Ep 1095 - Off-Season Concepts

You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cask and Claudio joining you. It is Sunday the 19th of May and for the first time in I think over a month, we've got both founding members of Crimson Cast on the podcast at the same time. Scott Caulfield joining me here in the late morning. How are you doing, Sir? It's it's been a hot minute. I it's been a while and then I made you wait another hour then

I'm. I'm running late this morning so it's on me. But no, it's it's been a while. Good. Good. Talk to you again, man. Yeah, absolutely. No, it's fine. It's, I had some grading to do and I had to walk a dog this morning. So it's it's fine. You know, we, I, I I've learned to do things in the mornings when Scott's unavailable for podcasting. It's great, but. I'm normally up early. Today was a little bit rough, but it's good. Hear it from my wife. Hear it from you. It's awesome.

No. No, no, I I I praise you as, you know, as as a person who can't sleep anymore and really could barely sleep even when I was a bit younger. I always am envious of people who can shut out the outside world for a little bit and get some extra shut eye. So congratulations, that's. Helped a lot, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It always does. But anyway, we're going to talk some IU stuff. We've got obviously both football and basketball to talk about, so we'll touch on some topics there.

We've also got the Indy 500, which many of you are interested in. So latter half of the podcast will tackle that. And before we get to all that, just a reminder, we're part of the back home network. If you missed any of the content on the back home network, you should go check it out immediately, including your

other podcast. Scott Right up Meridian, which is big day today for the Pacers. For those who are listening on like when we drop this which will I think about noon on Sunday Pacers play at 3:30 and you've been having a bunch of different people on Tony Adrania from the back home network's been on but Dustin Doe Pirac's been on several other people. Really great resource for Pacers related talk so go check that out. Subscribe.

You can go to the YouTube channel for the back home network and and see the episodes as well as hear them. Also of course, the Exes and Joes show they've been doing a lot of offseason breakdowns of various items related to college basketball and IU in particular. And of course our friends over at Assembly Call and doing the work. All of that available and presented by home field apparel. Your place to go for the finest in college fashions, the softest

fabrics, the coolest designs. And we talked about Indy 500 stuff, a lot of racing related apparel coming out of the fine folks at home field. Go ahead, Scott. Well, I was going to say I needed home field apparel last

night. So you you, you, you enjoy kind of, you know ribbing me on what we're doing up here in Westfield. So we we, we gave a donation to the Westfield Library Group and so they had a they're building a new library And so last night was AVIP donors event to kind of see the new library which was awesome at a great time. But the dress attire was yeah. So it's a it's an event. So I'm thinking, all right it's got to be dressy. But the the dress attire was they're doing a race theme kind

of thing. And it's like black and white racing fun. And like I don't know, like I need, I need home field apparel. Like I need a black and white shirt. Like I was like, I need something because I don't, I didn't know how to do this. Like I could do because racing is like if you've been to the 500, you could be wearing like a Star Spangled Banner thong and like there's a lot racing covers, a lot of stuff.

Wait, have you done that? Before I have not, but I have seen it and I know that you have as well if you've been to the the 500, but so anyway I was like I just. I'm not, be honest. When I go to the 500 with most of the people there, I'm just happy they're wearing anything. Yes, yes. Anyway go on I just I I was it was so the event was awesome. I had a great time, won a charity auction for the first time, but really, yes I did.

Did you get I I well, hopefully I won a couple rounds of golf that I bid on. But the other one that I know that we won because we left fours done we had a friend text us was one of those. It's like a police thing where you get like a police blanket, a Lego set, but then the kids get to drive to school in like a police Hummer van. Interesting. Like a SWAT thing. So that'll that'll be fun. Anyway, the point was you're

getting me off track. Jeez. The point was that I needed home field apparel to help me dress 'cause I didn't know what to wear. I ended up going with like, I have an IndyCar work shirt and it it worked out pretty well and people liked it. But it's like, you know, for your next event, if you're struggling with what to wear, go with home Field Apparel. Should have had your trucker hat. Great. Great. Great idea all the way around. Yes, the Trucker Hat Indy 500

apparel out the wazoo. They just released that collection. Some Arrow McLaren stuff and of course all of the college apparel that you've come to know and love. Go to homefieldapparel.com, use the code Home 23. Get 15% off your first order and even if you like Scott and I are not able to use that code anymore the the points add up the the the reward points really do add up. This is this is really the reward point system that hugs you back.

I've I've gotten a lot of apparel that I probably wouldn't have gotten otherwise simply because I've ordered so much other apparel that I've gotten You know these points that I'm able to use towards gift certificates and whatnot. So anyway, go to homefieldapparel.com, check them out on social media as well. Also just a reminder, we are on sub stack. We've talked about that join the free sub stack community. Get the podcasts sent right to your inbox and there's a paid option.

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lately. So anyway Scott, let's dive into our first topic of the day. Let's start with IU basketball on the men's side. We haven't talked since the roster filled out but the roster has filled out. We you know Miles Rice, Kane and Carlisle. Luke Goody. You know you've you've had this Landon Hatton obviously recently. So you've had the stocking of the roster.

We talked a lot at the beginning of the cycle about some concerns that we had which were reasonable given last year about whether or not this was going to be possible. It is possible and IU has certainly done as well I think as anybody in the country at leveraging the portal to get the players that on paper at least it looks like they need in order to have a much higher level of success for this upcoming year.

So you had an interesting thought which kind of dovetails with this because we've talked a little bit in pieces and and our friends at Assembly Call have talked about this as well about what Indiana has done this offseason. And I said on my last podcast, I think it was the last one, that what we're seeing is a coaching staff that has kind of checked all the boxes that you would want them to check in the

offseason. And yet what's interesting is there's this clear split in the the the at least the online population of IU basketball, maybe in the offline population too. I'm not 100% sure about the disposition of the coaching staff and Mike Woodson in particular. So you posed a question on text which I'll let you read and then kind of dive into that I think is is an interesting one to talk about right now since we've, you know we've got a pretty good sense now of what the roster is

going to look like. Yeah. I mean I was thinking this last couple of you know weeks as as you said IU and coach Wood Woodson has done a fantastic job in the in the offseason and and so on one hand my thought was all right well you know let me let me phrase this correctly as I I think that you know most times you go into a season where the the coach is kind of either one of two things either on the hot seat or is very you know safe in their job.

And the way this offseason went, I think Woodson is actually, you could make a very valid argument for either one. And I thought it'd be an interesting way to discuss because I was like almost like just give you the other side. It's like a debate like just you take one, I'll take the other because I I can really, you know, I'll I'll stop and then we can if we want to take it one and the other.

But I I think you can make a very valid argument that Woodson is really on the hot seat coming to this year or he's totally safe with what he's done and based on some other external factors. And I just thought it was interesting because it doesn't seem like a lot of people are in that spot. You kind of have this divergent of things are going great or things are not going great. You kind of have a, you can make an argument for honestly both sides of of that. Yeah, it's.

There, there's really there's two different streams of thought I think here that you can really zero in on and it's kind of like a Rorschach Rorschach test in terms of what you want to perceive is where IU basketball is AT and therefore where Mike Woodson is at as the head coach. So you can look at it from the perspective of your here's a coach that made two tournaments in the first three years, and there were injuries and other items that led to this past year not being very good.

And yet they finished strong. They go out and get arguably the best transfer class in the entire portal and they look reloaded and ready to reassume the mantle and reassume the trajectory that they had before last year's kind of off approach

to things. And a lot of the, the the criticism of Woodson and the criticism of the team last year was way over the top because, you know, between the injuries and between maybe some pieces that through no real coat far to the coaches didn't fit well together. It was an off year. But you've seen many teams and many programs have off years where they'll miss the tournament entirely and including teams like Villanova and North Carolina. And you know, teams like that.

And now you come into this season with IU already projected in the top 25. I've seen a couple of projections with them, even like close to the top 15, like the the future looks rosy for IU basketball and you not only got good players in the portal, but a few of them are guys who could be here for more than just one season. They're guys that could come in and really lay a foundation for the next round of things. And so thinking that Woodson would be in any kind of danger would be silly.

That essentially, I think, is the argument to be made on that side of things. I I would, yes, and I would agree with all of that. I also think that you almost had kind of a, you know, war games style feel of how things would go and that things got real. So what I mean by that is things got really rough at the end of last season. So yeah, And Ali Sheedy showed up. And no, I'm sorry, go. Ahead.

Yeah, as soon as that. A computer redoing the IU Northwestern game over and over and over again. The computer's like this. The game is new. Should not be played. Should not be played. Mike Watson. That's actually that's actually how the Big 10 tournament works every year. The only solution, the the only, the only solution is not to play. Yes, it's it's. It's so much about you, the big. 10 tournaments It's like I run all the scenarios we had a year with COVID and.

Let's try the new option. Maybe this will work. Yeah, I mean, if COVID didn't get us a title, not gonna happen, right? We laugh because we care and we can't and we can't win the tournament. It chases. It chases the herd away. That's all it does. So, so yes. And you know last year, oh, the the war shack. So you had the the test where you had a obviously a very bad end of the year. You had, you know IU getting

booed. You had suddenly this this feel for all right we might need to change coaches And not only did it not happen, you had the administration and the people who matter kind of come out quietly and say or you know, quietly, unquietly be like no, he is our coach. He will be our coach. So he has a vote of confidence after an off year and then he reloads this offseason. But this is an offseason as you you know as we all know it's not like this is just all good vibes and recruiting.

This is based on money. I mean a lot of these are nil deals that cost some money and you know, so he has the the support of enough high level donors to get money to get problem. You know, I'll just say the best recruiting or the best transfer class and some of the best recruits and one of the best offseasons that wasn't paid for by, you know, varsity club donations that was paid for by private donors who want to give money.

And those people need to feel like that this is a a wise investment and that everything is right. And obviously all those things happened because there was a ton of money thrown around this offseason. And so I just, I look at that as the other piece of the argument that you know at a university level some of the most important people are the trustees, the high level people in the the athletic administration and the high level donors.

And to a man, all three of those gave their vote of confidence to Woodson's. That's where I was thinking this offseason. You know, this he he he has all of the confidence of all of those people. So he's probably very safe in his job based on everything else that you also said as well. So I guess I'll give the other side of the equation I mean. I can then I can start with the other side and then go from there. And it is kind of a funny, you know, flip.

I'll use some of the same arguments against Woodson. This is where I was thinking is that, you know, you now had a lot of people who wrote really big checks. And if this team is not able to finish at a, you know, top 20 type level, I would assume that a lot of those people are like, all right, well, this is really bad ROI in my investment. Like I just paid a lot of money to see a basketball team underperform again two years in a row.

That's not going to be awesome. Everything that I mentioned within the fan base, not that the, you know, not that you know podcast and fan base totally matter, but they do it. If you're getting booed again in assembly hall at home, that's going to have some repercussions.

And then just the fact that you know this is, you know what one thing that I'm personally being a little tentative about just kind of waiting to temper my expert expectations is I continue to go back that we were not bad in last year's offseason both Portal and re resigning players. We it seems to be this For those who are very positive, it seems to be this feel of like, man, we killed her this we have so many good players. How can we not be good?

It's like well, we did pretty good last year. Like yes, it doesn't look as good now in retrospect because we saw Peyton. We saw Peyton Sparks play when we first signed him. I remember listening to other shows being like, you know how well at least he's going to get at least 10 to 15 minutes a game. He's really going to provide that. As an Indian, it's like all the things look like the most positive aspects of where they could be.

Now that we see them, it's like, Oh yeah, those are not great, maybe the best portal sightings. Well, we're in that same spot here. Not everyone's going to pan out. But I would also say that, you know, if if Woodson is, if this team is not able to meet some level of those expectations, you are going to wonder. It's like, all right, you know, what kind of team is going to be successful under this regime?

Because the only example at that point, assuming we have a bad year this year, would be a team of Archie Miller's players. Honestly, I mean, you would have back-to-back years of really killing it in the offseason and not a lot to show for it. So I think that would be the flip side in my mind on that

piece. I think there's actually even more layers, you know, because that you you're very right that a lot of, you know the a lot of what we're seeing, if there's a vision that's being sold and that is what brings players in. Like we've talked a lot about how it's not just nil money that brings players in, it's also how do I fit, does this seem have a chance of success? But that doesn't mean the nil

money isn't important. And I think ultimately, you know, the checks that have been cut so far to build this roster, there is going to be that kind of donor class expectation. Like, all right, well, we're, we're trying to make this happen. You cannot afford a season that looks like last year. And really I don't even know if you could afford a season that looks like the first year. You know, 'cause keep in mind like Indiana was was borderline

for a good part of that season. They had to win their way into the NCAA tournament in the Big 10 tournament, which we know how reliable that is as as an approach. So I do think you're looking at a circumstance where there's going to be an expectation all by itself that there needs to be a higher level of sustained success. You cannot afford to go out and look like crap against all of your good non conference opponents. You can't go like finish 8th in Atlantis or something like that.

But I also think that the, you know, the the other layer to this is most of the complaints about Woodson and the program have not been coming at least publicly from donors or from even from media. They've been coming from the rank and file fans. They've been coming. I mean there were I was at a couple of those games where there were booze in Assembly hall. Like that was just frustration coming from people who are not giving money to nil in any great numbers.

That was fans who have had this reservoir of frustration continue to get water behind it and and those levels keep building higher and higher because of the lack of any kind of sustained success. And so that's what's going to make this upcoming year very interesting in that I think there's AI talked about this a little bit on the last show. There's a real amount of skepticism and I think a loss of trust on the part of many people towards Woodson.

And the, you know we've had people in our comments talking about how people can't let go of last year that's that is true. And I mean it last year is last year. I'm not expect you wouldn't expect people to let go of something when they have had nothing to replace it in the matrix yet. But it's not just last year. To me that's a knock on effect from the entire Archie Miller

era. The, you know the the aspects of the first two years of Woodson that were less than ideal in terms of of varying outcomes because there were those. I mean, as much as that 2023 season was special in a lot of ways, there were also a lot of moments where we were looking around saying what on earth is going on, why, why isn't this team more consistent or better? So I say all of that with the idea that some of this is not just Woodson, it's a general

frustration with the program. And so that leads to this idea of, I think Woodson's disposition is really based upon what are people's expectations, what what are the expectations of this team as it comes into this new year. And I've yet to really see those elucidated.

You know, when it when a team is ranked somewhere between 15th and 25th, realistically you're talking about a team that's going to be a four or five seed in the NCAA tournament in contention for a Big Ten title, but maybe not a team that ultimately wins a Big Ten title a season. Frankly, Scott, that looks a lot like the 20/22/23 season does. Is that enough? Is that enough knowing that you know you're you're only going to have Omar Balo for a year.

You're only going to have. I think I think Luke Goody is I think he's one year you know you're going to not going to have Trey Galloway anymore you might not have Malik Renew. Like the the page will certainly look like it turns quite a bit next year regardless of what happens in this upcoming season. So that's where I I to some degree. I think a lot of the overarching questions about Woodson's job and disposition were quelled by what's happened over the last

six weeks. That could all come back very quickly though if Indiana doesn't hit the ground running in this upcoming season. And that trying to remove our opinions out of the equation and just focus on how fans are going to react. That's really what this entire exercise is about. It's a really interesting thought exercise because I really don't know how people are going to react if Indiana is anything other than, you know, playing at a top 20 level to start off the season.

One something we mentioned last year that's also there is that you know we're when we start the season we're going to be like 18 months removed from our last really signature key win against a top blue blood program that's also doing well. I know it's a lot of caveat there cuz then we we leave Michigan State at the end of the year last year but Michigan State was not where you would consider them to normally be.

And so I I agree with you, I'm very curious to see how people react if you know if we go through the the we'll probably win a game or two in Atlantis I would assume. But if if we go through the non conference similarly to what we did last year and just kind of not get any of the scalps that we're expecting, how are people going to react to that? You know that you're mentioning the expectations for the season.

I think what's also interesting is as where we're at is you know if we have a season similar to 23 where we're good, we get a protected seed, but we don't get to the second weekend, I I do wonder what that's going to be like too. And you mentioned some of those donors. I I think a lot of these high level of not one not one of the high, high level donors but I I think that you know they they

kind of check in periodically. I don't I don't think they're watching games like like you and I are and really dissect and it's kind of a little bit more checking in. How's IU doing. But I I think if you know we have a really good if we have a season like 20-3 and then we get a protected seed but we're not in the second weekend. I do wonder if some of those are going to look up and like hey,

where where are we? Like I was expecting to be here and I think this is what also you know, the residual build up, you can look at every specific year and you know under Woodson's tenure in 2223 and 24, it's like all right, none of those years were really a second weekend type year in the micro.

But in the macro it's like, all right, we're in year four and at some point you need to breakthrough the second weekend of the the tournament And it is a bit of a crapshoot and it does, you know, sometimes it involves luck and you can have a really good season and just meet the wrong team, but you can't keep doing that. At some point you then have to have a not so good season where you meet the right team and you breakthrough into the second weekend.

You know, it's wild how we used to talk about Final Fours and titles and now it's like, can we just get a second weekend? But that's what I love. But I I do wonder how you know how this season is viewed if we don't have that that year end success. And I think that's something that is going to be interesting because I think some fans are going to reserve judgment until we get to May.

And it's got you know, Woodson's kind of, you know, future and his legacy is going to be determined by a couple of games. And it's unfortunate, but it's but it's not because this is the career these guys are into. It's like I knew Bruce Pearl, you know, took some heat after, you know, he had like they had a great season. Auburn had an awesome season in whole. They lost one game in March and fans are not happy. What happens if we have a season

like that, like that? I think that's a real concern is if you have an Auburn type season and then it's like all right now what what do we do with that at the end of this? Coming year? Well, yeah. So a couple of things. First of all, donors at the level you're talking about generally have a different motivation structure than the average fan. And I think a lot of the support from donors and from people in the higher ups of of IUI mean a lot of it is because Woodson is

a native son. He's a, you know, he's a an alum of the program. You know, I think there's a real, I think there's patience with Woodson where there might not be with other coaches in similar situations. And I think for IU it's interesting because ultimately the the question has to be asked like where it it's not impossible to have high levels of success. And the question is at what point do you say the foundation needs to have been laid where there's consistency.

That was really ultimately the problem with the Archie Miller era. It was really the problem with the Tom Crean era and it was the problem at the end of the Bob Knight era where it's like you just aren't being consistent enough. 1920 wins, 21 wins, whatever is, is fine in in one season, not consecutively, not consistently. And this is where you know, I just, I've always rejected this idea that well, you just can't do that in Indiana anymore.

And you just mentioned like well, Bruce Pearl is doing it at Auburn where you probably shouldn't be able to do it at all. It really does come down to is the alchemy there where a coach can do what they need to do in terms of recruiting, in terms of coaching, in terms of setting things up and ultimately the results say everything about that. I mean, I I believe as we look at Woodson's tenure and we think about it from the standpoint of where is he within the confines of the fans.

What I'm really fascinated by is the sea change in approach that seems to have occurred since the end of February with now you've got your multiple visits out to to high school recruits. You've got all of these other things that people were, were being critical about and it's suddenly they're happening and I don't think that's accidental. Like I don't.

I don't think that that's just one of those things where it's like what we were planning on doing that anyway, there's there has appeared to be a real delineation from the before that period and then after that period in how the coaching staff and Woodson are approaching these things. And I do think that that stuff matters. And you know, you the lot of the criticisms and complaints about Woodson have been kind of twofold.

One of them has been the refrain we've heard quite a bit from, you know, people that follow recruiting or journalists who follow college basketball, that Woodson is not as active as as fellow coaches, at least in the high school recruiting scene. Clearly does very well in the portal clearly does very well kind of swooping in and grabbing players who are disassociated like Bryson Tucker or Malik Renew.

But the the other aspect is the criticism around the style of play, the criticism around the offense. The my, I guess, you know, the the few criticisms we've seen about the defense this year, this upcoming year, you know, I think this team could be very good offensively. I'm not sure how good they're going to be defensively because it's just really hard to bring people together.

But all of this is all, you know, it's all happening with the backdrop of a college basketball scene that's changing so dramatically, so quickly that the old methodologies of who you're recruiting and who you're bringing in and how you're approaching things. I was trying to get into this on the last podcast where I was talking about, you know, the

extra scholarship. But it's like, well, do you really want to go and fill that with somebody who's not going to play when you'd rather have that player probably going somewhere and playing for a whole season and getting extra development and then being able to come in with a little more experience? There's not really a need to have a 13th player on the roster. That in and of itself is a huge change philosophically from how a lot of programs would have thought about things 5-10 years ago.

So it's it's it is really hard to judge Mike Woodson on a, you know, a rubric that we've used for college basketball judgement in the past. A lot of it is very dependent on the current factors and then is ultimately dependent on things we can't predict, which is how do all of these players that they've gone out and gotten come together and and and get put together. So to go back to the central thesis or the question that you were asking about.

And can I add one more thing about how things are changing? You know, at some point there, you know this is not going to age well, but at some point there will be a team that crushes it in the transfer portal that then crushes it in the season. But at least with the small results, you know when you look at, and it's one point that there's a lot of different ranking services and This is why I'm not a huge fan of getting too much into, you know, either

Portal or recruiting stuff. If you go to 2024 seven sports and you look at last year's team rankings for the transfer portal, Number one was Arkansas. Number two was Indiana, #3 was St. John's. Number four was West Virginia, #5 was Kentucky, Kansas. Alabama. Washington, MI, UCLA, one of those teams made the Final Four and a a good handful of those didn't make it to the second weekend or didn't even make it to the tournament at all. So you know this And again they

they're this is not. Things are changing very quickly in college athletics. So there will be a year when someone is the top of the transfer portal and then makes the Final four and then suddenly everyone's going to think that's the new model. Maybe this is that year for Indiana, but this the idea of we're going to do a full scale reboot through the Portal every offseason. At least thus far it hasn't shown that it can work again. I'm prefacing it. I think at some point it will

work. But that's that's the real question that's at hand too, is, is this the right model right now? And that's it's funny that's, that's kind of been the thing under Woodson is, as you were talking about it, you know, people get this murmuring about, you know, he's not showing up to recruiting. He's not doing it the way it's been done. Then he kills it in recruiting. It's like, all right, that's awesome. And then we're also, you know, concerned about the, the style of play.

And my thing is, like, you know, then just then when, like at some point, like results can cover up a lot of that, you know, no one's going to give him concerns about the way he's handling recruiting for the next five or six months, 'cause like, yo, man, you just crushed it in the offseason. And he did. Yeah, well and going back to your central thesis, like Woodson appears to be both mega safe in his job but also on shaky ground.

I think among the people for whom it matters he's on pretty solid foundation and and you know that's going to be I think interesting to watch though because ultimately we keep coming back to this core issue. However good you feel about a coach and I think it's been touched on an axis and Joe's a bunch. However good you feel about a coach, there is a honeymoon period that stops at some point.

And a lot of what they talk about on that show is in terms of recruiting, in terms of the the caliber of recruits that you're able to pull in. But it's also about the fans and it's about that relationship with the people who were paying money for tickets. And yes, the donors are are more important in the micro, but ultimately the macro, the atmosphere around the program is the key thing and that was really what was so concerning about February of 2024 with this

basketball team. And so much of this I think is predicated moving forward on can Indiana avoid that kind of a scenario where they've got a bunch of people looking around and saying why on earth is this happening. And and I guess the one thing I'll notice like Woodson has now had, you know, two out of his three years, Indiana's had at least A5 game or or or they lost four out of five or excuse me 5

out of 6 in February this year. They lost five in a row in February in 2022. And it's like, yes, in both cases they recovered a little bit at the end in 2022, they recovered enough to get to the NCAA tournament in the playing game. But that is that a trend or is that just statistical noise that we've seen the first two

seasons? I think this is where it makes it hard to determine what the actual atmosphere is around the program because there's a lot of people and you you see them in the comments, you see them responding on social media and you take some of that with a grain of salt. But these are real people and in many cases from what I talk to people who are not online, they they match some of those attitudes. These are people who just look at this and say this isn't working.

It is going to take, as you said, wins against teams that are better than what we've seen Indiana beating in order to get that out of the mindset of those people, regardless of how much success there is in the portal or how much their success there is on the recruiting trail. The other thing that's at play here, and I'm, I love the honeymoon period, it's so true.

You're seeing with IU football. I think that's why there's excitement in back in IU. Football is just sometimes a regime change just provides that just kind of provides, you know, it's a it's a divorce, you're moving on.

But I would also argue, I think there's a reverse honeymoon period on the back end of careers that unfortunately Mike Woodson is going to be facing here is you know it, it does feel like when fan bases kind of see the end of the light so to speak of you know you're seeing it now with Michigan State. They've had a great, fantastic run and Izo has been the premier coach of the Big 10 for 20 plus years.

I have a couple friends who are Michigan State fans, but they're they're like they're in their little sphere of the world. They're talking about, all right, when do we get, when do we get rid of Izo? Like he's losing his touch. Like he like they because they wouldn't do that in 20, you know, 2011, because it's like you're right in the middle of his career. And you know what's absurd?

Izo is going to be gone in the next three to four years or yes, sometimes not not breaking news, but like he his career is going to end soon. They know that. And now kind of comes like the reverse honeymoon. All right, we got to do we start to get antsy and this is something that is just going to be dealing with Woodson and that if he's 66 years old, he's not going to coach until he's 80. All the stuff that you're mentioning which your your stuff

on the business side is awesome. I love all of it. But the other thing that you're seeing is all the older coaches are getting out like this is not a older coach game. And so I do think that is also going to be at play is that a lot of IU fans are just look, you know, going to look at it every year is like all right. At some year Woodson's going to be on a this is my last two or three-year plan. Even if even if he wins three titles. I'm not, I'm not trying to say push him out.

He just no coach over 65 seems to enjoy the landscape of college basketball. You're right. However, the one thing is that Woodson is not your traditional old or college basketball coach. You're right. I mean that's like. Everything has a. Everything has a has a left and a right.

Yeah. It's weird, no. But it's interesting because the things that Woodson clearly doesn't love to do, which is go out on the recruiting trail and recruit high school students, you can make an argument that's becoming just less and less important. And this idea that you know you're going to get your high profile five star freshman who decommits from somewhere or maybe you grab them in the early period and they stay, yes, you're going to plug those people in.

But a lot of it now is, as I've mentioned, very similar to how European football works, where you get players that start at lower levels, they demonstrate how good they can be. The ones that are going to stick around in college sports, you can grab those guys as sophomores or juniors. It takes a lot of the lack of certainty about who they are and what they can be out of the equation.

And Woodson, as we've mentioned since he got hired, if he has an advantage in this environment is if if it keeps going that way that is, do you want to have a guy who can evaluate talent and say right now we see what this person can do and how they would fit in and now we don't have to think are like are they going to be a bust? And we saw that, let's say, you know it's like CJ Gunn just transferred out, Kayla Banks

just transferred out. Those guys were not developing at a level that was commensurate with playing in the Big 10. So you wasted kind of two years of development on both of them. You're you're not necessarily doing that with the guys that you're bringing in in the transfer portal, the last thing. Sorry. It also seems, it also seems that, you know, traditional coaches are used to having a lot of control and they want to control this process.

And it does feel like with the portal, it's very similar to the NBA where you're dealing with intermediaries and it kind of just becomes money's not the only thing, but money's a much more important thing. And you're kind of, you know, Woodson is probably used to dealing with intermediaries and just, you know, it's all about this number. And I'll deal with your people, and maybe I'm not even involved. Maybe my people deal with your people kind of thing.

The one last thing I'll say, and I think this is probably going to be the big acid test of this year for a lot of people. I mean, I I think if value just wins a lot, it won't be as big of a deal. But if IU is still kind of in this borderline where they're in the kind of 19 to 24 win range, does Woodson change his offensive approach to match more modern basketball and have it not look so stodgy, you know, not have an offense that was as inefficient as it was last year?

That's going to be an interesting question because I think a lot of people are just of the mindset that IU is not going to modernize their offense, that they're just going to be locked into playing this. And I think there's a lot of justifiable reasons why people feel that way because they felt like they got sold well. They they felt they got sold a bill of goods in the offseason last year where it's like, well, we're only running that stuff because of Trace Jackson Davis.

And it's like, well, actually you weren't, but maybe it was. Well, we're only running that stuff because we don't have creators that guard and and that destroys everything and and maybe they've got that this year. But it's also interesting with the way the roster is constructed. Even if you're playing both bigs at the same time, it doesn't look like you're going to be able to do that for 35 minutes a game because you don't have

enough depth there. It does look like they may go to a smaller, more versatile, more athletic line up. I think a lot of people are tuned into that. If that changes, I think a lot of the concerns around Woodson among fans start to dissipate because I think fans are willing to accept losses as long as they don't pile up and as long as IU doesn't look dreadful in the losses, and that will be a really fascinating thing to keep it.

The Pacers are kind of an interesting example of this where you know, if the same Pacers team with the same record and the same outcomes was scoring 93 points a game as opposed to whatever they're scoring like 108 or 115. I think there's a far different perception of the team, of the of the franchise, of Rick Carlisle. You know, having an offense that is is exciting to watch and can go on these big spurts covers up a lot of the defensive deficiencies that lead to losses.

You know, I'm really curious with IU to see how that plays out and whether that ends up being a factor in how people perceive Woodson moving forward. No, I mean that's that's a really interesting comp because that is one thing that I love about this Pacers team is I feel like on any given night they can beat anybody if they're playing well. I don't know if they can win the NBA play series. I don't know if they can beat A7 game series against the Celtics.

Even if they play 4, I'm not sure they can put together 4 great games. But, you know, it's been a while since I felt that way with an IU team where it's like, hey, man, if we're clicking, we can beat anybody in the country. And that's with college basketball. Like the tournament's different. If you're just clicking for a couple weeks, you can do that. You're playing different opponents and and things. You know it. It's obviously different than the NBA, but I I agree with you.

But at some point it just comes down to to wins and losses, you know, and and I I it does feel like to me that, you know, Woodson is starting to, in my mind, narrow his options. And the one option is going to be there needs to be some March success 'cause I feel like if we have a really good season with a lot of wins. And then we are not able to make the second round of the tournament. I think that's a goal. Second weekend. Alright, second week, second weekend, second.

Yeah, that'd be a problem. But I think, you know we've been to the second round a couple Times Now. Like I think second weekend is tough and as you know you've you've mentioned this couple months ago and it stuck in my head. But it is true that you know this, this is where it's a little bit unfair with college basketball because it all comes down to you know, a couple games. But it also is like this is the job you signed up for and that's the those are the the

requirements that are up there. But you can have a really good season. You can be a protected 3 seed and not make the second weekend and it's you know it that This is why it's tough to put all of your marbles in. We have to have success in March.

But I think that that is unfortunately what's going to start happening with IU because there hasn't been that success in March for so long that at some point you're going to have to do it. But unfortunately you can have really good teams that don't mean again, Auburn is a great example. That was a great year. That was a well constructed team, that was a well coached team. They lost the wrong game at the wrong time. The question is, was that a

successful season or not? You know they had a final four a couple years ago that helps temper some of that. We don't have any of that. So that that to me would be the biggest fear is you have a season like Auburn coming up in front of us and like how how does that? Solve or resolve any of these issues and it probably doesn't.

I I think success in March is going to probably be that's going to answer the the the most important answer to this question Maybe though the one thing I'll say is I I do think a really good regular season would solve a lot of people's concerns about you know to me like like you know a Big Ten title or or even just finishing in the top two again of the Big 10 would go just as far unless IU goes and gets blown out in the tournament afterwards like that you know so but there's a big.

Ten title, I'm with you. I think a Big Ten title serves a lot. You know that that that 2016 team that holds a lot of Big 10 title is something, you know, a Big 10 tournament title, which I know is fanciful. That's something too. Well, and it's interesting because if you look at the, the way too early rankings as far as the Big 10 is concerned, I mean we've talked about this already, the Big 10's going to be a bit down.

I mean, I'm I I am, I would love to smoke whatever the national media are smoking regarding Purdue. It's illegal in Indiana. Whatever. It's illegal. It's legal in every other state, wherever they're buying this stuff. I mean, my God. I I mean, I've, I've seen multiple people now come out and say, well, Purdue's got the best backcourt in the country and I was like, on what planet are we talking about Purdue having the best backcourt in the country?

Seriously, I, Graydon Smith and Fletcher Lawyer without Zach Edie to draw defenses away is the best backcourt in the country. I I wish you the best of luck with that if that's what you're putting your money on. But anyway, like if you look at the ESPN way too early rankings put together by Jeff Borzello 6 days ago, Purdue's ranked 13th in the country, Indiana's ranked 16th in the country.

And if you look around the rest of the Big 10 and this is where it gets weird, do you know who the next team to consider is in the national rankings? I've. Not looked, I'm going to guess. I would assume Illinois. No, This is why it's weird. And this I want to guess again. Like just, I mean, just nationally, maybe like Michigan, even though it makes absolutely no sense. But. No, no. It's weird for a different reason. It's UCLA. Oh, I. Forgot, forgot they're in the Big 10 happened.

That's the thing that happened, happening. This year, you're right. I feel so. Weird what's going on? I know, but that's like the next like the next regular big Ted team is Ohio State, who was dreadful last season and who's getting this ranking largely because John Deebler had like, or Jake Deebler. John John Deebler is Jake Tiebler finished eight and three at the end of the season, so you got a bit of a dead cat bounce there with Chris Holtman getting fired.

But that doesn't mean that they're going to be good. It would be. If somebody's doing one of these prognostications just threw in like DePaul, just to see like like just to see if it took somebody like, oh shit, I didn't realize DePaul wasn't the Big 10. Yeah, I know. Well, And then like the next ranked team is Maryland, who was dreadful this last season and it was yet to really show much of anything under Kevin Willard.

But my point being we talk about Big 10 titles and I could, I could maybe hear it in the back of some people says, well, IU is not going to compete for a Big Ten title. It's like that Big 10 is no, like there's no clear winners, there's no clear leaders. IU from a talent perspective has every piece of the puzzle. And to some degree, I'd like to thank the national media for continuing to decide that Purdue is the top team in the conference despite losing Zac

Edie and other pieces. Because that actually I think will take a lot of pressure off of IU where they won't come in as the the favorite in the conference. Maybe they'll come in second or third, But that, you know, in a season where there's not a clear favorite and where Indiana's taking all these steps to make their roster better. In the back of a lot of IU people's minds, I could see they're saying, yeah, we we should compete for a Big Ten

title. And I think that would go such a long way towards quelling whatever related or remaining unrest there is in terms of Mike Woodson and and the way that this program is is headed. So anyway. I completely agree with that and I I think that's you know Big 10 hardware really matters and that is especially for a fan base like like Indiana that you know we're competing with Purdue for Big 10 titles And it it does that that regional piece, even though it's UCLA, you know matters.

I I think you know that's something that could cover up for a bad March, even if it's just man, it's a bad match up in the second round or you know, however that happens. You know if you had the Auburn season but you all don't did I don't did Auburn win the SEC? But like if if you have the Auburn season but you win the big 10s, you have a great season, you win the big. Auburn. Auburn did win the SEC outright. No, I'm no, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Tennessee wanted outright.

Auburn was in a four way tie for second. I think that's like that to me is the the worst case scenario. You have a really good season, but you don't win the Big 10, you don't win the Big 10 title. You have a you know horror result in March that's going to be really tough to square that circle. But I do think if you get a Big Ten title while it's going to suck if you lose in March.

I think that that that's enough like all right man that you you did something and you've done something here that you know for your coaches haven't done before like Archie Miller. So I I think that would be that be important and I I kind of agree with you I'm I'm trying really hard personally. You know, I've taken some some crap on Twitter for for you know, being too negative or not being positive enough with them.

Like I'm trying really hard to just I don't want to get in a yo-yo effect where I'm just like super high, super low. Like oh or you know, I was pretty unhappy at the end of last year and I'm trying to get back to neutral where it's like I'm not super happy, super low. Like let's just have some results show me. But you know that would be a Big Ten title would be awesome. I think just winning, you know, going through that process. Would be good too.

Let's jump over talk IU football real quick. Obviously it's been a fascinating last few weeks for them as we saw some exodus of players and I think that was always to some degree to be expected given the lack of certainty about how guys were going to adapt. But we've also seen IU go back out, grab some additional players who look really good. We're seeing them rated relatively highly in terms of overall roster talent.

You know still some questions certainly on the lines but they've they've made a lot of strides and we enter kind of a a quiet period to some degree for IU football. There's going to be some players that will still come into the portal, they'll be still or come in from the portal. I think we're done with players leaving in the portal because that deadline has passed a couple of weeks ago.

But I think you know at this stage I'm I'm really curious about IU football and expectations since we've been talking about expectations this whole podcast. This is 1 where I almost feel like the opposite is the case where I feel like there's so much positivity about what Kurt Cignetti and his staff have done up to this point. I do. I, I, I, I look at a lot of the the roster compositions of the various teams and who Indiana's

got to play. And while the the schedule is certainly favorable, I do think it's worth just reminding people that there is a long way to go with this IU roster. And much as we've talked about the problems that IU basketball might have about bringing a bunch of new feet faces together, getting a good system in place where everybody knows

their role. IU football with the amount of turnover they've had is in maybe an even more complicated state because of how many pieces have to work comp in a complimentary manner for good football to take place. And so you look at like UCLA, who a lot of people are very much disregarded. You know, their, their defensive roster's actually very good and they're they're not going to be a pushover, especially having to travel on the road.

You know, Washington on paper looks like they lost a lot, yet they brought a lot in. And a lot of those players are players that Jed Fish, their new head coach, had at Arizona. You know, Northwestern. I mean, they're that's a team. That is, they always seem to find a way to surprise. They're either better than you think they're going to be or worse than you think they're going to be, and I'm a little worried that they're going to be better than people think.

I say all that not to try to pour cold water on the IU football front, 'cause I think there's a lot of really exciting moves being made. But I could see a scenario where they're not winning eight or nine games certainly and and I think that a lot of people, I don't know what the expectations are, it's just been all positive. I am curious to see what the reactions will be if it's not all positive since it's the first year of Cignetti and his staff at IU. So I'm going to reach out to our

or not reach out. I'm going to call out our friends over at bite side Bison Taylor's done a great job over

there. Had a sub stack where he went back and forth with Ben Witterstein with the Wittenstein. I was never going to say it right with the the the pre preseason analysis, but what I thought was interesting is you know where Indiana on the Vegas books is at 5 1/2 wins this season and when you look at the other teams, Indiana's playing in the Big 10, four of those teams are either at or below that.

Now now obviously people can be above the expectations, below the expectations, but we have the the same win total as UCLAA, higher win, sorry, same win total as Northwestern, a low higher win total than Michigan State who's 4 1/2 and Purdue is also at 4 1/2. So if you assume that you know we're at that level or we're better than those teams that's four Big Ten wins right there with three non conference that's A7 win season which to me is awesome.

I I think this is where you know expectations this is you know back to the ex's and jo's guys. You know this is you have the honeymoon phase and so even not meeting expectations in your first year is not awful because you can still sell yourself on.

We're building the the foundations that's why this is a good place to be. But I also think that IU football just has a different expectation set then, you know IU basketball and that if we get to five wins and it looks like we were really close to get to six or seven, I think people

will be there. I just, I look at it similarly to you with the basketball that I'm not sure given our schedule how tough it is going to be for us to win four or five games in the Big 10 just based on the teams that we're playing and where they're all projected to be. I'm also drinking a lot of the Kool-aid and really enjoying what I'm seeing. But yeah, it's going to be interesting. I also just think if if Indiana falls a little bit flat, I don't think there's going to be the

same kind of reaction. But you know, all of that is going to change. If they come out and they're not able to go 2 and O going into UCLA, like if you can't beat FIU or Western Illinois, you know what we'll get. As Yogi Berra would say, it gets late real quick here. You know that those that is where I think there would be some alarm bells like, oh, this is, well, you really won the offseason, but you're not able to win games on the field.

But if they come out, you know, even if they're two and one after that UCLA game, things are fine. But it kind of depends on what that one loss looks like. If it's the FIU or Western Illinois, it's not good or they just get completely boat race by UCLAA team that's not projected to be awesome. That's also going to be concerning. Culture change is hard, which I guess is kind of why I wanted to bring it up. And you know there's. That's very fairpoint.

I'll use so I I'm a for those who follow the Premier League. I'm a Tottenham supporter and it's been interesting watching the first year of of Antipostokoglu as the Tottenham manager they did. You know they they lose the best scorer in Premier League history before the season starts and they still figure out a way to finish fifth. They're going to I think they're going to finish fifth here and and that's a great accomplishments.

First European football they've had in a couple of years first year that they finished with the same manager they started with and yet though they ended the season very poorly. You know I think they dropped they they got three points out of their last five games which is real bad.

The thing is that you know you you if you see the press conferences that have been held and and you read through the comments, a lot of it is post to Cogloo saying the culture is not there like there is. There is still a lot of problems with the mentality and the thought process that the players and the and the club have and that is leading to a lot of the problems in key pressure moments for IU. You know this, this is going to be the big question mark.

Like as much as the culture looked like it had changed under Tom Allen and as much as in the the 19 or the 20 season and the 21 season, it was like, oh, actually it's the 19th season and the 20 season. It was like, wow, this team is different. This is not the same IU of old 21/22/23. The veneer comes away and it's like, oh, we still have a beat up car, yeah.

Exactly. And so that to me is a really fascinating thing with IU football which is like you can bring these extra players in. And this is where I think even if you've got questions and Taylor's done a good job on bite sized bison of of trying to parse you know how well statistically will and basically a non power five player translate to the power Five level. I have to stop using the term Power 5 because it's really just

power two. But coming from James Madison up to this level or coming from a Max school up to this level, there's a statistical element. How does that translate? But the other aspect of it is if you can import winning culture and if you can import that idea that the thought process is as important as the actual physical manifestation on the field, that really does make a big difference.

And that I think is going to be the big question mark, not just for IU football, but for IU basketball to some degree as well. Like so much of this and this is I guess where it's an A, a, a, a thing that hasn't been talked about as much with Woodson, but I think after last year deserves some commentary and and really will help to determine how people think about things moving forward.

It's like it felt like the culture took a step backwards in 2324. Does it come back to where it looked like it was in 2223 with IU football? Nobody's around essentially still from the last really good culture team that IU had, can Signetti instill that in his team because that as we know from watching teams like Iowa, Wisconsin, you know teams that are underpowered from a talent perspective, a lot of their wins.

Northwestern is probably the best example of this come from mentality and and come from being able to to do the little things. So that to me is where I'm the most interested in how all this plays out. And I'm looking forward, frankly, to those first couple of games because as you said, if you're close in those games, I mean what look, if you think about IE football last year, when did we know for sure that there was a real problem?

You know, it, it wasn't the huge losses that Indiana, you know, would suffer. It was Akron. It was the Akron game, 100%, that Akron game. Like you, we thought we looked at that Louisville game and we said to ourselves, oh, maybe this team has got some juice in it because, you know, they. They they the second-half is what we're going to get the rest of the year. And then you get that Akron game and they got to go to multiple overtimes to defeat Akron at home, and that was a terrible

Akron team. And immediately they come out of that. They lose 4417 to Maryland, they lose 52 to 7 to Michigan, they lose 3114 at home to Rutgers and were really never in the game. They lose at Penn State, yeah, but the Penn State game was better. But it like they they were clearly in a swoon at that point and and I think you know by the time they go into the Penn State game they were like one but two and five or something like that.

So we will know I think pretty early then the question is, is that sustainable over a 12 game regular season. So yeah it should be fun. It's interesting, but that's that's the stuff that we can't tell from looking at the transfers in and out and looking even at the schemes that have been run. What I'm excited about is on the last pod that you did, you were talking about that I didn't know the the venue change. I knew that Northwestern had

turned down their stadium. I didn't know the venue change stuff. It's funny, you're just like you're normally, you know, relatively even keel and you have, you have very measured, you know takes on the pods. It was just funny when you're like like moving the game in Northwestern and I'm pissed and now I'm excited for your post game for that. Because if we end up losing that game based on like wild wind or something crazy.

I just, I'm going to normally you kind of let me go bananas and just rant like I I'm just going to I'm putting a pin in it now put a note like put a thing in my calendar. Like if we lose that game because of something crazy based in the field like I'm just going to let Galen cook. Like I'll do the open. I'll do the home field apparel and then I'll just get a quick that's a coffee again cup of

coffee and let you cook. It'll be a hell of a way to close out September, I'll tell you that much. Yeah, Tune TuneIn on that one, folks. Make sure your your sub stack subscription is ready to roll. There'll probably be AVIP episode about that one too. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Anyway, before we wrap up, let's talk some Indy 500. We are. We're recording this at 11:40. Well, we've we've been recording for an hour at this point, so if you're still with us, thank you.

But Indy 500 qualifying this wacky format that they went to several years ago where that we've locked in positions 13 through 30 as real? Quick, I did a I'm sorry, I'm interrupting. It's it's on brand. I did a premium post about this on the sub stack, but I'm curious, your thoughts, getting up to this point real quick, IndyCar talk. What are your thoughts on the the Penske pass thing and, you know, having to actually change?

It's been an odd season, so I'm just curious, you're recapping again if you go to the premium sub stack. I have some videos on my thoughts on IndyCar up to this point. It's not that we're trying to put it all behind a paywall, We're just trying to not subject people with more IndyCar talk 'cause it's wild. What are your thoughts on what's happened so far this season with

that? Well, I mean, look, I'm at, I am. I'm glad IndyCar actually took the steps to say something was done wrong here. We're going to go back and investigate. I think that's important. The problem is ultimately

twofold. A Penske's got such good cars and and there's such a well run organization then ultimately the punishments that were metered out aren't really going to be punishments that are going to hurt them the same way they would hurt like Errol McLaren or or Andretti or you know well Andretti does a good job of hurting itself most of the time. But like, so people I think are expecting Penske to get like penalized in a way that's going to harm their performance.

It's like that's not going to happen because their performance isn't really dependent on the things that they're getting penalized for to any huge degree, so. You know, it's it's important that the series demonstrate that nobody's above the law. And I thought all the Penske explanations were kind of dumb. But I also think it's important to remember that cheating happens in auto racing all the damn time. It happens in F1, it happens in

IndyCar, it happens in NASCAR. Probably 5 to 10% of it actually ever gets caught. And I so I I have a hard time being that upset about the actual scandal itself, given that it's in the big scheme of things, probably a relatively minor thing, all things considered. But it's like it's a it's a cloud. For a series that didn't need clouds, that is not a reason to not do the punishment. It's just it's almost like it's such a weird thing to try to describe what happened that it

almost loses its impact. Does that make sense? It does. You know my my feeling on it is it it highlights what is so wrong with this series is that you know we we talk on these races especially the road and St. courses. All they talk about is push to pass and top the different tire compounds and and I would be hard pressed to remember 4 races where either of those things really affected the race. You know it it maybe it does on the margins, but we talk about tire compounds ad nauseam in

these races. And then I went to the indie Grand Prix with my family. It was awesome for 12 seconds when the race started, it was awesome for the one restart. The rest of the time Pelosi is running away with it and it's like you need some kind of competition to bring these teams together. And I just it to me it it highlights, you know, it's like you said it's a dark cloud over a sport but it's like we're going nuts over this, this push to pass when it never effects anything.

I've never seen a race, you know, it's like, oh, he's got, he's got more push to pass, but there's no, there's nowhere to pass in Barber. So that's all you know, it's like it's these advantages they talk about on the broadcast. They're trying to sell the excitement and then nothing ever

happens. And so to me, like to the series, like you guys are kind of wrapped around your own axle here, like make this stuff better or more important or just get rid of it because the push to pass like people were cheating, but it still didn't matter. Like, I don't think Newgarden won that he was going to win the race anyway. It's like you still, he still couldn't pass the people. He couldn't pass on the places you couldn't pass. I don't know.

I just, I think it highlights. They have all of these little gimmicks, but none of them are working. It's like if you're going to go down the gimmick route, do the NASCAR thing and just do a competition yellow every 20 laps. I mean just have real gimmicks that actually bring the field together or just be the the the natural racing series. But I don't know, I I took away. It's like, like you said, it's really tough to explain to

somebody what this is like. Oh, this is big enough that they got penalized a winner of a race. Then you'd be like, Oh well then this, this push to pass must be the most important thing in every race. Like, no, actually, it really never effects anything. Well, I mean, yeah, I get what you're saying. Yeah. Ultimately, it's just it's one of those things, and this is where I think rules violations in all sports are problematic to try to explain.

It's kind of like I think about the NBA with this, like the number of things that I haven't been aware of as far as like the minutiae of the NBA rulebook. There was this thing happened in the in the Mavs Thunder game last night, which you missed because you were, you know, bidding on on on prizes. But you know, there's a call at the end of the game that ends up ending the series. And, you know, I'm still trying to put together exactly what the hell happened.

We've seen this in the Pacers series with Yeah, it's like, oh, that's not reviewable. It's like why? I didn't know that. Yeah. Or oh, that's not a foul, even though it's clearly a foul. There's just all these things where I feel like, yeah, the there needs to be a reckoning across the board sometimes about, OK, what is actually important, what is not. Because these rule books tend to not get cleaned out and and

organized properly. And most of them are written for scenarios where you're not using replay because they precede replay and yet now we've got replay. But they're not really using replay in the way that could be used to make things easier. They're just taking complicated things and making them either seem stupid or incomprehensible, neither of which is really a good outcome.

It also feels like aliens just dropped basketball, you know, sports on. It's like, well, this has to be, you know, this is Bible. It's like, no, like this. In the end, this is entertainment. Like, I want to be enjoying what I'm watching and yes, I'd like, you know, fair competition. But I also, once we go to the monitor for the 15th time, like this is no longer. I'd rather have just missed calls than 30 seconds to the monitor every two minutes. Or if you know that's, I agree.

Like the more you can get rid of the monitor, the better I think you're the better solution you have at that point, not so much. Not the monitor itself like you need to be. You need to be looking at calls and making sure they're right. What you don't need is the performative theater of the official then going and talking into a microphone where they're on camera. That got that really hurts. And now going back to the IndyCar thing, I think the problem there. The weirdest camera.

And just side note, the weirdest camera angle in the NBA. It's like great visuals the whole time and then suddenly it's like he's on my webcam talking into monitors.

Bananas anyway. IndyCar and it was the IndyCar thing I was going to say was essentially it's it's not a great look when rules breaking happens and you're not sure what the heck's going on that it's almost the opposite there, where it's like the broadcasters generally don't do a great job of describing why something happened the way that it happened. And in a very technical sport, which has a lot of technical rules, I think that there could be some better things done there.

Anyway, I'm done. I'm done on that topic. But anyway, qualifying will happen to see or it happened yesterday on Saturday and then by the time some of you listen to this, we'll already have the full field set. We'll have the the, the fast twelve thing. It's it's been kind of a of a a not terribly exciting month of May so far. Unfortunately some of that is weather we haven't had the the track time for a lot of the

teams. It is weird, like you're seeing a lot of engine issues on both sides of the equation. Honda's had issues, Chevy's had issues. Which is always funny to me because then the the the driver, not exactly an engine issue, but like you know, Graham Rahal came out and I get it. He's like, man, the guys in the the the guys in the garage been working on this, you know, for

nine months. They've been putting their work in. You always hear that and it's like have that like have you been working for this for a year? And I know it's way more technical than I'm giving credit for, but it's like you've been working for a year. Why can't you get 4 laps out of your engine? There's just a lot of little, and again, these are very complicated machines and you know, you can watch F1, you see a similar kind of thing.

But the problem for indie though, is that this is the month that everything has to align. You need a good show. You know, you had the, you had the Indie Grand Prix, which happened, you know, basically two weeks ago or a week ago, and that was a really dull race. Again, I've, I can't remember. Like, I don't remember anything about those races other than bad stuff that's happened. Like, I don't remember the winners, but I remember Cliff

ran into each other. And. Or Hinchcliffe getting hit in the helmet, you know, I mean you like stuff like that is that is seems to be the most and it's a shame because that is what the fastest Rd. circuit that they have on the series, I think or something along those lines. And normally it's just kind of like, well here's an event to start. And so I like that idea, but it's blended into a pretty nondescript period here.

And qualifying yesterday, I mean I watched almost the entire 8 hours or wherever whatever it was and there just wasn't a lot of drama there. It's in. And you know, this has been the case for years where everybody wants to go with the very beginning because the track is still cool and then some stuff happens during the middle of the day, but the track is too hot in most cases to really go out and

good get good attempts. Then everything jams up at the end and you know the the, the used to be that everything was decided on the first day that mattered and then you'd backfill the field on the second day and there was a whole second weekend of qualifying, which is when the bumping would happen. That wasn't a great system either.

I just don't know that what they've got right now is a particularly good system because you really have to be pretty hardcore to want to sit there and watch 8 hours of qualifying when the whoever finishes in the top 12 really doesn't matter. It's really only who finishes 11th, 12th, 13th. No one's that worried about the bottom of the field because no one cares about the fact that the 30th driver gets in and the

31st driver doesn't. Even with some big names there like Marcus Erickson has not qualified yet. Graham Rahal is not qualified yet. The chances of both of them getting in are still pretty good. Maybe. Maybe Graham Rahal not, I don't know. But is Graham Rahal's not almost not a big enough name at this point to even get that fired up about it. The Fast 12 kind of looks like a FAI accompli. Like are is anybody really going to be able to challenge any of these Penske cars for the front row?

It doesn't look like it, you know, maybe Rossi. But Rossi, I I I'll be surprised If Rossi's on the front row. I'd be happy to eat my words. But given the problems with the rest of the team has had, the only really interesting story was the Kyle Larson thing. And even that was just kind of like what we know he's going to qualify the car and he's probably going to be in the fast 12.

It just felt like a long day of not a lot, and that for a series that really needs to maximize what little time in the sun it gets, that feels like a concern. I agree. I mean it's it's the the last 30. We were texting about this. The last 30 minutes of the Saturday is always good. But it's like this is the problem with filling the field is you have to fill basically 20 spots that are not exciting. You know, it's either you're in the fast 12 or you're in the bottom 4.

Everything in the middle is kind of just once you're in those middle numbers. Yeah, you're in, like you're in. You're not going to be fast. You're not going to be slow. You're in, you're in. And it, you know, it takes 2 hours to do that. It's not super fun. The thing that's frustrated me with the qualifying process, I do kind of. I'm OK with the system they have now. It makes for a really interesting Sunday and it just sucks. And now it's like going up against the Pacers game.

So no one very few people are you know Pacers fans are going to watch. They've you know by by bringing in the Indy Rd. course. The idea was that's kind of how you open the month of May, but in doing so, you know that lock them into four days of practice because then they have to. You know, Mother's Day is the day after Monday. They got to flip the course back to the Oval.

So you don't have practice on Monday and now you just have practice Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to bring the boost up, you know, and weather seems to always come into place. The weather's always taking off 2 days and everybody's like, wow, we don't have any practice time. It's like well. It's May. It's May in Indiana. Like we've done this a bunch. Like for how old's the state? 200 years old, I mean. Had to go to thermal to fill a weekend like you have a ton of

time. Move that IndyCar, the the road course, race back a week or two, doesn't have to be in May, end of April and then bring us back two weeks of qualify, 2 weeks of practice, maybe two weekends of qualifying. Like sell this is your event, sell your big event. I mean, as somebody who's a fan, I love having practice on, just on my TV, just kind of listening to it, watching it.

I only get three days, you know, three or four days of that now and normally 2 because it rains out like I I think they've done themselves a massive disservice. And I think you end up seeing a lot of teams struggling to figure things out and it ends up being just a a Penske shootout almost. It's always a Penske Ganassi shootout every year because those are the teams that, you know, pardon my French, have

their shit together. And other teams, you don't give them enough qualifying, they're going to have a bunch of issues and trouble getting it in the field. So anyway, that that being said today will be interesting. I agree with you. I think it's, you know, normally the fast 12, anyone in that top four is going to be on the front row. You very rarely in this in this set up that we've had for the last couple years, somebody in position 6 or below in that fast 12 ever jump up to the front

row. You know I like Santino Ferrucci. I think he's a driver that has done well in the race. But I mean he's his team is AJ Foy. So that that's always going to be a hindrance. I just, I think you're going to see that. As for the the drivers don't make it. I think the Ericsson thing is interested. It's a guy who's finished first and second his last two, five hundreds to now be on the bubble. You know this is what IndyCar

should be selling. This should this is your like this is a guy who you know theoretically is on track to have one of the best careers at Indy just based on his first couple of races who's not even in the field right now. That's that's the the focus. I think a lot of people are looking at Graham Rahal. The idea like he hasn't made it two years in a row. Maybe that's more on him. Oh my gosh, fast jumping in on me. That's the sign that. That's the sign we've gone too long. And he's right.

He's. Way more interested in paper than Indy 500. Wow that that was seeing Scott get freaked out. Watch it on YouTube. Scott almost having a heart attack with his. I hope, I hope the viewers got as much joy out of that as I did. That was tremendous all. Right. Thanks, man. All right, that's he gets the talking gene from me. That's tremendous. Being interrupted by my own son.

It's it's karma. But anyway, so I I think that I I am interested for all of this, but I it does, as always, feel like IndyCar has good things to work with and finds a way to kind of do the worst with them. I all I'll say is, I mean, I'm, I was trying to talk of this on the last podcast and we'll wrap up here. I'm just not sure who to get excited about this year. Yeah, I'm really not. And I know who the drivers are. I know who, who, what teams they belong to. I'm just not sure who to get

excited about at this point. And so I. Think it's a problem with the series that drivers just you know none of them are It's not it's never been to me AUS or foreign thing like I Tony Kahn is one of my favorite drivers of all time. I think Elio is very fun to watch. You know my wife loves Tekumasado. I think he's a fun driver.

None of them are American. I can tell this is just a a batch of drivers that are all kind of vanilla and boring and and a lot of them are you know VVQIS as I'm programming my my scanner. It's all a lot of, you know V Quist, you know Rosenquist, a lot of VQISTS, a lot of kind of you know, Scandinavian drivers who just are not super interesting in the crop that's coming in.

They just need some personality. Like Newgarden is screaming to be the face of the series and it's like just be interesting man, like stop taking the Scott Dixon playbook. And to me I think that is part of the problem of Graham Rahal is actually kind of a interesting engaging guy. He's just not good enough to to be up there. I I think that's a problem is the series needs needs personalities and this is this is what you get with single

player sports. You know, tennis has dealt with this where it's not so much in a you know, people love Federer and Nadal. You you need guys who are who, who grasp your imagination and sometimes they're not there. And I think that's what's running with IndyCar right now is a lot of the younger drivers that are coming up like the Paddle Awards, Alex Pelosi, who were good, are just not super

interesting. I don't I mean I I I know you and I have talked about this a bunch and I understand where you're coming from. I just think the races aren't that interesting at this point. That's that's 100%. I I honestly could give or take the personalities. I I fell in love with IndyCar because I really enjoyed the racing and it just it isn't there to me at the same level that it needs to be. And and that is like Indy's the one race where it's normally pretty good.

Although it's like it's also just kind of a crap shoot at this point. Indy is It's a luck thing more than anything. Else so you get a lot of Indy's gotten worse too. It's turned into like everyone goes the first lap and then everybody's immediately in. All right, let's let's prepare for the last 20 laps. It's like that's again, back to the rules. Like, that's great guys, but like. I'm sitting here in the sun for three hours like I'd like to not just Fast forward to two hours from now.

Some of that is because the cars are just that much better. I mean, like the number of the thing about the every qualifier on Saturday did at least 231 miles an hour and didn't look like they were pushing it. And that's great for safety and it's great because you've got this high level speed, but everybody's within essentially 2 1/2 miles an hour of each other or three miles an hour of each other. So there's this, like there, there was this whole like thing.

There's this, like, why is Hakuma Sato's car working and Graham Ray Hall's isn't? And you know they're both on the same team. And then you look at the numbers and it's like Takuma Sato's car went like 2 miles an hour faster which which on four lap average of the. It's just it's it's it's milliseconds. You know it's tenths of a second like that's it's really not that

much of a difference. So you're, and to some degree I think you get to a point in auto racing where the differences become so minuscule that it does take away from the competitive aspects. Because, as we know, like the big the big misconception about Indy is that IndyCar, like in the Indy 500, is a race to determine who the fastest car is. That is technically true, but Indy was always about What Car could go 500 miles under those

conditions. It's essentially an endurance race that happens to have really, really fast cars. Well, and you and I love to watch the old races. And if you go back and watch races from the 70s, eighties, even the 90s, you know, every 25 laps it's like, oh, it blew an engine, like, oh, it blew a gasket.

Like, you know, it's, it's, it's one of my favorite things of all time is watching AJ Foy come in. This is like, you know, 84, like back when people had and fire suits, those guys in jeans and overalls just coming out and like banging on the couch. But it's like, no, you're right. I mean, you used to have seven or eight cars that would just not finish the rate. Not based on wrecks, just based on our car.

Couldn't make it. Yeah, so I it may be an unfixable issue, which whatever, but it it's unfortunate because it does feel like with some of the ex, the exodus of certain drivers and just the way that the series is gone, it's just it doesn't feel like that passionate of the month. There's people who disagree with that right now and that's fine. I'm just saying it, it feels to some degree like there needs to be a reset in some way, shape or form, either in the format or in

something. So we'll see what happens. But I agree, because I was thinking about it too. You have a field with you. You have a lot of a lot of former winners you have you know some really good young drivers like Pullo and paddle Award who haven't won yet and and normally you know that the years that the the field hasn't been as exciting as you don't have a lot of former you have a lot of

winners here. So you have a lot of people who people know and they know their racing styles and they've won and engaging fashions and so it's it is interesting but I'm feeling the same thing just kind of like oh wow, it's coming up like and I'm just not as excited that that said I'll be going and and excited for the race because it's the race is always more than just the race it's it is a spectacle and a way to spend a great Sunday in May. On that note, we'll go ahead and

wrap up as we've kept you for 80 minutes. That's probably enough time we will be back. Scott's going to have AVIP video popping up a little bit later in the day. So if you're on the Crimson Cast sub stack on the VIP side, keep an eye out for that. We'll have some podcasts coming up later this week. We'll probably do like a full or at least some kind of actual preview of the race we can talk through. We'll do it. We'll do it later on this week and then we'll see what else goes on.

I'll have some more college sports business stuff popping up later this week as well. So keep an eye out for that. And just a reminder, be sure to visit homefieldapparel.com, our presenting sponsor. Be sure to check out the other podcast on the back home network, and be sure to have a good Memorial Day weekend. If we don't talk with you before then, although I promise it won't be us, it'll be you. So anyway, for Scott, I'm Galen. This is Crimson Cast.

We'll catch you folks on the flip side. Thanks for joining us once again. Bring back the Bison song, everybody.