You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cast, Galen Clavio, Scott Caulfield joining you on another victorious Sunday for IU football. The Hoosiers are four and O as they wax Charlotte at Memorial Stadium. Yesterday we're going to talk about that game and talk about where the team looks like they are here at the third waypoint of the season. 4 games down, eight regular season games to go.
And Scott, we again find ourselves in the position of trying to put into words what we're experiencing with this IU football team in a good way. We we've had plenty of seasons where we've had to find words for things not going our way. And it thus far, everything's kind of gone Indiana's way so far. It's a refreshing change. Yeah, I let's not talk about it as we'll just end the podcast.
I don't want to drink anything. So thank you guys for joining Upland beer, home of home field apparel. We're a little bit nervous. We'll just we'll see you guys next week. No, it is it's it's I've it's wild. It's not only good, it's that they're confident and it really feels like there's better times ahead with this team because it feels like they're really trying to clean up mistakes and all of these wins are things that we just haven't seen in a while. No, it's, it's, it's unreal.
We're about to hit some rarefied air. We'll talk about with the schedule and what could be happening. But it is, it's, it's unbelievable. And I, I knew I was part of the problem. I mean, our kids have like 3 soccer games this weekend. We could not make it down. We're being down there next weekend. So I had to watch the game on TV, but it was like a second-half Signeti love fest. Like they were just showing all of these stats, all of these clips.
Like his winning percentage among college coaches is like right up there in the top. It was just like all Signeti all the time. And it was awesome. I was mainline, dude. It was fantastic. I'll have to go back and watch that. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah. Before we dive in, just a reminder folks, we are part of the Back Home Network, which contains a suite of shows covering IU athletics and beyond.
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Upland really outdid themselves with Who's Your Game Day Lager. Not just the design of the can, that beautiful candy stripe can that you'll see all over Memorial Stadium and all through the tailgate areas, but also just the flavor of the beer, a nice Vienna lager, very easy drinking. Scott. We enjoyed some at the tailgate yesterday, enjoyed a little bit while I was in the stadium.
Just a really nice easy drinking beer and the official craft beer of IU Athletics. So go find who's your game day lager wherever you're buying beer in central and southern Indiana. Go to any of Uplands fine locations and of course you can find it in Memorial Stadium at pretty much all of the concession stands. Please drink responsibly. Again, who's your game day lager by Upland Brewing Company Scott, let's dive into the fun. Indiana wins this game 52 to 14 over Charlotte.
We talked a little bit, well, not you and me, but we talked, you know, with other people this week about the idea that you know, it's a good thing coming off that big emotional win in the Rose Bowl that I you had somebody other than a Big 10 opponent to play the next week. Like it was really you worried a little bit about a let down. You worried a little bit about, you know, a situation where maybe the emotion isn't quite there after as well as they played.
And that was kind of how it played out early. Like Indiana looked a bit flat. Yeah, they they go out to the 10 nothing lead. You never felt like Indiana was ever in danger in this game. But it did feel like kind of a stodgy game for about the 1st 25 minutes or so of game action and a little bit of concern, a little bit of buzz in the stands when Charlotte scores to make it 17 to 14. But then Indiana scores 2 touchdowns in the last, what, 5
minutes of the first half? And from there it's just off to the races. Just a really, you know, after a bit of a slow start. And Curt Signetti even noted that it wasn't a it wasn't like a an awful start in the post game press conference, but that they were a little bit slow and maybe not as detail oriented, but a very professional way for this team to address the shortcomings they had out there.
They put together a basically a complete second-half where they scored 21 points and Charlotte scored nothing. They end up almost actually they they've almost doubled them up in total yards and and just a really nice kind of team performance without a whole lot of great individual statistical performances from this IU team. Yeah.
So two things off of that, you know, the the with Charlotte, you know, if you take out their two drives where they scored touchdowns, that's 150 yards, it takes their yardage from 1:56 to like one O 6. So you know, you're and not that you can, you can start cherry picking the stuff, you know, you take this out, take that out. But it's like that that was those two drives were kind of the outliers.
And then the rest of you know, when you look at the drive chart for Charlotte, it's like 8 yards, 15 yards, one negative 2152, but then four -2 negative 437. So for the most part, Indiana's defense held straight. This had two drives where things didn't work correctly. And then you you see like the course correction, the other pieces, you know, in your preview podcast this week, you were talking about kind of how interchangeable some of the pieces are. And that's what I was thinking
about going into this game. And then as you said, like there's not really an individual stand out again. Do you know the the yardage for rushing is kind of all across the board. The yardage for receiving is all across the board. And and I don't, you know, I don't want to be too hyperbolic here because it's like we are
just starting this out. But as I think back, you know, it is, it's interesting how many IU teams that I can think of that were good or not good seem to be built around kind of singular stars, which is such an odd way to do it in Indiana where you're just not going to get a lot of hot. You you get some talent, you get some things that fall through the cracks, but like IU football isn't going to get there with
like singular talent. Like we're not going to get the Michael Vick. But you think back to like we have the Antoine Randall L era in when you and I play when you and I went there, it's like that's all kind of we had. And then, you know, some of those teams under Hefner and Lynch, like they were good. But then Lynch kind of got like you have James Hardy as the receiver. Even those Kevin Wilson teams that were good. It's like Kevin Coleman or Jordan Howard.
You know, even the good Tom Allen teams, like you have Michael Pannick's. And this is not to disparage anybody on the team or to say Roark's not at that level. It's just it is we're playing a system. It's like everyone's within that system and everybody's interchangeable and it it looks so much better and eat, you know, so harder to stop, whereas before it's like, all right, can we just bottle up Tevin Coleman? It's like, oh, we did that great
like that, That's all. And then, you know, even, you know, you saw this under Allen where if somebody, you know, one of those good players goes down, that's like, oh, we have to fundamentally change how we're running our entire offense because now we don't have the threat that was, you know, XY or Z. It's just here kind of in a good way. Next man up is like, no, we're just going to keep running our system. So I, I was struck by that going in.
And then during the game, it is just, it's unbelievable how everybody's kind of able to do everything and not that we're totally unstoppable. And it makes this team so much better. And you take a step back, it's like, yes, this is how A-Team like Indiana football and needs to give. That's what Iowa does. Iowa does normally have standouts. They just kind of build a program.
And it's amazing that Signetti was able to do that with the ashes of a, you know, 3 and nine team and the transfer portal and and get it done seemingly so quickly. He made a comment in his post game comments about how, you know, he felt like the team, I'm paraphrasing here, but you know, I kind of felt like the team had had really learned lessons.
He he made a particular comment about we certainly have a lot of high character guys on the team, which is interesting because you know, one of the things that we heard a bit during during summer was there were some guys that maybe weren't buying in to to the system. And it doesn't seem like that's a problem. And you know, he he really seems very satisfied with where the team is at overall so far
through four games. And, you know, obviously you've, you've yet to play like a, a, a dominant opponent, but most teams in the country have not played a dominant opponent. And I have been really impressed with just how consistently this team plays. I talked about this when I was talking with Rhett Lewis a couple of days ago. It's like this team just doesn't get rattled.
Now they, you know, and again, they haven't really been rattled too much or they haven't played teams that would rattle them. But even in this kind of a game, you, you find these miniature moments of, of adversity. I hate adversity in sports. It's one of the most overplayed things, but you have this pocket where it's like, hey, we're only up three and it's the second quarter and the Charlotte team's on their third string quarterback and it's like there's no panic.
They just they go back out, they go down the field, they drive, they score a touchdown, they score another touchdown. And then it's like, what were we worried about again? So it is it's, it is refreshing. It's also weird for us as IU fans, 'cause I think you really bigger up a good point. Like, so, so much of Indiana's history has depended on stars kind of exceeding their their station in college football and dragging the rest of the team with them.
There's only been a couple of circumstances where it's felt like that wasn't the case. You know, the, the 2016 team kind of felt that way in that, you know, 2015. It's like, well, if Nate Sudfeld is not the quarterback, like we
saw what that team look like. And it was the previous year's team that went four and eight, you know, and, and so I just look at it and I say Indiana has always struggled to recruit complimentary pieces, depth pieces, pieces that are, you know, solid BS that you can plug in on both offense and defense. And that seems like exactly the type of player that Kurt
Signetti went out and got. And I think the guys that stuck around deserve a lot of credit because, you know, there was clearly latent talent on this roster and it needed augmenting by having new people come in. You know, it's just it's interesting to watch this alchemy happening. And it's interesting, as we talked about at the beginning of the year, before any games are played, like this team finding
its legs, finding its identity. And I don't think any of us thought, Scott, that the offense was going to be the identity of this team. But I mean, the offense has been incredible. Like what are your thoughts there? I, I think the, I mean, I, I think the defense has also been good, but no, I think the offense has been unbelievable. I mean, you look at the offense. Well, the last thing I do want to hit with your discussion with Rhett in, in relation to this game too, is you.
I'm stealing your line from that podcast. But you're talking about how like just how many times we're going to keep moving the goal posts with this team where you, you even, you mentioned, you know, like the, the the competition has been somewhat subpar. And that's that's the feeling. But it's like you go and look and like, well, you know, yesterday UCLA is putting up a real fight against LSU in LSU and they ended up losing, but it's like they were up 1714 for most of that game.
It's like, all right, maybe LS the UCLA doesn't suck. Like if they had, I mean they didn't, but it's like that changes to me, the view, I mean of those games swap the way that
they happen. If we had that UCLA game first and then we played UCLA, it's like going into the UCLA game, like man, I'm scared of them 'cause they almost beat LSU and LSU, You know, it it, it does feel like just the people keep and I guess it is what it is, just keep kind of, you know, minimizing everything that we've done. But no, when you look at the offense, you know, I know I always screw up the name of the game, but you know, like the name, the chart name, the drive, the drives.
Come on. Drive and I'll get it in five years, my memory will get better. You know, you you start the game with touchdown, field goal, touchdown, touchdown, touchdown, touchdown, touchdown. And then you get a punt and by that time you're you're up and you have backups in you know, the offense has been electric. I think, you know I'm going to screw up the numbers we've scored so far this year. We get the right one here. We've scored what, 231 points 2. 102 two. 102, yeah, Sorry,
sorry, sorry. Wow. OK, at 202, to give you an idea, like in 20 I had the wrong year up 2020 the entire year and eight games we scored 231. Like my wife was adding up like the last time we scored this many points. Like in a season. We've outscored seasons pretty close in just four games.
And. You know what The thing is for as electric, we can come back to the offense as electric as it's been and how it's been so spread out everywhere, I still kind of feel like the the calling card of this team might be the defense because the defense has also been really good. You know, you give up 14 to Charlotte, that's not awesome.
But you know, you look around college football, you know, Ohio State beat Marshall 49 to 14. No one's like, Oh my God, does Ohio State have problems like this is I continue to always go back like these are the kinds of scores and games and the way things look when a team is really, really good, you know, and you know, I mean, Penn State won 56 to nothing Like that's a a bit of that, but we had one like that too.
That was Kent State. That was, you know, we had a 77 to 3. But it's like I look at that Ohio State Marshall game. It's just like it. These are scores like other teams are going to get some stuff done. But no, I the the offense has been unbelievable. And again, you know, Curtis Rourke is awesome. He really stirs it. And if he wasn't there, I think it would not work as well. But that's that's life in football, man. Like you need a quarterback and that's just the way things go.
But everything else, it feels like it really is anybody's a threat at any time and there really is this push and pull. But I haven't felt with IU football in years even, you know, under Wilson, it was always kind of running was the attack. And then under Alan it was definitely throwing was the attack. This is the first time where it feels like, you know, with UCLA they were stopping the run. It's like fine, we'll we'll
start passing. And then this gaming of Charles feel like they opened up a lot of the passing plays and a lot of that. And it's like, but we still have this run that can come in and average 4 yards of carry. It feels very multidimensional, of which I I can't remember the last time I felt like Indiana really had that going. I know to give you an example, you and the listeners, an example of some of the stat breakdowns that are really
fascinating. So you mentioned like so far this season, Indiana has scored 202 points and they've allowed 37. Last year through four games, Indiana scored 87 points and it surrendered 78. Through 4 games 2022, Indiana scored 115 points but had given up 117. So, you know, the the again, I don't know what to do with all this competence through four games. Through four games, Indiana has scored 18 running touchdowns or 18 rushing touchdowns, depending on what you want to say. So the.
Year, we didn't score any of them. Remember that year in the Big 10 we were like keeping track of? That well, hold on. So 18 touchdowns on the ground through four games last year through through the entire 12 games, Indiana scored 13 touchdowns on the ground. The previous year, they scored 15 touchdowns on the ground the previous year, 2021, they scored 13. Like you got to go back to 2019 to have a whole season where Indiana scored that much on the ground.
They had 24 rushing touchdowns in 2019 feels like. We're going to break that in two games. So, you know, you just, and everything that you look at or everything I've seen so far has really just the, the difference that we're seeing in terms of how well Indiana's playing and what they've been able to do so far really on both sides of the ball is it's just, it's again, it's one of those where it's hard to get your head wrapped around it. And yeah, the, the, the goal posts moving.
I get it. We're kind of pre programmed as IU football observers and fans to keep thinking that what we're being shown is in some way fraudulent because there have been situations like that in the past.
But you know, what I would say is that we, you know, when you point to other programs and you're looking at, you know, the, oh, this team's for an hour, this team's, you know, played really well, It's like, well, your team's doing the same thing against the same type of competition and, and, and arguably doing it better. I mean, you know, I think Indiana was the first FBS team to eclipse the 200 points scored mark of any team in FBS this year.
That's the kind of thing that you need to take into account. You know, it's fine to say, well, let's, let's see what Indiana does against like big level competition. But frankly, when you look at the schedule, there aren't a whole lot of teams like that. And if Indiana wins, you know, 891011 games and then loses one game against a good opponent, that doesn't mean that they weren't good.
It just means that, you know, OK, they maybe they're in, they're in an echelon now where you don't have to keep making excuses or finding ways to not enjoy what's happening. My message in all of this to myself, to you, to the people listening is enjoy this because this is such a rare set of occurrences to watch IU football being this dominant in in all phases of the game. I mean, we we may not see something like this again for another decade.
So I would just say enjoy while you can, regardless of what the competition level is in your mind. Again, I agree a million percent. Like I was thinking back to like, you know, the was the 95 Northwestern team that went to the first team for them to go to the Rose Bowl in years. You know, do you remember where their strength of schedule was in the Big 10 last season?
Like, no, like you remember they went to the Rose Bowl and they had a fantastic season and it kick started things and you went from there. And I mean that this is what I've been telling people who can give me that schedule talk is just it's like, who cares? Like, hey, don't. Care at this point. I put this on Twitter last night. If Indiana was Michigan, if everything was the same, the performances were the same, everything. It was Michigan's uniforms on
Indiana's bodies. They would be a national. Championship, they would be ranked like, yeah, they would be ranked. I said ranked 9th. They'd probably be ranked higher than that. Like, that is, yeah, this is how football works. And and IU has been kind of on the bottom of the barrel for so long, like fighting and clawing to get to a point where they're playing really well. And I mean, we saw like, you know, Nebraska's a great example.
I put a kind of, it was, it was kind of a joke post earlier up this week. But it's like, well, compare what Nebraska's done and compare what Indiana's done in terms of the quality of the opponent, the the level of the victories, in terms of margin, the way that they played.
Like, there's really no argument going into this week for Nebraska to be ranked and Indiana not to be ranked, other than Nebraska has a brand that voters are dying to rank and Indiana everybody is suspicious of because Indiana is Indiana. Now Nebraska turns around and loses at home to Illinois. I mean, will they still be receiving votes? Probably will. I mean, if Indiana were to do the same thing, they probably would drop completely out of the
poll and never be seen again. On the one hand, I don't care about those things and I'm and I'm not really worried about it.
But I did want to note that if you're, you know, don't grade your own team on a curve, Indiana fans like don't, don't grade your own team based upon this perception that they're not achieving something when the, the, the, the salutes that we give to other teams who are three and O, four and O having these good statistical performances are coming against the exact same types of opponents in most cases.
So just give, give yourself some grace if you're an IU football fan and give your program some grace as well. Well, it's also been so long that we've had a schedule like this where we're playing a full big 10 schedule and it it, it still looks like smooth sailing for quite a long time. Like you keep saying, you know, top level opponents and you look at our schedule like I don't know where that is. Like, I mean, it's definitely Ohio State.
It's probably still Michigan. They they look like they have some life left outside of that it it doesn't look like there's a lot of teams that, you know, would be favored to beat Indiana. And I think that's also what's at play here is people are so useless. Oh, you get the big 10. It's just it's brutal. It's like, well, it can be, but every so often that the chips can fall in such a way where it's not brutal and it's not
brutal this year. I think your point about, you know, the uniforms is totally, totally valid because I continue to go back to saying that, you know, like the way we beat UCLA, that's what a good team does. The way we just beat Charlotte, like it's almost the exact same score as Ohio State had this weekend. But everyone's going to view it differently. But I I am with you. You know what this team is doing.
It's very Workman like. You hear the way Signeti talks about it and it's exactly the way I want my coach to to talk. You know, he in both the halftime interview and the post game on TV broadcast, it was like, you know, at halftime he's like, man, we got some things to work on. Like, you know, it's all right, but we're we got a lot to work. Even after the game, he's like, hey, it's OK. Like that wasn't great. We had the two drives we lost.
Like it, it is very, you know, I'm striving for perfection and I'm not super happy with where we're at. I'm not going to be excited about it. And that's that's also a place we haven't been in a while. You know, the, the rarefied air that I'm I'm looking at is, you know, it's wild to think this the last time we had a 5 and O start. And you know, we've played hundreds of seasons and a lot of those seasons we've played garbage opponents, good opponents.
You know, I know that you know the answer to this. But Galen, I'll just ask you this. How many seasons in the history of Indiana football has Indiana gone 5 and O? Oh geez, I'd actually believe it or not. I don't know this one off the top of my head, but I'm going to guess that it's like Four Seasons in history. So I, and if I'm wrong, I, I was scanning through the the data pretty quickly this morning. I have 371945 and in 1910 and like I didn't do the math.
There's probably more seasons than not that we haven't won five games. Hard stop. Like no, no starts. Like that is what you know, this is where it's like, OK, you can talk all you want about soft schedules and bad teams. Like we've played, you know, division two or whatever it's called now. Like every year we've played a lot of, you know, there's been a lot of years we've had soft schedules that that's over 100
years of football. To be doing something only for the 4th time is pretty unbelievable. And that's what's the precipice that we have right now is having a 5 and a start, which is like, that's where it's like, all right, we're doing something that's only been done 4 times. You can't just start saying like, Oh well, this and that. Like no, like every year there's all those, all those things are
still there. And we have been able to do this for so long, we are really in kind of rarefied territory, which is kind of wild to think. Yeah, I mean, I'm looking through and I, I think you've nailed it. I there was one season and it doesn't count 'cause it wasn't 5 and O, but in 88 they went five O and one in their first six games, but they were four O and one in their first five, which again, a a tie is not a victory. I learned that in math class at one point. I'm.
Thinking like 02020's got to be in there. It's like, no, they were four and O and then lost to Ohio State. Yeah, So, so, yeah, that's I, I think that's the message, you know, from, from me and and certainly from you. It's just like there's a chance to do something really extraordinary here. And, and look, the, the, the competition does ramp up. This is a different level Signetni rightly talked about in
his post game press conference. Like we've got to maintain focus, you know, can't avoid, can't afford distractions at this point. We've got to maintain focus. And that's going to be ultimately kind of the message here over these next few games, you know, and and this next game against Maryland is going to be a really fascinating one because they're two teams that look relatively even in terms of the statistics. You know, Maryland has been fine
so far this season. You know, they've, they've, they've been, they, they obviously they had that loss at home against Michigan State, but they, they bounced back and played really well on the road against what I think is a decent Virginia team, you know, but they, they have not been as
dominant as Indiana has so far. And so it'll be a really interesting case 'cause as we talked about with that UCLA game, and as we saw with UCLA, you know, in this game against LSU this week, like that's, that's not a, a complete dumpster fire of an LSU of a UCLA team.
Like they have talent, they can play hard, You know, So what I'm really fascinated with is like, OK, now you've got a group of guys on this IU team who have demonstrated that they can play at a high level and they've been able to maintain a focus and a consistency in all of these games so far. Like the one exception is the first game, the FIU game, which is you go back and you think about it, you're almost disappointed that they didn't win by more.
But it was clear at that point, I think. And you and I talked about this even in the post game press conference for that one, that this team was trying to figure some things out about itself. And they really do look like they figured out even more like this game will look like a, a, a team that after they got over some early struggles, really was
hitting on all cylinders. And I'm really excited about the fact that there, as we've talked about many times, there does appear to be a another plateau that this team can hit. You know, they've been they've they've been very effective. They haven't used a whole lot of the passing game. They used it in the UCLA game, but they've reverted back to the run when they've needed it. They've got this kind of rotating committee of backs that seem to do very well.
They have a central figure in defense and Aiden Fisher who's leading the team in tackles. But then they've got like a bunch of guys who are right behind who have done a really good job. And you know, I think overall as as this IU team continues to hone itself and starts to get against better competition, it really is going to be about a
focus thing at this point. Because on paper, both in terms of the talent levels and in terms of the results, their next 4 opponents, you know, Maryland is next week, Northwestern the week after that, and then Nebraska and Washington in back-to-back weeks. It's all, they're all winnable. They're not. They like the the I watched that whole Nebraska game like that is not an unbeatable Nebraska team,
as Illinois very deftly showed. And that's going to be in Memorial Stadium. It is going to take one. More of that the at at Michigan State after Washington. So like, yeah, so. So now, will Indiana win all of those games? I don't know. They could. And that, I mean, and if you look at what the computers look at, again, they're going to project Indiana to win all five of those games, which is pretty wild to think about. And you know, Indiana football, I mean, you look right now Indiana.
So Bill Connolly just updated his S&P Plus rankings. Indiana's 30th in S&P Plus now after four weeks. And this is a team that started in, what, the 80s, right? And this is still at a point where some of the yet last year's stuff is still being factored in. You know, so it's a tight, like, it's a very tight world in
college football right now. But if you look at Indiana, they're ranked 43rd in offensive S&P Plus, they're 33rd in defensive S&P Plus, and they're 6th in special teams, largely because they haven't used the special teams. And when they do have to use them, they've got really good guys out there to do it, whether that's James James Evans or whether that's the kicking group.
And you know, you look up, you look up and down at this point, like Indiana looks like one of the more balanced teams that's out there. And that is going to, I think play very well. Like if you look at the combo of them and Maryland coming into this next week, what's interesting is like Maryland is is not that far away in terms of their S&P plus ranking. I think Maryland is like 35th. So they're right behind IU, but they're a couple of points below
them in the ranking. Their offense is only 65th in the country. Their defense is 28th. So the defense is slightly better, but their offense is worse. Like that's the kind of balance that Indiana's going to be able to strike.
I think moving forward will really serve them well because they're not going to lean too much on one or another phase of the game, which, you know, you go back Scott, to some of the previous years, you know, those Kevin Wilson teams lean so heavily on their offense to do everything and kind of carry the defense. And that's not exactly what's happening here. It feels like both sides of the ball can kind of carry their own weight. With this stuff, yeah, I totally agree.
You know, the the thing that I thought was interesting, the the play that I'm going to kind of highlight from the Charlotte game, I think, I think it kind of makes this point is there's a catch by Sam West, who had his first catch, I think of the season. But it was this like nice play that opened up and he ran like a little hook, like a wheel route on the side and was just wide open, tons of free range to go.
Had one catch for 37 yards. And it's one of those were like in previous years, I think we would have had that and like we would have talked all about it in the podcast. Like where does he fit in? Like can we start getting him more touches? And we haven't talked about any of that. And it's it's not against Sam Westman. I hope he has does a great, has a great season, but it's not like, Oh my God, we got to feed
that guy more, do more. It's like, no, it's just that's a that's a functional football program. We have a wide receiver out there who's, you know, when he's open, he's open, he'll get a couple touches and he's growing into his role. And it was a beautiful play.
And that's that's the thing from this offense that I still kind of keep going back to and it's very hard to quantify, but it just feels like there's a lot of the playbook we haven't seen because there are these moments where you see these plays where it's like, holy crap, that was a really nice play to really get somebody open. And then we'll kind of go back to like, you know, 5 or 6 RPO's and not a bad way because it's
working. Whereas in previous years I felt like we would do that, but go back to like run up the middle and then it's like second, nine, third and seven and then we punt. This is like we kind of go back to the vanilla offense, but the vanilla offense is leading us with touchdowns and field goals. And it's just something that I feel that like I I really feel like there's a whole second playbook. We haven't been touched yet. That's kind of like, let's just wait until things really get
hairy. And you see it in these moments of these games where it's like, you know, Charlotte has 14 points, like, all right, let's make sure we score the next two times and we do. And it that's something that I've not felt. And then the defense the same
thing. It has these moments where, you know, they don't lose judgement, but it's just, you know, the other team is able to do some things like, all right, let's immediately make some adjustments and come back and then you can kind of feel the defense just kind of boa constrictoring out these things. And I know we bitched everybody for caveat and you know, I'll caveat like, yes, the opponents have not been the highest level, but I mean, we did against UCLA
and that's all we can say. We've done it against. And I'm with you. You look at Maryland, like when you look at like Pro Football Focus, you know, they're right there. You know, the overall teams, Illinois highest ranked in the Big 10 and then Indiana and then Iowa and Maryland. So, I mean, you know, they they seem to be right kind of where we're at. I think it's going to be a really interesting test. And anyway, yeah, that's my thoughts, yeah.
Some interesting notes. Excuse me a little too much yelling at the game yesterday in a happy way. So Colin McMahon from Indiana Rivals had an interesting tweet IU. So we just got the betting line. So they just opened as a 5 1/2 point favorite for for the Maryland game. Wow, OK. Vegas, by the way, all of us not taking note, like Vegas has taken note. Vegas is like, oh look, I mean the spread was what, 29 I think yesterday? We're a favorite on the road at UCLA.
We're opening the five and a half point favorite. I mean, like Vegas doesn't. This is why Vegas doesn't lose money. They they actually noticed these things in teams. Yeah. It's it's gonna be really. Fascinating watching this the momentum build on this because as you mentioned, like so. Indiana right now 5th. This is again from Colin McMahon's tweet. Ranked 15th in FPI which is ESP NS metric. They have the 14th best chance to make the playoff of any team at 27.4%.
Indiana's fifth in average points per game scored and 7th in points allowed per game in FBSI mean this is nuts. Like all of this and, and again, it's like this is Indiana's got to play up to that level now they're, they're not going to sneak up on people for much longer and people are going to take them more seriously. The execution's going to be more and more important, you know, but, but again, you know, we went through another game with this IU team where they didn't
commit a turnover. You know, right now, Indiana's turnover margin on the, on the season is +7. They've, they've, the last time they had a + 7 turnover margin, I think again was 2020. They had a they had a + 8 turnover margin that year and and it's, you know, they only, they only forced one fumble for Charlotte.
But what I'm most impressed by is they continue to not make like self owns they they they're not, they're not putting themselves in a position where they provide the other team with a lot of great momentum. You know, they're not killing their own drives with with turnovers. Now that will end at some point and I'll be curious to see how this team handles that. But you know, I just I know it just sounds like we're just showering the team with praise
here over and over again. But I feel like that's deserved, Scott, at this point. And I'm just really excited. Like you run down the list and you see what Indiana's been able to do. It's just it's been really, really heartening that they've been able to move the ball as well as they have and then their defense has been able to shut down opponents. I mean, again, it's just like you can we see teams that have really good defenses that don't
score a lot. We see teams that have good offenses that have a hard time, you know, keeping the other team from scoring. There just aren't a lot of teams, even against poor competition, that do both of those things well so. The two things are, you know, I feel like we've spent the last couple of we we're allowed to do this because we spent the last couple of years, you know, 2021. We were both excited and I think you and I both pretty mid early season. We're like, something's wrong
here. Like we, we tried to bring that on the podcast. The last two years we've been kind of fighting this, you know, like very early on, the statistics have been awful for Indiana. And you and I have kind of been playing, you know, danger Will Robinson most of the season the last two seasons just kind of being like, hey, I don't know how this gets better. And, and we were really pessimistic the last two years and took a lot of grief for it. And I feel like everything is
reversed this year. It's a complete 180 where, you know, I still talk to a lot of people. People go to games. They're just like, I don't know, we'll see. It's like they're kind of waiting for that moment. And it, it's like it's all there. And it, what's weird is we're like, we're a stat darling. Like we're one of those teams in like Ken Palm. It's just like, man, this team, it's like they figured out the analytic system and they're, they're the great, they're the great.
You know, darling, I would say this, you know, and and again, soccer games last week, I apologize for not making to the game yesterday, but this is the moment I do feel like where, you know, we've always had this push and pull of, you know, fans need to show up that, you know, the team has to show up first for the fans. Like, I feel like we are at that moment now where this team has done enough and justified.
Like this game against Maryland is should be a complete sellout and it should be people fired up. Like this is the moment where it's like, all right now you have a real Big 10 opponent. You have a team that has some real things that they could do in Indiana. You're about to hit some pretty historical benchmarks. We start winning and continue to win. This is the moment where it feels like, you know, things
should turn. So that that's that's my push to any fan is like, you know, now's the time to get in for students like these are the games to start staying the whole time to show up early. Like this is where we we need to step up and bring Memorial Stadium at 100% capacity. Like this is the moment. And look at, you know, the, it was disappointing. I thought the crowd yesterday, people just got to, they got to show up. I mean, there's always and look, I get it.
No one has been on this IU football train longer than than you and I have just in terms of like fan that there are older fans, certainly. But I guess my point is we don't keep hopping on and off as a lot of people do. And you know, we've seen seasons where people were not that excited or the team wasn't that exciting. There's just a weird kind of hesitancy it feels like amongst a lot of people, like I, I, it was hot yesterday at the game. It was not blazing. Like it wasn't that bad.
I mean, I've, I've, as I was saying to somebody, like I used to go to games in the Orange Bowl when I worked at Miami. I mean, that was hot. You know, it was, it was 10° hotter and 20% more humid at LSU yesterday and. The Big 10 network though, because the way they showed the the coach Biff, which is just like the greatest coach name, like he looked like he was hot, like the sweat running down the little. Air reader like.
Every time they showed him I was like, man, that looks brutal, but I think it was more more Biff problem than anybody else. Yeah, I know that was I, I the pictures from that particular situation defy a lot of mental items that I have in my brain right now, but I'm. Wearing like a hat that was too small, with a beanie with a cord coming out. It's like Biff let's. Very odd, but but you know, look, there's plenty of people who can't come to games because
they don't live close enough. And we appreciate you folks. This is 1. And again, it's like I'm not paid to get people to go out to go to the games or anything like that. But I just don't know what people are waiting for. Like you. It's like, Oh well, what to see you play a real team, as you said a few weeks ago, it's like part of the fun is going in and watching your team like really dominate. I mean, this is part of the process. This is what you say that you want.
And you know, I think to some degree I, I remember like this. This is a, it's a problem with the IU fanbase that doesn't happen often, but because obviously Indiana's rarely been good. But it's almost like when the novelty of the football team being good wears off, people decide that they're going to not come. And we saw this actually even at the height of Indiana's biggest string of success in the late 80s and early 90s. And, you know, this is one of those things that people forget.
But like, you know, the the attendance went through the roof in 87 and 88 and 89. And then it slowly started to drop off. And, you know, there were games at the start of the 93 season when Indiana, you know, they went eight and four that year. They were in the hunt for the Big 10 title. They were coming off a season where, you know, they had they had barely missed a bowl, but I think they had won like eight games, five games, seven games and five games and four years is a good team.
Attendance dropped to like 30,000 at the beginning of that season and they didn't have a sell out that year. It dropped further in 94. I can remember listening to Don Fisher and Max Skirvin on broadcast at the time, and bowl games were like. Kind of put off from IU because there's like, well, their fans don't travel anymore. Now we know that that's not the case now, but it's interesting going back and looking at those attendance numbers and how
quickly everything fell off. As soon it was as it was like old hat that the IU football team was good. Here. It's like the opposite issue where it's like they haven't really gotten people into the mix yet with IU football and I'm just waiting. Like, is there going to be a trigger where people are like, yes, this is actually a really fun team. It's a dominant team. It's a team we're gonna go to watch. I mean, on paper, the attendance was fine yesterday. It was about 1000 less than FIU
in person. There were clearly not that many people there. And given that it was a noon game and it was a beautiful day, a little bit hot, but still a beautiful day outside, that was disappointing. I just, you know, you're probably right in that it, you probably will have a lot more people at this Maryland game. I think the get in price last night for the game was something like $43, which is a generally a pretty good sign that tickets are getting harder and harder to come by.
But then today the get in prices dropped to $34. You know, so it's like there's there's clearly not the demand yet on the on behalf of of IU fans to go and watch this team. I just wondered, does that get triggered? It feels like it should have triggered by this point because are people really going to be that much more fired up for Maryland than they were for, you know, just going to a game in general? I mean, that's not exactly a big name opponent in the big scheme of.
Things my hope is that it's a big, you know, being a Big 10 team always does seem to raise attendance. Even a bad Big 10 team, you know, Rutgers normally brings it a little bit more than some of our, you know, bad non conference opponents. But, but I'm with you. I've, I've kind of look at this moment is like, this should be the triggering moment. And it's also because of the runway you have ahead of us, you have ahead of you.
It's not like, all right, this is a mirage where now we got to play Oregon, Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan. It's like, no, we're about to hit a stretch of maybe the best weather you're going to have in Bloomington and three of the next 4 games are at home and your opponents are Maryland, Northwestern, Nebraska and Washington. And it's like you could be going three and one of those games. Hell, they could go four and O in those games.
Like this is, this is the moment, I think where it has to be triggered. You know, this is where you need to show up. And like, this is the moment for this team where you know, this is just a, This is why you have a new coach. Like all that talk of manual 2020 and they just, you know, you know, shit the bed the next year. It's like, OK, but that was like, that was four years ago. That's a different coach, different scenario. Like that's why you have new
coaches. Like this is all new and it it takes time to change how you know how the ship goes. But it does feel like I I think of like the Zach Osterman always talks about, you know, college football program is like a a battleship or aircraft carrier just takes forever to turn. It feels like we're not there. Feels like we just like Signeti just grab the guys like we're getting on this cutter. We're just going to have a quick turn to the right.
And it, it does feel like this is a different team and you know what, you know, if things are the same as before, let's let's go in and try it and get hurt. Like, I mean, I'm, I'm so in, but it just does not feel that way because of all the things that we've talked about and how all across the board this team
is, how professional they look. And maybe the only thing that I could say that I would love to see cut out as we're still getting some some penalties, not as bad as it feels like in the past. We're still racking up more penalty yards and we would like think like 290 for the season. So getting 3 or 4 penalties a game, it'd be nice to clean that up. But but everything else has been just so Workman like in these wins. But yet when they need to get exciting, they get exciting.
If it's not a boring team, it's a fun team to watch, but it's also a team that like is professional and just takes care of business. Yeah. Well, it should be fun watching what happens here moving
forward. As you know, the the big thing is it seemed like Indiana made it out of the game with no injury issues and they continue to refine aspects of things and, you know, to go on the run that they did to go from 17 to 14 to 50, you know, 1 to 14. But you know, the the other thing that was really interesting was Indiana 52 to 14. Sorry, was the final Indiana had a couple of of drives that probably should have resulted in
touchdowns that didn't. You know, you had the overthrow from Taven Jackson on on that crossing pattern. There was another one like that. It, it almost felt like Indiana left a little bit out there and you know, they punted in the middle of the, of the third quarter, I think it was. And it was like, this is a shock. I've, I forgot what our punching unit looked like. So they continue to, to do little refinements. They probably could have won by a little bit more.
And now they play certainly A-Team. That's always been a good barometer for where Indiana's at in the old Big 10. You know, you know, Maryland and Indiana, it was like, only one of you can be good because you're in the Big 10 E and you've already got 3 losses. And you were seeing finally like, hey, that's the, the, the teams who have been freed from those shackles.
Like there's two in particular, Rutgers and Indiana, both who look like they are, you know, in a, in a, a mode where it's like, wow, we no longer have to be locked into playing this awful schedule. We've got some flexibility and it would be great if both of those teams would be able to take full advantage of it throughout the course of the season. It's it's like it's like wow, this is like letting a dog out in the in the farmland. Like wow, That's what the big 10 W has been like.
So nice. All these teams you have to play. I want to ask, let's play a game. It's slightly not the Scott fever dream game, but we're getting there. If we keep on winning. I think I have my I think the answer is pretty simple, but just want to play it through. We keep winning. When do we get ranked? I think I have my answer, but because I don't, I don't. I look through it today like not enough teams in the lower 20s lost. So I don't think we're going to
get ranked this week. And it's going. So when we keep winning, at what point do you think we get ranked? If we're not ranked this week, I actually think we're going to cut be ranked like 25th this week by the time by the time this comes out, we'll see what happens. But, but if Indiana's not ranked this week, I think beating Maryland would rank them for the following week. That would be, that would, and, and again, I it'll either be right at the very edge.
Actually, now that I'm looking at it, I think actually you're right, 'cause I mean, Nebraska's probably going to drop out of the rankings and I'm guessing perhaps Illinois is already ranked. That's interesting. I don't know. I mean, beating Charlotte by that much probably didn't catch that many people's heads.
But I, I do think it's, I'll be fascinated to see what Indiana's ranking is or their vote getting compared to say, Iowa and what happens with all the votes for people that voted for Syracuse, who of course then turn around and lost to Stanford on Friday. You know, there's a bunch of teams where it's like this may be good for IU, but there may be a little bit of a cap on it. But I think if they were to beat Maryland, surely they'll be some teams above them in the rankings that lost.
And so I think it'll be, it'll be right around either next week if they beat Maryland or, you know, shortly afterwards. I I don't think it's going to be a whole lot longer than that though. I, I don't know, I kind of looked at it as I, I think there's that national inertia just kind of keep Indiana where it's at.
And, and if there's not a ton of losses ahead of us, I think it could be as far as the Nebraska game and beating, beating Nebraska. We do that at that point now you know, you're 7 and O you have a win against Nebraska, which you know, in the minds of voters, like that's actually something, even though that may be one of the worst team that maybe not a not the best big 10 team we're going to play in our stretch.
So I, I don't know, I, I think it could be that far because I think this week we're still going to be in that others receiving votes. And then if we beat Maryland, I think that's, that's something for us. But it's like, I, I think it's going to have to be beating a team that is kind of a name. And I, I think we're going to continue to fly, continue to be receiving votes.
You beat Northwestern, it's like, all right, it's Northwestern. They're not playing a temporary like there's a lot of ways you can push things off. But I do think once you get 7 and O with a Nebraska win, it's like then you're you're probably going to pop into like the 19 range. It's possible. I don't know. I wonder sometimes how often the pollsters or the OR the voters think about what they're doing.
I mean, you know, it's like the you, you look at the teams received it like Memphis was 26th in the poll and they got, they lost 56 to 44 at Navy. They they should not be getting votes at all. Texas A&M, who was 25th in the poll, Like they barely beat Bowling Green at home this week. Why would they be getting votes at this point? Like what? What have they done? What have they accomplished statistically? Nebraska, we already talked about Northern Illinois, who was
ranked. They turn around and lose to Buffalo. Well, they should not be ranked. That was an overreaction. So I do wonder. That's why I think the perhaps in the AP poll, at least it's a possibility even this week. It's just that you look around the lower reaches of things and it's hard to really point to any of those teams and say they are definitively more accomplished than Indiana has been. All the statistics point towards Indiana being very good and again, none of this matters.
I don't care. I would prefer that we weren't ranked until later because I like flying under the radar with this team a little bit right now. But I could see the voters looking at it this week and saying, you know what? Actually, it makes sense to rank Indiana. I also want to just, we don't need to do it right now 'cause it's totally unprepared. Didn't prep you for this. But it's like, I feel like in previous years, you know, we didn't want to be too negative.
But I think you and I both in talking about it, we're like we were mentally and off the record kind of updating our season win total projections. Like, all right, this looks like it's going to be rough. I almost want to kind of do have a redo of our win projections because it feels like 8 is a pretty solid number. Like I feel like 9 could really be in play here and it would be fun to kind of go through.
It's just again, this all goes to that feeling of I, I'm, I'm willing to buy in and really buy in with this team because it you're just seeing a lot of things that I've just not seen before out of Indiana team and so much success and then so much kind of confidence, like just so much quiet confidence and you know, not over, over extension by the staff, but it feels like
there's something I don't know. I, I almost want to redo and look and like see if I can get us to nine wins because it does feel like now is the point where I could do a slight course correction, basically moving to the goal posts, which is what I was bitching about earlier. So maybe I shouldn't, Maybe we shouldn't do that. Well, The thing is, you know, ultimately, I, I, we actually, Zach Ostman and I were talking about this earlier this week on the Indy Star podcast.
And it's like both of us independently felt like we pulled a punch in picking the win total in that it felt like if things went right for Indiana, nine wins was more in line than perhaps the 8. And you know, the 8 was, well, surely they're going to lose one of these in some way. And they still might. And that's the thing. It's like, look, there's a scenario where Indiana isn't ready to play against Maryland and loses that game.
And, you know, there's a scenario where Indiana, where Nebraska, you know, rides a, a, an awesome Dylan Rola performance and, and gets a good defensive performance and, and they beat us on homecoming. There's certainly a, you know. We lose those games back-to-back. Yeah, You know, everybody's been like looking at Michigan and being like, oh, that Michigan game looks suddenly really winnable. And it's like, well, the flip side is Michigan's defense is still awesome even if their
offense is not. And who knows how Indiana's offense is going to stand up or how their offensive line's going to protect Curtis Rourke. You know, I mean, and you look at the difference between Curtis Rourke and Tavin Jackson and just the the boys and it's like you're one injury away, which is why, you know, I've been hesitant to to dream bigger. I guess not because I don't think Indiana, if everything goes right, couldn't win 910 games, maybe even 11 games.
It's more that a, it's very difficult for everything to go right in a season. And you know, we talked about that with the 2020 season and how special that was. And it's like, wow, everything went right that this season almost except for Pennex getting injured. You just don't get that that often. And that's not just an Indiana thing. Like that's just in general, like small thing goes wrong with
football teams as you go along. And so that's why I'm not, you know, Indiana's four and O right now. And the fact that Indiana's four and O right now means that they are only, you know, two wins from being bowl eligible, which is nuts, Which is we talked about that, you know, at the beginning of the season. And it was like if you could get Bo eligible, then you're kind of just playing with house money
the rest of the way. And it just feels to me like expecting that to happen without a hitch, which it kind of has. It's gone off without a hitch and then expecting IU to continue to play better and better every week.
It's certainly possible. And I think Kurt Signetti and his staff are figuring out or, or maybe already know, like here's how we condition this team to think about a bigger level of accomplishment than they think that they're capable of 'cause we kind of saw that with James Madison last year, you know, and, and the way that that, you know, they were in a very short period of time able to take that James Madison program and make them believe that they belonged in the
national conversation. The, you know, the foundation has been built really nicely and and clearly what they did in the offseason laid that foundation for this team, playing within themselves, playing with confidence, achieving.
Where I just get really interested is, you know, how do you manage that transition from getting your team to believe in what it's doing to that next level where you go in expecting to win games, not taking them for granted, but feeling like you can play with anybody, which is such a huge part of what you have to do as a football team and and what you have to do as a coach. That's where, yeah, they could win 9 games, 10 games, but I also just don't know quite where
they're at mentally. What do they do in that first game against the team that really is throwing punches back at them? How do they manage all of that? Do they maintain the poise? What I've seen so far feels like they'll be able to, but I don't want to take it for granted. And at this point it's like, I'd hate to get myself, you know, mentally thinking along the lines of, oh, of course we're going to win these games and then be disappointed.
I feel like there's a bunch of people in the IE fan base or or skeptics the the doubting Thomases of the IU fanbase who the line has been. Well, gosh, you know, they've just beaten bad competition up to this point and I'm waiting for, you know, Indiana to get good to get ranked. They maybe lose a game and people are like, we'll see. We we told you they weren't actually that good. And it's like you must be a great person to have around at
parties. You know, this is this is the biggest straw man argument I think we've had on Crimson cast historically, Scott But but you know, that's this is the kind of thing where it's like I don't want. To they'll get to like, you know, you're, you're right, like they could, they could end the season like 7 and five and be like, oh, this team was supposed to go 11 and one, like what'd you guys do? It's like, no, like this season.
I think that is possible and that's exciting to talk about, but hard stop after where we've been this season. If you can make a bowl, that's a success, like just it is. And if you can get to six wins, no matter when it happens, even if you get to five and then you got to beat Purdue to get to 6 and it takes that long. If you get to six wins and this team goes to a bowl, that's a great season.
And but I'm I'm with you, you, you, you do feel like we could get to like 5 and O, 6 and O. And then if we, you know, lose 4-5 in a row to be like, oh, but what happened to this team? You know you guys are going to win the Big 10 Now you're not. It's like this is still a process of building a program. It's exciting to think about because it it feels like it actually is there and it's kind of possible to get there.
But it doesn't change the fact that this team's goal this year is really just to make a bowl, and it feels like that is unbelievably attainable right now. Yeah, I mean, it is it is the the proof of concept for what Signetti and his staff are building. It's the thing that you're able to put in front of recruits and ultimately it's the thing you put in front of fans and you get fans excited. If the argument is what we, and I've I heard this from several people about the attendance
thing. It's like, well, you know, we just, we, we don't come because, you know, we've been told that these teams are good before and then they haven't been good. And I was like, that's your reason for not coming to the Charlotte game where Indiana was liable to win by 30 points and did. So look, there's I think there's always going to be that moving of the goal posts. And it's why I'm I still feel good about the eighth win
projection. It was above what the projections were statistically the as Rick Bozich points out on Twitter today, Indiana's projected win total is now 9.4. And so look again, eight wins is right in that range. That would be an awesome target. I don't feel like revising. I think we, I would, I would say that us and Osterman, the people that pick that many wins, you know, it was always the best case scenario in terms of the team had to come together.
We were taking it on faith. But everything that we saw coming in, it felt like this was the kind of team that we might see. I have just been so impressed with how consistently good they've been in so many different areas. It's really gonna be fascinating to watch moving forward. Yeah, just look to the weather. Unfortunately it's gonna be like slight showers on Saturday, like 7857 at night. It's gonna be pretty, but it's like a 50% chance of like some showers.
So hopefully that that blows over just but but just bring a poncho and let's let's go have some fun. That's right. I I think it'll be fine. And never trust weather more than two days in advance. Is is kind of the, that's the way we're open to Yeah. Anyway, any final thoughts before we wrap up, Scott?
No, I mean we're we're now getting into the meat of the schedule and and now is the point where I think a lot of these straw man arguments will will fade away and I just all I say is after four games, I'm just really impressed with what I've seen and it's it's really nice to have signetti at the helm and this team has really taken on his personality in a very good way where it just feels very Workman like getting things done. Next man up.
All the pieces are interchangeable and it for the first time in a while, feels like we have a program. And I don't mean that bad. We've had good seasons and, you know, really high highs. But that always felt like it was predicated on, like I said earlier, kind of individual success that was very much focused on those people doing
well. This really feels like this is a a program shift in a real program where it's like, all right, we're playing Indiana. I don't know who the wide receivers are, but I do. But like, I don't know who wide receivers are. I don't know who the running backs are, but like, I know what they're going to do. And that's very much like how I feel about like Wisconsin and Iowa. You know, we play them year in,
year out. It's like, I don't really know who the next players are in Iowa, but I know I was not going to be running a West Coast offense with five out. Like I know what Iowa's going to run. They know what they're going to run. And it's going to be just a lot of people who are going to come in and out doing exactly what Iowa wants to do. And it's just like, it's so cool to see that here at Indiana. And I think that's something that's really, really special so far. It does.
And that's the thing. Like it feels sustainable in a way that and and it's weird to say and it's it probably is a little hyperbolic because it's only four games. What you see in the four games you're like, this feels sustainable. And we know that the talent level on this team is not that you don't have the recruits that most of the teams in the Big 10 have, but this particular approach feels really sustainable.
And I think it's like you said, there's a there's a programmatic feel to what has been established already. And just even the way the team is carrying itself, the way the coaches talk about it, the way the players talk about it, it just feels so different. And you know, look, and, and again, this is, it's an interesting contrast to the previous coaches where like Tom Allen, the program was really about him. I mean, you get right down to it. The whole thing, the Leo thing,
that was him. That wasn't really an that wasn't an organic thing. That was something he. Imposed and that sound, that word sounds terrible, but it's it's really meant like it was his way of trying to create a culture. Yeah. Even the breakthrough stuff in the early stages, you know, it was about it it it was really a a slogan as opposed to being like an endemic part of how we played football.
Kevin Wilson. You never felt that, like you knew that there was a good offensive scheme somewhere, but it was always struggling with execution it felt like. Somewhere in there I see it, yeah. And, you know, and the times it would emerge, you'd be like, oh, that's what this is supposed to look like. And it really. Under individual talent at running back. Yeah. You know, Bill Lynch didn't really have a program identity. Jerry Denardo didn't really have a program identity.
Hefner's program identity was like, well, you know, I want you to be part of the IU football program. It was. It was it was not dissimilar to what Tom Allen tried to do. And you know, Cam Cameron, there was not really an identity there. I mean, you really, again, you go back to Mallory where they had a program identity and it felt like that was a sustainable thing. And it was for several years.
That's the kind of thing I feel right now as we've watched these first four games under the signet era. And it's, that is probably the hardest thing to get my head wrapped around is like, as you said, you know, whether it's in Iowa or Virginia Tech or, you know, some of these programs that have had clearly defined like here's what we do sort of approaches. It just it's been so long since
Indiana had that. And we'll, again, we'll see how it goes against better competition and in the conference and how it stacks up. But it does feel like Indiana's hit upon something here that could be really special moving forward. I'm really fascinated to see how
it blossoms well. And and also, I mean, the last thing I'll say is, you know, we've showered Signeti with a lot of praise, but one of the graphics they showed in the game yesterday was, you know, winning percentage by coaches with at least five seasons. And it's like killing de Boer's up there like 900%. And what's funny is we just all assume, oh, yeah, of course he's good. Like, he went to, you know, Fresno State and just had one. Like, that's what good coaches do.
It's like, well, I mean, sorry, Signetti is like 2 percentage points behind Stabo Sweeney. And like, it's like, you know, Kirby Smart and like, it's like a list of like 7 people and Signetti is right up there like winning percentage of like 773 or something. And you know, if, if, if we weren't Indiana fans with all the baggage and everything we had, if this was just another, this was just Northwestern or Iowa State, you'd be like, Oh yeah, they hired a good coach.
Like the course, they're going to be good. Like he'll turn around quickly. And so we saw with the bore in other places, you know, I, I think that you just have to also take into consideration the Sidney is just a really good coach. He is and we have him, he's on our staff and he's doing it with our team. But this we're probably not going to win all the rest of our games. We're probably not going to go 11:00 and 1:00 or 10:00 and 2:00.
But that doesn't mean this is smoke and mirrors, right? That like something is being built here. And no question, you know, I'm very confident being right now. Like I, I think if we don't make a bowl at this point, it would be very disappointing. I don't think that's going to happen. And even if we're not going to hit the rarefied air, it's like if we get to 678 wins, it's a great season. But it's like you are seeing
something happen here. Insignetti is a really good coach and everything, the numbers and the play and everything backs it up. So that that's the thing that I would tell fans who are a little bit hesitant is it's not going to be a straight line to success, but it does feel like we are on the right path because Signetti has done nothing thus far that that tells you he doesn't know what he's doing.
Well, and the last thing I'll say on that and then we'll wrap up is that this looks like a really fun place to play football. Yeah, you're right. This has been a fun team to watch. You know recruits, you know and and. And something you said earlier about how like how much Alan had built the Leo thing, like this is a like kind of saying this is a fun place to play. And it didn't, it didn't look
like it from the outside. And now you have this different kind of more stern approach and kind of like, hey, we're taking this seriously and we're going to coach you hard. And as to your point, it now looks like it's a fun place to play. You don't need to tell people it is sorry. No, but that's my point is like the the IT being a fun looking like a fun place to play.
It's not just recruits because I think recruiting, well, it's still very important is not nearly as important as it used to be because of the transfer portal. And you look at you look at what Kurt Signetti was able to do. He brought a bunch of guys in who have so far really executed well at this level. What is that looking like when you get to the next stage when players are looking for a place
to go? If you've got the NIL money, which Indiana appears to have now, now it's not a matter of I need to talk these players into coming and being part of this thing that isn't working yet, but we think will work if we get the right players. Now it turns into people want to come play for you. Yeah, get on the train before we're gone. Right, Because it's already
working. And it's like now you've got competition, four people coming to IU, you're not having to take the scraps and hope that they fit together. And so it's what's gonna make this middle part of the season. These you I, I keep saying the next four games, you I think have more accurately classified it as the next five games 'cause this five game stretch in the conference.
If you, if Indiana could come out of that having won four of those games, yeah, that would be an an insane accomplishment. Even if they only come out winning three, they will already have won seven games in the OR in the in the season at that point if they go three and two over these next 5.
And I think we can sit here and look at the FBI numbers and say it would be disappointing if they only won three out of the the next 5. But on the flip side, A7 win season, as we have talked about many times is not a normal occurrence in the history of IU football. Like period. It's very similar to you. It's very similar to the five and O start thing, which is essentially a non existent thing in IU history. Well, we're breaking this up into A5 game stretch.
Like everything we're adding. I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves, but it's like any number, you know, you said, you know, with win 3 or 4, which gets us to eight wins. Like you can always tack on the next one because we still have Purdue in the bag And it doesn't look like, you know, again, the bucket game things always crazy, But we we look like a better team than Purdue, no question. So I, you know, can't guarantee wins that game's Memorial Stadium.
So it's like after this five game stretch, if we're seven wins or eight wins, it's almost like you can kind of put in pencil a + 1 at the end of that. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. You know, you, you bring up a really good point about the Purdue game and it's like you go if if you went, if you went through two and three over the next 5, that would, you've still got that game at the end where statistically you're just very
much better. So, yeah, I, I'm just really fascinated to see how Indiana against more or less equal competition from a talent perspective fairs here. And I, I am really curious what else Indiana's got in the bag that they haven't showed. So we'll see what happens as we move forward with things. But Scott, this was a lot of fun. Love talking game, love talking. If Indiana wins, let's let's keep this going as long as we
possibly can. So I feel like we're we're leaving some meat on the bone here with with Coach Biff, like there there's a there's some kind of. AI chat we could do, but we'll, we'll, we'll think about that. We'll save that for next week. I, I, I feel good about let's keep the focus on Indiana 'cause that's where it should be. So that's how Coach Biff, that's right.
Anyway, thank you, Scott. Thank you folks for listening in. Be sure to sign up for the Substack crimsoncast.substack.com and we'll be back later on this week. We'll have more programming around IU football as the Hoosiers get ready to host the Maryland Terrapins Parents Weekend here in Bloomington for the Back Home Network and for our presenting sponsor, Home Field Apparel. I'm GAIL and Clavio catching you folks. We'll catch you folks. On the flip side.
Bring back the Bison song, everybody and goodbye YouTube.