You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cascade and Clavio Scott Caulfield joining you on a Sunday, August 4th. As it is rapidly becoming football season, we just had the Pro Football Hall of Fame game this past week and college football around the corner. We've we've got updates on NCAA violation allegations, we've got people rating strength of schedule. We got a bunch of stuff going on all over college athletics.
So plenty to talk about as well as some basketball news both past and present. Scott, good to see you again. How are things? Doing well, yeah, we're getting to that point where there's kind of these two points in the football season. I think we're like a week or two away from where people start putting on like Instagram or Twitter or whatever social media, like, you know, there's football every weekend for the next 32 weeks or whatever we're getting. I think we're like a week or two
away from that. And then, you know, in February, you get the, you know, we, we, this is the last weekend with football for the next 4 1/2 months or so. But I think we're like a weekend away from a point where we will have football every weekend from now until the end for, you know, early February. Yeah, we're, you know, we're in it right now and that's a good thing. It's one of those things where I, I look around the landscape and I'm like, well, you know, on the one hand, yes, it's true.
We're going to have a bunch of football coming up. That's, that's how it works. The, the, the other thing though, I think is important that I always try to keep in mind with all this stuff is like, it feels like, you know, social media, people are out of things to talk about. So like people feel like that's an easy way to get attention. Like, oh, we've got two weeks until football starts again. They just like they post it. It's like you have nothing else to say. Yes, we're aware.
Everybody knows when the calendar is like we don't need updates. You're not special for noticing like when a a kick off date starts. Yes, I know that people are excited, but I do think that on social media sometimes there's a little too much insincere excitement about when these things get started, largely because it's like an attention grabbing thing.
And realistically with The funny thing about all of that is it's different with the NFL and the NFL launches and it's like we're in it. You've got a great Thursday night game normally to start things off, you've got a really intriguing slate of opening weekend games and college football just doesn't work that way. You normally get one or two decent games during the first week, which isn't even. Sometimes it's not even called the first week. It's called week zero.
And many teams are just playing, you know, the absolute dregs of, of FBS or they're playing FCS teams. So it's like, yeah, we've got football back. But then it's it's like watching a dog, like slowly stretching itself before it can be bothered to get up and walk across the floor. It's like, you know, this is not really, We're not launching ourselves fully into anything.
No, agree. Well, there's always one game in the first like three or four weekends of college football that's like, it's like Texas and Michigan or something like that where if that's not a good game, then it's like, well, that week is over. Why not keep? Rankings the same for another. Week it's the thing and this is
it's it's. Something that we'll talk about more, I think as we get deeper into this whole, you know, the, the settlement if it ends up happening and the, the way that college sports conduct themselves. Like there's such an anti, but how do I put this? There's there's very little attention really paid to like the product as it's, it's, it's 'cause it's all these individual products, 'cause there's no core consolidation or partnerships. Everybody just kind of off by themselves.
So it's like Saturday the 24th of August, we've got our first football games, but it's Delaware State, Hawaii, SMU, Nevada, Montana State, New Mexico. And then the headliner at noon is in Ireland and it's Florida State, Georgia Tech, a game that I don't know that I'll even be able to be bothered to watch, you know, and then the next week or later on that week, you've got games on Thursday and they all uniformly suck. Like the, the only game I look at there and I'm and it's on Fox.
So I guess good for us. Maybe the only game I look at there and I'm like, oh, I want to watch that maybe is North Carolina, Minnesota. I mean, you've, I try not to voluntarily watch Minnesota football too many times throughout the course of the season just for my own health. And OK, I guess I'll watch that because all of the other options
that day stink. And then even, you know, that Friday, that Saturday, that Saturday, we've got Indiana, Florida International, you got a couple of good games, You've got Clemson, Georgia, you've got Penn State, West Virginia. I guess you've got Miami, FL That'll be fun. Of course we won't get to see it because we'll be at the IU game. It's the same time of day, but. No, to your point, like it's because there's no one in charge.
It almost feels like we should just you and I are both playing NCAA Football 25 like we should just let that SIM a season because I in my in my dynasty, some of the games in the first couple weeks are better than this. It's just, it should just be like the NCAA is like, all right, we're putting EA Sports in charge of our schedules from now on. Like we'll. Just we'll run a. SIM and whatever the dynasty says the schedule is, that's what the schedule is going.
To be given how bad the SIM results are in NCAA 25, I don't know if you've noticed this, but like you know you, you're ending up with teams that have like four or five losses in the College Football Playoff and you've got like Alabama losing to Louisiana Monroe in these Sims it's. Plain and one of my Sims is like unbelievable. It's where? Where did this come from, right?
Yeah. So maybe we don't want EA running, although to some degree EAEA has put out a product as well conceived as the college football season is, that is not very so, yeah. I know not talking like the one game thing I have to say playing it more and more is like they have a section where you can change the apparel of your coach, but it's like you have AT shirt or a long sleeve windbreaker and that's it. It's like, why did you build this entire menu set up to do cult, you know, coach
appearance. You have two options. I'm like at least have a pack pack that I can buy. Like I I get like it takes time to build more, but like why even somebody had to build the menu for two options, like give me a visor or something. Anyway, that's it. No, you're I'm with you 100%. Anyway, before we get too sidetracked, let's talk about Home Field Apparel, our sponsor here on the big the Back home network. The Big Home Network. That's a new one.
Let's see if we can work that into your your reads later on. Yeah, I feel. Yeah, but no home field apparel. Your place to go for the finest in college fashions the software. Options didn't say play football for your coach. They they really do.
I think I'm actually kind of disappointed in EA that they didn't just sign home field apparel as the in like think about the like the the the downloadable content or the in game purchases that you could have had with home field apparel where it's like, I'm going to buy this shirt for my coach and I'm going to get a copy of that shirt sent to my door. I mean that that to me, I hate, I hate in game purchases. That's an in game purchase I would make Scott.
It's on EA, not on home field, 'cause I know, I know Connor and home field would get that done. But yeah, you could have a whole level where like if you're coaching IU, you could wear the, you know, Saint Peter's shirt where you're playing Purdue and like and like have a complete like mesh up of like this is me talking back as my digital coach when I'm playing Purdue. No, it, it would be great. So EA call up Connor, get this done. It's in the game guys.
Come on, let's make it happen. No home field apparel. Having a great week. They ran a, we talk about this often get on the home field newsletter, get on their text thread and or I guess it's not a thread, but it should be. I would love to text with other home field people, like other customers, but they had a a special earlier this week for those who were on the distribution list about 25% off
some premium products. There was some pullovers, some some shooting shirts, a couple of hats, a couple of jerseys, some really cool stuff. And if you were on their e-mail list, but you can easily sign up for it, home field apparel.com, you get 25% off like you're in at that point. But the big news, Scott, is these new premium boxes that are going to be coming out from home field football boxes across the spectrum of college football. This looks like a an absolutely
tremendous collection. And you know, we're talking about a curated box that's got a hat, it's got a, you know, a T-shirt. It's got several other things in it. And if you go to home field apparel and and sign up, you're going to you're going to get a chance to see what all of this looks like. They're going to start dropping these boxes very soon in terms
of making them available. Here's the full list of the Platinum Box Contest exclusive T-shirt, exclusive long sleeve exclusive hoodie, exclusive hat or ringer T socks, koozie, and a Platinum pass, which gives you 20% off of later releases throughout the course of this upcoming football season. Scott, we don't know when it's going to drop yet. Why we do actually for Indiana, I think I just saw this
yesterday. Indiana's I think is dropping on the first day on the 9th, or at least they're announcing it. So it's the fourth right now. You may be listening to this on the 5th while you're watching US on YouTube or going into work, so go ahead and get on the mailing list so you can have early access to this because I got a sneaking suspicion these aren't going to be around very long.
Agreed. On the and the that stuff is always good and like the, the, the, the, the, the things that are limited with home field are awesome, like the bomber jackets, like they and they they're hard to restock. So I'm I'm with you. I've already signed up for it. I'm ready to go. So let's first of all, just make sure that you go to homefieldapparel.com sign up on their on their website. You'll you'll be glad that you did. And we thank them for being a sponsor of the back home network.
Also, just a reminder, we're on sub stack crimsoncast.substack.com free subscription so that you can get all of the podcasts delivered right to your inbox. Also, AVIP option, if you like to financially support the podcast, we record some extra stuff and send it your way. I had one earlier this week. Scott's going to record one after this podcast, and we'll have more of those as the seasons start to roll. Let's go ahead and dive into our topics for today. Scott, we're going to start off
with the news. This is definitely hodgepodge podcast. That's fine. Hey, this is what you get. This is the potpourri section of Crimson cast. Given that, I mean, at this point we're just waiting to dive into the deep end of the football season pool. And so let's just we're going to scrounge up whatever news we can because we wanted to talk to you folks directly. So let's go to the first topic, which is Victor Oladipo. Congratulations.
Alongside several IU notables from history, you have been named to the IU Hall of. Fame in athletics This is obviously great news for Victor, who just recently announced his retirement from professional basketball.
He had kind of a. A star crossed time in the NBA as as many people are aware, but he is part of a group that also consists of Kayla Bashor who's field hockey former great and and coach of the team, Kevin Barry from men's swimming, Danny O'Rourke from men's soccer, Max Skirvin, long time radio broadcaster and Jody Yin from women's tennis. That's your group for the 2024 Athletics Hall of Fame class. That's the 39th class of IU Hall of Farmers on the athletic side.
And it was great news, I think for for Victor Oladipo and and great recognition for him. Scott, it's interesting, you know, because I think as we think back on that time period, which is now over 10 years ago, as sad as that is, you know, I think everybody had an expectation on that team that Cody Zeller was going to be the real deal.
I don't think people really quite anticipated that Victor Oladipo would supernova into the type of star that he became at IU, particularly in that last year, but really in the last couple of years that he was in an Indiana uniform. Yeah, I mean, I so the the question I posed to you was, you know, is he, is he the right first choice from that team? The second question that I want to get to is how many players from that team do you think will make the IU Hall of Fame?
You and I are both flying a little bit blind because I'm not sure we know the exact requirements. Maybe because. I've looked, I've looked all. Over I can't find criteria. We they have to have gone to IU. Like there are some things we can't just start putting in for new players, you know, but Victor Oladipo just announced
his retirement from basketball. No, you're, you're right, You know, no question Zeller was the bigger recruit and he it did kind of signal this is a real thing happening. And when he when Zeller showed up, the the team got demonstrably better. But also Oladipo was taking massive leaps every year in getting better.
And that sophomore year of his, which was Zeller's freshman year, you know, he really stepped up in some categories, but it was really his junior year where he became, you know, nationally ranked in offensive efficiency in his, you know, his his shooting, you know, it's it's interesting. I think Zeller was the more important recruit and maybe was
more important for the program. Oladipo was was the better player and has also had a better NBA career and also had some time with the Pacers, which doesn't hurt. But you know, if you're just looking at the IU point, you know, Oladipo played three years and, you know, had had that moment in the tournament. I think it was Temple. We were playing in the second round. Are his junior year with the 1/8 or the 19?
Seed, I would I would hesitate to say definitively that Oladipo was a better player than Zeller, but I think he was certainly as good. If you look at the numbers from that year in terms of, you know, Victor Oladipo finished that 2013 season 37th in the country and offensive efficiency, he finished. 20th in the country and two point field goal percentage, which is nuts for a swing man like you know Cody Zeller finishes with a 56% shooting percentage.
That mean yes, you would expect that given that he was 611. Victor Oladipo finished with a 64% two point shooting percentage on 236 shots, which is insane. He was seventh in the country in effective field goal percentage. He was 8th in true shooting percentage. He was 19th in the country in steel percentage. He was off the charts that. Year he was Co defensive player of the year nationally and he and this is the thing I think people forget. I had forgotten it until this
announcement. He was the consensus All American first team on that IU squad. It wasn't Cody Zeller. Cody Zeller was second. And Cody Zeller kind of, it was the difficulty of having other good players at his position during the same year.
But it just kind of highlights how important Victor Oladipo was not just to that team, but also to the previous year's team where he wasn't quite as efficient, but was absolutely a a key player in terms of of of that team kind of making a leap above and beyond what we thought they could do. And you know, I think to some degree when you think. About Victor Oladipo, he's probably Tom Crean's greatest accomplishment in terms of a development process.
And you know, you think about Oladipo coming in value. Well, of course, I mean, but even actually, I would even argue if you want to throw Dwyane Wade in there, like Dwyane Wade was a good player who just had academic issues. Yes, he blossomed at at Marquette, but I mean, Dwyane Wade went on, I think we saw him in the NBA like that. That's a that's an all time like Top 40, top 50 player in the
NBA. Victor Oladipo wasn't, but Victor Oladipo developed into a player at the college game who was among the best in the country and came out of relative obscurity. Like he wasn't as obscure as a lot of people have made him out to be. It was not. I mean, he had a lot of offers, not maybe from top teams, but he had, I think Notre Dame offered him. There were several other schools that offered him during that time period.
But I think Creme deserves a lot of credit for developing him in a way where he really saw what he could become and then became it while he was at IU. And partly that into being the second overall draft pick in a draft that also included Cody Zeller, who was also drafted in the top ten. I mean, it was, it was really a fascinating blossoming and one of the more unexpected ones, I think you could say, in Indiana history perhaps. Yeah, I did at some point.
I'll continue doing the series of like, kind of redrafting some IU players. But Oladipo's being draft second by the Magic is a fascinating draft because the Cavs whiffed on that and they picked Anthony Bennett, who, like doesn't go down enough as like one of the biggest busts. I feel like when you and I were growing up, there was always like the, you know, Sam Bowie bust called like Bennett played like 2 1/2 years in the NBAI mean, he was the number one pick
and like basically never played. Had the Cavs picked Oladipo? There's a whole alternate reality where Oladipo is playing on those LeBron Cavs teams that are going up against the Nuggets. There's also a chance that he's part of the trade that gets Kevin Love to the Cavs.
Like it's, I mean, again, alternate reality, you don't know, but there's a world where Oladipo could blossom next to LeBron and Kyrie and be in, you know, have his NBA career look even more different because suddenly he's at these high stakes games. Also being I think only the second number one pick for an Indiana University player behind Kent Benson. And obviously the Cavs messed that up because he had a much better career than Anthony
Bennett did. But it's just another weird hypothetical that could have gone there. But, you know, going into that season, I think, you know, there was talk of maybe Oladipo could be a first round pick. I, I mean, I, he blossomed into a lottery pick throughout the year, but I don't think going into that year, anybody thought what he had done the last two years made him a lottery pick
going into that season. So that that really is a pretty remarkable, you know, trend up to the number two pick because there's not a lot of guys who go in the top three in the NBA draft that 12 months out, nobody has them in that category. And Oladipo definitely is in that is in that group. You asked the question about which other players on that team would make the IU Hall of Fame. I mean, I think the other clear cut case here is for. Well, yes, there's actually two
other clear cut cases. I have. I have four I think that'll make. It I think, I think we have the same 4. I'm guessing you're 4 Oladipo, Zeller, Watford and Yogi Ferrell. OK, I have 5 then. I think. There's a world where Jordan Halls gets in just based on the Bloomington connection, the what he did with that team kind of being a great three. I I could see not he would be the fifth one.
And dude, making the hall famous and being even in the discussion is a great a great a great accomplishment. But I I could see a world where being from Bloomington, I mean my shooting ability, I could see Halls making. It I'm not sure if being from Bloomington should be part of the criteria for being in the IU Hall of Fame and not, and again, not the Jordan Halls. I mean, I love Jordan Halls as a player. He was clearly very important player. I do.
I'm just not sure if if depending on what you're looking at in terms of the, the history of of the Hall of Fame for IU, but there are several basketball players that are in the Hall of Fame already. You know, it's so it's almost like there's there's an over abundance to some degree of basketball, which you would expect here at IUI. Mean, if you look at the players from men's basketball, it's a
ton of players and and coaches. You know, I and again, that team, like that 2013 team, is an interesting one to parse in as much as it's. A group that didn't win a title, didn't even make it past the Sweet 16, but did win a Big Ten title. And and is, you know, kind of restored excitement around IU basketball.
When I look at the names of the players that were on previous teams, I mean, it would be interesting that like if Jordan Holes made it and say Greg Graham still not be on the team because Greg Graham is not on not in the Hall of Fame right now or that. That you know that the guy that we both have. I'll just ask this and again, we're in rarefied air. I love all of these guys.
I'm not knocking, but if you is Watford making it on the the Watford shot like if you take that shot against Kentucky out who did have a better career? Was it Watford or Holes? Well, and that's a good question. I mean, I think, you know, from the standpoint of being a a contributor on a regular basis, they both certainly have an argument, you know, to to be in there. I mean, you look at better offensive rating over his career. Well, he did.
But you know, I think you can even you can look kind of dive individually. I mean, Christian Watford became one of the most consistent kind of non guard scorers of that era. And the one thing I would say separates Watford from holes is the fact that he hits that shot against Kentucky. You can't take that away. I mean, it's just part of the process. I mean, their, their, their careers track very closely.
But I, you know, I'll also note that it, you know, when you, when you look at the, the last year that both of them are there, Watford is, you know, he's, he's contributing to more possessions. He's shooting 3 pointers at a higher rate than Jordan Holes is and, and shot, you know, just about, I think 60 fewer, but he still shot 124 that year. It's an interesting debate. I think both of them would be
interesting cases. I just when you think about impact that individual players have, I look at Watford and I often think to myself, well, you know, he has a very. Similar career to Holes in terms of productivity and they cover the exact same time they were in the same class. But I would say that Watford was probably slightly like he had an exclamation point on his career and and Holes unfortunately just
didn't. And that doesn't mean that what Holes did was not important and that it shouldn't be recognized. I just wonder if you're talking about if you had to go either or with the Hall of Fame for them. It's a tighter argument than maybe some might think. I didn't realize Great Graham was not in it. Yeah, that was brought up on the Discord. People, people were not happy. It's. And it's, again, it's one of those things where what are you going to recognize?
I mean, a lot of it is it's kind of an interesting conversation about if you look at the players that are in the Hall of Fame. And this is, again, it's one of those things where you look at players that are in the Hall of Fame. And I bet if we'd stopped somebody on the street and we said to them, you need to name, you know, half the players that are in the Hall of Fame for IU basketball, I bet. They wouldn't be able to do it. I'm talking about IU fans here.
You know, there's certainly there's guys you would expect Bobby Wilkerson, and there's obviously Isaiah Thomas and John Laskowski. What? Obviously not that we're arguing this at all, but to your point on Watford, it's like Keith Smart is it? I'm looking at it now. Keith Smart is in and I would say if you take away his shot against Syracuse, I'm not sure he really had a career to be in the whole thing. But but like you hit a game-winning shot to win a title
that's. A huge shot, meanwhile, doesn't count. Meanwhile, Daryl Thomas, who was just as important and was here much longer, is not in the Hall of Fame. So that's again, it has nothing to do with their individual like it. It doesn't make one player, I think, less good than the other. And again, it's like you don't have Greg Graham, but you have Alan Henderson in the Hall of Fame. You have Brian Evans in the Hall of Fame.
Now Evans, I think there's some special circumstances there because he was essentially he had to carry the team for an entire season as a senior, just like Henderson had to carry the entire team as a junior. And you added into their earlier career projections. But yeah, it's an interesting time all the way around. What do you think makes it next? Because I, I think we would both agree that and I, I had actually, I kind of put Yogi more in the 2016 team.
I knew he played on that team. Just kind of, I look at his, his Hall of Fame career is going to be based on that Big 10 title he won as a senior. I would say both him and Zeller would be two of the next to go in. Who do you think? Would it just be Zeller based on age or like who do you think is the next most? I, I think, I think there's more time now between Zeller's career and the present. So I think Zeller from that team
would be the next one. And yeah, it's, it's interesting because I, I just, I'm curious to see again, it'd be not, and I'm sure there's criteria somewhere. I just have not been able to find the specific criteria. And it's not really a serious thing. It's more of a fun thing to debate rather than something to get mad about, which some people I've seen have been getting mad about online. But it was in the, the Hall of Fame, I guess. It's really not something to get
upset about. But that's the kind of thing to think about I think is, you know, if you're looking at Yogi versus Cody, Cody was a key part of the two best teams and and you know that Indiana's had in quite a while. I think that will be factored in and and I think Yogi will get in eventually. It's just going to be a little bit after Cody. I think so. Is there anybody after Yogi that you think has a legitimate case to be in the Hall of Fame? Oh, I think Trace Jackson Davis
will make it, yeah. That's not yes. Yeah, you're right. I mean, I I don't see how you wouldn't have Trace Jackson Davis in such a. Dumb question, I'm sorry at the minute you said that just. I mean, one, some might say it's a dumb question. Some would say, wow, that was a great set up, Scott. I mean, look at look at you just just grooving something down the middle of the plate for your podcast partner. I appreciate that. Thank you.
You're. Welcome. Anyway, Congrats again to Victor Oedipo and to the rest of the group. I think that that's. Yeah. You know, again, it's one of those things Indiana was one of the first teams in the.
Conference to start an athletics Hall of Fame for itself and it's cool how much it's grown over time and you know, it's if you know anything about IU athletics just in general, it's cool to see some of the names in there and realize that you know, these are the people that have helped to build the legend that most people bask in and enjoy as IU fans. Yep, Yep. So. Let's let's switch gears. There was another announcement that came out regarding the Hoosier Hysteria date and format
for this upcoming season. So they've announced that Hoosier Hysteria is going to be taking place on Friday, October 18th as part of homecoming weekend, which is that's cool. You know, you're going to have that that on Friday and then you'll have the game, the football game on Saturday. But unlike the previous several years, Hoosier Hysteria is going to go back to a scrimmage based format where you're going to
have the women come out. Terry Moran's going to make a, a public address and then there's going to be two quarters of scrimmage for the women's team and then they're going to introduce the men's team. Mike Woodson will talk and they'll play 1/2. Since there aren't quarters in men's basketball, they'll play 1/2 of an inner squad scrimmage. Scott, this if you're a 90s child, you, you're like, wow, I
remember this. We we don't, I don't think we're going to have to show up at midnight with a canned food item this time around. But this has been something that I think some of the the older fans have would have preferred because the Hoosier Hysteria setup has been very Instagrammy over the course of the last several years, I think would be the best way to put it. And being able to actually sit
there and watch the team play. While there's been a little bit of that at the end of some of the Hoosier Hysteria's, it's always felt kind of awkward and like outside of the main realm of of what it's supposed to be here, this becomes the main show. And I like that. I mean, I'm excited that we'll just kind of get them, get to
see them play. Because honestly, like as as we've learned in the NBA All Star game, from my perspective at least, the skills competition stuff, the dunk contest and the three-point contest, that stuff gets pretty old pretty fast. It looks the same every year. It doesn't really show you anything. This will be a nice change, I think and and it'll be something that the fans can focus on other
than those things. Yeah, as you were talking, I was thinking early in the Crean era, they had a scrimmage on Homecoming weekend. Also, I remember, I remember like going over to Assembly Hall after the game because I was excited to see what is Jeremiah Rivers going to look like and. Was that the Was that the infamous game? Was that the So it was the one time we saw Ghee Mark Michelle in an IU uniform? Yes, yes. I mean, well, we might still see he might still be drafted.
He still got eligibility. That's true. That's true. And. I remember that game, my wife being like watching Danny Moore, like he's gonna be good. And I'm like, all right, like simmer down, like he's gonna try really hard. And so, but I don't think that was, I think that was just a scrimmage. I think that was in the nadir of basketball was like, hey, we still have a basketball team.
Come see yes, I mean, I remember in the night days growing up in Bloomington, we would bring a canned food item and it was hysteria was fun because they're like they'd come out and they would just run drills and play scrimmage. It was like it was so no frills. You know, I I, I look at this very much like, you know, some music today or kids saying Skibbity. It's like this is not for me anymore. So like if if this event, if this is what is going to bring in more recruits, that's great.
Like like whatever is going to get people hyped up and bring in more recruits, That's great. Maybe you do scrimmage just a couple years, then you go back to the skills competition. Like you. I think it got very repetitive just watching kids take threes and dunks just like I think I mean, I went to the All Star event this year in Indianapolis and it was fun to go see it. I like watching it. But after, you know, three or four miss dunks, like, all right, this is this is getting old.
But these events are just, you know, high level recruiting events. These are, you know, I'm playing a lot of NCAA Football. It's a lot of my references now like this is sending the house. This this is just an event to get recruits. So, you know, I'm fine with it so long as it continues to get recruits. And we've seen Mike Woodson is doing really well in the transfer portal and he's, you know, seems to be doing better in recruiting. So like this seems to be
working. He seems to have his finger on the pulse of what what needs to be done for that. So that that's my only thing is like, will this work for recruiting? You know, in the end, I don't think we're going to get much out of this because I remember a couple years ago when the team played in like the Puerto Rico or like they, they went in the Caribbean, They played some games like, Oh, we learned so much.
Then they came out and just none of the things that we saw there turned into what we what actually happened. So I don't think you're going to get anything important out of this. I, I think from an enjoyability point of view, it'll probably be a little more fun for basketball. Piers who, who like watching basketball are just are excited to see basketball again. You'll see something that that symbolizes more of that.
Maybe it won't be as loud, but there probably will still be fireworks and you know, intros and all that. But again, as long as this helps with recruiting, I think it's a good thing. Yeah, I agree with that. I think it's ultimately who knows. I mean, I think to some degree you can still have the pomp and circumstance of the announcements and the the the bright lights and everything beforehand, but you just don't
necessarily need. To to dawdle around and do all the other stuff that's been going on. You know, you can, you can just focus on kind of going out, doing a scrimmage. I I think a lot of the things that we assume recruits are interested in now are less important than perhaps they were even a few years ago simply because, you know, you're getting your money, you're, you know, you're getting your NIL money, you're, you're going to
be in there. Well, OK, I mean, that's that's like what's more important is what's happening in in the room outside the stadium where that's being discussed and so. Our our NIL sucks, but we have a great hysteria night. It's like that's not getting a lot of people into that that that college. So all that said, we'll see how this looks. I mean, you know, the the show's been fine. It I just.
I just don't think that, you know, you look at some of the the the hysteria esque programming that you've seen at other schools, Kentucky or Duke or whatever, and it's just like it's hard to ever see IU like fully getting invested in that kind of a presentation. You don't with. Them coming in in a Harley or something. We did that already. Did did he do that? That was something, it was a car they used to, they used cars.
Remember that? That was a couple years ago where him and Terry Moran came in and like classic automobiles. But but he I mean, I wasn't even thinking about that. I was thinking about just the light show stuff and all of the you know, it just to some degree. I think they're the appetite for that may be waning nationwide and it's more about like let's get to the let's get going with things. So much is going on on social media to help promote the players and things along those.
Lines that you may not need a whole event for that because again this current concept of these hysteria like programs really started about 15 years ago in earnest and very much I think are going to feel like a moment in time as opposed to being like the way that it should have been done so we'll see I mean maybe I'll be wrong and maybe it's a situation where
we'll. Sorry, it does feel like it was a point in time when schools, you know, they had nothing else to spend money on. They were, you know, spending on facilities and spending money on these events to kind of show how into it we are, where now they can spend money on NIL collectives and actually, you know, funneling that money to the players. And that that seems to be more obviously that's more of a draw for a player than we have a
really cool light show. Yeah. So we'll see what happens with that. It's hard to believe that's not that far away. I mean, it's it's two months, 2 1/2 months basically until we get to basketball Hoosier hysteria. So wow, it's wild just the the the calendar flies faster than we think that it does. Couple other quick things.
We're not going to make this an immensely long podcast, but didn't want to touch on some news from the the good old wide world of college football, as as we mentioned, that's getting started soon. But I had to chuckle about this
today. At 11:55 in the morning, there was a a note on ESPN that new Michigan head coach for football Sharon Moore is one of seven members from the 2023 football program accused of violating NCAA rules in a draft of the notice of allegations coming from the NCAA to Michigan, which is this continues to be the most hilarious thing on the planet. I mean, obviously Michigan won the national title in football last year and that's never being taken away from them.
And and that's fine. I mean, there's every, every national champion has some degree of violation lurking under the surface. What's hilarious about the Michigan stuff is that this is the only school I can ever remember to have their head coach suspended twice during the course of the year. They win the title and now their replacement coach, because that coach, of course, left because he knew this was coming, Scott. He knew this was coming.
The guy they put in to replace him apparently committed Level 2 violations and including the David Conner Stallions are our favorite character from last year. The guy who was suspected of having LED a far-flung spying operation on scouting other teams. The day that news broke of his situation, Sharon Moore went in and deleted 52 text messages that he shared with Connor Stallions and then had to produce them later as part of a
report. It. This whole thing is hilarious to me, mostly, and not because I'm going to stand here and say that Michigan needs to vacate their title. That's never going to happen, first of all. But. The level of sanctimony that comes out of Michigan specifically on everything and especially this like this was this whole situation was turned into a oh, the NCAA is persecuting us and oh, we're being treated so unfairly.
And you know, we're we're going to have to just, you know, we're just going to operate on it in our own best interests and we should drop out of the NCAA. All this garbage, this stuff keeps, it's not going away. It keeps popping up and it just. It highlights why, frankly, and those of you who have been listening to the podcast for a long time know this, but most people's least favorite team in the Big 10 is Ohio State. And I understand why Ohio State fans are generally awful.
Michigan's always been my least favorite team in the conference. If we beat Ohio State one day, I'll be happy. If I'm there in the building when we beat Michigan, I will be thrilled. I will rush the field myself. I've always felt that way. I know you know exactly what you get with Ohio State fans and they know exactly who they are. Michigan fans act like they are above everybody else in the conference. This is like this is Minnesota
level cheating guys. This is this is like bottom of the barrel stuff as far as I'm concerned. The sanctimony needs to go away. I would like a little bit of humility out of Michigan people. And yes, I know these are just allegations, but these are pretty well established things at this point. Like we, we know what's occurred. It's just funny to me that this keeps popping up for Michigan. They cannot get away from it.
And they happen to name a head coach who was smack dab in the middle of the most recent round of allegations. I think that's tremendous. No, you're right about Ohio State because they're like the Maurice Claret thing in like 2004 or whatever. There's like, yeah, whatever. Like Terrell Pryor. Yeah, I know it's yeah, like the title still counts. Like whatever.
You know, it also does feel, you know, a little bit like it was a point in time where, you know, you and I lived through the 80s and 90s when like, you know, there were real allegations like SMU ended their football programs a little bit before our time. But you know, I, I remember USC like that was a huge deal. Like USC Bush gave back a Heisman. Like, they, they pulled stuff back. You know, they, they change all the record books. It, it does feel like, you know,
these are high level violations. I just think it's like nothing's going to happen or whatever happens isn't going to matter. Like the NCAA can barely keep the teams in the conferences they want to keep. Like they're, they're suing everybody everywhere. They're losing lawsuits. It, it does feel like these are all crimes in a city. It's it's almost like, you know, Roadhouse, we're just like crimes are being committed all over the place. And it's like where, where are the cops?
Like, well, the cops are not here. And, and yes, like these are crimes. These are level 2 problems. It doesn't feel like anything's going to happen. And even if it does, it's not going to have the same gravity that these kinds of things happened a couple years ago. So while I, I agree with all of your sentiments, it it does, it does get annoying because it's like Michigan kind of timed this all right?
Like if you were ever going to start getting level 2 violations, like now was the time versus again IU, we send like 3 extra text messages and we just have to like just flog our flog our basketball team for 12 years just to get back to. Well, you know, this was we, we, we picked the wrong time to do violations. Michigan. No, no, no, no, no. There was we picked the right time to do violations. We picked the wrong way to react to the violations. We keep saying over and over
again, again and again. It's just this what pisses me off so much about how IU responded in in O8 when all this was going down. Nothing was achieved by flagellating yourself in front of the NCAA and begging for mercy. Like literally nothing.
Nothing was achieved. And, and, and we get example after example after example of other schools, you know, loudly proclaiming their their, you know, moral superiority and then doing this and then absolutely not apologizing for it and saying, well, no, they're actually making all of it up, which we know is crap. So yeah, it's it's unfortunate, but it's just kind of the reality. It's why you know it when, when I get in debates with people
occasionally about NCAA rules. This was before like the. Current era where? Obviously the rules are kind of out the window at this point in terms of payment. Somebody should tell the NCAA that, by the way, like someone should note to the NCAA, you know what? Policing even collectives is kind of a waste of your time at this stage because you're going to lose. But that's a separate thing. But pre NIL collective, you know, people will be like, well, at least we do things the right
way. And I was like, we don't even do things the right way. Like it's not like we never cheated. It's that we cheated and then we like threw ourselves on the mercy of the court and that but didn't even the court didn't even impose anything. I you did. It was just the whole thing was
like ludicrous on its face. And it, you know, when you look at the success that schools have had by blatantly breaking NCAA rules, knowing that they cannot be effectively punished for breaking those rules, like, what's the point of the rules? There's no teeth to them. There's no like, like Michigan. Yes, they might get a slap on the wrist. They might have to suspend a coach for a few days. That didn't bother them last time. And I think with Michigan, it's the worst of all of these
schools. You expect an SEC school to cheat? You expect Florida State to cheat? You expect Ohio State to cheat? You expect, you know, the USC, it's not a shock when they cheat Michigan to hold themselves up as somehow morally superior, which they do in every single possible way.
And then to just blatantly engage in this stuff and then act like they don't have any responsibility it, it takes the entire conceptualization of college athletics as being anything other than a professional sports pursuit by a different name. You know it just it. It takes it all out of the equation as far as I'm concerned. What was funny too is like, you know, when the couple years ago when the Fab 5 documentary came out. Yeah, and. By the way, who had the fab? Five.
Sorry, go ahead. Yes. Like, but then but then there was an undercurrent of like, you know, it's really it just sucks that there's not a banner up in the, you know, Chrysler for that that final four run. It's like, yes, because they she like, that is what vacating means. Like, yeah, you have to take it down. You can't just be like, man,
that was a fun team. Like, you know what, we're just going to put it back up. Like, yes, like Reggie Bush still doesn't have his Heisman. Like these things. Like it doesn't mean you didn't go. But it's like, I love that undercurrent of like, man, it's just like it's just they they only people play it like that's just really not fair. They don't get to have a banner, their final four banner up. It's like, yes, because you cheated, like that was your punishment.
Yeah, it's it's it's really a joke, but it's it's a joke we're used to at this point. And it's just it's really a shame that IU destroyed its basketball program and and almost its entire athletic department. Over something that nobody else cared about. Yeah, that's that's the thing that it's just, it's amazing to me. But that's another podcast for another day. Anyway, I think, I think that's probably all. Anything else you'd like to talk about before we wrap this episode up?
This. Is a This is a real small one, but like I said multiple times, I'm playing in Sibley 25, but I have a dynasty, a couple dynasties going in one of my dynasty. Let me pull up the picture. How do you have time for multiple dynasties? I, I do them poor, I do one very well. I, I have another one where I'm like, it's, it's with my 2-2 of my cousins. One of with just had a child. So like we know that that one's that kind of not going to happen
for a while. But I went with my brother-in-law and we've been playing pretty regular anyway. In in the first year of the dynasty, Indiana was ranked like 10th. At one point, Rourke was in the Heisman Trophy finalist. Now this meet, this is a video game. I'm not like, I'm not taking bath salts and think this is real. But having played these games for years in the past, there have been situations where, you know, I'd be playing.
It's like, man, Boise State is good every, you know, in like 2005 game, it's like you'd be like, man, this Boise State team is like really good in this game. And then they're good in real life. I'm not saying these are real corollaries, but sometimes these video games, when you play them enough and you start seeing teams pop or you're like, why is Kansas State always really good in this dynasty? Sometimes there's something there. So there, there's maybe there's
something there. Maybe EA Sports has seen what Indiana football is going to be doing. This could all be nothing. We could be O and two going to the UCLA game, but just and not for nothing, in one of my dynasties, Indiana's a pretty dominant football team. So there, there you go. I think we should put up a banner for that. Just, you know. I mean, give, let's, let's do it. I will say one thing I did forget about on the football
front. Tom Fornelli from CBS Sports put out a a a a top to bottom strength of schedule ranking for the Big 10 like like hardest to easiest. And I wanted to note that the schedule that he rated as the easiest in the conference was Indiana great, which? I think it's tremendous. That's great, you know, and that's, that's with playing. Michigan and Ohio State, which Rutgers, for instance, does not have to do. Rutgers is ranked 17th. But Indiana, and it's fun.
It's weird to say this, especially since we've been criticizing men's basketball for not having a better schedule. But good job Scott Dolson and Kurt Signetti for scheduling to where you need to be, which is three-week non conference opponents. And then you got a pretty nice draw in terms of, yeah, you got to play Ohio State and Michigan, but everything else feels pretty winnable or at least competitive. And that is a good spot to be.
And that's exactly where IU football needs to be at this point. Yeah, no, for anybody who's out there who's an IU football fan and their friends are going to give them, you know, guff about this, tell them to who cares? Great. Who cares? Like we're trying to win games, We're trying to get to a bowl. Like we've done the hard schedule thing and hasn't done us very well. Like that's fine. You go. Go right ahead, Michigan. You guys play a tough schedule like we will.
We will try and get to our six wins and we'll see you later. No, I think it's great, by the way. One last postscript on that Michigan story. NCAA investigators determined that Connor Stallion's was on the sideline of a Central Michigan Michigan State game scouting Michigan State, and he was in a disguise on the.
Sidelines, which is even better. Just there's some tremendous memes floating around Twitter right now on this front that I would recommend everybody go check out for your own amusement anyway. If you can find the disguise, that's not a bad Halloween costume. Like it's still Halloween costume time like. I feel like it would be bad, but we did that last year too. I. Know I I know it's like two years in a row we're doing. But anyway, all right, we'll go ahead. Good and wrap up.
Thanks again to all of you for listening. Scott, good to talk to you again. We'll be back with more regular programming coming up as we wind our way closer to football. We'll have Taylor back on and talk to my you football depth chart stuff coming up soon for Scott. I'm Galen. This is Crimson cast. Thank you to Home Field Apparel for being our title sponsor and thanks to the rest of the Back Home Network. We will catch you. Folks, on the flip side, bring back the bison.
So long, everybody.