You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cast, Galen Clavio, Scott Caulfield joining you. It is the 26th of November and Scott, I got, I got some news for you is it over? It's over. It's over. We we've we've seen the end of IU football on the field for the 2023 season and we win a. Win a chicken dinner for us because we both. We didn't get there. You don't have to draw it, as they say in golf, but we both got there.
We both picked a three and nine season. Hey, we each got 2. Of the three wins incorrect, we both missed on the third one. But I mean, if nothing else, we are providing stellar previews because we both nailed the the the record correct. I love how we we're now we're now correctly predicting IU football and it sucks. Unfortunately, there's only somebody, like, you have to pick between 2-3 and four. Like, our number kind of combination has gone way down. Yeah, it's, I know it was.
I feel like, I I felt like I was going to be underselling at 3:00 and 9:00. I think we got a little criticism for the three and nines. Everybody's like, Oh no, this team, this program's like, you know, they're gonna move incrementally forward. And it's like, no, it didn't happen. And man, we're not gonna talk about that yet. So for those of you who are new to the podcast, we generally do
2 pods at the end of the year. We do one pod that recaps the final game and we let it breathe for a little bit. And then we have a pod where we talk about the the whole season. And so we'll certainly talk a bit about what's happened this season in this pod as we talk about this Purdue game. Because I don't know how you can't like. So much just a microcosm of microcosms. But our big blowout post season pod will come sometime soon.
Could be in the next 12 hours. Could be in the next 24 to 48 hours. And so I will. Fill it to the audience that just there's going to be a couple of negative thoughts that we have on the season. So I'm just letting you know now that's just some foreshadowing there from Scott, much appreciated break. Before we get started, just a reminder that we are part of the back home network. If you missed out this weekend, a lot of great content from the back home network.
Earlier on in the week we had Assembly call recapping the games I guess we'll call them that were played in New York. We had the the Doing the Work podcast they've been doing the post games, IU women very successful trip down to Fort Myers. They knock off Tennessee and Princeton and of course you've heard us. You've had Crimson Cash. You've had the the Football Preview podcast, all of that sponsored by Home Field Apparel. And folks, just a reminder that Home Field Apparel is in the
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you're going to get 20% off. Just use the code Black Friday and hopefully you'll be able to do that by the time you hear this podcast. Also, just a quick reminder, crimsoncast.substack.com go check us out there. Go consider subscribing. You get free emails to your inbox with our podcasts if you would like to financially support the podcast, it's very moderate figure and we'll give you some extra content. Scott and I were just previewing
some extra content. We're going to provide you talking about how rich people are just like you and me. I'll, I'll use that as the teaser, but it has a sports context and so that's the kind of extra content that you might get from us if you subscribe $5 a month, $50 a year in crimsoncast.substack.com. Anyway, Scott, that was definitely an old Oaken bucket game that we saw yesterday.
You and I have been around long enough that we've seen a lot of these old Oaken bucket games, and very little about this one was surprising. It starts off with an interception that leads into a missed field goal, and then it leads into Indiana looking like they would potentially dominate. Purdue, look like they couldn't get out of their own way. Then there was a huge sea change of momentum and then a huge swing back and it really didn't settle down into a predictable
pattern. I felt until the fourth quarter when you could see the train coming down the tracks, quite literally in this case for Indiana, and they couldn't do what they needed to do to get out of the way. Indiana loses this 13531. What were your initial thoughts from this game? So I'm one of my high level thoughts is exactly what you were talking about in that sea
change? Indiana got up 28 to 18 with a minute 40 to go in the third quarter and they had actually there have been other points in the game like when they were up like 14 to 6. It just felt like in the early in the second quarter it felt like this is our chance to put them away. Then it I got thinking about it. I'm going to ask you this question because we got up 28 to 18 up until this game. How how many times and for how long has Indiana been up? 10 points or more on an opponent
this season. Did you calculate this already or am I supposed I was like hopefully you did the math here because I certainly didn't well. PPT trying to get it that way. No, no, I know does not compute at all. No, it hasn't been off. And obviously there was a large section of the game versus Indiana State where they were up by more than 10. I I don't count Indiana State
then I'll I'll go to the answer. So it's been for a total of about 6 minutes and 44 seconds this year like IU was up 10 nothing on Wisconsin for like 4 minutes and then they were up 2112 and then 2712 for two minutes and 44 seconds against Illinois and then it got the 2719 then it was done but but it got like I I started thinking about like this is one of the problems this team hadn't. Again, trying to keep it focused on this game, but it it's been throughout the season that.
You know, they're they're basically like a car running in the red and the RPMS, it's like everything is high pressure because you've never given yourself any kind of room. And again, I know this is the struggle of all bad teams, but it's like you had this moment where it's like 14 to 6 and and Purdue's kind of struggling. It's like if you could just get like 2 stops and get 10 more points, you might be able to put this game away in this in the second quarter.
Or at least be to a point where now you can like, breathe and the car's not running in the red, but it just. And then again, it happened. We're up 2818. It's like we have all the momentum. It doesn't happen. And it just got me thinking like that was, it's something we've seen this whole season, but it's like every offensive play becomes the most important offensive play and every defensive play becomes the most important because all these games are super tight.
We never take a chance to kind of put a team away and give ourselves some breathing room like you. You watch like that Maryland game where Maryland goes up like, you know, 28 to 7 and it's like you could just see them kind of exhale. And then it's like, you know, the older brother holding little brother back with his hand. We we're just never able to do that. And unfortunately this is a team where you know you you put them in stressful situations and they end up you know more often than
not making the wrong mistake. And it's just like my thought is like, but yet it feels like the entire game is always a stressful situation because the only time it's not is when we're down you know 33 to seven against Maryland. So that that's a high level take away ahead from the game.
No, I I think that's a really, it's an accurate point and it's why this game was largely the season in miniature, because Indiana had a chance to make it somewhat easy for themselves and instead they chose to make it hard. And a lot of that is just intrinsic to the way that IU under Tom Allen has chosen to play football over the course of the last three seasons. There's, you know you either don't have the right play calls in place or you don't execute
the play calls that are there. And whether it's offense or defense and increasingly it's been defense, the team has had opportunities to get off the field, has had opportunities to make plays that would make it harder on the opponent. And what they've instead done is not do those things which is made, which makes it hard for them. I mean the Illinois game is probably, if you were going to take the, the arch example of this situation, that's it.
An Illinois team that that didn't have their starting quarterback, an Illinois team that was down by 15 points and look like their season was was going to disintegrate an Illinois team, I'll note that just lost to Northwestern 45 to
43 in this week. You let them back up off the mat and yes, Indiana deserved a lot of credit in that game for coming back, but they didn't have to like the idea that they had to do that entirely hinged upon the idea that they couldn't maintain what they had built in the 1st place. Or you know, I think you see the same thing in this game. It's it's just a common set of frustrations and it feels again over and over like the same thing.
And you know, you look at a guy like Brendan Soresby and on the one hand it's like well 3 touchdowns in this game. That's great. Had a pretty good completion percentage, relatively speaking. Was certainly above, you know, the 50% mark, which is nice. You know, was was citing Donovan McCullough got some good stuff out of EJ Williams. But he throws 3 interceptions in the game. And, you know, did half all. Yeah, all the first half.
And, you know, they were just, they were momentum shifts and things where, you know, it's not even like did that immediately lead to something because some of them didn't. But it kept giving Purdue the idea that, hey, we're still in this football game. And I think what you saw in this Purdue game was Indiana always looks unsure of itself. They always look like they're worried that something's going to go wrong and then it compounds on itself.
And so A-Team like Purdue, who frankly sucked like Purdue, that was one of the most embarrassing performances for a team that had something to play for. I mean, I talked about in the pregame show. It's like IU, if you really break it down, you have a bunch of transfers. You've got a team that the where the coaches situation is kind of up in the air. You know it was a team that you know thought they were going to go to a bowl a couple of weeks
ago and then had that collapse. Like they really didn't have a lot to play for. Purdue at least had next year to play for Purdue look like they couldn't wait to go on vacation for the first half of this game. And for Indiana to allow them to stick around like they did Illinois, like they did Michigan State, you know, really just highlights the lack of confidence and the lack of assuredness and the the lack of winning mentality that has pervaded this program.
And it stinks because you know, for a variety of reasons. But when I when I look at the individual performances, there's a lot of things to like Josh Henderson almost 5 yards of carry. Trent Howland, 4 1/2 yards of carry. Aaron Casey had another amazing
game. You know, you had good individual performances, but they never seem to add up because you don't get all 11 players contributing simultaneously, and the other team tends to get that just enough that it puts Indiana in a position where they're going to lose as they did again. The the other thing that was just highlighted this game again, and this is this is definitely one of those things where like you have to watch the game because it does not show up in the stat, it shows from the
stats as bad defense. But just the the utter inability to tackle it is is just bananas in this game. And you know what what I mean by it doesn't show up. It's like, you know, nine times out of 10. We're in the right place. Like we're putting pressure on the quarterback and then it's like we have pressure all over the quarterback. And there was one where Card was like sandwiched like 3 guys all around, like you did everything correct and then he you don't tackle him, you don't bring him
down. And it all, it reminded me again of, you know, we turned you know, Hudson Card into this amazing dual threat quarterback that he isn't. I think he had coming into this game, 118 yards rushing coming into this game. He had 97 yards in this game. It was very reminiscent of Arkan or Sorry Akron, where he had DJ Iron suddenly turned into Michael Vick, where he has 144
yards in the game. And and again, it was mostly off of times that he should have been sacked but wasn't and then scampers away and that you see it in the secondary. I mean you see it just all over the place where it's just it is so much bad tackling. It's just terrific. It's and what it is. I mean, try because you're right, I'm and we've seen that a few times. We, like you said, Akron is probably the clearest example of
that. But there's a brittleness to this IU defense where they do seem to be able to stop the initial thing. And when the other team can make extra time and do a second thing, IU has no clue what to do. I mean, that would have. That's what happened at the end of the Illinois game. You know, they they defended that pass. They got the rush on the quarterback, but then he rolls out and boom, OK, well there's your touchdown and that, that
ends the game. You saw it in this where it's like, OK, you stop Hudson Cards passing attack, which looks so great against Minnesota. Hudson Card starts scrambling. That's not his game. Indiana isn't able to do anything about it, and they give up these huge chunks of yardage over and over again and it feels like over. For next year, we're doing two things this year.
Yeah, I know, right? And you saw it in the Michigan State game down the stretch as well, where it's like just Indiana couldn't handle whatever the second thing was. And Indiana themselves does not seem to have a second thing that they do. And other teams, if they can stop Indiana's first thing offensively, are generally successful. And that's where to some degree we've talked. We harp a lot with this program about halftime adjustments being a problem.
The problem is that, and this game kind of felt like that the first half, Purdue was having trouble stopping Indiana. Indiana was moving the ball pretty well. They made some adjustments at halftime and they really shut Indiana down in the second-half. I mean, you know, we got to forget, yes, Indiana, we got to remember, sorry, yes, Indiana won or only lost this game 3531, but part of that was 100 yard kickoff return for a touchdown by Jalen Lucas.
If you take that out, Indiana scored ten points in the second-half. And you know, that's if not for the brilliance of one individual. This actually reminds me a lot of the Michigan State game last year. If not for the brilliance of one individual, you're probably not looking at a game that's even that close, because Purdue scores 23 points in the second-half and Indiana only scores 10.
Yeah, that's that's the problem. And look yes, you need all of those things to work but in the but it's like the idea that you have to rely on getting 100 yard kickoff return in a season where Jaylen Lucas hasn't been kicked to, that's an indicator that you're just not where you need to be. And and I think you go through just the way that this game
unfolded. I mean, I I think we all expected Indiana to lose because even if Purdue was the bad Purdue that we've talked about, Purdue was probably going to string together enough place to win. And I just didn't have faith that Indiana was going to figure out how it was going to, you know, work down the stretch. And you kind of saw that on that last drive or the last two
drives. I mean Indiana, they end up settling for a 39 yard field goal in a tie game knowing that that's probably not going to be enough given that Purdue is moving the ball pretty freely at that point. And sure enough, Purdue marches down the field. Now Indiana's got to drive down the field and score the touchdown that they didn't decide to try to score on the previous drive. And shockingly, they get to a spot where they have to gain 1 yard and they can't gain 1 yard.
And you know, was the guy off side on that last play? Probably. Would it have mattered if he had been, you know, not off side? No, because they had so clearly snuffed out the play that Indiana called there. He could have started a second after the snap and probably gotten to Soresby before he turned around and threw the ball. I mean it's just.
And and that moment, just the other thing to highlight in this moment and I, I know I pick on this all the time, but like this is important stuff is in the third quarter your defense starts playing well. There's kind of an important third down, but your defense has got momentum and then we call a timeout. And in that case, it did work, like the the the defense stopped.
But it's like I. I remember thinking like and I think I saw on Twitter a couple times like this is going to haunt us. Like this will come back, like it will just wait. And again it's like one of these where we're kind of doing all right and it's like why do we need to call time out for a third? Like third downs are important, yes. But like not everything. Do we need a 25 minute Crucible? Bring up all the Shields? Like do we have plays ready?
And then that 4th down you're talking about, it's 4th and 1:00 we call time out again. And I mean at that point you would already you're kind of like pot committed to screwing up your time out. So you might as well just burn it there, but. I'm I'm thinking like, and this is I I always say this, it drives me nuts. Like coaches and especially in football, all they talk about is you know how important a possession is and how important is, you know, to get the ball back in this and that.
It's like if you had all three of your time outs there on that fourth and one play, even if you don't get it, you theoretically can now do a three and out stop for Purdue and get the ball back like you are extending the game. But because you wasted a time out in the third quarter, it's over now. Like the game is now over now. You know Indiana may not have stopped Purdue in my fantasy world on on three more plays but at least you give yourself a chance.
But like over and over again with the time outs, we put ourselves in a spot where we don't have a chance and it's to what you said. It's like at times we feel like we're unprepared like oh man, fourth and one like this is a big I don't know what to do, like we're calling a time out. It's like have a play like have plays for all situation be ready and sometimes having a, you know, B minus play is better
than wasting a time out. I think one of the things when you look at other football programs that have greater levels of success, they all of them, they they they coach and they strategize and they they leverage things to give the team options as many options as possible for as long as possible. And it feels like Indiana just does not do that under Tom Allen.
Tom Allen is like, we're going to win it this way or we're not going to win it, but there's other ways that you could potentially win it. And you know, that's that's the and I think what's the the instances historically that have burned Tom Allen the most, like the Gator Bowl, have been instances of the other team figuring out ways to extend games when Indiana is not themselves able to extend games. And there's no rhyme or reason to it from one game to the next.
You know in the Wisconsin game they they, you know, they take this weird drive down the field and then they decide to kick a 50 yard field goal. In the Michigan State game, needing a field goal, they won't kick a 39 yard field goal. It's with with similar conditions and everything. It's just there's it's almost like the reset button gets hit every. It's like it's like starting a franchise on game one in in video game football every week.
There's not a lot of learn of machine learning that's going on from week to week in terms of maybe we should consider doing it this way instead of that way And so you burn those time outs, everything's in the moment. Very little of it seems like well what if we need to bank these for later and and yes look at that point you've already burned the time out.
Sure burn another time out. Get your best play in, which I guess is a sack that leads to an intentional grounding, but that's it. As you said and. You combine that with the fact Indiana commits 3 turnovers, Purdue commits 0 in this game, and I don't know, I it's just really frustrating because this Purdue team I think was demonstrably worse than Indiana when the game started. This Purdue team was certainly no better than Indiana overall
over the course of the season. And the fact that Purdue was able to come away with the victory here is a frustration, A not a surprise, but a frustration. Because even in bad years, especially a year when both teams are bad, you you can't just give away bucket games. You can't just give away rivalry games because you didn't strategize properly or you couldn't take care of the football or you couldn't capitalize on the other team's mistakes and he let them hang around long enough.
And that, you know, as we look at Alan throughout the course of his time, that's happened against Purdue a bunch. It happened in 2017. You and I were at that game. It happened in 2018. It almost happened in 2019. You know it's it is. It's another chapter in an inadequate book about how to win these types of games. And it's it. This is really frustrating, I think for for I certainly frustrating for me. I think it's frustrating for a lot of IU fans because it
doesn't have to be that way. Well, and I think now this puts him at Allen one and five against Purdue and it's like, you know, this is. You know we we talk about two things all the time that like you know we don't need to be better than Michigan or Ohio State or Penn State but there's no reason why we can't be at the same level as Purdue. And then it's it's I was, I kind of did things out of order yesterday. I listened to your preview after the game, which is always kind of fun.
But I mean, one of the things you talk about which is true is like it is. It's just sad how much ground we've lost in this rivalry where it just feels kind of it's it's probably never going to get flipped obviously in our lifetime, but it's like you got to start chipping away at it at some point. And it felt like for a while
we're doing that. But now it's like, like you said, you're just losing these rivalry games and it's frustrating like because it just feels like we shouldn't, it shouldn't be this much of A disparity between us, but it is and it continues to grow wider and.
I'm just echoing things you already said, like it just we we. I mean this over and over again in these games where it's like this is an important game and it doesn't always feel like we play as if when Tom Allen took over, Indiana was 41 and 72 against Purdue all time, which is real bad, obviously. But now Indiana's 42 and 77 against Purdue all time. You know, that's that's it. I mean, is there a big difference between a 31 game deficit and a 35 game deficit? Well, yeah, kind of.
Because more games. Yeah, that's so. Yeah. But that's, that's the frustration in terms of the the macro level of the series is that it did feel like for a little bit there, Wilson had figured out, hey, here's how to beat Purdue. They beat Purdue several years in a row. Some of that was due to Purdue being bad, but Purdue was bad yesterday, Purdue was not good yesterday, and that's.
Purdue's had lots of stretches over this Ravel where they've been bad and yet they we they own us as if like it's a it's. Yeah. So anyway, there's not a lot else to say about the game. I mean, we talked about it. It was nice to see Donovan Mccully, you know, with another touchdown grab. He had a really good close to the season. It was nice to see EJ Williams after a really slow start, really, you know, contribute
fairly well. You look at the receiving numbers or let's look at the numbers overall, I guess, you know, you know as you come out of this game, Soresby ended up with 12 touchdowns and two interceptions and a 57% completion percentage, which that's that's better than the Connor Basilak's numbers last year, he had a 55% completion
percentage, 2300 yards. He threw the ball more. 13 touchdowns, 10 interceptions, you know, But the problem is like you got to throw the the interceptions that he had in this game into that mix and that's so now it's actually 15 touchdowns and five interceptions. So I was actually, they haven't updated CFB stats. I was like why haven't they updated? Why did that seems weird. Why did he have two interceptions? So editors, go ahead and cut that whole section out, please. Thank you.
No, I'm kidding. See occasionally our information sources are wrong. But still, I think Soresby overall, I generally like what I saw out of him on the season. It, you know there's something to build off of their 57% completion percentage, 158715 touchdowns, 5 interceptions, you got some good play out of the receivers. It was nice to see them play well.
It's just like it felt like with what you saw there, Indiana should have done more than what they did in this game and you go through the play by play and just a lot of punts. I mean it was not a good start to the game overall and you go down the stretch I mean of of Indiana's. Indiana didn't have the ball that much in the second-half. They they had 1/4 play 7 yard drive that led to a punt.
They had the eight play touchdown Dr. They had the three play 2 yard punt drive around the beginning of the fourth quarter they had a 7 play drive for a field goal and then they turned the ball over on downs Indiana had the ball five times. Now they, you know they got the kick return, so that has to
weigh in a little bit. But still they only had five drives in that second-half and Purdue did a lot more with what they had at their disposal and I guess that's ultimately what it all comes down to. So any any other thoughts I guess just in general about this game and and anything that was noteworthy that you think is deserving a match. We can talk a little bit about the post game comments. Tom Allen had some odd post game comments, but I don't know anything else you'd like to talk about.
Yeah, I mean, we can probably save the post game. That's probably factors more into the full season. No, it's just it's. I I echo something that that you said in the preview and they they talked about on the broadcast too that it it's kind of this idea of like man this is a this is one of my favorite you know underrated trophies and like it shouldn't it shouldn't be that this is a great rivalry. Like Purdue really hates IU. Like they just they really do. They really do. Fuck.
At everything, at every event. Like, they really don't like it. And you know, as an IU fan, there's an annoyance with Purdue, but it's like, you know, there there's. We're living in a world now too. It's like when they went to the Rose Bowl, it's like, man, that's that sucks. And like I think we're all, you know, the different, you know,
cross mixing sports here. But it's like if Purdue makes a final four wins a title, it's like that that I think scares a lot of IE fans because we get, you know, knocked off our regal perch, so to speak. But it's it's a great rivalry and it's just it it sucks that it's gotten diminished because it, frankly, Indiana has not been able to compete in the rivalry at a level to make it a fun, successful rivalry.
And even just thinking that you know that the one Tom Allen win was a win that you desperately needed to get to the Gator Bowl and you went to double overtime was like 44 to 42 like that was you really sweat sweated that one out to get it done against a bad Purdue team that year. I mean that that that's my kind of main take away is it's a very cool rivalry. It's a very cool trophy. It should be more front and
center but. But unfortunately it's not because it's kind of been bad games and one sided and there's not playing for a lot. And while Purdue is somewhat, you know, at fault to some of that, it's like mostly Indiana because we come in on, you know, not going for bulls and and like it's, you know Ohio State and Michigan hate each other too. But part of the reason that rivalry is so great is like they're playing. They're playing for actual meaningful stakes. It's true.
I mean, and look, I mean, as much as we like to rag on Purdue, if you go back to 2011, let's say, you know Purdue's been to six bowls in that time. Indiana has been to not as many bowls in that time, obviously. But Purdue's had down years and they've had stretches of down years. They had that stretch from 2013 to 2016 where they won 132 and three games, but then they picked themselves back up and they were pretty successful over the course of the the next six
seasons. You know, give or take a couple with COVID. And yeah, Indiana just generally doesn't bring it in. The in the mid 2000s, the late 90s, early 2000s when Purdue was regularly good, from 1998, when or when or 97, sorry. When Purdue went to their first bowl game under Tiller, Through the last bowl game that Purdue went to under Tiller in 2007, Indiana fielded exactly one team with a winning record in that entire time. And that was, and that was the last season.
That was, of course, the Austin star kick that send Indiana to the insight.com Bowl. You know that that's wild, that that's been what the series has been like over the course of of largely the last 20 years. And I think what's frustrating is Purdue had Danny Hope, Purdue had Daryl Hazel, this was the time for IU to make some hay in the series, and they couldn't get out of their own way. And this is another season where you've got a four and eight Ryan Walters.
I don't think Ryan Walters gonna be around that long, quite frankly. You couldn't beat Purdue in this game and you finished three and nine on the season and that's really disappointing. And also just how much of, you know, just kind of hits with a thud. I mean like it's you're you're in Bloomington, you know more about it. But even up here I got, you know, friends that are Purdue. It's like just there's not a lot
of talk. It's just kind of like, well, it was, it was probably the least anticipated bucket game I can remember. I mean, there's normally at least one or the other team that's good and people are talking about the outcome. I really, I think you have to go back to like, I don't know, the mid 90s or maybe the early 20 tens like that, the middle of the Danny Hope era when Bill Lynch was still at IU. You have to go back to then to find bucket games that felt less relevant.
And that's a real shame because like you said like this, this should be a good rivalry. This should. I mean two Big 10 teams. It's a you know it's but much like in basketball it feels like neither program can simultaneously get their crap together. And you know you got that a little bit now and now the rivalry feels a lot more full. But for a long time it wasn't and just in football it's just it's a shame anyway. So that's pretty much all that there is to say about the game.
It's another disappointment and and this was the capper to a very long series of disappointments this season and that's I, you know, I can't say that we didn't think that this was what was going to happen. Scott right down to lose I think did we both have are you losing to Purdue at the end? I can't remember. Purdue is my win. I I had losses all the way. I think Purdue is my win. Memory serves, I think Rutgers was your win. Yeah, well, I I. Had us.
I had us finishing the season with a flurry with a win against Purdue. There you go, a flurry. I mean, but I guess we we, we Wisconsin, we we at least got that series ironed up. No, it's. It's. Yeah, I don't want to step on the next pod, but it's like, it's just it it ends with a thud and it's just, it's a real just, you know, again, unfortunately, Indiana football kind of goes off quietly into the wilderness
and you know this. This is why I'll say one thing and I'll be off it like year after year after year. Like I get so tired of, you know, when when fans get, you know, oh man, they just, they give up when when basketball starts and they just, they stop watch football. It's like, well, because of this, like This is why. Because. There was like, I mean there was even a small glimmer of hope. It's like we're in playoff mode win four in a row and then it's just like you, you have all of
the same self-inflicted wounds. I mean and that's The thing is like I I don't think this team gave up. They were playing hard, but they were just they weren't able to do anything like tackling wise, like they were in the right places. They were just not able to do it. And I don't. I don't know what's more frustrating, a team that just kind of checks out, it's like, all right man, we're done.
Or a team like this, where it seems like they were still really trying but just unable to do the things you needed to do to win and then making a lot of kind of boneheaded mistakes along the way, both players and coaching staff. It's like I it's almost more frustrating this way because at least if they just all checked out like two years ago, it's like, all right, well, that team had some talent. It's just more of a motivation issue, which is what we were
told. Now I'm I'm concerned, it's like is this a talent in preparation issue because. It it doesn't again, like this. Seemed like people were into it and trying. They just weren't able to do it. Now I think all that's accurate and that I think the hope was down the stretch is Indiana played two teams that didn't have much to play for in Michigan State and Purdue.
That Indiana, if they did have something to play for, if they wanted to play for their coach, if they wanted to play for pride, if they wanted to play for whatever, that they would figure out a way to do what they needed to do and they didn't. And instead what you ended up with was this, which you know I think what gets lost sometimes it's funny like you hear a lot of talk about should Tom Allen stay or go or the the players you know what are the players feelings And those things are
important to talk about. But man again I keep coming back to this idea that fans of IU football really do like if you're still a fan of IU football and and we count ourselves in this like what are we doing This is because this is it. Every single time it feels like there are there are occasionally moments where this is not a woe is me thing. It's more because look we've we've gone ahead and you know we we committed to it you know a long time ago. We podcast on it on a regular
basis. This is the lot that we've chosen in life. But the I don't know why people get upset at IU football fans. I don't understand why people think that IU football fans are like, obligated to support the program when the program goes out and in winnable games like this does this. What is what is it that you're supposed to walk out of this this season with some level of
pride as as a fan? I mean, last year was bad, but at least like, hey, we won a trophy game and we're, we're feeling very, you know, maybe halfway decent about things getting a little bit better. All of that hope is gone. You lost both your trophy games and to lose to a Purdue team that was that bad, that looked like they were just like desperate to give the game away in the first half is a really
hard pill to swallow. The other thing that I have a hard time with, again widening the scope a little bit, but not too wide, something you mentioned in the pregame. Which is just, it's just stats. But like, I think we now finish as the worst team in the Big 10, worst team in the Big 10 E and and that's really bothersome because you had two teams that just had complete dumpster fires of seasons like Michigan State. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong.
And then Northwestern, same thing. Like two teams with massive coaching problems and you know you have. And the Purdue's having a really bad season like Wisconsin, have a good season. Like all with all of that going on? You cash in one win and you have the worst record of the Big 10. Like, that's what will get lost. This will be another season. We suck. But it's like there were teams having like catastrophically bad seasons. And for a program like Indiana, that's when you have to.
You can't just make hay by being good. You also have to take advantage of other people being bad and just bank a couple of wins in that in that season. It's like, I just don't think we were. This bad but it's a that that bugs me that you have a couple of teams that had just massively dumpster fire type seasons and we're still the worst team in the Big 10 and they that is
indeed how it finished off. We talked about this in the pregame pod there the the the the standings will forever show that Indiana in this season of of all the bad teams that were having bad seasons, of the two teams that fired coaches, Indiana was the only team that didn't win at least two games in the conference and one of only two teams that didn't win at least three games in the conference.
That's real bad. There's no there's no other way to put it and it's and the fact that you had a chance with Purdue to at least knock them down into that level. Create a three-way tie for like all the two, two win teams in the conference and you couldn't do it. I think it's probably speaks volumes. Anyway, like you said, we don't want to step on the next pod, so we'll go ahead and wrap this one up.
Again. Purdue beats Indiana 3531 and Indiana finishes the season 3:00 and 9:00 and 1:00 and 8:00 in conference. We'll be back later on, maybe today, maybe tomorrow with our post game or post season wrap up pod, so be sure to stick with us on that. Be sure to check out the assembly call later today as they'll have the post game recap show for Indiana at Harvard in men's basketball that coming up at 4:00 this afternoon for Scott. I'm Galen, this is Crimson Cast.
We'd like to thank you all for tuning in tonight and throughout the season. Bring back the Bison. We'll catch you folks on the flip side. So on everybody.