You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cast, Dale and Clavio joining you. It is Wednesday the 25th of September or last Wednesday of September 2024. I'm not gonna be sad from a a life perspective that September's ending, but it's been a great month for IU football so far and that's what we're here to talk about. Today we got Taylor Lehman back from bite sized bison. Great to see you, Taylor, how are you doing?
I'm good Galen. I'm I'm a Tigers fan so like nothing can touch me right now. I'm Brian like I am on cloud 9. I have never been this dialed into baseball in September and like since in my adult life, I am ready. I mean, back, back from the dead. I it's really remarkable stuff. Good for them, good for you guys. I love it. It's we'll we'll see what happens in the play offs. These runs tend to carry, which you know, you keep your fingers crossed, obviously, but but good.
That's it's tough. I I'm a Reds fan. So you know, baseball was over in June like it always is. So yeah, anyway, we're going to talk IU football and looking forward to doing so. We got some questions from you folks out there. We're going to preview the Maryland game as well. Before we get to all that, just couple quick reminders. We are brought to you by Home Field Apparel, your place to go for the finest in college fashions, the softest fabrics, the coolest designs.
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network. I mentioned the sub stack. We are on sub stack here. crimsoncast.substack.com is ours. What's yours, Taylor? Mine is bite size bison.substack.com. That's right and. I was not ready for that cute. I normally I know I have Taylor, it reads, But that's what I'm here. I'm trying to mess things up a
little bit for him. But if you were on, if you were on bite sized Bison you, which you should be, you would be able to access great things like Taylor's game day roundup from the Charlotte game earlier on this week. The, the, the recap of that game, the preview of the game coming up versus the Maryland Terrapins and just all kinds of delightful statistical stuff with either. Actually, if you, if you subscribe to 1, you really should subscribe to the other one.
You know, on Crimson Cast, there's a free subscription where you can get all of our episodes delivered to your inbox for free. We also have a paid option, which is I think a pretty good value helps to support the podcast, $5.00 a month, $50 a year. You can also subscribe to bite sized Bison, which I highly recommend doing. It's the place to go to find out information statistically about IU football that you're just not
getting anywhere else. And that one you can find if you go to the Crimson cast sub stack and vice versa. The number of people that subscribe to bite size bison and then get referred to Crimson cast. It's it's really, it's like it's great. It's like we are like a Venn diagram and I love it when people get in the middle of our circles. It's delightful. Yeah, yeah, no, I, I looked at the IT actually shows us that information and and I I've
looked at it a couple of times. I'm like, oh wow, yeah, alright. I like this. Anybody who's listening to Crimson Casts, of course, is welcome over at By size Bias, and I'm assuming vice versa. It's basically like I, I always think of it like we have two tree houses and they're in trees right next to each other and, and if you get LED into one, you get LED into the other. And I'm excited that we've got people playing in both tree houses simultaneously.
So head over to subset drop A. Board between them or something? Yeah. Occasionally like a rope swing or something like that. You know, we got, we got a lot of options between the tree houses. Also, just one last one last read for you to start with, we are brought to you by Hoosier Game day Lager, official craft beer of Indiana athletics and my favorite go to on game days the the, the delightful candy stripe can. You can find it all over the stadium.
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Who's your game day lager from Oakland Brewing Company, the official craft beer of IU Athletics. All right, Taylor, let's talk IU Maryland. And I guess maybe let's start by finishing off the conversation on the Charlotte game. I think most people have read at least some aspect of your analysis on this. But as you've looked through all the stats and you've reflected on the game and some of the performances, I guess what stuck out to you the most for Indiana in that game?
Yeah, yeah. The first thing that comes to mind, simply because it's going to be in the preview tomorrow and in the Maryland preview, is the way that they handled the middle 8 minutes. I know that's kind of been an emphasis of cursive Nettie. And honestly, as they were approaching the middle 8, that's about the time when Charlotte had, you know, pulled up in three.
It was 17 to 14. And I know a lot of folks, including myself, are like, OK, this is this is where like IU football historically shows that, you know, it's going to struggle with one of these non confidence opponents. And this is this is where everything kind of comes back down to earth. But then the middle 8 happened. They they got the ball. It was about the five minute mark until until halftime and and they scored about two minutes later, they scored a touchdown.
They got they actually got the ball back and then they scored again before halftime and and then they got the ball to start the third quarter. They scored a touchdown again. So in within those middle 8 minutes they scored 21 points. It was 38 to 14 by the end of those 8 minutes. And so that that is what the middle 8 can do when you when you use it appropriately, when it works out in your favor. Not all of it is always in the coach's hands.
A lot of it is due to chance. But, you know, he took advantage of that situation. And then knowing that they can get the ball to start the third quarter also help them kind of increase some of the risk that they that they took on offense. But yeah, that was the biggest thing that stood out to me just
off the top of my head. Yeah, it's it's one of those things that, you know, I'm not a lot of people have not been that familiar with the middle 8, those last four minutes in the first half, first 4 minutes in the second-half. I mean it. But we've talked about it on the other side. I mean, it was a concern in the UCLA game given that, you know, UCLA scored those seven points
at the end of the first half. I don't think they scored the field goal in the 1st 4 minutes of the second-half, but you know, where they were driving the ball. But you know, there is this like statistically demonstrated trend that occurs at at the pro level and at the college level, both about that being key. And it's largely because of that, that possession exchange and this idea that, you know, if you're if you're able to finish off the first half strong and
then you get that second-half. I mean, you can score several points without the other team really being able to respond. And that can really turn the tide of the game. And it completely changes the way that you call plays or the type of personnel sets you're running and things like that. So yeah, that was definitely a positive. Yeah, I, I would say I've had a little bit of time to reflect. I also podcasted about the game a little bit yesterday.
You know, the the one other thing I'll note, and you and I talked about it a little bit over text.
It's just like I've been really impressed, I think, with how much more flexible the run and blocking seems to be for this IU team, how well they're able to use a variety of different people, not just lineman, but also tight ends and, and receivers and how many options there seem to be for running the ball, including Curtis Rourke, who, you know, when he went back and you, you watched the broadcast, one of the early you can always, I was talking about this on Bison chant last night.
One of the things you can tell is what the coaches want to emphasize to the broadcasters, cause the broadcasters always blurt that out in the 1st 5 minutes of the game. And they were talking like, you know, they're really telling Curtis Rourke he needs to run more, you know, because there's like openings there. They're like, you know, 810 yards and and sure enough, he did a bunch of that. It'll be interesting in this upcoming game.
And, you know, this is not to not to spoil your preview at all, but, you know, given what the Maryland defense, in particular their defensive line looks like they are best able to do. There may be even more opportunities for not just Curtis Rourke to to move the chains with his legs, but it feels like the running game in general for IU could be a real handful for that Maryland defense to deal with and and something they really haven't
faced so far this season. Yeah, yeah, it's it's really interesting actually, Galen, cause the the more that I dig into to this this Maryland team, the more I kind of realized the the only real weapon they have is their pass rush. Even the even the even the defensive line doesn't necessarily work in run defense, but they are they have two top ten in the Big 10 anyway, two top 10 edge rushers.
And so if, if, if the offensive line holds off that pass rush, the the pass game could certainly get going. But yeah, like you were saying, the the rushing attack, there are going to be opportunities there that statistically seems haven't necessarily broken anything wide open against against Maryland on the ground. But the success rate, the consistent meeting of expectation in certain running scenarios that is happening for Maryland's opponents.
So the run game seems like it will be there. It seems like Maryland really sells out for the pass rush. And you know, and, and, and if you don't back that up fundamentally kind of like the way IU does from their defensive line standpoint, then you can really find yourself in a in a predicament, especially if you're giving up the yardage on the ground. Yeah, it's, it's going to be
fascinating to watch. And, you know, as we kind of dive into this, this Maryland game overall, you know, the, the, the thing that strikes me, I guess is Maryland, they're not a bad team. I mean, you know, they, they clearly have talent and they they clearly have, I think, a pretty good idea of what they want to be as a team within the confines of what their personnel are.
But, you know, I don't think you, you can't look at Maryland without, you know, looking at that game that they lost at home versus Michigan State, a team that I think there's still quite a few question marks about and say, well, that that really looks like a problem that they haven't quite solved yet. You know, what what occurred in that game and why they lost it.
And you know, when you look at their their team overall, you know, it feels to some degree like they feasted a little bit offensively on some poor competition, but they haven't played defense nearly as well as Indiana has had against roughly similar competition. You know, and this is where it's tough because I think everybody's been waiting for some kind of other shoe to drop with IU in terms of, well, the competition is going to get tougher.
It may get tougher in this game. But I, I can't help but look at Maryland and say, well, this is an average Big 10 team. Like, they're not, they're not. They're certainly not in the upper echelon. They may not even be in the second echelon. And the question is like, where do they actually fall in terms of the rank order of Big 10
teams? And you know, at this point, even given the lack of competition for both, like you, you can't just pat Maryland on the back and say, well, you went to a bowl last year and Indiana didn't. So we're going to consider you better, which is what a lot of people seem to be doing. If you're just looking at the numbers between these two teams, Indiana does look like the
better team on paper. Yeah, yeah, Marilyn feels like a a high floor, low ceiling type of team, like you were saying, kind of like an average Big 10 team. The the, the Billy Edwards has surprised me with how well that he has played so far. But yeah, they have some, they have some weapons and but I don't, I don't think it's his.
I don't think the talent is as widespread on the roster as as we've seen from from the team like Indiana or or at least the systems don't exploit their talent as much as Indiana's do. But yeah, when you when you look at the you know, the way that they've been graded from PFF, especially on the defensive side, it hasn't been that hasn't been impressive, especially in
the secondary. But then when you know, when you think about offensive line, that's that's that's the first thing that I always look at with Big 10 teams, especially is the offensive line. And their offensive line is just really unserious. Galen, I think I text you about that. It's like they they have a their left guard is one of their highest graded offensive lineman so far this season. And he moved over from the defensive line after three seasons on the defensive line.
And then they have, you know, three other guys that have transferred in this offseason to, to build up that offensive line and the only one who's signed and then developed as an offensive lineman as their left tackle. And he's been one of the worst tackles in the in FBS. So this this offensive line is terrible. And you know what? And when you're playing a team like Indiana, that is where you have to be good because Indiana puts so much emphasis on the defensive line.
So, you know, I, I think in the Big 10, unless you have a really well schemed passing attack, kind of like Indiana in 2019 with, with Caitlin de Boer, you really can only go as far as your offensive line can take you. And, and I don't think that's going to take Maryland very far. Yeah. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean Indiana's going to walk in the game.
I mean, I think it's it's a game where if they're not dialed in and if they're not taking Maryland seriously, I think they could, you know, Maryland could win the game. Indiana could have real problems. I did. There was a question from one of our listeners that I wanted to jump back. That was from Derek Fields, who is always a good contributor of questions to the podcast. We always appreciate Derek.
But he asked was Signetti is extra focused on this Maryland game and his presser as it seemed from his comments on last year's game that is coming out and saying you'd be surprised if the Hoosiers weren't ready to play for this one. Should we see a Chris Hoosiers performance? I mean, we even heard this a little bit earlier in the week where he, you know, kind of went out of his way to mention that he watched a lot of Maryland tape in the offseason.
It kind of does feel like there's a bit of a circle around this game for Kurt Signetti because I think he I think he takes Maryland seriously and I think he looks as at this as really being a barometer for where his team is at as they get into this middle portion of the schedule. Yeah, and I, I think he's right. You know, I think Galen, I think you and I had that game marked when we talked pre season about about this is kind of like their prove it game.
This is when we figure out how how good this team is, especially given the circumstances. It's a little more regular now instead of going out to LA to play UCLA. So yeah, I I think, you know, I think it's fair to to assess it that way. But also the sharpness with which Signeti is kind of talking this week, I've also noticed is a little a little different than what it has been in the past. And I also think part of it, too, is just wanted to create more positive momentum going
into a Big 10 schedule. So, yeah. And I also think, you know, on the other hand, too, it's it's it's more than just Signetti. It's when he's saying that he would be surprised if his players weren't prepared to to play this game a lot. I mean, the best football teams have player driven culture and so and they say they usually take on the the personality of their head coach. Jim Harbaugh was really good at that at Michigan, even though it
all seemed kind of delusional. It was it was it was all planned. And you know, they're doing the weird tribute to him when he gets when he got suspended or whatever. But that is that's a sign of just like a good locker room that and there's a reason why they want to win the championship. So, you know, I think I think you know what he's saying there is that the leaders in this locker room are are also leading the culture and they also like the players.
The players aren't only listening to the coach. They have their own thoughts too. And they understand that and they see these things. They see that Maryland is kind of what we're talking about, like the barometer and and they they won't make that point too. So I think that all kind of runs together I guess. I mean, last year, you know, you could make the argument that it was the Maryland game that that really kind of drove the nail in the coffin of the season for IUI.
Mean, you know, that the the Akron game was bad and Indiana won that one, and then they had to travel to Maryland. They lose 44 to 17 in that game and and really from there it was just like everything unraveled and, you know, the previous year they lose to Maryland at home 38 to 33. You know, that was that looked like maybe the last that game and the Rutgers game, the following.
Like it's like you if they if they'd won those two games, they would have gone to a bowl if everything else had stayed pat. But they didn't, you know. And and then of course, Maryland also beat them 3835 the previous year.
You know, so this is 3 game, three days, three years in a row Maryland has beaten Indiana. And look, I mean, you know, Tiger Valloa is the quarterback And you know, I think a good influx of talent from Mike Loxley combined with Indiana going downhill, it just to me, it feels like internally maybe this game is very important because, you know, the UCLA game was important in as much as that was a big game on the road against the Big 10 opponent. You get off to A1 and O start in
the conference. But this is like, OK, we didn't know UCLA. We know Maryland. We owe Maryland after this past three seasons. And I'm sure for Signetti, he kind of looks at it and he's, and even the, the part about Billy Edwards, I think it was, you know, being a quarterback they had recruited at, I don't know if it was Elon or JMU. And and now, I mean, again, I think as a coach, it's like, well, that we didn't, we didn't
work with that guy. I want to be able to, to demonstrate that we've got the superior quarterback. There's a lot of little things like that that sometimes can factor into these and and granted, it's all under the larger confines of we got to go win the game. But if there's extra motivation to not just win it, but demonstrate like we are the superior program now, certainly I understand some of the comments a little bit better. We also could be reading completely too much into it,
Taylor, I don't know. It also could be a DMV thing, you know, coming from coming from JMU and it also, it also could be that as well. I think, yeah, I think there's a lot of intersections of things, intersections of interest here for for cursing Nettie. But yeah, like like you and Scott had said on on your last episode.
This was always kind of the game where it was like, you know, one or the other was going to was going to was was going to have room in the Big 10 E. And and so there's there's like a weird kind of short history here between these two programs. And yeah, I think, I think Indiana and Indiana fans really want this one. Let's get to some other questions that we got from the folks out in Cyberland. So this is an interesting one from from Matt.
What stats or or statistical figure do you think is the biggest fool's gold thus far due to IU football's competition level? Like is there something where they look really good statistically that you're like that may not be that may be statistical noise or that may just be an artifact of playing teams that aren't very good. Is there anything that sticks out to you like that?
Yeah, yeah. The, the PFF grades, the, the, the overall PF grade, PFF grades, I think the, the individual player PFF grades can, can, can be indicative of performance, but those are not opponent adjusted. And so you know, when, when you're looking at these statistical previews that I put together, I always, I always go through and like, oh, wow, you know, PFF overall, they have Indiana as the third best team in the country.
It's like, OK, well, that it, it's, it's just execution and the, the way that they grade them, those are just a collection of grades. And in a micro sense that they tried to then create a, a macro sense of the grades. And it, it's basically, how did you execute what you wanted to do against the opponents you had? It's not opponent adjusted. So I think those, I think the, the those PF grades are are kind of some fool's gold, but there
are others too. I mean, I mean, really at this point, anything that's not opponent adjusted right now is, is, is pretty tough. Like like Indiana has the the top offensive EPA per play and then the country and you know, they have a great offense and they've been fantastic offensively, but I don't know if I would be ready to say that they are the best offense in the country right now. So you know, opponent adjustments really important
really on in the season. So I I think that's kind of that that's, that's that's the way that I kind of approach it. It's more of like a profile of what the team is versus how good they are. So OK. I want, I want to stay on that for a second. Ryan Kotter had a question. A lot of efficiency numbers I've seen are adjusted for opponent. How much can we actually read into those given the relatively weak schedule? And how well does adjusting for an opponent actually work?
So maybe tackle that first, like, you know, how does that work? And then I want to come back to something. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I actually, I, I read a really good article a while back about the how, how you build a statistical model to account for opponent. And basically it just uses multivariate regression and statistical concepts that are like, it's not necessarily about weak opponents.
It's, it's more, it's somewhat of like the transitive property, but how, how did you perform against them versus their averages against their other opponents? You know, so it, the, the example the article used was like if, if you allowed nine yards per carry to your opponent, that seems really bad. But then when you look at all the other games, they averaged 10 yards per carry, it's like, OK, well, we, we did OK because it was only 9.
So, you know, once you consider those residuals, then you can kind of get it kind of boosts your, your whatever metric you're using. So I think, you know, 4 weeks into a season, I think it's pretty good for opponent adjustment. And, and you can see it that the very first one that comes to mind is FIU, like Indiana, Indiana, you know, deconstructed FIU and then FIU immediately came out and, and destroyed Central Michigan.
And they, they've, you know, they've impressed some folks, but I don't think it as much as much as that that week two game. But but when you consider the way that their opponents have played against their other their other teams then and then how well Indiana performed against them, I think it they're, they're pretty accurate. And also like I saw recently that opponent adjusted EPA for play. Indiana's ranked 7th in the country right now.
And so you see those and you're like, there's no way that can be true. But it's mostly just in in comparison of how their opponents played against their the rest of their schedule. Yeah, I mean, we talk about this a lot on the basketball front too. And it's it's a, it's a tough concept because we're not used to thinking about the idea that it's how you perform against what the computer thinks the other team should do in an
average game. That's essentially what you're talking about with the opponent adjustment. And it, you know, it's, is it a perfect system? No, because you've got a bunch of factors like what if you're not playing an average game? What if you play a great game?
And you know, now, I mean, even if like there's, there's technically ways that you can factor that in, but a lot of it ends up coming back to it's a way to try to establish over an entire statistical body of, of games, which is, you know, thousands of games in a, a college football season 10, you know, almost well, probably maybe 10s of thousands of games in the college basketball season. I mean, there's a lot of games that you're dealing with.
And so much of it comes down to this system does more often than not, by about the midway point of the season, draw a fairly accurate picture of what each statistical area is doing relative to the expectations of the other teams and their statistical areas. That is a little too squishy for a lot of people who wouldn't just a straightforward, well, this team's better than that team. But I think there's the nuance there. But it it leads to some interesting things.
You know, it's like you mentioned, yeah, Indiana's number one in the country in EPA per play, which feels like perhaps fool's gold. But they're number one in success in pass, which I find I think more fascinating like because that there's a whole bunch of other factors there besides just how good or bad your opponent is.
And for Indiana to be #1 in that after four weeks, for them to be #1 in points per drive, for them to be, you know, like they're, you know, and, and, and on the defensive side, Indiana's ninth in points per drive. I mean, even against bad competition, there are teams that are not doing what Indiana's doing statistically on either side of the ball, which was something that we tried to emphasize over the weekend. Now, does that hold up as the competition gets harder?
Maybe, maybe not. But that doesn't mean that the performance they've turned in so far hasn't been really good. It might just mean there's other factors that keep it from continuing that way that doesn't like erase what already occurred. And if there are alterations based on Indiana and outperforming as well, those will show up in the statistical analysis, but they won't completely erase what happened earlier, if that makes any
sense. Yeah, it's it's very like very much the way that people think of the SP plus model too is, is it pulls from the last, as you're closer to the, to the beginning of this season, it pulls from the last season to create some sort of weighted, some sort of weight for each, for each team. So when when the team does really well against them, they have a weight to apply to, to that metric. And so it, it takes a while to
respond. It also takes a while, like you were saying, Galen to, to get a full idea of how good each team is, how much you should weight them and things like that. So, so yeah, it's, it's not, it's not perfect. It's, it's more perfect than than stats out of context. And like you were saying, success rates are, are a great way to kind of measure a team in terms of consistency. And, and we've seen plenty of passing success consistently from from IU this season. So that would make a lot of
sense. But yeah, I think it's, it's a really good question. It's also one of those things where Indiana has been so impressive, especially offensively throughout these first four games, they they can't keep this trajectory up. So we're gonna see some, we're gonna see some downward trend at some point of, of this, of this offense and even the defense, I'm sure. And that doesn't necessarily mean it's getting worse. It just means that, you know, the competition is just, you
know, increasing. Question from Jamie Jordan, Do you have an unsung hero on both sides of the ball so far? Yeah, yeah, I have. So I Josh Sanguinetti is is 1 and. A decade. Is he allowed to be on the sun? I know. I know, yeah, yeah. Actually, it's really funny because I'm going to name two people who have been on the team
forever. And then so Josh Sanguinetti on the defensive side, he's graded as the second best safety in the Big 10 right now by PFFI think part of it is that he's just hasn't really like needed to be used that often because the the defensive line has been so effective and the linebackers are out there too. But when he has gotten his opportunities, he he's played well. So which which has been impressive to me because I've never been really high on Josh Sanguinetti.
So it's been nice to see that. But then on the offensive side, Mike Kadic at at center, I think, you know, the way that that offensive line unit has come together has had a lot to do with Mike Kadic. He's graded as a top five center
in the Big 10 right now. And you know, I I can't say that I was necessarily anticipating that when even when he came back, you know, I I was, I was happy to see that he came back because they needed some experience on this offensive line and especially the Big 10 level. And for him to come back and, and, and be the anchor the way that he has been and play as well as he has.
But I think that's huge for this, especially for just the offense and Curtis Roar. Yeah, I think, I think those two are probably the for me. Jeremy Hood asks the following looking at the snap counts on bite sized Bison for our defense against Charlotte, the starters in the secondary and linebacker positions played 76 percent or more of the snaps, which makes me nervous how these guys will hold up.
Basically asking if you guys have any concern on the depth of the defense, particularly in the secondary and linebacker positions as we move forward. I'll I'll let you handle this one. Not as much linebacker, but definitely secondary. This is definitely something
that I'm concerned about this. This is probably my biggest concern for the team is, is how the, the contrast between the number of players who play in, in the more competitive games like in like in UCLA and, and also for some reason, and against Charlotte too, like that they didn't get a ton of rotation. And, and yeah, I, I think it's
concerning. I think, you know, at corner, I think they're actually a little bit better than I thought they would be. Jamari Sharp was pretty impressive against Charlotte, but I don't know about safety. So we haven't seen a ton of the guys behind them.
And, and so, yeah, that is a concern and mostly just because of the the continued unknown variables with, with the defensive backfield, especially a safety that, you know, we talked about before the season started and since the starters have gotten so many snaps, we don't really know exactly what is behind them. So yeah, yeah, I'm, I am
concerned about that. Yeah, it's tough because like, on the one hand, I think the secondary almost had to be reestablished and you know, you, you had to get a pecking order out there. You had to get guys who knew what they were doing early on. I do wonder if, you know, especially in the next couple of games and the the for reasons we'll talk about in a minute, the Maryland game may not be that game, but definitely the Northwestern game.
You may have the opportunity to rotate a couple of of of you newer players and younger players and players that aren't playing as much. It would be nice to see. Now, I will say it seems like Indiana has largely gotten by so far through the first third of the season without any major injuries that I can think of. But it's actually been a remarkably injury free year, which is kind of an undersold
part of what we've seen. I mean, given the amount of injuries IU has suffered the last few years, like something must have really changed with their strength and conditioning program and the way that they were doing things. So Indiana has been lucky from that perspective. And obviously if you can keep your guys out there and healthy, that's the best way to handle this situation.
But I do wonder, like, do we start to see a little more rotation, a couple more snaps going to guys who who aren't in the starting line up simply as a matter of necessity given that you're still got multiple, you know, many games left to play in
the season, at least nine. Yeah, yeah, no, I and, and, you know, even along the defensive line too, I think, you know, defensive end is, is a, is a position that I don't think they're super deep in. And so, yeah, like you were saying, Galen, I mean, look at it's such a strange contrast between the offense and defense because the offense is just so deep at every position. I mean, except for the offensive
line. But but like when you look at the defense and it's like, OK, well, they're, they're they're pretty deep at defensive tackle and, and I think they're, they have some depth at linebacker, but, but you get outside of that and it's like, OK, that's a little shaky. But but yeah, I think I think you're right. I think we'll see exactly where that is at in in in the next couple of games. So we had a bunch. Of the secondary is that in general? Sorry. You know, I am.
I am too. Yeah. I mean, they've obviously they've got a great receiver they got to go up against. They've got a quarterback who's by far the most functional quarterback they'll have played so far. And I think you mentioned on one of your statistical breakdowns, this is the highest rated quarterback that Indiana we'll maybe like we'll certainly will face has faced so far. Yeah.
I mean, you know, it's it's just it'll be interesting to see how they handle a level of live competition in the passing game that they haven't had up to this point. With several questions that were something in the vein of what JD Klein writes. The forecast is getting wetter by the day with the remnants of Hurricane Helen moving into the region on Friday night. How does the rain impact the two teams? Who gets the advantage? Jordan Bailey asks. If it's wet, does it favor the
Hoosiers? Whoever, Stronger ground and pound game. We had another question about weather that popped up somewhere else in the feed. I can't find it right now, but a lot of weather questions and and a lot of questions about what it would look like if this was maybe not a repeat of Virginia from whatever that year that was 2018, but certainly a very wet game. Who does that favor in your in your opinion and why? I mean, I think it favors Indiana.
I think they're stronger in the trenches on both sides. The the defensive line's not the Maryland's defensive line's not super graded around defense. Indiana has the 7th best rushing success in the country that Justice Ellison is actually graded as the, he has the highest rushing grade of all Big 10 running backs. And, and you know, he's just one of four. And so I, I think when it comes to the, the running game, Indiana has the, the pretty
obvious favor. But I, I, I do think that Maryland can be sneaky on the ground. I, their offensive line is, is, you know, not good, but Roman Hemby is extremely talented. I mean, that guy almost ran for 1000 yards a couple of years ago. Like I, I have a hard time, you know, counting him out at all. And I don't think he's getting a lot of talk in this match because it's Ty Felton and and Billy Edwards. But Roman Hembi is a very talented runner.
So if it gets into a running match, I I could see it being a little more competitive than people think it might be. But also at the same time, you know, Gabe and I, I don't think the rain really affects the the game as much as people think it does. You still see a lot of a lot of rainy games turn into passing games. And so I think there might be more passing than people think there might be. I don't think you have to go all the way to washing. So this has been an interesting
thing. Now I'm gonna I'm gonna show the people who are watching on YouTube a couple of different things here. You know, we've we've tried to integrate some more graphics into what we do here on on Crimson cast. But let me start.
JD Gebby was nice enough to send us this this tweet which he which he started off with Boom. See everyone Saturday and you can see like first of all, it's got the remnants of Helen kind of stalling out and moving, taking a left turn at Nashville and then essentially hanging out in the Paducah area for a while with Bloomington kind of being outside of the primary cone. So that would be, that'd be fine. Like, you know, you wouldn't have a lot of of weather related
items there. But you know what I, what I do wonder not so much the rain, 'cause I agree with you, I think sometimes the rain is overrated in terms of what it does. There's a lot of throwing that does happen in the rain. The accent, that's gonna be harder to run in the rain because you must get much less footing and you got a better advantage as a receiver than you do as a running back because you're not cutting and, and the way that you are in a lot of
cases. But the wind I think is gonna be interesting 'cause if you look right now and, and this has changed every six hours, so this could change tomorrow. But if you look at the afternoon forecast on the 28th, when the game is wind gusts 613 miles an hour, that's actually gone down a little bit from what it was earlier where I think wind gusts were closer to 20 to 25 miles an hour. That can affect the passing game. So I think if it's just rain, I'm with you.
If it's rain and wind, all bets are off. But I do agree with you. I think that actually it, it favors Indiana for a variety of reasons. And you know, just just the, the basic fact that you're, you know, you, you're playing at home and you're used to running the ball and you've run the ball so effectively and you're used to scoring on the ground, whereas Maryland not quite as much. I think that those are some factors that go in Indiana's favor.
Yeah, yeah. And and, you know, Maryland's, Maryland's defense has been, you know, OK, against as against running attacks, I think I was saying earlier, but but they do allow a lot of success on the ground. And so you know what, yeah, I think just introducing elements into into the game, I don't think that's going to make
Maryland's defense any better. So, so I, I think, yeah, like if it, if it does turn into a, a windy like you're saying, Galen and which I didn't even think about was the wind, but the, the windy, rainy competition. I do think India has a has a favor there. Yeah, our our buddy Hooperazzi asks. I want to see how you football win, but a part of me wants to see this team face adversity. Is anyone else interested in seeing in this team if this team has moxie? I'm not.
You know, to me, the greatest amount of moxie is never letting anybody get close to you. Like that's that's moxie capital M I'll take that any day of the week. I I don't want a close win. I want Indiana to win by a couple of touchdowns against everybody that they play and.
I, you know, I, if we, if we get to the point where we're complaining because Indiana's games are not close enough, because they're too good for their competition, you know, sign me up for whatever reality we find ourselves in with that. That sounds ideal. Yeah, yeah, Galen, I think they will win by two scorers. I think, you know, we might we might get into that later, but I I think this, I think the I think, I think this, I don't, I don't think it's gonna be that.
I don't think it's gonna be that close. I, I, I just think this offense is just too good. And, and you know that I think the defense is going to I, I mean, honestly, I mean, if, if we want to talk about adversity, I think this defense is just generally facing adversity this week with Ty Felton and, and I think that's their like their first real adversity of the season. And, and so that's, that's really what I'm interested in is when Indiana's on the field defensively.
But I still, I, I, I think Indiana is going to take care of business. Let's let's explore that a little bit. Like, you know, if so, what is Indiana hanging their hat on if they win this game decisively, like you're saying, like, what for? If we're casting that scenario forward, like, what was the game like that caused Indiana to win by a couple of scores or better? They didn't turn the ball over. You know, they're one of three teams that hasn't turned the ball over in FBS play.
And Maryland leads the Big 10 and force turnovers. So, you know, one of those has to give. And and, you know, if any end, it doesn't turn the ball over. I think, I think, you know, it's I don't think it'd be close because, you know, Mary, Maryland has relied on that.
Yeah, I, I think they, I, I, if they, if they hold off Maryland's pass rush, if, if the offensive line holds off the pass rush, if Curtis Rourke isn't feeling too much pressure and even when he is feeling pressure, he's been solid. But if he's not feeling too much pressure, I don't think Maryland's defense is, is going to even be a speed bump for this offense. Their secondary is just not very good and I don't think their linebackers can make up for that
play. So I think if there's solid pass protection from the offensive line, I think and, and, and you know, we were just talking about the elements. If, if it is a passing game, then I, I think that's, that's really where this game is decided. I don't. I don't think that the Maryland offense, even with Ty Felton, can keep up with this offense.
Yeah, I look at it if I'm gonna take a pessimistic view, which I almost feel like I'm contractually obligated to do as an IU podcaster, like I think I signed that some at some point. But yeah, it, it feels like if you're looking for the route through which Indiana doesn't win this game, you know, a lot of it is, you know, they, they turn the ball over a couple of
times. Maryland does a really good job of timing the offense early and then the defense just, you know, can't, can't make the plays in the passing game that they need to. And, and look, all those things could happen again. This Maryland team has beaten Indiana three years in a row, albeit two of those wins were not blowouts. They were close games. And those were bad. Those were really bad teams that Indiana was fielding in 2021-2022.
So it's not like this has been a decisive Maryland tilt over the last few years. But they, you know, it's, it's clearly a team that is not going to be afraid of Indiana. They might be kind of curious about them at this point, but they're going to come in thinking what we won last time we were here and we beat them last year out in College Park.
We can do it again. So it just, it's going to be interesting to me, you know, what Maryland's confidence levels look like and how their defense matches up early against IUI. Will say the one other thing, you know, Indiana's offense had a bit of a slow start against Charlotte. Some of that I think was
hangover from UCLA. Some of it was, you know, maybe just some bad luck on a couple of plays and some good plays by Charlotte early on. But you you would like to see Indiana's offense like really get off to a good start. To some degree. That's really what caused the game to go as well as it did against UCLA. You know, they, they, they get the touchdown on the 1st Dr. they force the turnover on the next play and then they score again and it's like, well, you're off and running at that
point. And that's my big hope for IU is that they, they get it rolling quickly. They establish themselves as the lead team. They make, you know, Maryland play catch up essentially. That's, that's the most advantageous spot for this IU team to be in. I think that gives them a level of confidence in terms of, of being able to finish the game off. And, you know, we'll, we'll see what happens with all that, but those are kind of the things I'm looking for as we go into it. Yeah.
In conjunction with that, Galen, I think something defensively that that might put that might leave Indiana vulnerable is if they do surrender anything on the ground like they did in Charlotte, they they had that Charlotte had the early rushing success. Obviously, I think that was schematic. I think Bryant Haynes fixed that in the second-half. But if they have another performance like that against Roman Henby, that's going to be tough because Maryland already uses a lot of screens.
And that is the way the offenses have really been attacking this defense. And so and they've been successful in the screen game. So if they're giving up screens, they're successful plays on with screens. If they're giving up, you know, yards on the ground that that's a lot of that's a lot of dynamic to be allowing as a defense and and be able to cap it. So I think, you know, if, if, if those two things happen, I think it could be, it could be a close one. Yeah, especially if it happens
without early offenses. It sounds like you were saying. Well, it should be a fascinating 1 and, and certainly I'm looking forward to it. I, you know, the, it's been a real joy watching this IU team every week and, you know, every week I'm excited to see what they've got planned next. And you know, how everything plays out. I mean, clearly a lot, a lot to watch in this game.
It'll be a fascinating, you know, you know, combination of events, not just these two teams playing each other, but the potential for weather. We had a question from Jordan Bailey about like what are the effective tie downs for a canopy? I I think it's entirely dependent. I bought, there are some, there are some weights I bought at Lowe's.
They did a good job of weighing the canopy down for the FIU game, which weirdly had a a wind issue, or maybe it was Western Illinois that the wind issues the way. Yeah, that was it. So those weights that slide over
the legs are a good move. But I will say, if it's really windy, don't put a canopy up. I'll always remember the Penn State. It was the, IT was actually the game that Pennix blew out his knee the first time there was a highwind warning that happened I think about two hours before the
game. And it came through and it like massacred all of the canopies that were set up in the Memorial Stadium tailgate area, including mine, like, and mine was largely massacred because my neighbor's canopy flew right into our canopy and knocked the crock pots over like it was a huge mess. So my, my point is, if you're at all concerned or not certain about the weighing down, you're almost better off standing in the rain because they fly in canopy and and highwind is, is no joke, folks.
Yeah, you want to try to avoid that as much as possible. So does your insurance company. So just maybe keep that in mind. But a lot of different things that are going to be happening around this game. Hopefully a big crowd. Supposedly only about 4000 tickets left for this game. So, you know, hopefully the weather cooperates. Might have a wet crowd, but it should be fun. It'll be warm outside at the very least and should be a really fascinating event. So Taylor, any final thoughts
before we wrap up? No, no, Galen, you know, ready to watch the Detroit Tigers in the play offs, but yes. From the Tigers, I love it. It's great. Yeah, I can't be distracted. Well, folks, we'll go ahead and wrap up then. Taylor, really appreciate the time as always and thanks to all you folks for listening in. We'll be back. Actually, I don't know whether this is going to drop before or after, but check out Scott's interview with the folks from Punt John.
Punt. We got them out of retirement. They're going to talk some IU football. So go check that show out and also check out our recap coming up on Sunday for Taylor Layman. I'm Galen Clavio, you're listening or watching the Crimson cast. We'll catch you folks. On the flip side, bring back the Bison. Stay never daunted. So long, everybody.