You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cast folks. Galen Clavier joining you tonight was the 20th of October recording this. Kind of early in the morning as we are getting ready for a big weekend and I use sports Hoosier Hysteria for IU basketball this evening. If you're listening to this the Day of and if you're listening to it over the weekend, you missed the Homecoming parade, I guess, and Hoosier Hysteria.
But also, of course, IU football playing this weekend. IU. Volleyball playing this weekend, IU soccer playing this weekend. Just a lot going on all over the place. And so this is going to be a football show. We're going to preview the IU Rutgers game and talk A. Little bit about the numbers.
We got some questions that we haven't had a chance to get to yet that you folks sent in that we also we don't want to make sure that we try to address and then just ultimately try to figure out what's going on with this IU football team. You know is this the week that things start to turn around? So we'll get to all of that here over the course of the next 45 minutes or so. 1st just a reminder.
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And then I'm going to go back and answer some additional questions from the Q&A that we opened up on Twitter and try to get more of those answered because I really did like some of the questions that you folks threw at us. But Indiana, Rutgers, this game is coming up at noon and certainly two teams that appear to be going in different directions, Indiana two and four on the campaign and they've lost
three out of their last four. And that includes of course last week's 52 to seven loss at Michigan. That concludes the 44 to 17 loss against Maryland, Indiana desperately in need of a win as Rutgers. You could make an argument, maybe the easiest opponent left on the schedule for this Indiana team. Maybe you can make an argument that it's Michigan State
instead. But regardless, any path to a bowl almost certainly runs through Indiana beating this Rutgers team and just the fact that you're playing Rutgers on homecoming, you've got them in your building. Rutgers has won the last couple of matchups between these two teams. Indiana certainly is due to exact some measure of revenge, one would think. However, when you look at what the two teams have done so far this year and how the computers are looking at them, Indiana
does not fare particularly well. Real Rutgers on the season comes in with a record of five and two, so they can actually get to bowl eligibility if they win this game. They haven't won against a huge amount of tremendously impressive opponents, but Rutgers has beaten Michigan State. They had a comeback victory against the Spartans at home last week. They won 2047 versus Northwestern, who's not very
good this year. They they handily beat Virginia Tech 35 to 16, and then their other two wins are against Temple and Wagner. They lost 31, seven at Michigan, and they lost 24 to 13 at Wisconsin. Certainly no shame in either of those losses. Rutgers on the season averaging about 28 points a game, surrendering about 16 points a game. And when you dive into the advanced statistics between these two teams, Rutgers, as I mentioned, comes out ahead 52nd
overall in S&P. Plus, Rutgers strength has not been their offense. Their offense is not significantly better than Indiana. Rutgers offense ranked 76th in S&P plus, although it ranks, I will say significantly better in Pro Football Focus. And so you know a lot of what you're seeing there is, I think Rutgers lacking a lot of explosivity in terms of what
they're doing on offense. But where they make up for that is when they get opportunities, they tend to take advantage of those opportunities and when they're needing to get yards on the ground. They've more or less been able to do that. So you know, the where Rutgers really shines is on the defensive front. They're 32nd in the country and S&P, plus they're 22nd in the country and Pro Football Focus and defense and they're 32nd and
FBI. All that adds up to a team that really has played very well defensively this season, albeit not against top level competition, but now holding Wisconsin to 24 points in Madison. For a team like Rutgers with that level of talent disparity between the two programs is pretty impressive. Indiana, as you know, we've talked about this throughout the course of the season. Indiana just not really looking
good in any phase of the game. The best phase of the game for Indiana right now is special teams. But when you look at overall play and either offense or defense, Indiana ranks around the bottom of Power Five teams in all of those areas. Indiana with one of the worst defensive success rates in the country. Indiana with one of the lowest offensive success rates in the country. Indiana one of the worst teams in terms of rushing success. Indiana one of the worst teams
in terms of of explosiveness. And unfortunately, they're playing against a Rutgers team that has been really good at turning opponents over and that leads to explosive plays for their defense. I, you know, I think when I came into this there, there was a thought in my head that perhaps the statistics would be more kind to Indiana and less kind to Rutgers. But what we've seen so far this season is just an Indiana team that is frankly stuck in the mud
on both sides of the ball. And I have not been imbued with a high level of confidence by the coaching staff with the public comments that they've made post Michigan game. You know what we heard going into that Michigan game was that with the changeover and offensive coordinator and with the buy that there would be tweaks made that I you would
focus on things that would work. And while Michigan is certainly a high level opponent, there's a a straightforward comparison you can give between what Indiana did versus Michigan at the Big House and what Rutgers did not. You know three weeks earlier at the Big House both teams lost by, you know a pretty significant margin. But Rutgers defense at least was able to keep Michigan under wraps a little bit. Michigan only winning that game 31 to 7.
You know, overall I look at this Indiana team and I say this does not appear to be a team that has solved a lot. And you know, if you look at what Indiana did in terms of of overall, you know, positive things in that Michigan game.
It's not that there were no positives, but the positives all came in a really tight cluster offensively and defensively and they were right at the beginning of the game and what concerns me. All the time about this IU team, and with that in miniature, is that we do see IU sometimes come out and do good things for a couple of drives, whether it's offense or defense or both. We saw it in the Ohio State
game. What we consistently see though, is that other teams, whether they are very talented teams like Michigan and Ohio State or even lesser teams like Rutgers, other teams are able to take that initial punch, make
adjustments. Solve whatever problems Indiana is creating for them and then use that to put points on the board, gain yards, keep Indiana from moving the ball, and it all ends up with essentially what would have happened if Indiana hadn't made those plays at the beginning of the game anyway. We saw that in the Ohio State game. Obviously. We saw it in the Michigan game. We didn't really see it in the Maryland game.
I mean, Indiana got some mop up time stuff, you know, but this is kind of the pattern that we're used to. With this Indiana team that happened last year when they went into Rutgers, they got up 14, nothing early. And I know I looked at that game and I was like, wow, OK, maybe they put it together and then Rutgers systematically started stopping Indiana from doing the things that they had been doing successfully. And Indiana didn't seem to have another gear or or another approach.
So you look at the numbers overall. You look at where Indiana's lack of success has been, there's just not a lot of matchups when you take Indiana's offense versus Rutgers defense or vice versa, that would favor IU. There's a much more detailed breakdown of all of this on bite sized bison, which I would highly recommend everybody go
check out. But you know, when you just kind of take it in totality, you've got an Indiana team where I think, frankly, the biggest problem is they come into this game is that their defense just hasn't been able to stop anybody. And I don't think Indiana's offense has any clue about how to move the ball. Still, I think they'll certainly have an easier time of it against Rutgers, but I don't think it's going to be necessarily an easy time of it against Rutgers.
Rutgers being LED in rushing by their junior running back Kyle Man and guy believe is how his name is pronounced, averaging about 90 yards a game, but about 5.3 yards per carry. Gavin Wimsat The quarterback hasn't had a great year. Only 7 touchdowns and four interceptions and only about a 51% completion percentage. But you know overall what you know when you look at these two teams in the way that they're set up. The Rutgers offense is really not designed to run or excuse me, to pass.
It's really designed to run and they've proven themselves to be pretty consistently OK at that. So for Indiana, the huge question here is going to be, can their rush defense rise to the occasion and force Rutgers to put the ball in the air? At this point, I don't think we've seen anything that would let us believe that Indiana's going to be able to do that.
They might be able to do it for a little bit, but I worry that the defensive line in the front seven is going to get worn down enough over the course of the first a couple of quarters of this game that even if Indiana is able to temporarily stop Rutgers, it's not going to be able to last. I'd love to be proven wrong. I'd love to see Indiana put together 4 full quarters of defensive action.
But you know what? What really worries me is that Indiana, over the last three seasons, when their defense hasn't been able to get stops even in moderate and low scoring games, their offense has not been able to make up whatever points are being allowed by the defense, which puts an inordinate amount of pressure on the defense because the offense just is not able to hold up its end of the bargain. So that's the big question this week.
It will certainly be easier to move the ball and to to have big plays and to have steady plays against Rutgers defense than it was against Michigan. I'm just not totally sure that you can. I wouldn't bet on it at this point. I think IU really needs to show before you trust them in a game like this. And that's what I'll be watching out for in this game is, you know, how well does IU adapt to the reality of, you know, their
offense has to produce. I don't think IU did themselves any favors this week in terms of how they handled the quarterback situation. We go into another game where Indiana is not naming a starting quarterback, which you know, it's amazing the lack of learning that seems to have taken place over this particular situation this season. You know, Indiana didn't name a starter going into game one. It really didn't make any difference. Offensively, Indiana scored three points.
Indiana didn't name a starter going into Week 2, but they were playing a really bad FCS opponent. They finally name a starter and they score 0 points in the first quarter and second quarter of that up that game. And you know, now we're back to a situation where we're not naming starters. Michigan is.
You know, if you're playing Michigan and you're rotating quarterbacks through some set process, but your team doesn't appear to know about it based upon what we heard from Donovan Mccully in the post game press conference. And it's just kind of baffling that this is still considered to be an important thing for IU to not name a starter. And you know, frankly, there's there's not really a strategic
advantage at this point. Whatever the coaching staff seems to think is the strategic advantage, it's not working and and it's really antagonizing the fans at this point. It's really kind of fascinating watching the negative reactions to Tom Allen refusing to name a starter at any point throughout the course of the week. But I think a lot of that reaction has been pretty justified. You know, ultimately IU needs stability and they need a
strategy and fans right now. I mean you look at the the, I mean we look at the numbers all the time just in terms of how many people are tuning into the podcast, like the numbers have dropped off a Cliff. People have become incredibly disengaged from this football program over the last few weeks. You know, and certainly the Akron game didn't help. The Maryland and Michigan games didn't help.
But the atmosphere around the program is just one of nobody seems to believe in the football program and the coaching staff have a direction with things or or know what's going on or how to fix anything. I mean that really is tangibly seeping through in these press availabilities and the coaches shows and things like that. Whether or not it's true or not,
that is the perception. And at A at a pivotal point going into a a weekend where you have to get a result on the field against a Rutgers team that is no more talented than your team is, you know to to just be like what? We're not going to name a starting quarterback. People do not have anything to grab onto with this team right
now. Like if you asked like what is Indiana going to do on offense going into this Rutgers game, I think most people would be like I have no idea and at this point I don't care. That is not where you want your football fan base at this point in time. You know, you have to get a crowd out there and you have to have a crowd that's excited and invested in what's going on with the team. And it's almost felt like Allen and the football coaching staff have just tried to keep
everybody at arm's length. And I'm sure that they think that they're doing it because they're going to get some kind of strategic advantage. But a we've seen that hasn't worked out in the games where they've done this. And BI think it's really turning off the people that you need to be invested in the game, which is the people that you want to get into the stands. And so it also ties into another thing which I'm, I think if you're an observer of IU football, you should be nervous about.
And this was actually asked by Taylor Lehman when we did our Q&A session, is Dexter QB one, of course, meaning Dexter Williams. This is something that we talked about on the podcast actually with Taylor far earlier than
this week. We talked about this all the way back in the preseason when IU kept refusing to name a starting quarterback and and when they really seem to be refusing to outline an offensive philosophy or identity other than we want to be a running team, we're going to integrate the triple option. We saw all of these things being integrated in those first couple of games that now I use gone away from because they can't run them. The option being a great example of that.
A lot of that seemed to be a, you know, laying groundwork for Dexter Williams to just come back in and be the starting quarterback when he was ready. It's complicated though because obviously if you look at last year, Dexter, while he had one really good game for Indiana and there was that game up at Michigan State that Indiana won in overtime. It's it's been very puzzling that IU, if, if this indeed is the direction that they're going where they're going to name
Dexter Williams starter. It just seems odd that that would be the game or the that would be the the offensive system that they would want to pursue given that that game. If you really go back and look at the numbers of that game, it wasn't Dexter Williams as a running quarterback that really won that game for them. It was some outstanding individual performances. By, you know, Sean Shiver's 13
carries, 115 yards. Certainly Dexter Williams had a good running game, 16 carries for 86 yards and a touchdown. But you know, a lot of it also came down to the fact that Indiana scored via special teams in that game. You know, they were able to pick up, you know, a couple of really nice long returns by Jalen Lucas. You know the the first kick of the game, Jalen Lucas returns it for 43 yards and and you you get a touchdown out of that.
You know, Jalen Lucas had another huge return later on in the game. Sean shivers on the first play for Indiana of the second quarter, ends up with a 79 yard touchdown run. You know, just kind of down the list. And you know, if you remember that game, Indiana gets down to the end of it and neither team can really do anything offensively. I mean the last four drives of that game, you know, Indiana scores a touchdown and and ends up tying it up.
And then no, Michigan State turns it over on downs. After an 8 play drive, Indiana has to punt. Michigan State drives all the way down the field and misses a field goal and that's the what sends it into overtime. It it's it just seems odd. And again, I like Dexter Williams as a quarterback, but he hasn't or as a runner. I don't think he's demonstrated himself as a guy who can come in and throw the ball. And you just have to look at his
statistics to see that. I mean, he ended up with about a 34% completion percentage in that Michigan State game last year. He was 2 for seven. You know, in that game, only two passes completed the entire game. And I believe both of those were in overtime, if I'm remembering correctly. So that game, I feel like a lot of what IU decided they wanted to do going into the offseason almost feels like a fluke result that Indiana was able to pick up on the road.
That's not meant to take away from the win. It is meant to say that may not be the type of game you want to base what you really want to do offensively around. And what worries me about Dexter Williams isn't just the lack of of demonstrated passing ability at this point.
What what is a much bigger concern to me is that this is a guy who is not yet a year removed from having a major leg injury and Indiana has seen a lot of quarterbacks struggle including Michael Pennix when it appeared they came back a bit too early. I I do think that there's cause for concern if the plan is OK, you know Dexter Williams is is
going to play in this game. It may not be the case that he's playing at all, but if he is I I yeah, I think there's enough question marks about it and there's been enough secrecy and and so forth And the fact that he was dressed as an emergency quarterback, I would be worried about several different things if that ended up actually being what the case was in this upcoming game. And so I don't know.
I mean, I if Dexter's back and fully healthy and able to make all of these plays and very confident, then sure, you know, maybe he is QB one and and maybe that ends up being the best move. It just seems unlikely given the instability on offense, given the fact you've already changed
over offensive coordinators. You know, given the fact that you haven't really established a lot of of confidence in the minds of the guys that have come in and played quarterback so far because you've been jerking him around. If Dexter Williams does play quarterback this week, now that's a third quarterback you've thrown into the mix and you still don't have an offensive system that you have
the right personnel to run. You're not, you know the offensive line is just not shown the ability to block, and you've clearly got receiving talent that you're not going to be able to use Dexter Williams to take full advantage of if he's still passing like he was passing last year. That those are all I think major concerns and I guess we'll find out when the lineup card comes out tomorrow regarding whether Dexter is going to be starting and if he's playing.
I do. I am curious if he is available. I'd be shocked if we didn't see him come in at some point. If I use offense with sputtering, I don't know if that's a good move at this point. We'll have to see. It's going to be a really fascinating thing. Couple other questions here.
We since we that that kind of leads us into talking through some of the other questions that came in before we talk about the our predictions on this game, Tyler Herndon asks this question, what is the conversation around IU football turn into if they win this weekend? Rutgers, Illinois, Michigan State and Purdue are all within reach. With that in mind, Allen could technically still get an extension to the contract by winning six games. What's the conversation if that
were to happen? Look, I I At this point, so much of the conversation is not dominated by people saying, well, we have to fire Tom Allen. A lot of people are saying that, but I think what they mean is what we're seeing at this point does not look like it's getting any better if IU goes out and beats Rutgers in this game on Saturday.
I think it changes the entire tenor of the conversation because I think what IU fans are looking for is some sign of life after really three weeks in a row of really underwhelming performance. And you know, even the Akron win was a really underwhelming performance. And obviously the last two weeks have been incredibly underwhelming on both. Sides of the ball. If Indiana comes out and wins this game, I'll be the first to
say, look this. That changes the entire prism of the season because as was mentioned by Tyler, you've really only got one. Absolutely. You know, unwinnable looking game on.
I'm not saying it's actually unwinnable, but you've got one unwinnable looking game on the schedule and that's that game at Penn State because the rest of them, as you said, you've got Wisconsin, who has a quarterback with a broken hand and has not really looked themselves this year, and you've got them here in Memorial Stadium. You're at Illinois, who's been mercurial to say the best thing that you could say about them.
You know they beat obviously Maryland, but then they've they've lost some really bad games this year. And you've got Michigan State, who is a dumpster fire, and then you've got Purdue, who is also frankly, A dumpster fire. And as bad as I use defense has looked at times, you know, Purdue's defense has actually looked slightly worse. They've scored slightly more. But that's certainly a winnable
game. You have, including this Rutgers game, you have 5 winnable games left on the schedule, which is what we've been saying from the beginning. A lot of the people who have been saying, hey, let's let's see how this goes. I think a lot of it has centered around the idea that if IU comes out and beats Rutgers, suddenly this is a team that could potentially play against that caliber of competition. And they've got multiple teams against or multiple games against teams of that caliber of
competition the rest of the way. So I think the conversation should rightly change to OK, Indiana's got three games left at the end of the day. What people are reacting to is how lifeless the offense has looked, how lost the team has looked overall, just in terms of how they approach the day-to-day and just the lack of strategy or focus that seems to be present. If that gets better and Indiana goes out and beats a divisional opponent at home on homecoming, of course the conversation
should change. And if IU makes a bowl, look, that's all anybody asks for with IU football. That's all anybody asks for. Make a bowl, yo. I mean, if if Indiana's playing in the Detroit Bowl, whatever is Little Caesars Bowl or whatever they're calling it now, that would be a tremendous ending to a season that looked like it had
no chance of getting there. It's still on the table, and I think so much of what IU fans who are still paying attention to this team are, is, are doing is just waiting for some sign of life. This would be a great chance for Indiana to show that, and I would get excited if we're sitting here on Sunday morning and I'm talking with Scott and we're talking about how Indiana figured out a way to beat Rutgers if they did it through offense or if they did it
through defense. Either way, it's like, is there something that you can look at that says this team can win at that point, the three remaining games? That might sound laughable as we're talking right now, but that's what this game means ultimately.
Can Indiana demonstrate that they still have a pulse Because as we talked about last year, like last year's team did down the stretch adapt and they were at least able to you know, they they they did rise up and even though I the the Michigan State game was flukish and how it worked out they still were able to win that game. They were close against Rutgers last year at almost the same time they were close against
Maryland last year. They they hung tough for 1/2 against Purdue. This is where Indiana just has to demonstrate that they can actually come up with the wins. And so I think yes, the conversation would change and rightfully so. Some other questions our our buddy James from Crimson Cash asks after Donovan Mccully threw that touchdown pass at Michigan, do you think it crossed Tom Allen's mind to give him a series or 2A quarterback? I mean, it's a really interesting question.
It was interesting. There was a Greg Doyle piece from earlier this week that that really went after Tom Allen pretty pretty heavily. It focused a lot on Donovan Mcculley and the fact that Mcculley had chosen not to be a quarterback here and instead it had chosen to move to wide receiver. But you see that throw he makes to Jalen Lucas in the Michigan game. You're like, is is there a reason why that happened?
That's still a very bizarre thing to me, that Mcculley who had, you know, came in as a quarterback, had a lot of the same skill set that Dexter Williams has, except had shown an ability to throw the ball better, just decided that he's not going to play quarterback. And and it seemed from that piece that Doyle wrote that that was Mccully's decision, not the football team's decision which that's a whole nother can of worms that we could talk about at some point.
But yeah, I I'm sure Alan has looked at that and and perhaps thought about using that Morris or maybe Rod Carey has more so than Alan if they'd be foolish not to. I mean when you have a dual threat ball carrier like Donovan Mccully who can catch the ball or who can throw the ball or who can, you know you can run jet sweeps or things like that with them. I mean you need to use that guy more often, use the talent that you've got. So it'll be interesting to see how that ends up working as
things go along. Some other questions regarding football that I wanted to tackle. Tom Shanklin got a couple What are the chances IU goes with the hottest handed quarterback and starts Jack Tuttle. Funny joke. I like that Jack Tuttle you know 5 for five of that game. Good for him. I'm glad he's he's getting some play at the tail end of these Michigan games. Tom also asked what are the chances Justin Fuente was hired as the QC coach but is really
the head coach in waiting? I I would hope not. I mean who knows at this point. I mean I the the the Fuente hire is interesting. We talked about it. I think when it happened it's it's a it's an advisory role. It's not a straight up. I mean I think there or maybe it's AQC role, but I'm not even sure how that is set up in terms of the the overall coaching hierarchy.
I will say this, I think in general, if you can have people on your staff that understand one phase of the game really well, which Justin Fuente definitely does, he understands offense. And if you can hire, you know, guys who have had head coaching experience, which he had at Memphis and at Virginia Tech, good, that's, that's a good hire. You know as far as what does
that mean long term? I I always like to resist the idea that any program, Indiana or anybody else, if they're going to make a change that they wouldn't open it up for a full search. I would certainly hope that the scenario you're describing would not be considered. If he ends up being the the best potential hire in that case, sure, but that is very unlikely given the Med, the the whole mesh of of variables that would be in that mix?
Matt Park asks. The Rutgers games have been critical both in football for years and basketball for the last few years. Looking back, what are the biggest missteps by the athletic department that allowed this to happen? It's an interesting way of phrasing that. I think the idea here with this question is how did Indiana let Rutgers catch them in both sports. I mean, look, I think it's different with the the two sports. I think The thing is that Rutgers made two really, really
good coaching hires. And Steve Pikel, who I I've always had a tremendous amount of respect for, he is, you know, he's, you know, Pikel was a Jim Calhoun disciple and really knows a lot about coaching basketball at a high level. You know, he he's not for everyone, but he has a system that you know, has taken Rutgers to two NCAA tournaments, which probably should have been three NCAA tournaments if you count in
the COVID year. And he's done it, you know, really without his teams doing much offensively. But they have been just dynamite defensive teams. And I think Indiana, you know, because of how up and down their program has been since Steve Pikel took over at Rutgers, you know, which was 2017, which was, you know, that was the year that was Crean's. Last year was Pikel's first year. I think Pikel was a better higher than Archie Miller relative to the relative
strengths of those programs. I don't know if Pikel would have had, you know, been a good hire at IU, but I know that Archie Miller didn't work out and I think that the things that Pikel did really made it hard for Archie Miller coach teams to beat Rutgers. I think that Woodson has been a better, higher and a better coach against Pikel's teams because you know, Woodson's teams has spent, you know, last year especially were able to score enough points that they
were able to beat Rutgers. That was still a really grindy game. Rutgers just a hard team to play. They remind me a lot of, you know, some of those teams that Indiana would have to play in the Big 10 in the in the 80s and 90s that were just very difficult to play against. Purdue was like that, but Purdue was more talented. You know, whenever you would go on the road and and play like a Minnesota. When Clem Haskins was there, they were very difficult to play
against football wise. I mean, Rutgers was in real bad shape and they went back out and hired the probably the best, certainly the best modern coach in their history and Greg Schiano. And as much as Schiano flamed out in the NFL, that's a guy that knows how to coach college football. And you know, I think that to me, the big complaint about the Allen era is that IU has gone
backwards. While its two biggest competitors in the Big 10 E have gone forwards where Rutgers and where Maryland were pre, Pandemic was far behind where Indiana was AT. And to watch Maryland with Mike Locksley and Rutgers with Greg Schiano figure it out and surpass really Indiana. I think in terms of of just how they play on a week to week basis with not that much more
talent than what Indiana's got. That's probably the biggest indictment that you can find of what Alan has or has not accomplished over the course of the last three years at IU. And you know you just can't afford if you're Indiana to fall behind. And so it's it's kind of a broader answer to your question, Matt. I think ultimately, I mean Rutgers still doesn't have the resources that IU has. I just think I, you know Rutgers in a couple of cases made really good coaching hires.
And those coaches have been able to overcome the obstacles that their programs face in ways that you know the the coaches that were in place at the time when they were hired at Indiana haven't been able to do. But as I said, I do think Indiana with Woodson made a hire that's helped to give them a much better chance against Rutgers. But you have to also tip your cap to Rutgers and Steve Pikel, I think on the basketball side and likewise on the football side. Let's see, Derek Fields asked.
With divisions going away and Big 10 television money, is the football job as attractive as it's been to potential head coaches in the last 40 years? Or is it about as attractive? Not asking you to speculate on Tom Allen just about the head coaching position in general. So good question Derek and I would rephrase this slightly. It's like this is Indiana more attractive as a destination for a head coach or a place that a coach would consider going than it has been in the past.
I think it it is actually you've got much better facilities now not saying that facilities are where they need to be, but much better facilities now than at any point you know prior to really you know when they completed the South end zone. You know so really you look at, you look at IU, they didn't start upgrading their facilities really until the mid 2000s and a lot of programs have done it long before then.
The overall lack of prior investment, which we've talked about on prior podcasts regarding the football program in that period from, you know, really the post World War 2 up to the beginning of the 21st century, it wasn't a very attractive program for people to come coach at. And it didn't mean that you didn't attract some good people. I mean, Lee Corso was a a pretty good college football coach.
So is Bill Mallory. I've always felt like the idea that the job's unattractive is, you know, if that's. I think at the end of the day, coaches talk a lot. This happens in basketball, too. Remember we, we consistently heard, oh, coaches don't want to go to IU to coach basketball.
There's too much pressure and it's like, well, a lot of times the coaches saying that are the ones that are talking to the media about that are coaches in low pressure situations who may just not want to coach in a high pressure situation. But there's plenty of coaches who are ambitious and every coach at the end of the day feels like they can take on a program and take it to new heights.
I think where Indiana has done themselves favors and and where the Big 10 has certainly done I you a lot of favors, is that financially Indiana is now a, you know, a cut above most of the other programs in FBS. Yes, certainly a cut below the programs that are bringing in huge amounts of money in their own conference or in the SEC. But I think for a coach that wants to take the next level, you want to coach in the Big 10,
you want to coach in the SEC. And Indiana is one of those programs, and it's not that tremendously different from a coach taking the South Carolina job or the Vanderbilt job or the Mississippi State job. I mean, these are not necessarily they're, they're more attractive than Indiana, yes. But relative to the strength of their conferences, they're not that attractive.
And I think you've seen enough between, you know, the last four years of Kevin Wilson's time and the first four years of Tom Allen's time. I think you most coaches have seen enough to think, well, I can win at Indiana.
Maybe it's a stepping stone job for somewhere else, you know, but I can go there and I'm going to have all these financial resources and I'm able to out recruit a lot of people, maybe not the the upper echelons of my conference, but certainly you know when I'm in fights now with ACC schools or Big 12 schools, I'm going to have some financial muscle behind that, you know. So I think, I think I think the jobs always had some level of
popularity or or or or draw. I think Indiana to some degree has has kneecapped itself a little bit in terms of who it goes out and looks for and that, you know, you think about it with basketball and you know, there were certain coaches that Indiana just wouldn't consider in the past few cycles because of the culture around IU. And I think with football that
has been just as extreme. Or it's been people hiring people that they have personal relationships with, which is why Jerry Dinardo ended up getting the job here. So that I think IU has made some bad choices in coaches and that has been interpreted as people aren't interested in coming to IU. Money helps to trump a lot of that. And I think IU is an attractive job if IU to some degree overpays for the talent it
needs. Because as we talked about on the last podcast, the reality is the football infrastructure is not here at this point. And it can be, but it has to be developed and you're going to have to convince someone that this is a place where they can build a platform and become very successful and that they're going to have, you know, the ability to build the way that they need to. That isn't necessarily the way the program's been built up to
this point. That's going to be the big question, Mark. And you know, so I think the financial aspects, the facilities aspects can certainly get better, but I think that that they will. A lot of it is, you know, you're probably going to have to overpay relative to what other schools in the mix would have to pay for a quality coach. But I think you have to do that if you're IUI don't think you have a choice at this point. Let's see couple other questions.
Tyler Rails asked, for those of us that don't understand the do's and don'ts of journalism, why when IU said why when Walt Bell said IU was a run first offense, did no media member follow up and ask why that is? I get fans can be crazy and think questions which cross the line should be asked, but that
seems fair play. I mean, you know, look, I think what you have to understand with journalism and the way that college sports get covered is that journalists don't want to go into a press conference, whether it's basketball, football or whatever, and get into a debate with the coach about what they say. A lot of journalists, their perspective is, well, OK, that's what the coaches said.
That's what we're going to write when we're analyzing it or when we're talking about it on a podcast afterwards. Maybe that at that point is like, well, that's odd. That doesn't seem like it matches what Indiana's got in terms of personnel. But the press conference is generally not the time to do that. You're there to ask questions, to have the people talk.
You're not necessarily there to call out the answers unless it's something like egregious or something that is that you know where there's a clear problem that hasn't been addressed or a or a clear question that should be asked because it has broader implications. I think a lot of journalists, you know there's you're, you know what you want to get out of the the the questions you're going to get those questions.
But entering into an additional back and forth or debate just doesn't really happen that often. And then that's not limited to Indiana. I think that happens in a bunch of different places. Most of the time the questioning about the responses comes
outside of the press conference. And I think the idea that you're going to have, you know, a prime minister's question style back and forth, where the head coach is, you know, facing an inquisition from journalists or anybody else, that's just not going to happen. I mean, it doesn't happen on the coaches shows either. You know, coaches come out, say
what they're going to say. And I think that it's perfectly reasonable in a lot of cases for than journalists and and analysts to go back and evaluate those answers and say, OK, well, this is what Indiana's trying to do or wow, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Why did they say that?
But there are circumstances where I do think some tougher questions could be asked when it comes down to what if people, what if the coaches said over time and then what has actually been seen, You know, and I think that there's philosophical questions. We talked about the, you know, not naming the quarterback thing. You can ask the question like what you know, Why do you feel that gives you it? Is it is an advantage that it gives you? Why do you feel it gives you an
advantage? Do you feel it has negative impacts on your team? But you've also got a limited number of time of of opportunities to ask questions. You may not want that particular answer. So I don't know if that helps explain things a bit. But generally speaking, I guess the the broad based answer is journalists are going to go in and they're going to have
questions. And if you go back and you really what I would suggest for everybody, you get a real good insight into the the mentality behind the questions that get asked in press conferences. The transcripts are all up on iuhoosiers.com. Go read those, they're normally up on other teams websites, read those as well.
And then if you can figure out who's actually asked the question and then look at what they've written afterwards or or what the television package was that the reactions from that that question, you know, engendered, you can kind of get a sense of why questions get asked and why follow-ups may not get asked. And that's just kind of how the system works. And it's it's rare, especially at the college level, for there to be a lot of back and forth or
probing into an answer. Even if at the time as a journalist you're like, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You're generally going to save that for later. Let's see. We had a question from Robert Holbrooke. Do you think Tom Allen is one of Dexter as a starter all along, which is why he hasn't been able to commit to either Jackson or Soresby? It's a good question.
I think Allen certainly found a level of comfort with the way Dexter Williams played the game last year that made him want to build the offense around Dexter, which is essentially what they tried to do the last 3-4 games of the season. And the type of attributes that Dexter brought to the table seem to really dominate Tom Allen's thoughts about what type of quarterback you wanted to bring in and what offense he wanted
that quarterback to run. I, to some degree wonder if Alan going into the season with Jackson and Soresby is the the two players who were going to be available to start at the beginning of the year. You know, I do wonder if Alan said to himself, well, I I feel like I've got my starter and Dexter Williams and I have to tide things over until he's healthy again. And I don't want to bring in a quarterback who's going to play a very different system.
And I also don't want to bring in a quarterback who's going to be a a direct obstacle to Dexter starting. We've heard Dexter's name brought up so much by Allen over the course of of the press conferences. Really even going back to August it's clear that Dexter Williams is on his mind in some capacity as far as being a starter. I think it's a it's an insightful question, Robert.
I think it's very possible that that's been bit of mentality around all of this and again I have my questions on that. You know both because of the injury that Dexter suffered and the style of play that he he is is executing. When he's out there or or shown that he will execute and just you know you've got good receivers on this team. What we saw when Dexter was playing didn't really take advantage of those and that feels like a wasted set of talent that at that point. But we'll see.
I guess we'll find out as as this game gets ready to get going and that'll come up here in less than 24 hours from when you're probably listening to this. So, So good questions everybody. I'm sorry I didn't get to everyone's, but we hit the 45 minute mark and it's probably time to shut this one down prediction for the weekend. I would love to predict an Indiana victory here, but like every metric is pointing in the favor of Rutgers.
And I don't really like to pick emotionally just because I want something to happen. So I think Indiana will come out and play well for the first couple of quarters. I think they might even be leading at halftime. I think Rutgers, though, is going to be able to figure out how to stymie what Indiana's trying to do on offense. And so I think Rutgers covers in this game. I think that Rutgers probably wins. I'm going to say 24 to 20 in this game.
I think IU, you know, is able to move the ball a little bit, especially early. I think they've got a couple of good special teams plays, but I just think Rutgers is a little bit stronger and I guess the 2420 they wouldn't cover. So let me adjust. Sorry, let's say 24 to 18 Indiana loses this game. Rutgers is just good enough defensively and Indiana has shown so little offensively.
It's hard for me to imagine that Indiana's going to be able to score the 20 or more points that they're going to need in order to win this one. So unfortunately, I have Rutgers winning. Hopefully I'm wrong. We'll see what goes on with this one, but that's where everything's at with this one. So thank you all for listening. I really appreciate it. Thanks to our friends at Home Field Apparel. Be sure to check out the pop Up store at The Graduate. And my thanks to the entire back
home network assembly call. We'll be recapping everything with Hoosier Hysteria. We'll talk about it a little bit on Sunday as well with our post game wrap up podcast for all those folks. I'm Galen Clavio, thanks for joining us here on Crimson Cast. We'll catch you on the flip side. Bring back the Bison. So long, everybody.