partially because of Mike Davis, but they mostly came because of Bob Knight. And the proof of that is if you look at the players that Davis recruited afterwards, there were some good individual players who didn't necessarily mesh into good college team players. You know, Bracy, Wright, Marshall, Strickland, you know players like that who clearly were talented.
But. The type of player class after class that you needed to be successful. Davis just wasn't able to bring in and and even you know the players he was able to bring in a lot of times there was, there was a a relational reason why he was able to bring them in. DJ White, Robert Vaden, so on and so forth. I think, you know, Samson was kind of an anomaly. You can look at the the extra text messages and say, oh, you know, Samson cheated to get better players.
I think that that's. A flawed way of thinking. I think that I don't know that Sampson needed all of that extra stuff that ended up getting him fired in order to land really good players. And then you look at the, you know, Crean and Miller, and I think clearly Tom Crean landed a couple of big fish. You know, whether it was Zeller or whether, you know, you want to look at Jordan Halls, who was obviously in Indiana, Mr. Basketball.
You look at Noah Vonleigh, you look at Thomas Bryant, but. Where Crane was at his best was often times in finding the diamonds in the rough, whether that was a, you know, the OG and Anobi, Victor Oladipo, will she he where he was at his best. He would find guys that he could develop into, players that could become significantly better than they had been before he got his
hands on them. But it was an inconsistent way of approaching it, and I think Crane to some degree due to a variety of factors that are outside the scope of this podcast. He kind of chopped his own knees off a bit in terms of the talent that he was able to bring in and he relied almost too much on bringing in, you know, unheralded 3 star types and trying to get them coached up to a point where they could be successful. Or he'd bring in four stars that were kind of they were there and
available for a reason. They weren't necessarily guys that you could use as a platform to 100%, you know, get go through the tournament from an athleticism perspective. And then Archie Miller. I mean, yeah, he landed Romeo Langford, but I think Miller's big downfall was that he didn't really have a great eye for the level of talent that you needed
to be successful here. And I think Woodson does, You know, in an era where there wasn't NILI think Indiana had gotten to a point where on the national stage because paying players to come play was not fully in the culture. And I'm not saying Indiana was completely. You know, free of having done that, but certainly it wasn't as a cultured as what you saw at Kansas or at Duke or other
places. But now that the shackles are off, I think Woodson's ability to recruit in this era is actually a lot better and certainly punches above the weight of what Indiana has done the last 20 years. But is about where Indiana should be if it is indeed as it advertises itself, which is as a blue blood as a as a top tier program, so. You know, would Woodson have
found a way without that? I think he would have gotten a higher caliber overall of player than what we saw out of the previous two coaches consistently. But I think his ability to land some big fish is going to be really huge for Indiana. And I think if the jury frankly is still out on, you know, how do his second tier. Level recruits? Really develop. I mean we saw some flashes from Caleb Banks last year.
Is Caleb Banks going to end up being a guy that can be a solid contributor in years 2-3 and four? I think that we still have to wait and see. You know, Tamar Bates didn't quite work out, you know, so it's hard to say exactly what, what to take out of that. CJ Gunn didn't have a great freshman year. How does he develop? So I think in terms of top level talent, Woodson's at a higher level than the previous two
coaches. Certainly as far as how that relates to an entire roster that I think we're still. Waiting to see and that's where I'm going to be really curious to see what happens. Couple other questions here on the basketball front that I think we're we're worth talking about Robbie Malcolmson asked to what degree could multiple out of I I think the problem for Indiana to a large degree is that their men's basketball program kind of became satisfied
with being a regional brand. The coaching staff, you know for a variety of reasons and it's different for every coach and and this is where trying to talk about the over overarching arc of IU basketball versus what the Green era was versus what the Miller era was. There were some legitimate differences and how those things were managed.
But over the course of a long period of time, and really this goes all the way back to the mid 1990s, IU kind of became satisfied internally with not being at the very forefront of college basketball, and it allowed schools like Michigan State and Villanova to to take that place. I think you can make an argument like Alabama's put themselves up in that stratosphere. Texas has tried to put themselves into that stratosphere with some mixed
results. Obviously, for Indiana to go, first of all to be able to pull in, you know, Malik renewed. To be able to pull into Jalen Hood Schaffino, to be able to pull in Liam Mcneely, maybe pull in a couple of other people here in this cycle. I think it demonstrates that Indiana is back on the playing field nationally and that has a knock on effect to other recruits who you know if you start. And this is where you know.
This is where we keep hammering in on this podcast, getting out of the Crossroads Classic, which was a regional tournament at the end of the day. It was for the state of Indiana getting out of that mode and playing in New York and playing in Atlanta and playing in Vegas and playing in in in the Bahamas next year. That is what Indiana has to do if it wants to be a national brand.
And going back to that question previously, you know, there were occasionally trips to those places, but it always felt like when Indiana was playing those hope high profile games after the 20/12/2013 season, they kind of felt like an afterthought in that mix. And you know, it's been galling to me to watch Michigan State be in the grouping with Kansas, Kentucky and Duke playing up in Indianapolis at that.
You know, that tip off classic that happens every year, whatever they call it, the CBE Cloud. I don't even know what the name of it is, you know, because that really should be Indiana's spot. Indiana should be in that.
It shouldn't be Michigan State, but Michigan State, to their credit, even though they've only won one national title in the last 25 years, they have pushed themselves into that spot and they have been a brand that you can't ignore and they have gotten the types of recruits that have related to that. And so this is a long standing process that Indiana has to get themselves back into the national equation, back into the conversation, back into the minds of recruits.
They can't be viewed as a adult brand or a brand that isn't relevant. And look, I think a lot of what Mike Woodson's done has really positioned Indiana for that. You know, the fact that you've got Trace Jackson Davis now in the league, you got Jalen Hood Shaffino as a first round pick in the league. You know you're you're bringing in players that are going to be in the conversation for getting drafted. That is the stuff that resonates
with the top level recruits. You have to have the success to go along with it. It's not just, hey, you know, we're in these tournaments, you have to win some of them and I think that's the next step. But I like where these things are going overall. Assembly call asks, we're going to do our flag plants on Thursday's assembly call. Radio predictions for the IU basketball season that we feel strongest about. What are your flag plants for
the season? Man, I I think my this is this is a vague flag plant, so I'm not even sure if it counts as a flag plant. But I my, my flag plan is that Indiana will be significantly better at the end of the season and will look like it on the floor then they will in November because I think this team's going to take some time to gel. We talked about that on the preview podcast that we did last week, which you should check out.
But I, but I think you know if I'm looking at individual flag plants I I feel really confident that one. Of the two most important newcomers either. Mbako or Coel Ware is going to be a player that is in contention for an all big 10 team by the end of the year like one of the top 15 players in the conference. You know probably and I will say you know one of the other of them will probably be close to double double territory
statistical. I don't know which one I because, and this actually ties into a question that was was asked elsewhere and it's why. I've been a little bit.
Hesitant on concrete types of projections on the season, but you know, I think ultimately the the question, and I'm trying to find the question, there were there were a lot of questions asked overall, but the question was essentially, you know, what is, what do you think Indiana will look like in terms of how they play this season given the fact that you've got a completely different set of players out on the floor, You're going to have probably a very different type of style, you
know, and that's that's the kind of thing that I think makes ironclad predictions on what's going to happen with this team. A little bit different. It was actually from who's yours. Thank you. I, I just found it. How do you suspect the playing style of this year's men's basketball team will compare and contrast to Woodson's first two years? When I look at Woodson's first two years, the things that stick
out to me are as follows. Both seasons his teams have been really interesting in that they have tried to play to the strengths of the team while minimizing the weaknesses. Which sounds like kind of no duh territory, but you'd be surprised at how many teams don't do that. His first team. Was a really good defensive team, A top 25 defensive team and was pretty, pretty pedestrian on offense, his second team.
Was a really good offensive team and was I wouldn't call them pedestrian on defense, but they weren't a a world beating defensive type of team. I think this year's team is going to gravitate a lot more towards being a really good
defensive team. There's so much length, there's so much experience it where there is not length, you know, so Xavier Johnson and Trey Galloway I mean those guys have been through the fire in major conference basketball for you know four years and five years and then you got this immense length. You've got rim protection with Coel Ware. You've got, you know, you've got some reserve opportunities in the post. You've got Malik Renew, who I think learned a lot last year.
You know, so I think if I had to guess, I think that this team this year is probably going to be a lot more fluid in their offensive approach to the game because they're not going to look like a bunch of planets orbiting the sun, which is frankly what they look like to a large degree with Trace Jackson Davis is the primary focal point.
You know, I I I see this team as a team that if they can get some level of consistent outside shooting from Mbako from Trey Galloway. If Malik Renew can step out and shoot from outside some more, you're going to see and even Colo where obviously who has shown the ability to shoot from outside. I think this team is going to look a lot less structured and a lot less rigid offensively.
And I think defensively and this is where I think the development's going to have to come over the course of the season. Once this team learns how to play defense and once they learn, you know, not to foul as we saw with with Renew last year, I think this team's going to be really hard to score against as time goes by. I just think it's going to take a while and I think there's going to be, you know, so I guess this is this, this adds to
my tent pole thing earlier. I would not be shocked if Indiana lost by 25 to UConn. I would not be shocked if Indiana lost pretty handily to Auburn because those teams do a lot of things that Indiana's probably going to struggle to do. I also wouldn't be shocked to see Indiana drop the first two games in Big 10 play that they have at the beginning of December.
And I think at that point you see a lot of people being like, see, we told you, you know, Woodson can't coach da, da, da, which I think will be incredibly premature. It sounds like I'm making excuses, but I'm just trying to project how I think the season's going to go. This, this team strikes me as a team that'll win the games that they should, and it's probably going to struggle in some of those early season matchups against top competition.
But as we talked about last year, those don't really hurt you. You know, losing to Arizona last year didn't hurt Indiana. Losing to Kansas didn't hurt Indiana in terms of the tournament draw. It hurt them in the eyes of their fans.
And ironically that. I think part of the problem is Indiana fans are so hungry for sustained top ten, top 15 level success that any set back in that environment, especially against the team that Indiana's trying to measure itself against, like the defending NCAA champs, is going to be viewed as a step backwards. And I think it's important to remember that this team is going to be fundamentally reorganizing
itself. I think in terms of how it approaches, it's on the court style play and I think the pace will probably be a little bit faster. I think that the defense is going to be more aggressive and it's going to be more effective at pushing teams out of the post and and making them take more shots from mid range and beyond. And you know the big question marks that I. Really will be focusing on in terms of the other intangibles are can Indiana do better in the turnover department.
That's been one area of Woodson's rain that hasn't been great so far. They they've, you know, they they've they've done a good job. And I I don't mean offensively, I mean defensively. They have not turned the opposition over very much at all over the course of the first two years. I think they need to do more of that because I don't think that they can rely on, you know, keeping opponents off the board. I I don't think that they can rely on necessarily solely relying on making it hard for
the other team to shoot. That's what they've done the best defensively the first couple of years. And I think some of that frankly was due to the fact that they didn't have the type of athleticism on the bench that they could rely on. I think they've got that now to
some degree. So I think they'll be a little more aggressiveness on defense, because since you, you know, if you're not worried about losing Trace Jackson Davis to fouls, since you know you last year, if you lose Reese Thompson to fouls, you're really thin in the post. This year. There's enough interchangeable parts that if they go small or if they decide that you know they're going to play CJ Gunn, you know more often than not and move them around to different spots.
Or if they're moving, you know, Caleb Banks around in different spots, I think that they're going to be able to do more of that, be more aggressive and not so much worry about committing fouls. And I think that'll actually end up helping because that aggressiveness will lead to turning the opponent over more often. So those are kind of the big things that I'm looking for this
season. I I think this team is probably at the end of the day going to be a A7 seed in the tournament somewhere in that range, which is a great spot for them to be in because it's a seven seed kind of ramping up at the end of the year like I think they will. I think they'd be a really dangerous tournament team. Still want to see them on the court before I make any final determinations, but that's essentially where I've landed up to this point as far as this
season goes. Couple other basketball questions I wanted to get to Al Forno asked which IU basketball projected bench player, so not the projected starters. Ends up with the most minutes and points. I thought about this one. It's a really good question. I'm going to go with Peyton Sparks. I think, you know Sparks. People have forgotten Sparks shot a lot of baskets at Ball State last year. I mean, you know, if you look at his, his offensive output last
year, it was pretty impressive. And for Ball State he played 71% of available minutes. He shot 58% from the field on 228 shots taken, used a lot of possessions. He's not going to be that guy. You know, he drew a lot of fouls, Not a great free throw shooter. And I think that's going to frustrate a lot of people. You know, I mean, historically he is a, it's interesting his he shot 51% from the free throw line last year. He shot 71% from the free throw line the previous year.
Who we going to get? I don't know the the good free throw shooting Peyton or the bad free throw shooting Peyton. But I think Peyton Sparks has a really good chance of being a guy who scores a lot of points while he's in there spelling Colell Ware or heading up a second unit or even just in mop up time. So that'll be my projection there. But I look, I I honestly think that I wouldn't be shocked if, you know, if we saw CJ Gunn really step up and become a scoring threat for this team.
I'd like to see it first, but it wouldn't shock me if that was the case. But I'll go with Sparks as my primary answer there, OK. I guess we're going to jump over. To the football questions now and we're going to answer a few of these and then. We'll call this one quits and then we'll kind of figure out when. We're going to do another one of these 'cause this has been fun so far.
Let's see, we've got a question from Who's your Dada with Rod Carey's contract details showing him as the offensive coordinator until December of 2025. Is that date the date we anticipate IU to move away from Tom Allen? Can I you really afford two more seasons of the coaching staff referencing the downward trends that we mentioned in the
Michigan post game pod? So one of the things to keep in mind is that the contract language for Rod Carey does not mean that he's locked in as offensive coordinator until 2025. It's his job until then if he's employed. But he could be fired at the end of this year and I you would only owe him the remainder of his contract through the fiscal year, so through June 30th.
So realistically, no, I don't think that what you're saying is is true that we have to wait until December 2025 if Indiana was going to make a change. I think what the contract says is that Rod carries the offensive coordinator. He's got a contract through 2025, but it is severable at the end of every year where if he does, if if Alan, if the coaching staff gets fired because you know the IU makes a change, you would only be obligated through the end of
that. So that's that's where the contract language is important to understand. So that's that would be that we had a bunch of questions about Tom Allen and I'm going to try to pick through as many of these as I can. Jamie Jordan, long time listener to the pod. I've been done with Allen since Toledo. You guys criticized very heavily but won't outright say you think he should be gone.
Why? That said, until real, actual investments are made by the board of trustees and the athletic department, like Kansas announced, this is all just rearranging chairs on that Titanic. We had a lot of questions about that sort of thing. I I will say we've tried. We we don't. I mean, look, here's the thing there. There came a point when Green was here where it really felt like Indiana needed to move on and I don't recall US ever
calling for cream to get fired. You know what I would say overall on this is I don't think it does any good for a podcast or radio show to say a guy should be fired. I think you're all intelligent enough to make your own decisions about things and talking through why a coach is struggling or why a coach maybe deserves criticism. I think it's different than out and out calling for a firing. And so look ultimately it's a it's a choice.
A lot of people choose to go the opposite direction and they want to make declarations or proclamations on things and that's fine. I mean I I have no problem with that. Morally I am. Ultimately, as I look at things, I think that our opinion here doesn't necessarily matter in terms of oh they're going to make a decision or not. But I think laying out evidence or laying out context and letting people kind of draw their own conclusions from things is good.
I I just look at it like this. I think the nobody I I don't believe you know there's there's nothing malicious going on with IU football. I I just don't think the things are going well. I don't think it does a whole lot of good to you know specifically in the middle of the season say someone needs to be gotten rid of. So at the end of the year different story and I think if you recall we talked about that this year.
Yeah, last year or two years ago I guess it was, we did talk openly and say you know IU, you know at the end of the season if they haven't made a change at offensive coordinator probably needs to cause the offense isn't working. And they they did that actually before the seat or right at the right of the season ended with with Nick Sheridan. We also talked about the Darren Hailer situation at that time and said that needs to be a change there just from a a a
performance perspective. So I just look at it and I say I I don't think there's nothing malicious is happening with IU football. Things just aren't working and calling for a firing in the middle of the season kind of doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. But if that if it makes you feel better to call for a firing, I'm not saying you Jamie, but I'm saying people in general. Certainly as fans, I think you're absolutely free to
express yourself. It just kind of you, but you choose how to express your feelings. This is how we've chosen to express ours? CSW Hoosier asked. Well, Tom Allen's extension came with a hefty buyout that seems unnecessarily large. It did seem fair at the time that he should receive an extension after the 2019 and 2020 seasons. What other directions could the administration have gone in order to avoid our current situation?
And this is a really fascinating point, and it's something that I struggle a lot with because I I was in favor of Allen getting an extension. I think that the problem isn't the extension, the problem is the buyout. And this is where I think to some degree, athletic departments in general, and this is not something unique to IU. This happens all over college sports. Athletic departments are really bad at bidding against themselves when they don't have to.
And you see it with Texas A&M and Jimbo Fisher where they gave Jimbo Fisher an immense buyout from day one. And it was entirely based upon the work he had done at Florida State. And you know A&M was like that's that's the cost of doing business. And that's to some degree what we heard about the Allen extension was that it's the cost of doing business. And I think a lot of this is important to keep in context and I think you bring up a good point.
It's not just 2019 and 2020. You have to think that by that point IU look like it had established itself as a consistent competitive program, very similar to what we saw in the Mallory era where, you know, I mean in 2020 IU was in contention, should have gone to the Big 10 title game. They got voted out of it in something that still blows my
mind. They won eight games the previous year and in the the seven years leading up to that, they had raised the floor of the program to where they had won five games, four games, six games, six games, five games, five games and then eight. And then they went six and two in 2020. I'm sure at the time, Indiana looked at that. They looked at the fact they were going to be a top 20 team going into the 2021 season.
They're like we need to lock Tom Allen down because everything seems like it's working really well. And then it didn't. And you asked what Indiana could have done differently to avoid the current situation.
I mean the simplest thing there that you could say is, well don't give that much of A buyout and if it's that much of a piece of contention, well that's just one of those things that you can't give in on. If you're an an institution, you can't just say we'll fine, we're going to give you this immense buyout and we're going to have it last for a huge amount of
time. If you're worried about a coach getting poached and or you've got an agent saying, look, we have to have this number because that's what this person and this person and this person are getting. You're going to do things to try to protect yourself with that coach. I don't know that anybody looked at going into that 2021 season and saw anything but a continuation of what had happened the previous several
years. I don't know that anybody went into that 2021 season expecting it to go, You know, maybe you expect maybe they'll take a step back.
But a step back at that point would have been like 7:00 and 5:00, not 2 and 10. And that's the thing that you know, as much as I am frustrated about buy you football, as much as I'm frustrated about Allen's inability to fix the program, as much as I have historically been frustrated by the by the university's lack of investment in football, you know, that
seemed like the right move. It's like, well, of course you're going to lock down Tom Allen at the time and if you can put yourself back in that period, it's easy to say, well, I wouldn't have given him that buy out. I don't know that that's the case.
I don't know that anybody in that position would have said, well, this is a guy who, if he asks for that much of A buyout because he wants to essentially meld himself with the IU football program, what would you have pointed to other than, hey, he's had great coordinators, you know, what would you have pointed to at that point to say, well, don't give him the buyout,
it was the wrong bet. But it was AI think it was a bet that was made with the idea that, you know, I mean, gosh, he hired Kailyn. Deborah Nick Sheridan had one year where the offense looked pretty good. I mean, a lot of that was Michael Pennix. As as I think we've learned, Kaine Wommack was a really, really awesome defensive coordinator who's become a really, really awesome head coach at South Alabama.
Who could have predicted that Allen's choices in assistant coaches and coordinators from that point forward in those key roles would have struggled so much in what they've done? Who would have predicted that all of these recruiting classes that were among the best, if not the best that Indiana never had wouldn't work out? It doesn't absolve the extension. It doesn't absolve the length of
the extension. It doesn't absolve the immense structural problems now that are presenting themselves with IU football. And it's incredibly frustrating that this is how it has ended up. And I just think it's easy to say in, in hindsight, of course,
you shouldn't have done that. And the one thing I'll say is I I think unless you're 100% sure of a coach, unless you're 100% sure that this is a sure thing, I just don't think those types of buyouts are worth it. And I think if you've got a guy under contract already, I mean, what what's the coach? What's he going to do? Go somewhere else maybe.
But I I think that sometimes successful coaches, you're so worried about losing one that you end up putting yourself in a disadvantageous financial position because you don't believe that you could go get another coach who could be at that level. I think part of Indiana's changeover as they move forward is going to have to be believing that they can draw better coaches.
That you know if if someone were to leave who was actually very good that you could replace him with somebody just as good. But you know, there's no question at the end of it all that regardless of whatever the intentions were, the reality has been that Indiana finds itself in a real bad spot because every directional arrow for this program is pointing in the wrong direction. The atmosphere is becoming increasingly toxic. It's just a really, really bad
situation. And there are unfortunately often times you know the even if you did something with the best of intentions, the fingers going to get pointed at you and that's part of being in charge. And I don't think I'm breaking any ground with all of this and I'm sure someone's going to accuse me of being wishy washy or something with this.
But realistically speaking, again, put yourself back at the end of the 2020 season when the entirety of IU Nation is lined up behind Tom Allen and is looking at this and is imagining, you know, a future where they're more competitive, not significantly less competitive. And it's, you know, again, you can go back and say don't give that kind of an extension. And I think with this lesson in mind, I would absolutely believe you and and agree with you at
the time. I don't know that I necessarily blinked an eye and I think a lot of people looked at it and said great, we've got Tom Allen for the next five to seven years and it just hasn't worked out. So to answer the other buyout questions, Hoosier Russ asks is a Tom Allen buyout after the season truly realistic? Assuming things don't get better down the stretch, you know anything's possible. In this era of of of money and college football and college
sports, anything's possible. It's a lot of money. And as I mentioned on an earlier podcast, it's not just the 20 million or 21 million of the buyout. It's also you have to buy out the assistance. It's also you have to buy out strength and conditioning. It's also you have to hire a new person who's probably going to ask for an even bigger buyout because you just fired the coach
that had the $21 million buyout. And any agent worth their salt is going to walk into the negotiating room and say, why should my guy sign with you guys when you just fired a guy and spent $20 million to get rid of them? How does he have any job security if he comes to Bloomington? These are really tough questions. And you know to some degree, I mean a lot of people have and and you know we certainly have questioned, you know, why, why name Rod Carey, the offensive
coordinator permanently. Why not do it on an interim level? Why, why do a lot of the things, why allow a lot of the things that have been going on to go on. And I think if you're looking at this from a game theory perspective, I think IU Athletics looks at it and says, you know, if we do need to make a change. And again I have no insight info, this is just complete speculation.
But they're they're looking at it and said if they need to make a change, at the very least they want to be able to say we gave Tom Allen every opportunity, succeed when he wanted to, you know, install himself as defensive coordinator. We let him do it. When we when he wanted to hire Walt Bell as offensive coordinator, we let him do it.
When he wanted to fire Walt Bell and install Rod Carey and give him the biggest contract for an offensive coordinator in IU football history, we let him do it. You know, I think to some degree that, you know, this is a tricky situation for a program like IU that does not have the culture, the background, the booster financial backing that their competitors in the Big 10 or elsewhere in major college
football have. And it's a very difficult situation and it's it stinks because you know, the the line in general has been that IU doesn't invest in football, which is kind of weird when they gave the coach a $20 million buyout, when they've increased the assistant pool. When they have, you know, they enclosed both ends of the stadium. You know it. To me, I look at it and I say, well, that's not investment or
lack of investment. It might not be the the, the smartest investment if you look at it in retrospect. But the idea that IU hasn't been investing in the football program recently is just not true.
Is it enough? Probably not you know so I think ultimately the question of the buyout being possible or not I think in this era and a lot of people chimed in with this this idea that you know can you afford to have a football program that just is is not competitive given the state of college football and what it means for the athletic programs revenue. Can IU afford to have another sub four win season next year or does the TV money mean it really
doesn't matter that much. And I think the answer is actually in the short term it's the it's the latter as as as bitter of a pill it is to swallow for those of us who are IU football fans and and people that follow the program the the the losing isn't going to affect the television money and the television money is the most important thing. Now there are other aspects of things that are important from a
revenue perspective like GATE. And I think that where you worry is that people forget how bad I use Gate was back in the mid O OS at you know average attendance at one point if you took like A5 game rolling average dropped down to like 2827 thousand maybe slightly less than that. And that was that was the Dinardo era. The so much of the oxygen got sucked out of the building that people to stop caring and it took a long time to build that
back. And this is one of those things that Fred Glass doesn't get enough credit for, which is if you look at the attendance as it rolls up in the late 2000s and especially into the 20 tens, there was clearly a concerted effort to figure out how to get people back in the building, how to make the experience more fun and it worked.
I mean it it too and and even for a while with with Kevin Wilson as the head coach his offenses made it so that the games were at least entertaining even if Indiana didn't win. Where it does matter I think is if the gate drops considerably and I think we've already started to see that. You know the, you know, I don't know what the Rutgers gates going to be this weekend for homecoming, but it's not looking
great. And and certainly when you think about the crowds that Indiana has to have at home if they're going to be successful, they really do need to be in that 45 to 50,000 range for for a lot of games just because they're so far behind a lot of their competitors in terms of what they're able to clear gate wise. So it does matter I think a year or two where attendance falls off and things are bad.
I mean, it's not going to affect that much, but if it has an impact and certainly you can't allow that to to sustain. So to answer Kathy Amos's question, should I watch the IU football game on Saturday and if so, why? Look, yes, I think you should. I think ultimately you have to. I try to watch every game, not just because I do the podcast, but because I really do honestly look for improvement. I really do look for where is Indiana getting better at
certain aspects of the game. Some of it's incremental, some of it is hard to find. But I think it's an important process to go through if you're going to take the football team seriously. And I think that IU as a program, maybe not. This year's team desperately needs people to take it seriously and it's something that frankly didn't happen historically. People didn't take the football program seriously. And to some degree, it's why Indiana football overall has
struggled for as long as it has. Because fans would just as soon throw their hands up and say I'm done with IU football. Then they would sit there and watch every play of of games that are not fun to watch. But I think you have to then turn around and do what you're doing, which is filling my not, you know, filling the Crimson Cast account with questions about why is football bad, Why can't they do something about the coaching staff, all of these things.
That's, I think that's important, you know? And the only thing that's really going to make IU football better is 2 things really Money and people caring. And the latter has been, I would argue, probably in shorter supply than the former over the course of the history of the program. And it's not just IU to blame.
It's also fans in terms, and this is where I'm not blaming fans, but because IU, you know, there's there's a chicken or egg thing and a lot of times we'll hear people say we don't. Why? You know what? Fans need to come to the games more fans can't leave at halftime. Well, that's where the football program and the teams have to give the fans a reason to stay, have to give the fans a reason to cheer.
But I do think that even in in potentially dark situations like Indiana's in right now, you need to watch all the games, watch, watch everything, make yourself do it. Because that that should galvanized you into talking about it and and being like, wow, we really need to be better as a program than we are right now. And you know, I look, the Rutgers game is probably the second most winnable game left on the schedule besides Michigan State and the season's still not over.
And as as critical as we've been about the football program, the reality is as weird as as as unlikely as it is and as strange as this sounds, Indiana is still in striking distance of a bowl at This was my friend and the the field broadcaster Griffin Gonzalez was trying to convince me this the other day. You know, you got Rutgers at home. Wisconsin just lost their starting quarterback to a broken hand and hasn't exactly looked gangbusters.
You're on the road at Illinois, who's very schizophrenic. You've got Michigan State at home, who's awful, and you've got Purdue on the road. That's five out of your last six
games are winnable. And that's why I think that this Rutgers game is going to be important to watch because that is a game that will really, I think, tell us once and for all if there's fight left in this team, and we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, if I think it was an anticipation of the IT might have been the Michigan game. I think we talked about it before the Maryland game too.
Do we see fight out of this Indiana team or do they just roll over and and unfortunately in both of those games they just rolled over. They can't roll over against Rutgers, that this is a game Indiana's got to win. This is a game Indiana needs to come out and try to establish itself in. Are they capable of doing that? Is the coaching staff capable of putting together a game plan that can out scheme Greg Schiano, I I don't know.
I at this point I would doubt it, but I also will be watching because I think it'll help to dictate a lot of what we see for the rest of the season based upon what we see in this Rutgers game. Because homecoming against the Rutgers team that the last time they were in the building beat Indiana 38 to three. You know, you let Rutgers overcome a 14 point deficit last year on the road and you let
them win. This is the type of game where if Indiana's got any juice left, this is where the juice has got to get squeezed. Mike Harkness again asked a buyout question, which we kind of already answered. Let's see one more question And then I want to wrap this up because we wanted to keep this one to about an hour. A lot of questions here, obviously.
Let's go with let's go with this question from Buff Komodo because there's some more football specific questions that I will try to get to when we do our football preview either tomorrow or Friday. Buff Komodo as coaching salaries across the board seem to have ballooned, particularly when it comes to buyouts. Is there a future we're either begin to recede or are we looking at how coaching contracts will be for the future, 10 years and more down the road? I mean, it's a great question
that's really hard to answer. My guess is that it is entirely going to be predicated on what happens with college athletes, if they become, if they become unionized or if they collectively bargain, if there's revenue sharing. And I think all of that is bound to happen at some point, based upon my read of the industry, I think that coaching compensation will start to fall. One of the reasons why college coaches make so much money is it's a captive market.
You have to have a good coach, as I think we've seen. If you're going to be successful as a program and there aren't as many good college coaches as, yeah, it's kind of like NFL quarterbacks. The reason? The. The really good ones make so much money is aren't very many good ones. And so I look at both contracts and buyouts, and I say, I don't know if we're ever going to recede from the top. Coach is making around $10 million a year, which is what's
going on right now. But I do think we might significantly slow the growth of that because the the growth happened very quickly and a lot of that growth happened because colleges and universities have been desperately trying to claim that they don't make money. So how do you do that? Well, you spend all the money that you make. You spend all that revenue, you know, you spend some of it on facilities, You spend some of it on compliance staff, you spend
some of it on travel. You spend a lot of it on coaches, you know, and it's why you've got coordinators making $2,000,000 a year. The NFL coaches and coordinators aren't making that kind of money. And that's supposed to be the pinnacle of the profession, but it isn't. Because if you think about the NFL, the NFL has to split its revenue more or less 5050 between players and the teams. Well, that isn't happening at
the college level. So of course the coaches are going to make significantly more money, but I think that will. I think it has a better chance of receding. And I think we'll certainly top off if suddenly you got to start paying your players and you put all that into the mix. And you know, I think that's going to change the marketplace
somewhat. I also think, as you know, if you take college sports as a whole, if there's this separation between the top half of the FBS subdivision and the lower half of the FBS subdivision, I think there'll be some market corrections there too. Because ultimately a lot of the coaches in that upper level are
going to be making more money. But you know, given the realities of what it would cost to pay an entire football team a nominal amount of money, and if you throw in Title 9, you know you're either going to have to take varsity sports off the table entirely. You know, so maybe you've got five or six varsity sports, not the 24 that Indiana's got or not the 36 that Ohio State's got. Instead you you know, you have a
much smaller number. You either have to do that or if you're going to maintain all those varsity sports for Title 9 purposes, the money cuts are going to have to come from somewhere and you know coaches are are ripe for that. I also the other thing about this I think is going to be interesting is so much of being a college coach has been you are essentially you're not just the coach, you're also the GM, you're the lead recruiter, you're doing all of these
different tasks. I think we're going to start seeing situations. I think we should see situations done properly where you've got colleges and universities hiring GMs essentially for their programs, which now lessens the impact of the coach because the coach is coaching. The coach is not necessarily having to go out and recruit all the players. Isn't responsible for the contracts. Isn't responsible for the nil stuff. It's the coaches that are
coaching. Kind of like what you see in the NFL, you know, and it used to be that coaches, you know a lot of coaches wanted to be the GM as well as the coach. And what we saw consistently was that it was too big of a job to have a coach be AGM and a head coach. And that led to a essentially A winnowing of what the roles were. And that meant that the money got spread around a little bit more.
I did want to get to 1 more question because I thought Patrick, who always asks some pretty good questions, had a couple of questions on this. But I want to. There's one I'm going to focus on, which is my thoughts on investments in IU football to prepare for the future. IU seems to be focused on game day experience with their survey this summer. This is Patrick riding fancy coaching and contracts needing resolution, some safe
facilities. Obviously there's no one solution but what is my three to five year plan. So I think ultimately you know I've I've worked in sports for a long time. I've covered sports for a long time. There's absolute like this is not minor league sports in minor, you know in in minor league sports the ethos of the front office is we can't rely on the on field product bringing in the audience. So instead we have to make the experience better.
We have to make the experience something that the people want to come back for over and over again. I don't think that works with college football. It doesn't work with college basketball either. People don't want to go for the experience. People don't want to go to hear what's on the PA. People don't want to go and sit in comfortable seats. People don't want to go. I mean that that they will, they
like those things. But ultimately the most important thing by far and the most important thing you can invest in is the core product and it you just look at. I mean people have a lot of different thoughts on Colorado. Colorado, I know, lost last week to Stanford and and that was a shock to, you know, to to them. Certainly a lot of people used it to take shots at Deion Sanders and I understand why.
But realistically there's an energy and a vitality around that football program now and it has nothing to do with the game day experience and has everything to do with the fact that they're winning football games and they're playing entertaining football. That to me has to be what you focus on and I think for IU because there really isn't a culture of winning, entertaining football. There's no real program identity.
You know, you think about and some of this is coach driven obviously and and and there's dangers in changing it. Wisconsin's trying to change their program identity right now and they're going through some growing pains. But are you just that you know you you have to be more focused on the on field experience that the fans are watching.
You have to be focused on what people are seeing on television and most of the other stuff, people will sit in the dilapidated stadium without dated, you know, urinals and and concessions if there's a good football program. And then from there you grow things around it. And I think that's got to be the key. I mean, you know if Tom Allen is somehow able to pull the program out of the the flat spin that it's in right now and figure out a way to get them back to respectability.
I don't know honestly if if I I don't know if that's a recoverable relationship. Even if Alan, if they rally and win five games this year and they get to a bowl next year, I don't know if people ever going to fully trust Tom Allen again and I certainly. With the the direction that Allen's tried to take his offense, which really does need to be entertaining for IU fans, I don't know that we'll ever get to that because Allen seems very disinterested in the
entertaining style of football. So I think you have to, if you're IU my my three to five year plan, it'd be more A5 year plan because it's going to take a while. You have to get a coach who a can coach at this level. Whenever that happens, it's next year, two years, three years, four years who can get a fan base that is not predisposed to being interested in their own football program, interested in
their football program. You have to give the fan base some easy WS. You know, this is where you you, you, you under schedule. It's basically what it's what people made fun of James Franklin for saying. But he's absolutely right. You under schedule to get wins, to get to bowl games because you have to maintain some level of of competitiveness and enjoyment for the fans. And if you don't have that, you really don't have anything else
in this business, you know? And that's the thing about the 20 tens. IU played entertaining football for most of that decade and it's certainly a lot more entertaining than the the 20 O OS were and certainly more entertaining than what the 20 twenties have been thus far, except for the year that nobody got to see the team play in person. So that is that a plan. You know a lot of people have been like, well, coaches won't come to IU, they will if you pay them enough money.
And I think you have to understand as much as I and I'll I'll keep saying this and people can disagree with me as much as I think IU has stepped up in terms of supporting financially the football program since 2008 or so. And and as much as they have designated resources and paid money realistically you're you're essentially now having to compensate for the lack of investment that was shown in the 90s and 2000s and really going all the way back.
I mean you know historically the the the entire pre World War 2 era even though Indiana had some success there just wasn't the level of investment in the program. The post World War 2 era was disastrous. You know that? Take the Rose Bowl year out of it. I mean, that stretch of time from 1946 until 1978 was about as bad as you can consistently
be as a football program. And Indiana is still digging itself out of that and still digging itself out of the period that started with Cam Cameron getting hired and ended with, you know, essentially Terry Hepner getting hired. It just takes a lot of effort to to dig out of that and I think Indiana's going to have to overpay significantly to get what they need to get things set.
I I think athletics, you know, is probably looking at it and saying, well, since we can't count on that, we've got to try to make the game day experience better. And I think that that's also true. But I think that, you know, there have been some improvements in some of the game day experience lately. Ultimately though, what people want is they want to enjoy watching football. They want to enjoy the team that
they root for. They want to have a reason to root for the team and that to me, I feel like with the biggest sorrow I have about IU football is that it felt like they've finally built that up. And by 2015, then that whole stretch, that six year stretch from 2015 to 2021, even though it wasn't perfect and even though IU lost a lot of games at at various times, they were competitive. They were in games even against higher level competition. And it was a fun program to watch.
And I think the, you know, what we're all getting at this point is the unfortunate culture shock of that disappearing and being replaced by not just losing but unentertaining losing. And I think that's got to be the top thing. Like you, you have to have someone who can bring in the right types of players, who can develop players and who can create an environment where people want to be involved in the program and where they have trust again in the coaching
staff. And I think that and this goes back to the extension question from earlier, I think that had transpired here. I think Tom Allen had built a huge amount of trust with the fan base, you know by the end of the 2020 season and it has been systematically just lost through action and inaction and and essentially an undefendable set of outcomes that have occurred over the course of the last 2
1/2 seasons. And so Patrick, that's I don't know if that answers your question adequately but certainly I've always said like you have to get the on field product right first. You cannot expect the fans to show up waiting for the product to arrive. You have to have the product 1st and then the fans will come, which is what they did from 2015 to 2020 and go back.
Look at those 2021 crowds. You know that Cincinnati crowd was was it was packed, students filled the student section, Michigan State that year, students filled the student section and even last year students were there. Alumni started to drift away. Now everybody's starting to drift away and that to me you're only going to correct that if you have a product, whether it's under Tom Allen or whether it's under somebody else, that brings people back in.
And at this point, the trajectory doesn't look good. The nice thing is Indiana, as I've said before, is in a position where nothing is unrecoverable. It might just take a few years to recover it. So I guess a quasi, either pessimistic or optimistic, no, depending on how you want to take that. Anyway, we've gone on for too long with this one. Hopefully this was a an enjoyable Q&A for you. We'll do another one of these soon. Let me know if you've got any other questions.
You can always hit us up on the sub stack and leave comments there. We try to respond to those more on an individual basis. Our thanks to our friends at the Back Home network. Our thanks to home field apparel. Be sure to stop by the Graduate Hotel this Friday and Saturday. Check them out in person here in Bloomington. We'll be back with our IU Rutgers football preview coming up in the next couple of days. So keep your eye out for that. For all those people.
I'm Galen Clavio. Thanks for joining us, folks. We'll catch you on the flip side. Bring back the Bison. That's all everybody.