Ep 1151 - Indiana Smashed Michigan State and 9WINDIANA is a Reality

All right, let's do it. You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home Field Apparel. Welcome back folks, Galen Clavio, Scott Caulfield here. Welcome to Crimson cast. It is Sunday morning, November 3rd and Indiana is 9. Scott for the first time in school history, Indiana going up to East Lansing and walloping the Michigan State Spartans 47 to 10. I was there. It was a remarkable seem to behold. You were watching from home.

We've got a ton to dig into. First of all, my friend, how are you doing? I'm doing fantastic. I'm doing utterly fantastic. Dude, we have a nine and O team. I'm doing great. It really is hard to get your head wrapped around. I know, and we're gonna try to dive into that. We've got a ton of you already in chat. If you're interested, head over to YouTube, get into the comments section.

We, we, we're gonna try to bring as many comments up as we can throughout the course of this thing as we talk about the huge win for Indiana up in East Lansing yesterday. We'll talk about the scene up there. We'll talk about where Indiana sits right now in the CFP

discussion. And of course, we're going to talk about what is shaping up to be among the most consequential games in the history of Indiana football coming up this weekend as the Hoosiers host Michigan in the marquee slot of the day, 3:30 PM on CBS. As as Matt notes, Scott, this is the fever dream I've had. The number of people who have come up to me asking me what Scott's next fever dream is going to be has been a bit overwhelming for me.

I don't even know really how to respond at this point. The next fever dream is I've been playing with the college football predictor on ESPN, which by the way, is like an IU football fan didn't even know exists. It's like, oh, this is cool. I didn't know these websites exist. And you can do this stuff. They can predict things. And so I predict Indiana to win, you know, win Michigan, lose to Ohio State, win Purdue, which might even be giving him not enough credit, not making the

Big 10 title game. It has us in kind of the eight seed range. In one of the predictions, we played Illinois in the first round, which seems odd, but we did. But we played Illinois and then we beat BYU and then we're suddenly I think we were playing Texas to go to the college, you know, the national championship game, which is, you know, this is where it gets fever dreaming because I'm I'm I'm look at that. I'm like, that's possible, nothing insane.

Nothing seems impossible at this point, which is what to a large degree makes this so much fun. And so we're gonna dive into that in just a second. First of all, wanted to talk a little bit about the folks that helped to bring the podcast to you. Of course, we are part of the back home network here at Crimson Cast and a great array of shows that you can tune into on the back home network, particularly on the YouTube channel.

Just search back Home Network on YouTube, you'll find Assembly Call, you'll find the dribble Dr. you'll find the doing the work podcast, you'll find Bison Chat, which of course we've been doing regularly on Tuesdays throughout the course of the football season. We should have some variants of Bison Chat coming for some of the other sports here relatively soon. Keep an eye on that in the next

couple of weeks. But all these podcasts, everything we bring you at the Back Home Network is brought to you by Home Field Apparel, your place to go for the finest in college fashions, the softest fabrics, the coolest designs. Scott, I don't know about you, but I am signed up for Home Field Apparel text messages. And what did I get immediately after the game ended yesterday? What did I get, Scott? Nine win Indiana. Nine win Indiana T-shirts not

just available but on sale. They had a discount code go to home field apparel. Sign up for that, you know, home field apparel services the entire college football community, but their heart is in Indiana. Their heart is with the Indiana Hoosiers. If you haven't bought the never daunted Bison hoodie or of course the script Indiana hoodie which I wore wore yesterday in Spartan Stadium, head over to home Field apparel.

Check them out. They've got a ton of things I saw again, I every time I go somewhere where there is Indiana football, I see home field apparel. It is synonymous with the brand right now. There was so many bomber jackets and hoodies and T-shirts up at Spartan Stadium for both teams. Not just for Indiana. But you Indiana fans, go check it out. Use the code HOME 23. Get 15% off your first order.

Real. Quick, I texted Connor after the game, just nine win 9 win Indiana and he just texted back like we did it Scott, we did it we launched the the Saturn 5 rocket or. Something you know, and this is essentially from the Earth to the moon, the Indian football version. So it's it's tremendous. And The thing is, I'm almost hesitant to buy one because 9 Indiana feels like it's falling short of expectations at this point. Well, Connor's got more shirts. We got 10 Indiana and 11 Indiana.

The College Football Playoff Indiana. Just keep them coming. Yeah, we're also brought to you this season on our football podcast by Who's Your Game Day Logger? Brought to you by Upland Brewing Company, Who's Your Game Day logger? The delightful, easy drinking Vienna style logger in the

iconic candy striped can. You can find it all across Memorial Stadium. For football home games, you can find it at any place that Upland sells beer, including many of their in person locations throughout central and southern Indiana. And of course, you can find it at my tailgate if you stop by. We've always got a nice cachet of Hoosier Game Day Logger available. Go check out a Hoosier Game Day Logger today.

It is a significant step up from those adjunct loggers that you get at the other concession stands. Again, Hoosier game day Logger brought to you by Upland Brewing Company. Please drink. Responsibly. I have an upland. I have a Hoosier logger. I can't wait. Let's hear. And Daniel in the chat already asked what did Robert think of yesterday's Indiana wins?

So those who don't know, one of my really good friends and neighbor named Robert, he went to Michigan State and his I have I have a whole bit on him and his view of it, which I think is interesting. But he he was enjoying some of our Hoosier game day logger. Like we all had him out and he's like, fine, I'll take one and then he's drinking it and then Indiana scores a touchdown and kind of jokingly he's like this tastes like piss. But then. Immediately. You know, like, I mean, just

joking. But then he immediately grabs another one, opens it up and like, drinks three more throughout the game. Usually. I hate this can I hate it's, it's awful, but kept drinking it. So he he joked me that it was awful. It was not awful, but he kept, he kept indulging in the candy stripe and even as we were kicking the living shit out of this team, it was, it was pretty. Remarkable stuff and I, I certainly have enjoyed it throughout the course of the

season. Hopefully you folks are as well. Also, just a quick reminder, folks, be sure to check out our sub stack crimsoncast.substack.com. You can sign up. You can get delivered right to your inbox. The podcast that we do not just here but also elsewhere. If you missed it, I was on Mind Your Banners earlier on this week. I've been on a couple of other shows.

I imagine that's gonna probably increase as we move forward and we try to send all those out to you as well as everything we do here at Crimson Cast. You can go subscribe again. It's free. There is a paid option if you'd like to help keep the lights on and help support the podcast. We're we're in full-fledged, we got to do as many shows as possible mode right now because you folks deserve it.

And this is a season we need to commemorate and really keep the, the, the content flowing on. So again, if you, if you haven't signed up for the Substack, please do so. We'd love to have you as part of the over 1000 members of the Crimson cast Substack community. All right, Scott, let's dive into this game. Indiana coming in. We talked a lot throughout the course of the week about how this game was a potentially a trap game.

It was going to be the toughest environment hypothetically that Indiana had played in. Not hypothetically, it really was. I mean, if you look at the two Rd. games that Indiana had played prior to this road game, those were not exactly what I would call tests. UCLA, that was a pretty sedate crowd. It was not a full stadium and UCLA fans are kind of in a self loathing mode right now. So so that the energy just wasn't quite there, although they shouldn't be self loathing.

They just walked in and beat Nebraska at Nebraska. So the transitive property, I don't know if that makes Indiana's win over UCLA better or makes Indiana's win over Nebraska worse. I've given up trying to figure all that out. It doesn't really matter. Nebraska's bad now, but UCLA is good. I can't figure it out anyway. Now, they weren't good at the start of the season. They they were good until they played Indiana. Then they were bad for a while,

but now they're good again. Indiana doesn't get credit for any of that. None whatsoever. Anyway, they also played it. Somehow, Illinois will still get credit. For Illinois will get credit for that yes Indiana, of course, given you know the the environment at Northwestern, that was a really interesting one, but there were a lot of IU fans in the stands. This was a it was not a full Spartan Stadium, but it was a a Spartan Stadium that was 80 to 90% Michigan State fans.

So this was an environment, especially in the first quarter, where you kind of wonder, like, how would Indiana react coming off the big wins at home against Nebraska and Washington? How would they exist in that kind of a circumstance? And we've talked over and over again about how this Indiana team, you know, it's so easy. And we've seen this happen with so many teams in in college football and Pro Football and in other sports. It's easy to get caught up in

what you're doing. It's easy to overlook an opponent. It's easy to put yourself in a position where you're not mentally prepared. And Indiana came out in this game. And frankly, Scott, they didn't look like they were ready to play. They had some tough early possessions on both sides of the ball. Michigan State, while they got a little bit lucky in spots, look like they were moving the ball kind of at ease. And, you know, with about two minutes left in the first

quarter, it's a 10, nothing. Michigan State, Indiana's given up their first points in the first quarter. They've trailed for the first time all season. And you're thinking to yourself, wow, Indiana's offense looks like they are not connecting with each other. They can't run the ball. Curtis Rook's shaking his hand coming off the field. It's like this is not adding up as something that might be good for Indiana.

And then Indiana goes into full death blossom mode and scores 47 unanswered points over the course of the last three quarters of play. Absolutely smothers Michigan State in the crib and picks up one of the largest Rd. wins that Indiana's had in the Big 10 in a long, long time.

Scott, you know, I'll talk about my reflections from inside the stadium, but watching this game and watching that complete flip in how Indiana was playing, what was the reaction in the Caulfield household like How, how were you processing all of this? I had, I had a fantastic viewing experience. So my, my son is playing basketball and I'm coaching his team. And we had some scrimmages on Saturday that that my scrimmages started at 3:10 and went to 3:45-ish.

And I was like, the minute we were done, let's go, let's go get in the car, getting car. I didn't trust Peacock to be able to watch DVR stuff just because that app is really, really poor. So I'm like, you know what, I will just, I'm going to miss a little bit of the first quarter. I will just miss it and, and pick up and I'm probably hope I don't miss much. We're down 10, nothing as I'm driving home and I'm like, oh God, this is unreal.

And I had about probably 7 or 8 friends and neighbors coming over with their families, three of the whole crew coming in. But the minute that I turned the game on was our first drive where we scored. So for me, I just watched the 47 to nothing game. Like it was great. I didn't watch the 10 the the the O 10 going down it. It was unbelievable watching this team live and hearing, you know, Robert's obviously a Michigan State fan. His take on the game was interesting.

So we talked about it beforehand and he was like, look, we're going to this is a very Robert thing because he's very Michigan State focused. But I thought it was actually an

interesting point. He's like, look, we're going to see what Indiana is because when you look at Michigan State's record, the, the teams that are kind of mid that you would say like, maybe you know, Iowa or Michigan, you know, they had close games and you know, it was, it was kind of a, you know, Michigan State was able to do some things that it was tight

games. Like the teams that are the best in the Big 10, Ohio State and Oregon, they kick the shit out of us. He's like, so if you guys beat us, that's great. If you, if you have a hard time beating us, like you're probably a top 25 teams, like if you kick our ass, you're probably a top five. Team and and. That ended up kind of being the the case and you know, he was taken away and me too, like the defense, our offense is great. Our offense is methodical.

It gets plays. He was always he was joking like every time he had as you can say has backed up like third and nine. Just like slant. I know it here comes a slant and it's like, Yep, there's a slant for 16 yards. I mean, it was fun watching the life get pummeled out of him, but it's it's wild. We were arguing like, what looked better? Was it the offensive line? Was it the defensive line, was the defense, or was it the offense? And the answer was like all of the above.

Oh, not to mention the special teams, which also just completely, you know, took over it. It was awesome. It was just unbelievable. And you know, my high level take away is I'm kind of done even joking about the fever dream stuff. You know, this team, I think of that Maryland game where work comes out, I think throws 2 picks and two consecutive possessions or two out of three or two picks very early. Which, you know, I almost want to end saying it on this

podcast. That's where the old IU fans like, Oh my God, this is going to be a tough game. This game I went back and watch, it would come out flat. We have 2-3 and outs. In all previous histories of IU football, a game like that on the road that would have been a trap game where you're at another stadium, you give the other team life. It's like, all right, well, this is going to be a slog for the next three hours.

Maybe we can get it to 10/7 and then we're fighting and no, it's just like, Nope, sorry, like we will sorry, coach, like we'll get out of our haze and we will snap back. I've never I I really said I've never seen an IU team snap so quickly back to good like that. And so I'm I'm done with the fever dream talk. I think we're going to beat Michigan. We obviously are going to be Purdue like it this team urges you to have trust in them and they they require you like have trust.

We are going to be just fine. But yeah, that that switch is something unlike I've ever seen in a lot of college football, but definitely with an IU team. I think what's most remarkable from a statistical perspective for this team, you know, looking at this game yesterday, so in the first quarter, as we talked about Michigan State at 128 total yards on the C on the, on the on that quarter, they had 106 passing yards. They had 22 rushing yards. All that came in the first

quarter. The next 3/4 were so bad that they ended the game with 205 total yards. They only gained 99 yards total from the end of the first quarter to the end of the game, and they went from. Plus 22 rushing yards to -24 rushing yards in that same amount of time. You know, if you look at some of the other statistics, the game, sorry, they finished the game with -36 rushing yards. That is taking into account like

sacking a punter and some sacks. But it's like, well, those count and you're not supposed to do that as the other team. But back to the kind of, you know, looking at like opponents, every other team Michigan State has played this year has averaged basically 120 or more yards rushing against them.

Some, you know, Iowa got 212, Ohio State held him to 47, Oregon held him to 49. We held him to -39 if you just look at that and you take the teams off, it's like, all right, well, those are three really good teams. And then there's one team that has a phenomenal defense, and that's us -36 for a game is unreal. Yeah, if you look at what Michigan State did down the stretch and I was, I was texting with with a couple of people

about this. After the first two drives, Michigan State had ran 44 plays for 75 net yards. I mean, that's, that is not. And I got to tell you, being in the stadium and watching the defense just snuff out Michigan State and what they were trying to do. I, I, I'll say this again, I said it on Twitter earlier, but I'll, I'll keep saying it. I don't. And I've watched Indiana football for a long time.

I can never remember a defensive line performance like what we saw out of the defensive line in that game. It's it is just, it's remarkable to me how good this defensive line has become. And you go down the list. I mean, obviously Mikhail Kamara, I mean, that's a guy who, you know, I think we'll see playing on Sundays. That guy has been involved in 454 snaps so far this season on defense. He has been such a havoc maker throughout the course of the season.

But it's still Lanelle Carr, it's also James Carpenter, it's also CJ W, it's also Marcus Burris Junior. It's also Tyreek Tucker Landino has come in, Mario Landino's come in and played well. Jacob Mangum Ferrar has played well. I mean, there's such depth on this defensive line, but there's also top end guys.

You know, it's not like it's not like, you know, when we've seen kind of two different things with Indiana defensive lines in the past, We, we don't talk enough about the defensive line and how important it is. And actually, Madhul kind of took where I was going with this. But like Adewali Agunli would do this for 1/2, but not necessarily consistently. But that's in large part because Adewali Agunli didn't have team mates playing at this high of a

level next to him in most games. Adewali Agunli didn't have depth behind him where he could take a couple of snaps off, get himself recharged and get back out there. You know, the lines and we've talked about this for I don't know how long, Scott, the lines. We, we've always said like this is where Indiana struggles to recruit, struggles to attract

talent. And now it looks like kind of, if you really want to put it in the historical context, has struggled to effectively coach this talent because they've always looked like they've come up short against not just the Michigan's and the Ohio States, but the Michigan States and the Iowa's and teams like that. And what this coaching staff has done and what these players have done to mold what a lot of people were worried was going to be a weak link into among the

strongest units that we've seen. And for them to do that on the road against a team that was considered dangerous, a team that had beaten Iowa by 12 points, you know, a team that had been at least, you know, somewhat competitive in most of the games that they played, except for the Ohio State game, you know, just on the defensive side, that is really remarkable to me. And to watch them be able to create as much havoc as they created in this contest is I,

you know, I just I'm running out of superlatives to talk through how impressive it really is. You know, if you if you haven't read bite sized Bison recap yet, you absolutely should. You should be subscribed to bite sized Bison, bite sized bison.substack.com. We'll have Taylor on later this week to help preview the Michigan game, but I'm going to steal something from his ETA roundup.

Indiana recorded a havoc rate of 26%, which was the in the 99th percentile of all the performances that any defense turned in last year. And what that means is if you know, if you want to break it down like Havoc plays on defense are plays that result in, you know, tackles for loss, turnovers, sacks, 15 tackles for loss in this game, 7 sacks, 11 different defenders made some kind of a havoc play in this

contest. And of course, you also have to add in the two interceptions that is exemplary and. We are not used to seeing these types of defensive performances and the fact that you're also coupling a great offensive performance in is amazing. And we'll talk about that in a second. But I just wanted to give a shout out to the defensive line in particular for how well they played in this game. You know, it's funny, we were watching the game and Robert was like, dude #8 is everywhere.

Like, and his stats at, you'll see JW stats don't actually do justice the game he had 'cause he was in almost every play. And then as the game went on, you know, Kamara started having like sacks and some great plays and he's like, wait, is that number you you have a number six and the number 8? He's like, dude, both of those guys are everywhere.

And the other cool thing was, you know, obviously things change in Michigan State went to their backup, although you see they had a player named Carson Hyphen Wentz on their team. There's a player named Carson Wentz. And my buddy Robert's like, cut him immediately. Like, I don't care. Just cut him right now on general principle. Get him off our roster. It's not good for the team. But it it, it definitely looked like, and again, these are just things we haven't seen it.

It looked like our defense just we figured out Michigan State completely. So when we rushed just the line, I would say we were getting pressure, you know, 90% of the time. And then near the end, it was just like the, the team was almost the defensive coordinators, like let's just try some stuff. What if we, you know, blitz 3 guys and it's like, oh, that's a 20 yard sack for loss. Like let's try blitzing too. One of the last plays they blitzed everybody.

They're just like, let's just get them. And it's, it's really cool to see that aggressiveness, but it definitely felt as if they were almost trying out some things they're going to use later on because it was like, this is a game where we've been able to set the the difficulty level to freshman. This is, you know, we, we are easy. We know what we're doing. This team is broken. We have them figured out and we're just going to try a couple of jailbreaks.

And this, this looked like a game that we've seen Indiana be on the other side of hundreds of times where our quarterback goes out, we go to our backup, suddenly we could not able to do anything. And the team, just the other team just just stomps us into oblivion. We did it, man. We did it on the road, yeah. It's it's what's amazing to me with all of this is just how what you just said I was talking to. So I was up there with with several friends.

IU artifacts drove up with me. Austin render drove up with me. We saw Sam Rumpsa up there. We saw a ton of you folks in the audience, which I'll get to a little bit later, but I was sitting there with Sam and and with IU artifacts and with Austin and I was like, this is exactly, this is a reverse Indiana game. I've seen Indiana on the the the wrong side of this game more times than I can count where you go up by a score or two against an opponent that you are not

expected to win against. Everybody gets excited. You know, the Michigan State students are chanting overrated at IU at the end of the first quarter. And then reality starts to set in and, you know, immediately you start to fall behind and fall behind and you or it's like you're stuck in quicksand and you're watching yourself drown and you can do literally nothing about it. And that is exactly what Indiana just did to Michigan State.

But that is what Michigan State and many other teams have done to Indiana over and over and over again. And I'll note that that comment you just popped up from Tanner about, you know, and it's funny because like being in the stands, nobody was really that upset. The Michigan State fans were not that upset with running up the score because they understood they've done that to us before. And Indiana doesn't have a choice at this point.

They have to run up the score. They have to score style points. It's just we are not used to that. We're not used to being in the position where we are like where style points would do us any good essentially. So it is, it is really interesting to be on the other end of that. But as we as we think about the way that Indiana processed this game, we'll talk a lot about the defense and the, and the defense was exemplary.

And I really wanted to shine a light on on them in this because of of just how hard they made it on Michigan State. Tommy Schuster has to be questioning like life decisions at this point. That guy comes in after Aidan Childs gets knocked out of the game and he could do nothing. And he looked absolutely terrified every time he took a snap. And it was just like it built on every snap where it's like he's like, please do not call a passing play. Please let me hand the ball off

to somebody. But they couldn't, you know, a lot of. Levis throw there too where he's going down and just chucks. In, I mean, you know, Caron Lynch, Adams, who's had a pretty good season for six carries, 10 yards. Nate Carter 8 carries, 6 yards. Makai Frazier, one carry -1 yards. You know, Ryan Eckley, 2 carries -21 yards. It it was just a a bloodletting for this Indiana defense. Aiden Fisher 9 tackles, 5 solo tackles, half of a tackle for

loss. Mikhail Kamara 2 1/2 sacks, 4 1/2 tackles for loss in this game. You know, Sean Asbury had six tackles, Isaiah Jones had five, Jacob Mangum Ferrar had four and a sack. And you just go down the list like you really, you almost have to mention everybody on the the defensive roster for how well they played in this game. And of course, Amari Ferrell with the two interceptions, I mean, they those Indiana, I think once they got their feet under them was going to win this

game. But Ferrell being able to pick off those two interceptions just absolutely broke the spirit of Michigan State at the time that they happened. And, and actually that first interception I think was the highest ranked EPA play in the game like that completely swung the win probability because at that point, Michigan State was still kind of in a position where their win probability was around 5050. And that really shot at the

opposite direction, the. Thing with Kamara, I'll just say is this is, you know, again, one of the James Madison guys to come over. But you know, you see this every year in the NFL draft, NFL way more than like NBA draft. There's lots of guys in small schools who get drafted every year who, who end up becoming NFL players. And so you, you right now there's tons of guys not playing in a, you know, in the SEC or the Big 10 who are NFL talents who need to be showcased the right way.

And you look at this guy just like this is he's a, he's an NFL talent right now. But you're also putting him in a scheme and in a, and in plays where he's able to highlight what he does well. And you put him around other guys. And I think this is that, you know, it's, it's funny looking back, it's so silly to, to look at this and be like, you know, are, are, you know, group of five players going to be able to play at this big 10 level?

And obviously some can't. But I think that on, you know, any good power, you know, Group of five team, some of those players are good enough to play at the next level. You see it every single year. Yeah, and, and that the way that this staff has been able to forge this team and we keep talking about it every week, but the way they've been able to forge this identity that this team has about what they do and how they're doing it and, and what exactly, you know, their

jobs are. And we hear it. It's almost it's a little corny a little, you know, in in press conferences or in the, the, the post game availability that these guys have had. But every single time they say the same thing like we're just, we're just going one and O we're you know, we've got, we got a job to do this week.

And that mentality is what allowed them to bounce back so quickly when things didn't start particularly well against Michigan State. There is this belief on this sideline and it doesn't make sense that it's there. We've talked about how little it makes sense that any of this is happening on multiple occasions now, Scott. It doesn't make sense that it's there. But this team has such an intrinsic belief in themselves,

in the coaching staff. There is a real belief that whatever happens, they're going to be able to figure out how to make it work. And I think we heard Aidan Fisher in the post game this time around say, you know, coach has a plan and if we follow that plan, we're going to be fine. That is exactly what you want out of a team. It is incredibly hard to keep a team with that mentality throughout the course of the season.

And it's even more incredible to have a cobbled together team, roster pieces from various spots. And as you said, guys that have come up from a level that isn't supposed to be able to compete with the Big 10 or with other power conferences and look at what they've done so far in all

three phases of the game. Well, we, we, I, I personally keep going back to Tom Allen's coaching tenure, but you have to 'cause it is just a 180 in, you know, how just how calm and collected Signeti in this staff is that they don't get too high and they don't get too low. And you know, that was definitely not the way it was under Allen. We got really high and then we got really low.

And you know, when, when you have that a game like this, suddenly you feel like, Oh my God, you know, I want to restart this game. It's 10 nothing. What are we going to do? It really, really felt like Signeti was just like, hey, guys, can we just get up 1410 and then we'll be able to put him away. And, and they did. It's just like they scored it, you know, they, you know, we'll, we'll get to recite the drive. But after those 2-3 announce they have a touchdown, punt

touchdown. And then it's just like drive, drive, drive. But it really felt as if like, look, guys, if we can just get up by 5 by 4 points, we'll be better on this team. And they just did it and they, they're so calm and collected and they, they get hobby, they get fired up and excited and it's like right back down. Like their blood pressure is a standing rate of like, you know, 62 beats a minute. And it doesn't matter what's

happening. And you go back to again, I, I referenced it earlier that the two back-to-back interceptions against Maryland. Any other season, we're talking about that for the entire season of like, God, do you remember that? Like if you just change that differently, you can forget it because we won that game by 24

points. This is a game you're never going to remember, you know, two or three you probably will, but two or three years from now it's like you're not going to be like, Oh my God, that was so close. We were down 10. Nothing, we're nervous like no, it's just a complete ass kicking and start Spartan Stadium. But any other year this would have been something we would have talked about for the entire podcast about how you can't get off to this rough start. You can't put your team in this

position. They had to really claw and fight for it for that game. And it becomes kind of this 5050 toss up game where it's going to go. No, it just, they turn the corner like let's just get up 1410 and then then we can just put the foot on the pedal and just be done with it. Yeah, let's also talk about the offense. I don't want to give short shrift to the offense because it was a great performance by them as well. So Curtis Rourke, he's back. Scott, he's back. He's looks healthy.

It was a little bit concerning early on and he talked about how he was having a little bit of trouble getting grip on the ball. But man, if you just looked at his stat line, you'd have no idea. 19 for 29263 yards, 4 touchdowns and and spread the ball around to some of his favorite targets. Kashawn Williams 6 catches, 86 yards. He was the possession guy throughout the course of the game.

Elijah Sarat, he's back. Scott, 4 catches, 59 yards, 2 touchdowns, including a great catch in the end zone in the second-half. Miles Price 3 for 42 and a touchdown. Omar Cooper Only one catch for 21 yards, But Omar Cooper, that amazing 16 yard touchdown run in the second-half, which I don't even think we properly got to celebrate because a, You couldn't believe it was happening as it was happening. You kept waiting for him to go down. He just never went down.

He kept going and B, like there was a penalty thrown and we're like, oh, that's got to be coming back. And then they're like, Nope, not a block in the back, it's a touchdown. So I feel bad Omar didn't get a chance to celebrate that more than he did 'cause it was an one of the more amazing runs we've seen so far this season.

Indiana, they only run the ball 129 yards on 29 carries, which that's not as good certainly as what they did against Washington. But I think it illustrates what we were trying to talk about on the pregame podcast on Thursday, which is that the way to beat Michigan State was not running at them. The way to beat Michigan State was to throw the ball against them because they were bad against the pass. All the advanced metrics said that. And it took a little bit of

time. There were a couple of drops early, but once Indiana found its rhythm with Rourke and the receivers, you didn't need the running game. And that was really where Indiana disintegrated Michigan State's defense for their part. And again, it's what's fascinating to me and what is so invigorating about this coaching staff and the way that this team plays is that they've now won back-to-back games, Washington and Michigan State using two entirely different approaches offensively.

They went ground and pound downhill running against Washington and put that game away. They go to the air again against Michigan State and they put this game away. This level of versatility, this ability to adjust on the fly, this ability to game plan and know what their opponents can and can't.

Do and to exploit those weaknesses again, Scott is not something that we are really used to, no. And if you look at the game log, you see it, you know, against Nebraska, we we have 215 yards on the ground in this game, we have 122. Washington's gone up the middle. We have 188. You look at passing yards, Nebraska, he's got everything, you know, 280, only 124 against Washington. He had 263 against Michigan State. That that is what that is what

is nuts here. And, and as we've said just over and over again, you have a, a, it's wild to say it in the end, but you have just a plethora of riches. You, you have all of these great pieces. There isn't one piece that that stands among the rest. And I think Curtis Rourke is probably that piece, but it's not like he's just a singular talent.

He's just a great quarterback who has a, a great ability to make seemingly the right read almost every single time, whether to tuck it or pull it. You know, one of one of those throws, he had an RPO where he pulled it back and he ran and like tucked it, but it was the best RPO I've ever seen.

Like he's so good at hiding the run and then pulling it back a couple times on Peacock. They had the wrong, the, the wrong side of it because they, they thought he tucked it or they couldn't tell me. He's so good at that. But, you know, it's it's not like this is one of those where, OK, you know, Tevin Coleman isn't playing well. So we got to find a way to, you know, get the ball in the air.

It's just it really is this this coaching staff is we know what the game plan is. It feels like they're going into every game. They understand what they need to do. But that's what a good team does and that's what a good coaching staff does. We just haven't seen that where this team is so malleable. But it's also cool because they come at it from basically the

same set. You know, they're running kind of the same pistol formation for everything, but they're able to have variations all across the board on offense for all of these things. Not like they come out in a Wildcat sometimes they're coming out in shotgun. You can definitely tell what they're doing. They're basically running the same starting set and then having hundreds of plays off of that, which is, again, this is not anything amazing for a college football team, but it is

amazing for an Indiana college. Football. Oh, I don't know. I think it's pretty amazing for an for any college football team. This is one of the most efficient offenses that we've seen in the last five years of college football. Stop. End sentence. This is not like, oh, this is great for Indiana. This is great. Yeah. Period. Exclamation point, Ethan noted. And this kind of picked up what you were saying. Rourke's RPO reads that is run pass option.

By the way, for those of you who are not up on the lingo are so good. He consistently fakes out the camera and it's Jordan Bailey who was in the stands. We didn't get the chance to see Jordan, but I know he's on the other side of the stadium. He was faking me out live in the stadium. Watching him. It was true. It was like Michigan State was clearly confused, and this is what Rourke provides, right? That Jackson just doesn't have that ability and most other

quarterbacks don't. It's no knock on Jackson. Like, this is not something that's normal, but this is what you have when you have a quarterback with this much experience and who's playing this well. His ability to make the read, it's so important. And it puts so much pressure not just on the opposing team's defense, but on the opposing team's offense because Indiana has consistently found a way, 46 points per game of way to score

over and over and over again. And I think as Zach Osterman pointed out in his piece today, that puts so much pressure on your offense because now you can't afford to go conservative Every three and out that you have is a chance to have Indiana go score a touchdown on the other end. And now you're screwed because now you've really got to start pushing. And that's where a lot of these interceptions have started to pop up over these last few

weeks. You can see opposing offensive coordinators and opposing quarterbacks being like, we got to get every single one of these things right or we're going to be in trouble. They haven't gotten them all right, Scott, and they've been in trouble as a result of it. That that is, again, we're not used to watching Indiana be the chess master in these games. We're we're used to Indiana having to respond and to be on the front foot even in this

game. I mean, when Michigan State had to settle for that field goal on that first drive, I was like, OK, this is actually good because it's going to put more pressure on Michigan State down the line. And, and I mean, it ended up not mattering. But that's the kind of thing where, you know, they probably hated having to settle for that field goal because they knew they were going to have to continually score touchdowns against this Indiana team. Here, all that 100% true.

It's what I love about this team. They just choke teams out with their efficiency on offense. Here's just a very interesting thought. I never thought we'd be here as a podcast. We have, you know, maybe the best offense in the country. We're averaging 46 1/2 points a game nine games into the year. If I told you that and then I said, but we're going to start a podcast after a game and really sing the praises of the defense.

Like, that's insane. I mean, that that is what is so wild about this team is I came away from that Michigan State game being like, I think our defense might at that times be better than our offense. It's an offense that's scoring 46. You know, they scored 47 that game. They scored scoring 46 points a game. It's it's just wild to think about that because if you told me we had the best, yes, Ryan, we all, we are all in there. Welcome, welcome.

I mean, we are all just, you know, we're brains in a big pile. We've all walked into the same fever dream. But to the idea that we have this offense, you'd be like, all right, well, our defense has to be giving up 42 points a game. We're just playing a ton of shootouts, you know, no, and you know, our defense isn't putting up the numbers that would be historically good. But this, this might be one of the best defenses I've seen Indiana have in the last 20 years.

It just gets overshadowed by the offense. But again, as we said today, we started with the defense because they were just unbelievably good. So I'm not trying to switch it back to defense, sorry. But it's wild that we're so good on offense and yet we're still at a point where we can talk about how good the defense is. Scott, it's time for everybody's favorite segment. Recite the drive, yes. You got it right this time. All right? Hey, who's who's?

Who's bringing it to us? This, I think, I think this one's being brought to you by Shalhoubi's and by communitycars.com. So let's go ahead and dive in. Parted a credit. No, we haven't signed that contract yet. So let's let's run through Indiana first as we go. Punt, punt, touchdown, punt. Now that's you look at that and you know, you forget after that touchdown Dr. that they had that got them back within 10/7. That Horton touchdown pass from from Curtis Rourke.

You forget that like they punted again and it was still 10 seven. You know, Michigan State there for a while. Yards. On three drives up to that point, if you take out the touchdown drive. But then Indiana comes back and they go touchdown, touchdown, they punt towards the end of the half and that was that was kind of crap that I almost want to take that punt out of there.

I have no idea how on earth the replay official actually deduced that they could see the ball and say, well, you know, that's a foot before the lot, but give me an effing break. Good every time we, we've had so few problems, relatively speaking with the Big 10 officiating this year compared to previous years. But occasionally it like pops up and you're like, no, go away bad Big 10 officiating that that was terrible. Anyway, we're going to take that

one off the board. On the, I will say one of the interceptions, it does look like it might have been bobbled and they just went, we went through it. So yeah. We're only going to focus on the things that are not OK. But then second-half Indiana goes touchdown on A6 play 65 yard drive, field goal on a nine play 44 yard Dr. touchdown on A2, play 21 yard Dr. touchdown on A5, play 37 yard drive, and then an 11 play 17 yard drive that ate up 8 minutes and close the game out.

I mean, what a that's that. This is another game, Scott, where Indiana was able to outscore themselves in the second-half versus what they did in the first half. But man, to go touchdown field goal touchdown touchdown choke out to close the game is pretty darn incredible. That is, that is really remarkable. And again it. Goes to the versatility. We've had multiple games where we have these choke out drives. We we just get to a point and it's like, all right, we're

going to end the game. We're just going to have a 9 minute drive. And it's wild, like, again, the versatility of this offense. To, you know, some of those touchdown drives, you know where, you know, one was 49 seconds, the other one was a minute 37, then a minute 43. And then it's like, well, we'll just do one that's 8 minutes. We'll just go ahead and just end the game by holding the ball for 2/3 of the fourth quarter. But we've done that multiple times. It's it's unbelievable that

this, it's just unreal, man. It's unreal to see an IU team doing this and just putting their foot on the there's a world where I I do wonder, like should he have gone for just 56 or 63? Just kept, kept going and going and going. I think at that point, you know, you have your backups in. It's just like, listen. But you don't, that's the thing. You did a choke out drive with all your backups in. And that was the thing. I mean they had so many backups in on defense on that.

Those last couple of drives for Michigan State and Michigan State on those two drives went 3 plays -19 yards and then they had a punt on A6 play, 23 yard drive because they just weren't getting anything going. If you go through Michigan States drives, here we go 8 plays 52 yards field goal, 13 plays, 71 yards touchdown. And then the sun went down Michigan State and they go three play. 26 yard interception, 5

plays, 20 yards punt, 3 plays. One yard interception, 3 plays, 5 yards punt, 3 plays, 13 yards, end of half, 4 plays -14 yards block, punt, safety. 8 plays, 30 yards turnover on downs. 6 plays -4 yards, turnover on downs. 3 plays -19 yards, punt. 6 plays, 23 yards, punt that. That needs an NC 17 ratings that that collection of drives. My God. I mean, that's talk to your children about that. Goodness. Yeah, that was that was not nice. And The thing is you can't even

say this happened. All the interception happened when Childs was in there. So it's not like, oh, the backup went in and you're just playing a scared tentative backup. I mean, all the interceptions happened when their starter was in. It was just all of the -44 yard sacks when their backup was in. And you, you had what, 2 blocked punts in there, 1 tipped and then one, one that should have

been blocked for a touchdown. You know, just, he looks the wrong way, but that should have been a touchdown blocked punt, just just a complete ass kicking. Like I said earlier, what's wild is we've, we continue to do this. We did this against Nebraska. You look back at the score, it's like we'll look at Washington and think that was pretty much a, a butt whooping too.

It's it's, it's wild. There when I did the the preview podcast on Thursday, it's I, I, I'm not trying to call this person out because I actually really do enjoy the back and forth with the other schools and and the people that are advocating for their teams. So there was a a Spartan commentator because in that preview I was like, I think Indiana's going to be fine. Michigan State's actually pretty bad statistically. They've had a lot of trouble on

offense. I think I picked Indiana to win like, I think it was like 3821 a little did I know? But but the comment that he made was, you know, when I said this is an offense that struggled, his comment was, well, imagine Indiana playing Ohio State, Oregon, Iowa and Michigan in that order. What do you think the offensive output would be? The reality is Indiana's played a pretty weak schedule compared to Michigan State.

And it's like, well, the, the problem with that is you're not taking into account that Indiana might just be that good and hasn't had the opportunity to play top teams, statistically speaking. You know, when you looked at Michigan State, they were going to have to make big plays, athletic plays. They're going to have to leverage their their players in ways that were going to create problems for Indiana. And they just couldn't do it.

And I, and I think what makes this game such a, a fascinating product is just how much Indiana was able to gum up what Michigan State did. As much as I was critical, not critical, but just pointing out that Michigan State had struggled on offense. They haven't struggled on offense to this degree all season. Like, this was just another level.

And it does make you wonder. It's like, OK, well, you played Ohio State. Ohio State's really the one team that you can go back and look at Michigan State's season so far and say, well, you know, they've they've not they, they didn't play very well in that game. They lost 38 to 7, which I'll I'll note was not by as many points as Indiana beat Michigan State. Just just want to throw that in there. But you know, they scored as many points against Oregon as they scored against Indiana.

They, you know, they they've been a team that struggled some on offense at various times. But to watch Indiana do what they did and choke them out like this and also be able to score as much as they did was really impressive. And I think Indiana deserves a lot more credit nationally than they got for this game, at least in what I've seen in the recaps, I saw somebody put like top 10 most impressive performances and they have Indiana in the top ten.

And I was like, Indiana just went in and beat what at the time was a four in four team right by 37 points in their home stadium. This was not like a one in in eight team. It wasn't like they were going in and beating Purdue or somebody like that at this point in the season. Like it's the Michigan State team that's got some bounce. It's the Michigan State team that is probably going to make a bowl. They've got Illinois, Purdue and Rutgers the rest of the way.

They only need to win two of those three. I mean, to smack that team around by 37 points, that is, there's a level of impressiveness to this that Indiana fans realize. And I think Indiana media have really started to embrace. I'm talking about the independent media. But you know, nationally, they're still not getting credit for doing this because when they win these games, it's like, well, now that team must have sucked because Indiana did this to them.

Not Indiana took that team and stole their soul, which is really what it's felt like has happened in these last three games that they they have gone in there. Look at what Washington did. I mean, is that Washington team bad? Not that U not that USC is necessarily great in terms of record, but they're what, 17th and FPI? You know, Washington, yes, they're playing at home, but that was a competitive game that

Washington beat USC. Indiana did not let Washington feel like they had a chance in that game for the last 25 minutes. At some point, Indiana needs to get some kind of credit for being as dominant in these games as they've been. I, I was saying this yesterday that if you looked at, if you just look at Penn State, they did play Ohio State. They played them at home, I might add, and we are going to play Ohio State. So we'll get there. Look at the rest of Penn State's

schedule. I mean, Penn State started the season ranked 5th, so that's why they're ranked so high. But you look at the rest of their schedule at West Virginia, Bowling Green, Kent State, Illinois, UCLA at Southern Cal at Wisconsin and then Ohio State, none of those games. I think there's there's there's connections to what IU has done all across the way. Yes, they play, you know, Illinois is ranked. I would say that they're kind of in the same category phylum as Nebraska.

Penn State beat them 21 to 7. We beat the hell out of Nebraska, like 57, whatever, 3 or whatever. If if you just swap those two, it's going to be really annoying. If we come out with the rankings today and we're not ahead of Penn State, which which will probably might be the case just because they started ranked ahead of us. But you, you start looking at other teams outside of, you know, Georgia who just played

everybody. You look at other teams around the country, nobody else, nobody else is playing a murderer's role. They'll have one or two really tough games. And by the way, we still have an Ohio State game coming up. So we're still going to play those games. It it, it is annoying, but it also it, you know, just just keep winning, keep going. I think this week, not to jump ahead, but this week is going to be key because I don't think Michigan's very good, but they

have that name recognition. You know, they have the name the Michigan. I think we're going to get way more credit for beating Michigan than we will for, you know, having beat Maryland. But I'm not sure there are really any different teams outside of just the helmet and the logo that we're used to seeing. Well, Ari Wasserman had a great tweet yesterday where he said like Indiana has been free money in the betting world for the whole season. Every every spray.

Solely because of the logo on the side of the helmet, right? I mean, that's the thing, and it is interesting. And we'll talk about the Michigan game here in a second. There's a couple of the reflections I want to get about the Michigan State game. But you know, Indiana did open as like an 11 1/2 or 12 1/2 point favorite against Michigan, which is the first time Indiana's been favored against Michigan since 1968. I think it is.

But to put this Michigan State game into one last piece of context, and I just, I just double checked this with Greg Campbell, the sports information director for IU. Indiana wins by 37 points on the road in a Big 10 game. Now, we've talked a lot about how hard it has been for Indiana to win any games on the road in the Big 10.

And, and just to highlight that I actually have a, a, a chart, a a spreadsheet that Scott has seen that I've been cultivating over the years since 1997, Indiana does not have very many wins on the on the road in the Big 10. I think the, the number now with this game is 21 Rd. wins on the Big 10 total in the 24 seasons that have existed within this Millennium. This was the largest margin of victory for Indiana in a road game in the Big 10 since 1988.

That was the season that they beat Purdue at Ross Ade 52 to 7. That's how long it's been since Indiana won by this margin of victory on the road in the Big 10. So again, I just want everybody that was there or anybody that watched the game to just take a step back and savor that for a

little bit. To be able to go in not to a terrible team in the Big 10, but a mid table team in the Big 10 and beat them by 37 points on the road is a a historic accomplishment for this Indiana football program. I'm I'm letting that just sit. That's he said it perfectly. I agree, yes. I also want to just a little bit talk about the crowd that was there beforehand. We had a, an interesting drive up to East Lansing.

The Michigan Department of Transportation, for whatever reason, decided to just close Interstate 69 between the part. Well, it was not the entire length, but like about a Six Mile stretch between the border and Lansing, which involved a lot of of taking side roads and things like that. I've never been to East Lansing before and I gotta say the people were very friendly. I was really impressed with how friendly the people were. They're kind of.

They've left into my top 2IN friendly Rd. fan bases, at least for traveling. Iowa #1. Nebraska, Nebraska, those folks were incredibly friendly when we were there, at least the people that we saw. But the Michigan State people were generally really friendly, although their students need to work on their insult game.

Like I was walking out of the parking lot, we were walking through the little residential area north of where that commercial strip is. And you know, there's some dudes on the lawn across and they, they yell across the street, hey, the salon is that way. And I'm like, what I, I'm assuming they're referring to the hair, but I mean, come on, you gotta come up with some better burns than that. Like that's, that's not gonna, I'm gonna be like, thank you.

I'm gonna go get a a rinse and, you know, maybe a little bit off the top before I go into the stadium. But you know, the we, we, we're at a bar with a bunch of IU fans ahead of the game. That was a lot of fun. We got a chance to hook up with some of our friends, saw Jordan Brock out there, saw several people. It was one gentleman that I met whose name is escaping me while I'm on the pod here, but has been to like 105 IU football games in a row, which man, I mean, I, I bow to that person

and their personality. Like city road games. Yeah, they've been to right. I mean, that's. Part of the IIU athletic staff like. Is it paid to do this? But saw so many great people in the stands. We had Lucas Kite came up and said hi to me in the stands. It was great to see Lucas and just a a ton of people that we took pictures with in the end zone after the game. Had some folks run up and take some pictures up in Section 8 with me as well.

It was great to see everybody and just it was a jovial and excited and, and for the most part, not rude IU fanbase. Everybody was just happy to be there in terms of like watching Indiana perform that well in, in every aspect of the game. It was really cool to see and again, it's like, you know, we've seen this with UCLA, we've seen it with Northwestern, we've now seen it with Michigan State. Indiana has travelled very well to these games and I expect to see that continue.

This is really a fun team to follow. But as Huperazi points out, he was up there, We saw him post game. The parking was terrible. That was probably the worst parking situation that I've ever experienced for a football game. And I've been to a lot of places that don't have a lot of parking. I mean, I used to go to games at the University of Miami when they were in the Orange Bowl, which there was no parking in Little Havana. I can tell you that this was

worse than that. Like we went, we spent 40 minutes looking for a spot. We finally found a spot at the the, I think East Lansing High School or whatever it was. So it was, you know, but it was a fun trip. We really had a great time. It was great to see so many IU fans there. And it was just one of those situations where you couldn't help if you were an IU fan, but just it was so life affirming, especially after the game.

I mean, watching the the team come over, you know, get the old brass platoon, bring it over to the fans that had traveled there were there were some students in the mix. There was some younger alumni. There were older alumni. Everybody cheering them on. Signeti coming off the field and leading that go IU chant that he's decided he's going to adopt. You know, he acknowledges the crowd across the board. Scott Dolson's out there, you

know, Pam Witten was out there. I mean, it was just like it was cool to watch that collection of of IU people and the fans that were there. And that there's this fun in person connection that I've seen now in all three of these Rd. games where the players are acknowledging the fans, the fans are acknowledging the players. There's an immensely communal sense between this fan base and this team and the people that are coaching it and running the athletic department.

And it's a it's a special, it's an emotionally special kind of thing, especially if we've watched these two groups, the fans and the program not always really be that close with each other. It's been a lot of tension over the course of. Time. I feel like there should be a stat like a Bill Connolly stat of like opposing stadium clear outs 'cause you look at UCLA and Michigan State, that's two of our three big 10 Rd. games.

We have cleared out their stadium by really the fourth quarter 'cause you were there watching on TV by the fourth quarters, like there's nobody there. It's just IU fans are left. We've done it back-to-back weeks. I do feel like if you're able to do it at at Ohio Stadium, that that should be like a, you know, worth 4 points versus doing it at Michigan State. But you know that that's a. That's a great stat, 2 out of 3.

Big 10 Rd. games. You cleared out the stadium because you were beating the team by so much and we were noticing it. Eric Knabel, who a lot of you know, he was texting me, he's like, I predict we're going to have a lot of spare seating available to us when the fourth quarter started. And he was right and it was cool to see. And again, I give all credit to Michigan State fans. They they were actually very, very cordial with us. We got a lot of, hey, good luck

the rest of the season. Please beat the hell out of Ohio State comments. So that was nice. What was really, please beat the hell out of Michigan first. Please, please also beat Ohio State. So it was it was nice. It was a good experience overall. Any, any final thoughts about this game, Scott, before we move forward to to talking about what's going to be coming up this week? No, I'm, I'm ready to talk about the next I'm, I'm already fired

up for the next game. And finally, you know, we, we flew back from our fall break trip before the Washington game got in like 2:00 AM and that was a, you know, noon kick off where I, it was college game day. So I had to leave at 7:00. Not a quick turn around. I'm, as I mentioned before, I'm

coaching my son's basketball. Our first game is on Saturday, although I don't know the time because the commissioners a little bit underwater trying to get things out, but I'll be coaching game that morning sometime at 9/10 11:00. I was like, please don't make it a noon game. Like just help me out because I don't know, my son will want to play basketball. I'm like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. The 330 kick really helps me. So just thank you to the TV networks for helping out Scott

on Crimson cast. It's it's much appreciated. Thanks for doing me a solid. We're gonna talk about that, but we need to introduce something. I I hope this works. I, I, I don't know if it's actually gonna play. And if it doesn't, I'll just say what I'm going to say, but I wanted to play this first. Let's see if this works. Hold on. I'm not sure if that actually came through. That was that was of course still playing in the background. Just play it on a loop.

But that that is signetti, of course, saying back in December, Purdue sucks, but so does Michigan and Ohio State. Scott, I don't know if you've checked the schedule, but. That's our last three games. Hold on, I am going to declare officially this is this is suck month walking everybody to suck month. We're we're playing the three teams that Kurt Signeti highlighted in that clip as we go down the stretch here with Indiana already 9 and O welcome

to suck month. I welcome you to and how you feeling Scott? I'm I'm. Ready to suck. Please don't clip that. I I'm ready for them to suck. I think is the the answer you're looking for us to kick some ass. I, I mentioned this on an earlier pod. It might be one of the Crimson caches. You know, when I first heard signeti say that it was awesome, but I also just thought, all right, that is, you know, our rival and then you're just picking two of the top teams in the big 10.

I'm I'm past the point of I, I'm giving signeti credit for everything. Our schedule was out at that point. I, I wonder and I really do think he might have looked at it and been like maybe we're going to be 9 and O going into those last three games. And I mean those are our last three games and those are the teams that all suck. I I'm not sure it's a coincidence that he just picked those teams out of thin air.

So I think let's let's show Signetti that they do suck and let's go out and beat the three of them. Signation. Yes, Jordan. So let's let's talk through this because this Michigan game is so pivotal and we're going to have a lot about this Michigan game later on in the week. There's a couple of things I think we need to to to highlight before. You get into a little bit of a preview. Can I just say one thing? Yeah, go ahead. Because I think I think he deserves it now.

But I do think that what's on the table here, just based on the fact that it's Michigan and it's a name and if they're defending champs, I do think when Indiana see, I'm changing my tune. When Indiana wins this game, I think this is when Signetti locks up Coach of the year. I I think he should already have it locked up, but I think this is the game that locks up national coach of the year. I, I don't know what the argument would be for anybody

else at this point. I mean, you know, this is, it's not UCF going from like O and 12 to whatever they did in terms of record. But again, it's like you've got such a history of not competing at this level at Indiana and all of the changes that have occurred over the course of this

last 11 months. I mean, it's all happened in this the last 11 months, Scott, This is not, this is not something where it's like, well, we laid the foundation for a year and then we kind of got, I mean, it's, it's wild to think through the implications of everything that Indiana has done in such a a short period of time. And look, the players deserve a ton of credit. The assistant coaches deserve a ton of credit. Scott Dolson deserves a ton of credit for making the hire.

But Kurtz Signetti is the guy that had the plan. I don't know how you look at what has gone on across college football and don't say this guy deserves coach of the year right now. I don't care what happens the rest of the season. I totally agree. But I I think this win a lot will lock it up. Well, so let's I mean, let's talk a little bit about this. Ultimately, Indiana's facing a Michigan team that they are now either an 11 1/2 or 12 1/2 point favored over.

And that is largely because Michigan has struggled so badly offensively. You know, we just played Michigan State. Michigan State's averaging 19.8 points a game. Michigan is only averaging 21 points per game. Michigan on the course of the season, if you look at what they've accomplished, their wins, they're five and four on the season. Their wins are against Fresno State, Arkansas State. USC by three at home, Minnesota by three at home in a controversial game, and Michigan State by 7.

That's their wins. That's all of them. They're, you know, their losses. Their losses have been to to fairly good teams. Texas at Washington by 10, at Illinois by 14. And then of course, the game that they play with, they played fairly well against Oregon, all things considered. So there's two things to think about here. A, And I think Patrick had this in a comment earlier, this is a brand that is frightening.

This is a team that Indiana has beaten once since 1987 and has beaten twice since 1967. It is a brand that you don't have to work to get worked up about. You like you don't have to convince somebody to play hard because Michigan's going to be on the other side. It's a team that has a ton of talent across most of their play, but it is a team that has struggled at the quarterback position, has struggled to score.

This is going to be the biggest test for Indiana because it's, you know, in terms of like just a mental hump of being able to say we can go out and beat Michigan. Michigan's no better than us, but we have to execute every play. Now. We've seen Indiana do this over and over again this season. We're going to talk through a lot of individual statistical matchups as we go through the rest of the week. But you know what makes this such a tough game for Indiana?

It's kind of what made the Michigan State game ostensibly, but not in reality, a tough game for Indiana, which is the building of pressure and expectations and the idea that if Indiana wins this game, they're going to tend to know for the first time in school history, right? They will have almost locked up a College Football Playoff at

large berth. If you go through the selector and you go through some of the other things that are happening in college football or will happen in college football and they'll be doing it in a marquee television window on CBS. Like this is, you know, you get the the, the Jingle that comes in at the beginning that that CBS college football Jingle that's always been associated with SEC football.

The eyes of the college football world are going to be on Indiana in a way that they haven't been all season because of the fact that they're playing Michigan, because that's such a big brand. This is going to be a huge game. And again, this is where Kurt Signetti and his staff have a tremendous task in front of him this week to keep their players grounded and level headed. The players have a huge task in focusing on the film, focusing on how they can exploit Michigan's weaknesses.

Statistically, Indiana is the superior team. There's no question. That's why the lines have opened up where they have. That's why they're likely going to stay there. But again, this is one of those Dragons that you have to slay on route to whatever the final boss battle is. You have to be able to beat Michigan. And it's just something that even in seasons where Michigan hasn't been that good, Indiana

has rarely ever done. And so, you know, I think we're going to have to be going through a lot of this psychologically as a fan base this week. But I also think that for the team and the coaching staff, this becomes one of their biggest challenges because you get over this hump and it opens up an entirely new set of vistas that you would have never even imagined before the season

started. I agree with all of that, but I also think as we've seen all year, that the the concern of previous IU football seasons affects us, the fans. It's not affecting Coach Signetti or this team that they are just immune to it. They move on with it. And if you look at, yeah, you look at Michigan State, like I mentioned earlier, as a bellwether team, when they played mid level teams, they played them pretty well and

lost. When they played really top level teams, they got their ass kicked. You look at Michigan, it's the same thing. They beat bad teams. When they play good teams like Texas, Washington, IL and Oregon, the best teams on their

schedule, they have lost. So you look at this and it, it really, you know, this is where I'm, I'm real really ready to shed some of the IU fan base, you know, just armor that's been built up year over year because this team has shown nothing that, that it's not going to be prepared and ready. Michigan State was a, was a real trap game in my mind. That was a tough environment and it played out about as bad as you could expect for the 1st 10 minutes of the game.

And they turned it on a dime and won. So I'm even, you know, they could come out and throw 2 picks again and get down 14 nothing. I'm not going to be awesome. I'm not going to be in a great mood, but I'm I'm I'm never going to feel like this team can't come back and just start kicking ass again. And it does really feel like

Signeti understands all of this. You know, the only thing that that gives me pause just because we don't want to talk positively the whole time is and I don't have the schedule in front of me. You can pull it up. James Madison schedule last year. You know, they they kind of had a similar rise last year. They get game day there. It's like they they are at the precipice of seeing the new vistas, as you said, and then they lost, I think, to Appalachian State.

So there, there is, you know, this Signetti has kind of been here before standing on a precipice of do some doing something that has never been done before and he wasn't able to do it last year. Now, I, I, I think we all should have the utmost faith in Signetti. And I'm actually happy that happened because I, I don't think Signetti's the kind of guy who's like, well, you know, not him, that that's a fluke. Like I think he really has looked at that. What did we do wrong?

How do we prepare for that game incorrectly? How can we change how we're going to prepare? So I, I think it's actually a blessing in disguise that happened last year. But that would be the only thing is when you look at that last year, you know, James Madison had that moment and they were not able to, to cash in well. And you know, I think it's interesting and to some degree it's it's a great point and I agree with that.

But I'd almost argue that Signetti and this staff and many of these players, having been in a position where they were on the precipice and they end up losing a game at home to an Appalachian State team that that was good. They weren't, I mean, they weren't a great team. They finished nine and five on the season. They they scored like 32 points a game.

That was a really good Appalachian State team having been through that experience that really will, I think, help the leaders on this team and the coaching staff know what to avoid as they go through this week. And look, game day's not gonna be here. Big Noon might be here even though it's a 330 kick for for Cbsi don't totally know yet how. Wild is this IU fans like Big Noon might be here, man, who cares? Like, you know, just normal Saturday.

But but, but I do think that that you, you really do bring up a good point. We we worried about this before the Nebraska game. Like, wow, all this attention sell out. Like is Indiana going to be able to navigate the emotional hurdles? We worried about it for Washington game day is going to be here. You don't have your starting quarterback. Can they navigate those hurdles? You know, you feel like they're going to be able to navigate this. It's a different type of hurdle.

It's a different type of hurdle because they've now thrived in the spotlight a couple of times. Can you keep doing it? That's the mark of really great teams and that is something that I think is going to be really fascinating to watch as we go into this upcoming week. 330 start is I think it's our first 3 did. We have one earlier, obviously 1st 330 start in the Big 10. I, I think it's going to make for just an, you know, great tailgating for you and the

tailgate crew. I'll be coming down after whenever my basketball game is, but I, I think this is the perfect time for a real frenzied crowd because sometimes the noon kickoffs can be a little tough for people to make it down. The 3:30 is just at the perfect time. You'll get the sun setting and hopefully the weather is good. But I, I do think this is going to be a great crowd. And I, and I also think, you know, one of my, I unfortunately have a lot of friends who are Big 10 fans.

My buddy Danny, who, you know, him and his parents, he's coming down with his family. He's always, he's a Michigan grad. He's always come to the games and I've I've told him like, dude, be ready. It's going to be different. Like I don't think there's, you know, he's he's used to having a bunch of, you know, Bishkin fans in the stands healing go blue and stuff like that. And like, dude, it's I don't think it's going to be like that. Like Nebraska didn't bring

anybody. I know they travel really well. I just don't see a world where Michigan brings the kind of fans they they did in the past. And I told him like, it's going to be loud. And again, I think you you hit it the best. Our stadium is not going to scare Michigan. Michigan has been in really tough environments. They've played in, you know, Ohio Stadium, they've played in tough places. What it what it does is it buoys our team. It gets our team fired up. And that's the most important

thing. We had a great question from one of my former students and and an avid listener of the podcast TA, Asking for soccer fans like me, what's the soccer equivalent of Indiana's football season? Leicester City's Premier League title run in 2016. I actually think that's a great comp, like a team that was not picked to do anything like this Indiana team was 16th or 17th in most of the preseason projections in the Big 10, not nationally.

In the Big 10, they're coached by a manager who has won things at lower levels but is still kind of viewed with suspicion or a, a, a lack of respect at the top level. In Leicester City's case, it was Claudio Ranieri who, you know, won Serie A, say, which is the third division of Italian soccer with Calgary, won Serie A Bay, which is the second division with Fiorentina, had won the Copa del Rey with Valencia. But these were all lower level things for the most part.

He comes in and takes this Leicester team and they keep winning and everybody's like, well, they're going to collapse eventually. They're going to collapse eventually. They're going to lose this game or Chelsea's going to catch them or Tottenham's going to catch them. It was a weird year that year in the Premier League and it never happened. And you know, they, they keep winning games down the stretch and at the end of it, they're Premier League champions.

And it is the most improbable thing I think arguably that's ever happened in the top four or five major leagues in European soccer. This would be at maybe, you know, it could be a higher level of improbable if Indiana were to actually carry this through go 12 and O go to the big 10 title

game. It's mostly the out of nowhere nature of it and how it just kind of this team of players that people didn't think was going to be able to compete, not just competing, but meshing into a unit that people took shots at all the time. People thought, well, they're not actually that good because of the brand name. No one took Leicester City seriously. Nobody thought of them as a contender, but they come out of

nowhere and they win the league. I think it's a great shout, Tom and I'm I'll think about other thoughts. I'm sure Zach Osterman, if he listens to this podcast, will maybe have another comp that he would throw in there. But that would that would be about as good as I could think of with this one. I don't watch soccer, so I, I, I don't know Tony Meola like that. That's as far as I'm going to go. I don't know. I, I will say my buddy Robert had a great point.

He's like, I he's like, now I hope you guys win the national championship and you never go down by anybody else. So the only team that was able to get a lead on Indiana was Michigan State the rest of the season. And and as you were saying that, I do think like, here's my fever dream. That is funny. Now, if we make a run to the College Football Playoff and get to the national championship game, it will be funny just to see how much they move the goal posts Again.

It's like, well, Indiana played the first they were at home. You know, that's that's they played Illinois, not good and they played BYU. That's not a great team. And then, you know, Texas that maybe it'll be like others. You know, it's like it'll be funny just to see the goal post moves all along the way. It also is, you know, people are talking on the chat a little bit about the Ohio State game.

I'm already pre annoyed because if we go 11:00 and 1:00, which I think we're going to do, I think we could go 12 and O we'll talk about that next week. But if we go 11 and one and even if we play well against Ohio State, there's going to be a bit of well, I told you like they can't play the good teams. Like nobody can't like not everybody can beat Ohio State. Like the idea that, you know, people are asking me, you know, God, if you lose to Purdue is the season, is this going to be

just kill your heart? It's like we have nine wins. We've never been here like this is this is the highest level we've ever had. Like I thought we were going to win eight games. I thought we were crazy. My goal every year is to win 6 and go to a bowl. Like that's not that's not changing until we have 567 years of this. Then maybe I'll go to like seven wins. Like I'm the idea of these heights are are nuts. And I never go into a year thinking, well, we got to beat Ohio.

State on the road. Well yeah I know it's it is wild and it's hard again as I talked with a lot of IU fans yesterday at the game I've talked with many of you as I've seen you around Bloomington or we've been chatting on these pods.

It's you almost don't know what expectations to have like you know how are we supposed to feel what are you supposed to think this is this is uncharted territory for this program and its fans it's uncharted territory for people outside the program who don't know how to address a nine and O Indiana that has an 86% probability of making the College Football Playoff right now as a margin of victory of what like 2829 points

a game. I didn't want to There was a comment from Allison Dalton here. I wish my late husband was here to see this. Of course he has better seats than I do. Well, Allison, you know, I, I think about my dad with this all the time. And I know a lot of other people, you know, feel the same way, like the, the people that we know that have loved or have followed IU football for a long time. And this was never even in the the conversation as a possibility.

This is, it's why this season has been so special. It's why this Michigan game is so like it's, it's, it could be such a a key exclamation point on what Indiana is able to do at home. I mean, it's been amazing that atmosphere in Memorial Stadium the last three games, This one is going to even top that because there is such a psychological thing that you have with Michigan and they have

been the tormentors for so long. And to come in and This is why this game is to some degree kind of a concern. But it's also one where you kind of have to have confidence at the coaching staff and the the players are going to figure it

out. But like for IU fans and the ones that are no longer with us, who have been through all of these seasons that have been so terrible to be in this position and, and watch this, You just wish everybody that ever loved IU football, that you you ever spent time with, was able to enjoy it the way that you're able to enjoy it in person like this. Completely agree. I also again, this is, you know, embarrassment of riches, asking

for too much. It is the only thing that that's that's it. It sucks that it's not the right word, although it is suck month. The only thing that's that's you know, about about these games is we're we're not going to have that moment. This has been such a great season where we can, you know, rush the field or take down the goal posts. I almost think given the history, you know, if we're ranked, you know, 9th or 10th in the country and we beat A5 and three Michigan team, you can't

rush the field. But it does feel like that's the only thing we didn't get this year is that one statement game. And in a way, this is it. And if you beat Michigan for exactly all the reasons that you said, there's a world where it's like storm the field, man. Like this is this is the the culmination of everything. And yeah, normally the ranked team doesn't storm over beating a non ranked team. But these are not normal circumstances. And Michigan really is that that bugaboo for us?

Yeah, it's them in Ohio State and you got a real opportunity here during suck month Yeah, to to to right a lot of historical wrongs. It's it's man what a what a what a circumstance let's. Matt, Matt, Matt. UL question. Another towel design. What do you think the towel's going to be? So we had, you know, stay up and study or whatever, or, you know,

don't study. There was the the signeting and there's a. Signetti, just the great Signetti. You know, Marlboro, do you think they go back to one of those two or you think we're getting a different one for that in Purdue? I, I have been given advance notice on the, the, the towel. I'm not going to reveal it here. I want it to be a surprise when it is revealed by the athletic department. So it's a good one is all I'll say. It's a good one. Crimson cast Recite the drives.

Recite the drives towel would be amazing, although probably would would be better suited for like a home game against like Indiana State or something like that, you know?

Yeah, yeah. So let's let's dive into the CFP stuff before we wrap up. We're going to go another 10 minutes or so here, but the first College Football Playoff reveal show is this Tuesday. And no one really knows what we're going to see in this, but we do know that Indiana is going to be in the College Football Playoff rankings somewhere, which that's a big story in and of itself.

Now, if you go to the College Football Power Index on ESPN, which we refer to often, and you sort the teams and their percentage chance of making the playoff, I want to note the following. The team that has the best chance of making the playoff right now according to this is Oregon, 95.6% chance. Miami is second at 92.8% chance to make the playoff and Georgia is 3rd 92.3% Ohio State's 4th at

91.3%. Indiana's fifth have an 86.6% chance to make the playoff, which is a higher probability than Texas, Tennessee, Penn State, Boise State, BYU, Notre Dame, Alabama, SMU, Ole Miss, Iowa State or LSU. Indiana has a a better than four out of five chance going the rest of the way to make the playoff. And again, as we've talked about, you know, it's not just about what Indiana's doing, it's about what everybody else is doing as well. What we'll see moving forward is

going to be interesting. But Scott, if you were drive, you know, if you were home like you were after watching the IU game or if you were like me driving back and listening on SiriusXM to the games going on around the country. Yesterday was a really good day for Indiana football when it came to the College Football Playoff. Iowa State loses at home to an unranked Texas Tech team. Texas A&M. Texas A&M loses on the road bad to South Carolina. You know, you had.

Yeah, Penn State lost, which was a big one. Obviously. You know, you had Clemson, which is a huge 1 loses at home decisively to Louisville. And now you and, you know, Tennessee struggled a little bit. They ended up winning that game.

It would have been a perfect night if Tennessee had somehow lost that game to Kentucky. But what you see right now, just based on the numbers and based on what we think the College Football Playoff committee committee will do, Indiana is in really good shape if they can take care of business over these next three games. And as Zach Osterman pointed out, like now, it's if you can beat Michigan and you can beat Purdue, then it's a matter of, well, your ceiling rises with

the Ohio State game. But it's not like you're out of the College Football Playoff if you lose to Ohio State. Like that's where Indiana is at right now in this whole mix.

The, the thing that I've been trying to figure out is if, if we beat Michigan and Purdue lose to Ohio State and then we, I, I don't think in that scenario, we make the Big 10 championships because I think Ohio State would make it over us and Oregon would, would still make it. But my biggest fear is I definitely see a world where we go 11:00 and 1:00. If we make the Big 10 championship and then lose to Oregon, I could see them leaving Indiana out in that scenario.

I know something you've talked about a couple times in the past and it's, it's annoying because that same scenario, if that happens to Penn State, they are in that this is where the brand hurts you. And again, we're going to be in the best bowl we've ever been in, whether we make the CFP or not. But you know, that to me is probably the worst case scenario is you're, you're letting the voters have a choice. And, and I think they might

leave us out. But again, it's, it's, there's a lot of lot of pieces that have to happen between now and then. So I'm gonna run through some things real quick. I tried to make a graphic out of this this morning. I couldn't. I might be able to share it in in notes form though. On screen for those of you that are watching along and for those who are not. You'll just have to, you'll have to take my word for it.

Hold on a second. I'm gonna, I, I don't wanna show you what all of my, my notepads look like. That would be really disastrous, I think, for, for several people, including myself. But let me salon appointments for the salon appointments. OK, I'm gonna pop this up and I hope I'm gonna, I'm gonna zoom in on this a little bit. Here's the thing about everything you just said is, is correct. However, what I also think you

should note is the following. Here's the following things that are guaranteed to happen elsewhere in college football between now and the end of the regular season. All right, so I might be able to zoom in a little bit more here. Texas or A&M are guaranteed to have another loss. Either Texas is going to have two losses or A&M is going to have three. Alabama is either guaranteed to have three losses or LSU is guaranteed to have three losses

because they play each other. Georgia is guaranteed 2 losses or Ole Miss 3 because they play each other. Georgia and Tennessee play each other, so that means two loss Tennessee or two loss Georgia, Notre Dame or Army play each other. One of those will get another loss. Clemson is either going to have three losses or Pitt will have two. Iowa State and K State play each other.

You also have to add in that one of Georgia A&M, Tennessee or Texas will pick up another loss in the SEC Championship game. Either Miami or SMU is guaranteed to lose a game in the ACC Championship game, and either BYU, Iowa State or Colorado are guaranteed another loss. And this is where when we talk about the projections, it's easy to look at Indiana in a a nutshell or in a bubble and say, well, gosh, if they don't do this or that, they're going to

be in trouble. But Indiana going 11 and one, even if we accept that they might, that they would lose to Ohio State, which I'm not ready to do anymore. We'll talk about in a week, but yes, same or two weeks. Even if you accept that that occurs, Indiana is going to be in really good shape compared to most of the other teams that are going to be in the mix for and in.

And This is why going out and winning 47 to 10 on the road at Michigan State and maintaining these margins of victory becomes so important because when you can't say, well, our strength of schedule number wise is better, Let's look at the style points. Let's look at how much you're beating everybody else.

And that is where Indiana's got a real advantage because, you know, if they can win two out of three or even all three of these remaining games, they're going to be in such better shape than most of the other teams around them based upon what we've seen the College Football Playoff committee favor in the past.

And then that's going to be the big question is how does the College Football Playoff committee navigate what Indiana's resume is going to look like compared to, I will note, Scott, teams like Miami or BYU, who frankly don't have any better level of results than Indiana has. And even teams like Penn State where, you know, should Penn State be ranked ahead of Indiana?

I mean, what have they done? They've beaten an overrated Illinois team at home and they barely squeaked out a game at AUSC team that has a losing record like where else? And they have a loss, by the way, which Indiana does not have. Like what is Penn State actually accomplished? What is BYU really accomplished? What is you know and, and this is where you start to get into the Clemson's, the LS us, the teams that should be rightfully underneath Indiana in the pecking order.

There's a lot of potential scenarios and directions here, but I just want to let people know that right now, if Indiana takes care of business, I think Indiana is in pretty good shape. It's just absolutely wild. It's also frustrating when you you sent this out almost every week now when you look at the full AP vote, it is wild to see people still in the AP vote putting Indiana in the 17 to 20 range, which I think is what's

dragging down our ranking. And it's really frustrating because there's there's no reason why they should be there. But I agree with you. I think this is, you know, we we should jump Clemson, we should jump Iowa State, we should jump Texas A&M. Just those alone makes us 10th in the country. And then I really think we should jump a couple of those one loss teams like I, I'll ask you this, you know, where do you think we are ranked after this week going into the Michigan game?

I, I think it'll, it should probably be six or seven, but it'll probably be 8 or 9. So I went through and tried to anticipate what the pollsters as a whole we're going to do given the results we saw right now. I think Indiana's going to end up 9th in the poll this week. So I have it Oregon, Georgia, Ohio State, Miami, Texas as the top five and then Tennessee, Notre Dame who does not deserve to be BYU, who does not deserve to be 8th, Indiana 9th and Penn State 10th.

I won't be shocked if they rank Penn State ahead of Indiana and it's and it's Penn State 9 and Indiana 10. And then I got Boise State, Alabama, Ole Miss, SMU, Iowa State rounding out the top 15. That would be how I think it will go. I, I don't know what your, what possible justification you could have at this point to rank Iowa State or Clemson ahead of Indiana given the results that occurred over the course of the weekend. I don't know how you would rank Texas A&M ahead of Indiana.

You know, based upon what happened this weekend. They're already ranked ahead of Alabama. They're already ranked ahead of Boise State. Nothing that happened this weekend should change that. I could see them doing something stupid like putting Ole Miss in the top ten, right? But I really think Indiana's gonna be in that 910 range. Brett Mcmurphy's poll, the Rider from the Action Network had them at 7th. I, I think you know the question for Indiana.

Indiana has had pollsters voting them 456, but they've also got people voting them 1718. At some point those people are gonna have to like turn on a television and watch football. Maybe they'll see the error of their ways, but. Just look at the records like all right, Clemson six and two, like at some point. You know, and, and again, it's like there's so much moving of the goal posts among the

pollsters. And this is where I'm really interested in what the the CFP committee does 'cause as Tanner points out in the comments, people keep talking about how weak Indiana's schedule is. But they didn't lose to Northern Illinois at home. They didn't lose to Kentucky, they didn't lose to Arkansas. They didn't lose to Vanderbilt. You know, they, they haven't been like Miami where they needed the officials to gift them two games in order to

maintain an undefeated status. So that is where ultimately, you know, I'm really curious to see what the CFP does. We know that the AP poll, the, the voters there, some of them are undaunted, some of them are very daunted. We just need to get the ones that are daunted to be slightly less daunted as we move forward here. Because while the polls are BS, as Bull points out in the, in the, in the comments, they're not totally BS because the polls

indicate public perception. And at the end of the day, the, the committee is not a room of computers. It's the committee is a room of people. Don't you have the AP list somewhere on their desk? Correct. So that is going to be the big question mark. And while the pole is functionally useless, it is useful in terms of the framing of how teams exist within people's minds and those and

people matter in this equation. And and, you know, that's just something that I think we need to keep in mind as IU. Fans, I also think, you know, one of the things we should really be shooting for is it would be great to host one of those first College Playoff games in Memorial Stadium. It's again, this is wild. I think us getting a bye, we're back into fever dream territory. But I mean you you beat Ohio State, you're now in bi territory. Now all you got to do is win the Big 10 title.

But I do think 11 and one, you know, with tie breaks being out of the big 10 title game, I think that's a that's enough to get you a home game in the first round of the College Football Playoff, which is which is wild. And we were we were discussing at one of the tailgates last week. You know, if you have that, it'll be middle of December. Obviously you play it immemorial state.

But the idea just kind of, you know, thinking up like, is there anywhere world where, you know, you move it to Lucas Oil just for the the the weather conditions and just trying to do it. And it's just like, I don't even know the rules of this. Like does it have to be at the home site? Like I I had not thought to learn the rules of the College Football Playoff and how things are going to happen and, and now we are there.

But as you said, it all comes down to beating Michigan because I don't think Michigan is any better than Nebraska or Washington, but they are a name brand and that will hold a lot of weight. And I think we beat Michigan the same way we beat Michigan State or Nebraska. We'll see a huge jump in the rankings probably that's been deserved for four or five weeks. But people will just see that.

And some people who aren't watching the games, you know, it was funny last night, went over to some other friends house to just have some drinks. We're staying up late. One of the TV's just had Sports Center on and no highlights of the Indiana, Michigan State game. It's all the South Carolina game, it's all the Ohio State, Penn State game. You know, you, you still have to kind of seek out Indiana if you want to see them play. And unfortunately a lot of the games are just such ass

kickings. I'm, I'm sure a lot of people got no, no point in turning it on. This is a game I think people will watch and I think a lot of the AP voters will watch and look at this score. And so this one really does stand among but. I got it, Scott. I got to give you credit. You've managed to do 2 things in the last few weeks of the podcast that have infuriated some of the fans listening. One of them is your the suggestions that Indiana move the playoff game out of Bloomington.

I'm not saying we do it, just it was it was an idea for weather. No, they're not. That idea is off the table. In fact, I'm gonna, I'm gonna burn the table and throw it out the window. That's how off the table it is. The other one. And I and I, I wanted to mention this 'cause I got several people in the DMS yesterday, including Lauren Powell, who said tell Scott I'm coming for him after his let's get it out of the way comment about trailing at some

point this season. Well, I don't know the way. I think I had seven or eight people at the game yesterday bring up the fact that you they were like, well, Scott must be happy now. I just wanted to say you're the, the it's, it's fun. I'm enjoying. I'm enjoying the repartee that you're developing between yourself and the fans on some of these things. We, we are all on the we're all not daunted. I, I am not daunted with these comments. We are all all together not daunted.

I I will say every time I every. Time you Every time you bring up the weather in December in Bloomington, I'm reminded of the end of my first semester freshman year when I'm driving back home from from teeter and I get in the car and it's I think it's December 19th and it's 66° and sunny outside led the windows down the whole way driving up you never know I will say though, I think we this defense and the way that this this passing game plays with the precision they do would would be

amazing in any weather and I think that that there's a real advantage you want to take advantage of this you really do and I think the fans I was just. It was literally just you can look at all coins. If we are not keeping an open mind in this, in this election season, I'm talking keep an open mind all all things. Let's let's just let's come together as a fan base. Let's not be divided. I completely agree. Moving it would be insane. They're not going to do it. They shouldn't do it.

But let's have discussions. I mean, by the way, it's stupid. The idea of us going 10, you know, 10 and O would have been a stupid discussion at the beginning. We were doing our preview podcast. I'm like GAIL and I really want to talk about how important the Michigan game is going to be. We're nine and O. You'd be like, Scott, shut up. What are you talking? It's amazing, I love it. Just a quick note, B town Uber driver noting on Twitter that CBS is predicting Indiana will

be 7th in the poll. Again, they're right. I just don't think they'll be correct. We'll see what happens though. So all right, we got a lot coming up this week. We will keep you folks posted. We'll, we're, we're going to have obviously our preview podcast coming up probably late Thursday evening or Friday morning. So keep an eye out for that. We'll have some other shows. We'll have Bison Chat coming up Tuesday night. We'll have Crimson Cash coming

up later. We'll try to sneak some additional podcasts in throughout the course of the week. Sorry, we didn't have more this past week. It was pretty busy at work and we do have day jobs that we have to participate in. So just want to keep everybody. We're going to do our best. We're going to get the content out there and we will continue to do so. We appreciate all you folks sticking with us. Scott, any final thoughts from you before we wrap up? No, I I mean.

I'm excited to what, what is your tailgate plan? What, what are we doing? Just give us the real quick. So I've been, I think we're going with BBQ shakes this week. So you know, this is of course the, the solo cup with pulled pork, Mac and cheese, coleslaw, little BBQ sauce drizzle. You mix that up. It's, it's really delightful. Might have a couple other things at three. I'm excited about the 330 'cause I get to finally cook lunch.

I've been cooking a lot of breakfasts over the course of the tailgate season so far this year. I'm looking forward to cooking some lunch. And if you want to stop by the tailgate folks, we're in lot 12. I'm sure you'll be able to find us. Anyway, Scott, really appreciate talking football with you. As always. It's been a joy and a pleasure. And thanks to all you folks. Over 350 live viewers at various times throughout the course of this stream.

And of course, many of you who are listening afterwards 'cause you couldn't catch us live on Sunday morning. We appreciate you whenever you are listening to Crimson Cast. And certainly please keep coming up saying hi, taking pictures, love meeting all you folks out there.

It was great to see so many of you up in East Lansing and we'll look forward to seeing you all down here this Saturday as Indiana takes on Michigan, hopefully top 10 Indiana both in the AP poll and in the CFP poll, hosting Michigan. Huge game program, altering game potentially for Indiana coming

up this weekend. And you need to show up, show out, be loud, be excited, help this team get over the hump and get to 10 and O. And that'll wrap it up for us again, for Scott, for the entire back home network crew, for our title sponsors at home Field apparel and of course, the folks over at Upland. I'm Galen Clavio saying thanks for joining us here on the show. Indiana 9 and O, they host Michigan this upcoming weekend. We'll see you all out there.

We'll catch you folks. On the flip side, bring back the Bison. Stay never daunted. So long everybody. Bye folks. Thanks for joining us today. It was really great. Bye, guys.