For those who are watching on YouTube, it's helpful when you put the micro SD card in the podcast recorder before you start the recording of the of the video. So, Taylor, entertain the people for a second, please. Hello people. I'm going to mute us both now. Here we go. Hold on a second.
You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Castiel and Clavio. Joining you, we got Taylor Layman with us from Bite Sized Bison joining us on a Wednesday. We're jamming some podcasting in before the month of July comes to a close and happy to have you folks joining us. Football has started practice, Taylor, it's back. It's officially back and not the greatest day for it weather
wise. It was a sauna, still a sauna down here in Bloomington right now. We had some thunderstorms earlier, but they're back on the practice field and we're ramping up. We got about a month until the first game of the season. Yeah, I'm, I'm excited for the season to start. There are a lot of sports going on. Like I've been like obsessed with the Olympics since it started. Watch it constantly. The gold zone on Peacock is actually really good.
And, and you know, the, the MLB trade deadline just happened yesterday. You know, I'm a Detroit Tigers fan, so there's not a lot of relevance from, from my fandom. But you know what? It's, it's exciting at least. But I'm ready for college football season to start. The, The baseball trade trade deadline's always interesting cause, you know, I'm a nominally a Reds fan, as as people know, and they never do anything. And they did nothing again.
They did, they made one trade that nobody understood and that that's one more trade than they normally make. So I didn't feel like it's never something I get excited about. Of course, friend of the show and occasional guest Tricia Whitaker's Tampa Bay Rays traded like their entire team away to the point that there's been a lot of jokes on social media about whether she's going to get traded away next. And that seems entirely possible given their approach.
But I have no idea who won the trade deadline, like what's going on, anything like that. And I don't think anybody else does either. It's all conjecture. But at least there was some news and highlights. And obviously the Olympics, as you said, have been pretty interesting so far. When the Olympics are in Europe, it like, you can watch stuff live.
Like I know like they just had that Leon Marchand race where he just won his second gold and then obviously people will be able to watch that later on. That 5-6 hour time difference is really good. It when it's like a 12 hour time difference it makes things a lot more complicated. Yeah, yeah, it's nice to actually, you know, I, I just work in an office, so it's nice to have it up on like my second monitor and I just check in on it and I have the audio in my
ears. So it, it's actually been really nice, like background sound and keeping up with the Olympics and stuff. But the women's rugby team was amazing. That last moment when they won the bronze was so cool. And then I, I actually got really into the men's gymnastics team the final. That was really fun too. But yeah, that's been it's been a good time. We'll, we'll keep an eye on what's going on in the Olympics. Still a lot of of Hoosier
athletes in the midst of things. And so it's it's cool to see that, but we're going to talk IU sports. So we're going to do that. But first, just a reminder, we're part of the back home network assembly call doing the work podcast XS and Joes. I mean, we've got Austin renders new show where he's interviewing specialists, talking about women's basketball in the Big 10. All of those podcasts brought to you by Home Field Apparel, your place to go for the finest in college fashions, the softest
fabrics, the coolest designs. I, I said on the last show that they were gonna have something dropped soon. Now, I had not gotten any advance notice of this Taylor, but they did it again. I'm actually gonna for the for the people watching on YouTube, I'm gonna go ahead and share the screen here for a second 'cause I, I want everybody to see what they've done. So they've announced and I will narrate it for those of you who are listening on audio.
But if you'd like to go check out the back home network YouTube channel. You can see this entire episode live or not live, but in video. That's not, that's different than live. I I went to school to learn those things. But you can see here the 2024 Home Field Platinum Football Boxes coming out August 9th and to to use the copyright off the website. The 2024 Home Field Platinum Football Boxes are our most ambitious to date, curated specifically to ring in a new
era for our game. They're made for football fans, by football fans, with every detail precisely crafted for an elevated home field experience. These aren't for casuals. We built these for the truest of the true and you can obviously sign up and you should sign up e-mail.
You can identify which team that you're backing, which of course for us is Indiana. But what caught my attention, I was just scrolling through this and I get down past this horrific Maryland collection that they've got just just kidding, Maryland, sorry. But down here above the 216 new design section, I spy an Indiana Hoosiers 1991 copper bowl trucker hat, which I, I got to tell you, I was immediately
smitten by that. Like, you know, as, as, as someone who's literally got an Oval over his head in, in the, and I got the, I got the block pitchfork over there. I'm a sucker for anything 90s IU and wow, that's a nice looking hat. I'm, I'm really excited. I'm, I'm assuming that's in the IU box and that looks tremendous. And you can only get it through these platinum boxes. It's not going to be available apparently through their regular retail.
That's my birthday, Galen. We were just, we were just talking about my birthday, August 9th. I gotta get one of those. That is Taylor's birthday, so. I should buy one. For myself, you should do do give yourself absolutely a present. I think you deserve it after all the hard work you've done bringing bite sized bite into the masses. And so anyway, check out home field apparel.com. Go and sign up for their their newsletter.
They'll let you know when these are dropping again, August 9th, which is about what nine days, 10 days from whenever you're listening to this, those will be available and you know, home field apparel, you're going to have some awesome stuff in
there. The boxes I should say they're going to contain an exclusive T-shirt, an exclusive long sleeve, an exclusive hoodie, an exclusive hat or ringer T Looks like IU is getting the hat a a set of core collection socks, a platinum koozie and then a platinum pass. And the platinum pass, according to the website, is a physical pass that allows you to it offers you early access and 20% off of any new premium football releases through the end of the
regular season. This is almost like a season pass for video games if you've if you've ever purchased one of those. So awesome to see home field doing some new things here. Was curious how they were going to handle football season and now we can see. So get over to home field apparel.com and check this out. Also, just a reminder, we're on Substack Taylor's on Substack Taylor. I'm going to post this at about 6:00 6/30 on the evening of the 31st.
You've got a promotion running right now for bite sized bison. Tell the people what it is. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's kind of the end of a promotion, I guess. But it's the, the offseason rate is changing to end season rate at midnight tonight. So from August through December it's going to be $8 a month for buy size buys and instead of $5.00 per month, which is what the offseason rate is. But the annual rate stays the same and existing subscriptions,
they stay the same price. If you already have a monthly subscription, it stays at the $5.00. But you know, to be fair to those who. Who were? Subscribed, you know, during the offseason and everything. I figured it was, it was, it was only right. So does the rates do change at midnight? Tonight, Yeah. So go go subscribe to Bite Sized Bison.
If you're watching this pod or listening to this pod, I'm assuming that you like IU football because that's what we're going to talk about for the remaining 40 minutes or so of the show. And you won't find a better site for for written breakdowns and data analysis and and graphs and and cool visuals than bite sized bison. So go get yourself availed of that as quickly as possible. And while you're at it, consider subscribing to Crimson cast on sub stack crimsoncast.substack.com.
It's free and you get all the podcasts delivered right to your inbox. We also have an occasional VIP video. I just had one this morning which went through everything from full sports schedules in IU land all the way through to talking about scholarship restrictions as a resort. Lack of scholarship restrictions as a part of this new settlement that may or may not actually stand up to legal challenges in relation to the house settlement. So we had a lot going on on the
sub stacks. We also do have a paid option for the VIP videos if you just want to support the website. We try to give you a little bit something extra back in return, but go to crimsoncast.substack.com. We'd love to have you in the family anyway. Let's go ahead. And really like those VIP videos you guys do. Yeah, a few videos are awesome.
I need to do more of those. I need to just kind of like maybe when I'm out walking, Stewart, just like record, you know, Bill Simmons style while I'm walking around the neighborhood and just kind of, you know, you know, I was thinking about taxes today or something like that, I thought. The points could bird get in the 24 USAT. Whatever the IU equivalents of those are, I'm sure I could pull
that off. But anyway, let's go ahead and get to the football as we have several questions from those of you on Twitter and you know, a lot of a lot of interesting things. We've had a lot of interest overall in terms of the the way that the football season is laying out We and we've got a couple of questions even related to that. So let's dive into a couple of
these that the people sent. We're not going to be able to get to all of them, obviously, but I I do think that there's a lot of good thoughts from the folks out there. So we did have a question. I'm going to start with this one from from pit Hoosier, which was seems to be a lot of fan excitement heading into the season. Have we seen any ticket sales updates? What kind of crowd are you expecting for the opener and for Maryland? Can we come into it if we come
into it for or no? So our buddy respectable Adam on on Twitter did chime in with this and it's a good answer. He said, if you don't mind me stepping in, I followed the ticket chart pretty obsessively in the offseason and sales are way ahead of where they've been since 2021. Not talking about sell outs here, but better than it was before. First game is band day, Maryland is family weekend. Both are selling well. I have not looked at the charts. I leave that to Adam to do.
But I, I will say this, I, you know, if you look at first of all, trying to gauge interest in this program has always been a fascinating thing. I think people have lost track of the, the reality that the attendance was pretty good in the Wilson era and the beginning of the Allen era. And it was significantly better than it had been in the previous
decade. If you look at what Indiana did last year in terms of home attendance, the Indiana State game, excuse me, the Ohio State game had 50,000 and 50 fans. The Indiana State game had 42,775. This is all reported attendance. Akron had 44,968 and then Rutgers. You know, by that point Indiana had lost four games, still at an attendance of 43611. If you go back to the, let's say the 2019 season, Indiana started really slow. They only had 37 people, 37,037
people. I've been to seasons where they've had 37 people in the stands, but 37,784 for Eastern Illinois and they, they really, you know, that they were, they were kind of around that 40,000 mark most of that season. I feel like given what we've seen in terms of buzz and given just the general excitement that's kind of worked into the system of, of even people who are just more IU football curious than fully committed IU football fans.
I think attendance is going to be pretty good at those first few games 'cause you know the, the times are going to be good. The second game's on a Friday, so it's going to be nominally easier as long as you haven't left for Labor Day weekend. I'm going to say I think because it's the first game of a new era, I wouldn't be shocked if there were 47,000 people at that first game, especially if it's Band day.
And I think if Indiana, even if they're, even if they're, you know, coming into that Maryland game and they're what, 3:00 and 1:00, I think that you could get close to 50,000 fans for that game, 'cause I think there will still be a lot of buzz and a lot of interest. And it'll be the first game against a Big 10 opponent at home so far this season. What? What are you thinking? Yeah, no, I agree. I think even if they are three and one, they'll they'll be a good crowd.
And and normally it does feel like whenever there is some excitement going into a season, the first home Big 10 game usually turns out pretty well. This actually gives me a a, you know, an idea that I can do for by size bias. And so I'm glad we talked about this.
But no, yeah, I think you know what, even even last year and if if I remember correct, your recalls way better on this stuff than mine, Galen. But if if, if I remember right, even last year before the season, there was there was some excitement because of the transfer class that had been brought in. And I remember thinking, you know, about like ticket prices and everything. And and they kind of went down as the season went on. I guess you know what it is kind of tied to the to the
performance of the team. But I think, you know, that that first Maryland game, I think that's still pretty early in the in the season to kind of know exactly how good this team is. But the UCLA game is important. It's just, you know, here. You know, so much and and then we're gonna get into this with another question that we have coming up from Patrick.
But so much of this is about how do people feel like, what's the vibe around the program And and, you know, does it feel like there's been enough energy built around what Kurt Signetti has generated and what his staff has generated that it leads to something more tangible in terms of fans in the stands? I have not updated what I'm about to show you all for a couple of years, but I am going to show it to you. So this is, this is a chart. Ignore, ignore please.
The fact that the title of the of the, the document is Indiana football history makes you cry that that's, that's not really pertinent to this. But what I did was charted Indiana's reported attendance in Memorial Stadium going back to 1981. And I've got a essentially A5 game rolling average line. And you can see it's kind of interesting, like, you know, Indiana football attendance only peaks on that rolling average above 50,000 once in the last 40
some years of football. And that was in that period around 198788 when Indiana, you know, almost goes to the Rose Bowl. They beat Michigan, they beat Ohio State. If it starts to fall off, it falls way off in the mid 90s. It really hits the nadir in 2005 when the rolling five game or six game average was like 26 1/2 thousand fans. Those were not good times. You can see it made a nice improvement in the middle of the Wilson era or really at the end of the Wilson area.
That 2016 season it was all the way up to 46 1/2 thousand and then coming into the 2021 season it had peaked at 49,000 and then of course it has receded since then. So the reason I bring this up is a it reminds me that I need to actually go back in and update the numbers in that chart. But, you know, we're we're in a an era where IU football has kind of plateaued its attendance at a level that's at least acceptable, you know, in that in that 40 to 43,000 range.
But I feel like we've got the platform here that if Indiana gets off to a hot start and wins a few games early and maybe is either wins against UCLA or is at least competitive, those next couple of home games are going to be games that people are really going to want to come and be a part of. And you know, it's not just the Maryland game.
It's that that whole stretch is really interesting to me, Taylor, because it's like you got Maryland on the 28th, then you're at Evanston for the Northwestern game. Then you have a bye and you come back and you've got Nebraska and Washington at home and back-to-back weekends.
Like that's that. That feels like even if as long as Indiana isn't like oh, and five by that point or whatever it is, those two teams by themselves are liable to bring in a higher level of fan numbers than you would normally get in the middle of October. It's not like you're playing like Rutgers in Minnesota or something like that. Like those are brand name teams, including the the team that was the runner up in the national championship.
Yeah, no, I agree. And and, you know, especially, you know, I, I do think I, I do think it the potential turn out for those games could be tied to the, the Maryland and Northwestern games. But yeah, no, you're right. Like these are these are these are good programs to be playing in Memorial Stadium. Nebraska usually turns out and and then, you know, Washington, I don't, I don't know. I, you know, I guess we're, we're, you know, going to figure
it out. But you know, when these new teams come to traditional Big Ten programs do are our fans extra interested this year because of the because of the change? So, yeah, no, I think that's that's a really good thought, just like, and also that's that's quite a bit of time from the beginning and from like the first Big 10 game in UCLA or against UCLA to to that Nebraska game. There's only one home Big 10
game in between those. So I think fans, you know, might just be eager to get to Memorial Stadium, too, to see more of those games. If you like coming to Memorial Stadium, you're gonna get, you could do it for all seasons.
You're gonna get it in the heat of summer, you're gonna get it in October when the leaves are turning and you're gonna get a really cold bucket game this year 'cause it's at the very end of of November. So yeah, you're gonna, it's like an absolute spread of, of the climatological conditions in Bloomington. So it should be fast. It's. Actually a great point too, Galen, because both of those that Washington, those Washington Nebraska games are when Bloomington's typically
most beautiful during the fall. We're going to hypnotize Jed Fish. She's not going to know what hit him. He's going to be like, I've never seen leaves like this before. This is the life. It's a long way from Arizona. It is man, they, they even have leaves in Arizona, you know, they, they just cut cactus and scrub brush and roadrunners. So, yeah, let's go to to Patrick's question. He actually had two. We're going to pick the first one, I guess. I guess it was the second one
that he wrote. Do we really believe that Coach Sig put a bull's eye on IU for his commentary to the media at Big 10 Media days or at the basketball game? Are other teams watching IU because they quote, Googled him and realized Sig's record is real? Or we'll be the same old IU until otherwise proven? There's a couple different ways we could take this question.
I'm going to let you start though, Taylor, because a lot of this really ties back into this idea of coach speak and how it relates to motivation and whether or not all this actually matters or if it's just window dressing for fans in the press.
Yeah, yeah, no, I think I think when it when it comes to the the bullseye idea that you know, him saying these things maybe is some sort of bullets and material for teams or or or maybe like makes other programs aware of Cignetti and and Indiana. The coaching world is small like these guys, the coaches all. Already know of Curse Ignati. They probably had several conversations with him. They, they probably know the wide receivers coach at Toledo.
Like the, it's a, it's, it's a small world that, that, you know, as we get to know coaches, the, the fans and the public, you know, they've already known each other. And so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of coaches already knew that curse Ignati would, would, would carry this sort of swagger that he has when he got to Indiana.
And so I don't think it would necessarily put a bullseye on on Indiana's back or anything along those lines, except for, you know, stories being told through the media and, and, and the way that, you know, other fan bases perceive Indiana because we already saw, you know, certain programs. I, I, I tweeted a guy that was, he's saying what is gained from
this? But what is gained is that he's, he's offering confidence in, in a bunch of different, you know, demographics, whether it's fans, whether it's his own team, you know, I, I think we heard Aiden Fisher, it's, it's, it's a lot of self-confidence. It gives the players a lot of confidence that their coach is going out and saying these, you know, somewhat unprecedented things to, to the entire world
about his team. And, and then on top of that, it also instills confidence in the institution and, and donors and those who are investing in the program. So it, it stretches across a lot of different, you know, groups of people and, and, and I think he, it, it kind of shakes people awake. And I think that's kind of what he's trying to do. Yeah, I know. I think so. I mean, there's a couple of
different ways. I think you got to look at this from a, a psychological perspective and also from a, a business perspective. So one of the things we've talked about many times on this show is Kurt Signetti is a proven coach at levels slightly below where Indiana is AT. And will that translate has always been a question, but it feels like it will. And in large part because not only is does he have a track record, but he's got a really good staff that also has a track record.
And, you know, we've seen a lot of coaches follow a similar trajectory and have success at higher levels. Caitlin de Boer probably being the most recent example of a guy who came from relative obscurity in a short period of time to now being literally at the top of the coaching profession, it feels like within college sports, or at least with college football. So I think to some degree, a lot of a lot of what Signetti is doing is getting conflated in a
couple of different ways. So you've got IU fans who many of whom have decided that they're still going to have a wait and see approach about IU football, which is very reasonable and actually ties in with a question that assembly call asked us that we'll tackle a little bit later on. Signetti is coming in and making a a lot of noise. Now. Why is he doing that? We know what's the purpose of of him doing that. And a lot of it is to give fans and donors a reason to get
excited. And it almost to some degree feels like IU like it's being done in a different way than I us really ever had. And I think it's important to remember, like, you know, there was excitement that gradually started to build around the Kevin Wilson era, but it never really got to the point where people were that excited because Wilson was really, as I've said before, and I respect Kevin Wilson's football mind, but he was kind of a technocrat.
Like he just wasn't, he was not a rah rah guy. He was a system guy. And you can get excited about the potential or the, the, the results when they happened, but Kevin Wilson wasn't going to make you reach into your pocket and buy tickets all by himself. Tom Allen was kind of like like the kind of guy who you thought would do that, but Allen made you feel better about being an IU fan, but not necessarily
confident about being an IU fan. You were supposed to buy into the Leo persona and this idea that, well, we care for each other and that's how we're going to win games. And that that work when he had great football minds working for him. And then it it didn't work as well when when his best assistants left and and you started to have kind of the fall off in terms of the actual on
field performance. So Signetti is an interesting spot because you've got to get this fanbase galvanized because you've got to get people in the stands, you've got to start building interest in IU football 'cause you got to get money for NIL, 'cause that's how you recruit. You've also got to make this seem like an attractive place for players and taking the nice route from a verbal perspective is not going to get a lot of attention. I mean, I'll use Northwestern as an example.
Is there any buzz around Northwestern football right now? There's none like and, and and that's in in part. And you know, Pat Fitzgerald, in his own way, he, you know, he kind of had this iconoclastic, like, I'm going to be the old look. I mean, even though I'm young, I'm gonna look like the old dude. I'm gonna be the old school dude. We're gonna get a particular type of lunch pail player at this expensive private university on the shores of Lake, MI. Like that was the vibe that he
was trying to put off. If you're in the bottom echelon of the Big 10, you've got to do something to try to separate yourself in terms of the image. PJ Fleck. People don't like the row the boat stuff. They don't like the kind of, you know, carnival Barker, like, you know, tent preacher revival thing that you get out of PJ Fleck. But the reason he does it is what other possible reason would a player have to be like, I wanna go play for the Golden Gophers.
I wanna go. They think about Minnesota, they think about PJ Fleck and what, like he was at Western Michigan before that. Why would anybody do that? Well, it's because of Row, the Boat, things like that. Exactly. And so I think to some degree, if you don't like the, you know, the, and this was not what Patrick asked, I just want to clarify, we're going to get to
the, the meat of the question. But I think in general, if you don't like the approach that Signetti's taking, I guess ask yourself, would you rather that he took the row the boat approach, you know, and come up with a hokey slogan? To some degree, we've already had that with Tom Allen. I mean, Leo Elio was essentially a, a landlocked version of Row the boat. And, and so I think that's
important to keep in mind. Now, as far as the idea of did this put a target on IU or did his comments at the football game or the basketball game back in December about Michigan and Ohio State, did it like put a bullseye on IUI? Would love to get your perspective on this, Taylor. My perspective on it is I don't think it matters a bit. I think a lot of this stuff fans react to and yeah, sure.
I mean, foot athletes in general and coaches in general, it's like what we're searching for any scrap of motivation we can use and da, da, da, da. I've always wondered, does that really matter? Unless you do something like, you know, burn their stadium down or, you know, like insult, you know, all of their family members, It doesn't feel like that stuff really resonates or, or penetrates the environment where you're actually playing the football game.
Most of it just seems like media fodder that fans can get upset about. And yeah, players are going to be like, well, yeah, we felt disrespected without necessarily even actually having felt disrespected. Now, maybe I'm way off. You've been in locker rooms a lot more recently than I have covering teams.
You've you've talked with coaches a lot more like how do they, how, how does a Michigan or Ohio State or other teams in the conference process a coach like Signetti and what they say and how they say it, does it really even resonate with them? Yeah, yeah, No, I I didn't make my point well enough earlier when I said the coaching world is small. They know who these guys are. Like that's they know who he is. Like it probably did not surprise them that, that he took
that approach. But also like, I don't, I don't think, I don't think coaches, I don't think Orion Day is overlooking Indiana. Like I don't, I don't think that happens very often in in the 1st place. So I don't think especially with you know, how how attentive to detail a lot of the a lot of the coaches are not even just head coaches, but just the assistants. I don't I don't think anybody is allowing anybody to overlook an opponent in like Ohio State's locker room and and in their
offices. So I don't I don't think him saying that necessarily puts any extra emphasis on the week the teams are playing Indiana. I think they already, they already know who Signetti is. And they and, and also, you know, Ohio State has had issues with, with Indiana. Obviously Michigan lost Indiana in 2020. But I, I, I don't, yeah, I don't think that they're taking these teams lightly like Indiana. Yeah.
It's just a lot of it is fans get worked up and a lot of people I think assume, and this happens with this is a tough thing. I think once you start covering sports and you're you're involved in, in listening to athletes talk and listening to coaches talk.
Like fans get really upset when players don't feel as emotionally invested in a rivalry game or a game as they the fans do. And and yet, you know, you have to think about it from the perspective of football's complicated, basketball's complicated. You'd almost, you don't want your players to be emotional, you know, balls of energy. Maybe occasionally you do like a
kick returner, sure. But in terms of like somebody having to execute what they're doing out there, Like, you don't really want them being real mad about what's going on across the field. And we see that in games a lot of the time where it's like trying to get your opponent on edge is an important thing. I don't think it makes you study any harder or be any more focused on beating Indiana.
And like you said, I don't see this being a situation where a team's like, you know what, we were gonna, we were just gonna not pay attention to Indiana. But hey, Kurt Signetti said we suck and now we have to go pay more attention to them. I don't really think that that's how it works. And so look, ultimately Signetti's, he's got to write some checks and you know, inevitably there's going to be a couple of games where the checks bounce and that's fine.
You know what's what's key here? And I guess the one thing I would add on to what I said earlier about you got to get fans and boosters excited about IU football because you got to get some juice around the program. You've got to get your players believing that, you know what you're doing and that what you're selling them is what they
can use in a game to win. And, and that is ultimately, you know, it, a lot of it is flipping the script and not letting your players, not having your players believe that they are inferior to any of their opponents. And frankly, it it's kind of felt that way over the course of many of the past years with IU football where IU went into some games and just looked like they didn't believe that they should have been in there in contention. And you've got to change that mentality.
That is, that is the 5% that you're really looking for. And that intrinsic motivation is almost more important than any external motivation that you might be providing the opposition. Yeah, and I think it's also the way, you know, Gaylord, I know you and I have talked about this outside actually I think we've talked about it on the podcast. But you know, the head coach is taking a more more of Aceo role
in in things now. And I think this is definitely the way that a lot of coaches will communicate as as like the CEO, 'cause, you know, he could say these things, but that's because he's confident in his staff's ability to execute their system. Yeah, I mean not train the players to understand the system.
Yeah, and and that's the work in progress that we're we should be the most focused on. And the thing that the I guess what cracked me up the most about Big 10 media day was how, you know, this is so predictable because I'm old enough that I watch Bob Knight do this all the time. Signetti gets up there and does the Kurt Signetti Comedy Hour and that's all anybody talked about now. And it had the desired effect. Jake Butts going on the the post
conference analysis. He's like, you know what stood out? Kurt Signetti. And to some degree, it almost, you know, it's almost to what Patrick asked, it almost takes the focus off the team and puts it on the coach. And that can be helpful because then the players are almost able to operate under a veil of anonymity to some degree because all the attention is on the guy who is grabbing the attention. And that's a good thing. That's that's actually a time honored coaching tradition.
Yeah. And is it a risk? Yeah, it's it's a risk Like he could come out, you know, not looking great because he was so confident in the team's ability to to execute. And if they if they don't, if like say they're not competitive against Ohio State and he said that they were going to beat them.
Same with Michigan. Or or maybe they just, you know, don't play to a lot of fans expectations, then yeah, it it looks a little embarrassing, but I don't think it's Yeah, I think it's I think it's what he should be doing right now. Yeah, well, I mean, what you're right, it's embarrassing and as much as well, maybe they maybe they'll get blown out by a couple of teams or maybe they maybe they won't actually be that great this year. That's fine.
I mean, at the end of the day, the bravado still needs to be there. You need to set the foundation. Even if the results don't come immediately, it'll be disappointing, but it's certain that that's all that it is. If it's just embarrassing, that's fine. No problem at all. Let's let's jump over and let's tackle assembly calls question since it kind of ties into this. As a wise owl once said, when you look at someone through rose colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.
I've never actually heard that saying before. It's from. Bojack. Yeah, It's from Bojack Horseman. OK, That I appreciate it. I appreciate it. You're here to help translate these things for me. I, I, I, I missed that one. If things don't go as expected this football season, what do you think we'll look back on as a red flag that we aren't worrying about now during these this Sig 4 Korea stage?
Yeah, Yeah, there I think there's I think there are, you know, multiple, but I think a lot of because of the you know, a lot of people are concerned. Like one of the things that people are concerned, like most concerned about right now is the the translation of talent and and and you know, the quarterbacks, people are concerned about the
quarterbacks. And, you know, I would say, you know, if we, if a lot of people, including myself, are very excited about the improvement that we saw last year in the offensive line from Bob Bozab. But if you know, what if there's not that much improvement in Carter Smith from last year, He was he was, you know, decent, but you would hope that he's better in his sophomore year from his freshman year.
What if Trey Wettig, what do you know, if there's a reason Wisconsin let him go, you know, and didn't, you know, offer him a bigger bag or, you know, made him second string last year like in in we know Mike Kadik, but you know, he hasn't played a ton of centre. He has more experience than anybody else, but he hasn't played a ton of centre. So what if the offensive line isn't as effective as as a lot of people believe it is? And I think I think it will be.
I think it'll be more effective than last year. But you know, I don't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that the offensive line is solved and and I think the the guards are
definitely concerning. But, you know, if, if, if the offensive line is not as effective as, as, as a lot of people believe that it might be, including myself, then that would be something where, you know, if, if IU doesn't play super well, especially offensively in 2024, we will look back and say, well, yeah, I guess logically that makes sense cause 'cause it was in rough shape, you know, just last
season. So I think that that that would probably be the the one where I'm like, yeah, not a lot of people are talking about offensive line concerns at the moment. I I agree. I mean, I will say I don't know if there are any red flags we're missing because I think we've talked about most of the potential red flags, at least on this podcast and you on bite sized bison. I think we've covered most of
the potential red flags already. Like I think the, you know, to me, the the answer to this is, is less about what we're missing that we should have caught and it's more what we are wagering will happen that might not happen. And I actually, we got some questions on The Last Podcast about why is the media ranking Indiana 17th or 18th in the Big 10? You know, why are they being, why are they basically being relegated to the bottom of the
Big 10? And my answer when I fielded that was, if you'll recall, because media are going to rely on what they've seen most recently from these teams and then try to order them because much as you'd like to, you're probably not going to project into the future for every team. Now, you'll do it for like the top three, you know, so like it, it's easy to project what Ohio State is likely to do given the
level of talent they've got. And and then it's like, well, how do I project what like AUSC or an Oregon is going to do, given that I don't have a lot of common things to keep in mind. But you'll do that. You'll do go through that exercise for those teams. You're not going to go through it for like the bottom eight teams in the conference.
And even, I mean, you did this just with the graph that you were doing on, on the Substack where you were talking about the kind of upper and lower bounds that each team might have in the conference. And with IUI think, you know, that really it comes down to are they going to be better significantly in the areas that we think that they're going to get better like you said? And also how do they end up?
How does that level of talent and execution relate to what other teams that are question marks are able to do? And many of them are on the schedule for IU. You know, the the question is less, is Indiana going to be better? Is it it's more like are they going to be good enough relative to Northwestern that they could travel on the on the road and beat Northwestern? Is Washington really going to be able to restock with a brand new
coach? Will they have their legs under them by the time they come to Bloomington where Indiana at their best would not be good enough to beat Washington is Nebraska. Everybody has predicted Nebraska's going to be like a nine win, 10 win team. Everybody thinks Matt Ruhl is is it.
And yet I, I would actually argue you could, you could say that there's more hope being put into Nebraska projections based entirely on the coaches profile and the brand name of Nebraska then has anything to do with what's actually on the field for them, 'cause I just, I have yet to see anything substantial that makes me think, Oh yeah, that's a team that's gonna do better than the five and seven or six and six that we've gotten used
to them doing. So I think it's really about the relative levels of expectations to answer Jared's question rather than necessarily red flags were missing. Yeah, Yeah, I want, I want to add some things to what you said like nothing, nothing really different, just further detail. But the yeah, though you're right, like UCLA is a great
example of this. We expect UCLA to not be very good, but I think they'll be better than what a lot of people think they will be. But also, what if they're good? You know, like what, what if, what if UCLA is actually good? But the The thing is like, you could ask that about a lot of these teams. You could ask that about Maryland. They they have a salt, they have
like kind of a solid defense. And you could ask about Washington. Washington is one that I think a lot of IU fans need to be careful with because they're the most similar to IU and in this conference when it comes to what happened last season to last season. But with a much higher level. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So they they, you know, Jed Fish is a good, a really good coach. What he did at Arizona was pretty incredible. And then he brings a lot of
Arizona pieces over. Just like Curse Igneti brought a lot of JMU pieces, but James Madison's in the Sunbelt. Arizona was in the PAC 12. And so there, yeah, there's, you know, when it comes to Washington, I think that's a really, actually a really good barometer. Even though they're like runners up last year for in the playoff.
I think that's a good barometer for for comparison for Indiana just, you know, maybe not necessarily the exact same level, but I think, you know, I think Washington's going to be decent. I don't think they're going to be bad. And and so, but also I don't know. So that's how that's how it is
with a lot of these teams. And so that I think that's a really good point, Galen, about, you know, everybody has a different expectation for different teams in the Big 10, just like you were talking about with Nebraska, like we don't even know. We'd like like you were saying, like what what is what is the tangible proof that they are going to be better this year besides having a 5 star freshman
quarterback on the roster now? And, you know, but also they could be, you know, like it's it's I haven't really seen the big 10 like this that that I can remember where there's so much uncertainty. And I think probably the transfer portal has a lot to do with that. But also, you know, just coaching changes and things like the Michigan State could be good. I know that's the thing. Yeah, we're everybody's, you know, they've, you're, you've, they're counting them out.
I mean, there's so much mix. I feel the only thing I feel confident in is that Purdue's not going to be very good and and and. Yeah. Everything else feels like it's on the table, you know, including Indiana being good or not good. And, you know, that's why I'm, I'm not going to do my
projections yet. But I, you know, the, that, that parameter of like wins, you know, to me, like Indiana's got as big of a spread as any of the teams in the conference because we just don't know what's going to happen yet when the rubber hits the road. And I don't know that we're going to find out a whole lot in the first couple of weeks. That's going to be the, the big question.
I mean, I am, I am kind of curious how Indiana plays in that first game because you know, we a a lot of times we've we've tended in the past to just write off the non conference games against F like non non power competition as wins. And you know, most of the time that's right. But if you think about like some of the experiences Indiana's had in the past, even with good teams playing against like a Florida International being a great example, I mean, what
forget what year that was. If it was 2017 or 2018, where what was that year? It was 2018, Indiana, Indiana, you know, they only won against Florida International by by 10 points that year. And I think it was, I want to say maybe 2016. They, that was a close game for a little while. It wasn't like Indiana blew them out like right from the get go. It ended up being about a 20
point win. But even games like that, and that's a live opponent like that's, it's not like you're, you're not playing FCS SE in in the the video game. Although that's a bad example cause apparently FCS SE like has beaten a bunch of teams so far in, in other people's dynasties. But it's going to be an interesting on ramp because again, your first game in the big 10 is against the UCLA team that has as many questions, one could argue as Indiana does.
New coach, weird, weird vibe around the program right now and and a fan base that is historically not terribly plugged in. Who knows what that Rose Bowl situation is going to look like. It could be really interesting.
I want to add another one too, that that might be a red flag that we're not thinking about right now, which is and some people are, but what how how does the passing attack mesh wants the season is is here because that that I'm doing a wide receivers preview for by sized Bison pretty soon and I'm looking at the talent. There's plenty of talent there. There's plenty of experience there.
Same with Curtis Rourke, but you know, Curtis Rourke has some question marks coming into the season after last season not being his 2022 self. And but also from what we saw in the spring game, like they're they're they were not on the same page, which is to be expected. But what if what if they just never are? Like what what if, what if it's never as electric as, you know, a previous James Madison passing attack was or like the talent
shows. And so I think that's that's another one as well, But I just want to throw that in there for I. Think it's worthwhile 11 last question. We're gonna hold off on the depth chart questions until the next time we do one of these. We will do another one of these soon. So we're we're not ignoring the questions, but Jim Hoff had a good one. I thought he said Athlon's college football preview opposing Big 10 coach said
quote. If you're setting reasonable year one expectations, I'd look for them to build an offensive identity to help recruiting. Do you agree with this premise? If So, what offensive identity do you expect the the? Premise of building an offensive identity to help in recruiting. Like that, like that being a reasonable, I think what that this is the opposing coach who I think is probably trying to say, don't expect to come out and win seven or eight games, but lay
the groundwork for recruiting. And then the next season. And they're saying that the way to to set reasonable expectations is you're going to play offense this way. That's going to help you in recruiting because now you can show recruits, this is what we're doing. So that's that's I think what he's asking. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, I think Curt Cignetti is, is obviously trying to win in year one. It's really hard to win in year one.
I think, yeah, I, I think you're just trying to build an identity on, on, I mean, on either side of the ball to to help with recruiting. I think, you know, Galen, you and I have talked about this as well, but on the defensive side, that defensive line is probably not where they want it to be. And so how, how do you get it? It's going to take a little bit of time. And so eventually, I think that defensive line is going to be one that really rushes the
passer. I mean, it could be this year, but I it depends on the translation of talent, but the building an offensive identity is probably how this program is going to be known after this season. So I guess maybe, maybe, maybe from from that perspective, yeah. The because you're going to have Curtis Rourke, you're going to have Donna Nicola, you're going to have Elijah Serrat. But the as far as you know like. I don't know. Like yeah, I don't know.
I don't. I'm not sure exactly how to answer it. I guess I would say this in response to Jim's question. I think in a pre portal college football that answer makes a lot of sense. But I think like we've seen, what is it, 3035 new faces that have come in for Indiana, a larger number came in for Washington. Like you can, you can sell people on a vision and an identity offense wise through the film that you've accrued in your past stops.
I think that's what Indiana largely did here with what they did in the transfer portal in the offseason. I think that's more important to some degree than than take your lumps your first year, but show that you're doing XY and Z 'cause I mean, we saw this during the Kevin Wilson era. Like that offense didn't look great the first two years and then it suddenly started looking pretty good when they started to get the talent in the right spots and, and they got better
line play. And I, you know, I look at it from the perspective I, I, you know, if, if I'm a coach and I'm thinking about things the way that they've been historically, you're thinking, well, this Indiana rebuild's probably going to take three years to really get up and running. And AII don't know that it has to take that long for Indiana to compete for six or seven or even eight wins simply because the schedule this year is very favorable.
I think if if if Signeti was starting next year with next year's schedule, that's a different story. But he's not, you know, so you have to factor that in. I also think, like as you said, the, you know, the way that the defense plays at this point feels very critical to Indiana because when Indiana has struggled the most over the course of the really the, well, almost its entire history, but especially the last 25 or so years, it's tended to struggle
more on the defensive side. And it's harder to attract people to a defense that looks like it's constantly getting bent over. And you know, if you can show that Indiana can can play solid defense, I think you build both confidence in that unit and you it allows you to recruit out of the portal and recruit incoming players at a higher level. It does feel like the coaches already are doing that.
I mean, I don't know what your analysis is of the existing recruiting on the defensive side, but it almost feels like that's going better than the offensive recruiting in some ways. I mean, I'm not sure if you'd agree with that, but that's kind of how it's felt to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, like 'cause the the defensive backs that that recruiting has been fantastic.
So, yeah, yeah, I think, you know, I think yeah, I, I, I think offensive identity to to help in recruiting I think is probably not, not not the way that that I would say that. But but yeah, I think this is just offensive idea and you know, focus on recruiting. But but I, I don't, I don't see an offensive identity being the path toward better recruiting like you were saying, because the defensive side has been, has been actually going OK. And the 2026 class is the one
that's going to be the big one. So, you know, maybe if you want to focus on the offensive side of the ball, sure. But yeah, I, I, I I don't think so.
This is, it's funny because it's kind of like this is where the, This is why I don't buy Athlon. I always skip the Athlon preview to some degree 'cause I was always like, I'm not sure if I really buy what I'm getting out of this, but I am curious to see what reasonable expectations are in the first year and what like what will actually work when the rubber hits the road on these things 'cause it is. It is a bit of an open question, but I do think that ultimately it feels like that that
particular answer just feels like an answer that is more of an of a past era thing rather than being something that Indiana necessarily has to think about doing right now. But who's who knows, this is where the uncertainty that we talked about earlier comes in. And we'll just, we'll have to see what happens. Anyway, any final thoughts, Taylor, we'll go ahead and wrap up here. But any anything else that you've got?
No, no, that's that that like I said, I'm going to have a wide receivers preview coming out pretty soon. It's a position I haven't talked about a whole lot because a lot of people are very excited about it. So, you know, I'll, I'll, you know, send that out and and yeah, you know, subscribe to buy Size Bison. Yes, please do that and we'll have more work with with Taylor coming up soon as we talk through some more items. We'll talk depth chart next time.
We'll talk about positional battles and the kinds of things we need to look at as we go through fall camp as we get ready for this first game as Indiana getting ready to start the 2024 football season. So, Taylor, my thanks to you for taking the time to join us again, folks, if you're watching this and it's the 31st, let's let's yeah, get the subscriptions in and we'll look forward to spending some more time with you as we talk through IU football.
Taylor, thanks again for joining us and thanks to all you folks for watching or listening. Be sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel in the back Home Network. Our thanks to Home Field Apparel. We will catch you folks. On the flip side, I'm Galen Clavio, bring back the bison. So long, everybody.