And good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Bison Chat. It is Tuesday, November 19th. I'm GAIL and Clavio, Joe Cronin joining me again on the show. We got the delightful Emily Fox in the background pushing the buttons and making the magic happen as we are here for the next 45 minutes plus to talk IU football. It was a bye week, but that didn't mean that nothing happened. A lot has happened and we are in the midst of one of the biggest lead up weeks that we've ever
had in IU football. You can really excitement building as Indiana gets ready for a top five matchup in Columbus in the shoe taking on the Ohio State Buckeyes. Joe, I I don't know about you, but it's hard for me to get my head wrapped around the enormity of everything that's happening, what happened this past weekend, and what Indiana is facing as they head into Columbus this Saturday.
Yeah, I thought with Signetti's contract being signed like 9:00 AM on Saturday, it like it was almost like a middle finger to them being on bye week. It's like I we're still going to make it about ourselves and sign this historic deal, that big contract solidifying him for eight years and what a time to do it. I mean, had Big Noon interviewing and stuff like that kept the attention.
I really like seeing the video when Signetti went to it was the IU dance Marathon and, and he gave them a little speech and it sounded exactly like, I imagine like, you know, his locker room talk is before a game. It's like 1000 guys doing our job. I was like, it's the same thing. We hear like 11 guys doing our job. It it it was just like this guy just bleeds coaching. And you could tell that it's kind of translated into
different parts. But it's really cool to see him embrace different parts of Bloomington outside of football. Obviously with that first buy, we get still kind of hard. You're 6 and O still figuring out the way of the land. This one was like, this is one of the biggest fundraisers, fundraisers not just in college, but in all the country. A big staple of Bloomington said. To see him embrace that in Year 1, I thought was very cool to like the icing on the cake of signing the contract.
Like he's here, yes, contract is there, but also like he's a part of this culture that Bloomington is about. I think it's a great point. I think most of the successful football coaches, like the really successful ones, the ones that build a program, they end up becoming very ingrained in the culture of the university. And this is no different. I mean, showing up at Dance Marathon, it's such a huge event. I saw that same video and it was
like, it was just really cool. Not just not the speech itself, but the speech itself was cool, don't get me wrong. But the fact that he took the time to do it, which, you know, you don't have to, but you know, especially leading into getting that contract extension, like it was just this, this perfect synergy in terms of everything. We got a lot to talk about on the show. We're going to be talking about the match up with Ohio State. We're going to do that a little
bit later in the show. But I do want to start off with the contract extension. We covered this Scott and I did on Crimson cast on Saturday. I, I made Scott get out of bed, you know, in, in Westfield and, and, you know, I was yelling. I was like, we got to get on, we got to do an emergency show. People want to talk about this. And it was, it was one of those things that I had a good suspicion Indiana was going to sign Kurt Signetti to an extension.
I didn't think that that he was really going to go anywhere else. I'd heard some inside material that led me to believe that, you know, but still, the financial terms of the deal aren't just great for Kurt Signetti and not just great for Indiana football in the short term. But from my perspective, from a historical perspective, what it represents is an unprecedented investment in the football program that Indiana has decided to make.
We talked about this when Tom Allen got his contract extension after the 2020 season. You know, he his pay gets bumped up to where he was making like close to $5,000,000 a year. And that was the most by far that Indiana had ever paid a coach. They paid some of his assistants more than they'd ever paid assistance before. Kurt Zignetti getting an $8 million a year contract with an extra guaranteed million a year as a retention bonus.
You know, that $9 million a year figure that puts him in the close to the top ten in football coaches across the country. And Joe, like, it's not just that. It's also an increase in the assistant pool. We don't know how much. It's also a promise to continue to upgrade the facilities. It's also a promise we're going to continue to do NIL. We're going to continue to increase that. I just keep coming back to how much has changed with IU football from where we were last
year at this time. Everybody's despondent. A lot of people think Tom Allen's going to still be here or you know, for another year because his buy out was so big. It's amazing to think of everything that's happened in the last 365 days when it comes to IU athletics and IU football
specifically. Yeah, the fact that it's been like less than a year for that too can from Alan Bean fired the buyout to what has happened this tenant O start the historic contract for Signetti. It shows I guess maybe the vision that Scott Dolson had when he first took this athletic director job. And sometimes it takes Rd. bumps or speed blocks to get to that point. And it seems like those things, the pieces are starting to align
more. And yes, the ambition of year one of the 63 year old head coach to hand them a big old 88 year $8 million contract with the 1,000,000 each year bonus. That's ambitious, especially he's played 10 games of of sample size. But now there's an expectation and I think there is a strong confidence that, you know, trickles from head coach to athletic director to president. I think they all believe that this isn't some fluke.
This is something that is real. Yes, he brought in a lot of his guys, but you have to imagine, regardless of what happens the rest of the season, Indian is going to be one of the hot markets for any transfer around the country, especially the Power 5 level. I mean, if he's shown anything, it's that he can make these guys at me or at the Group of Five
level like he could. These guys that maybe have not had the chance at the top level and he's proven to make them high in caliber, potential draft picks, put them on the spotlight. So I think it's good overall for the football team to lock them in. Obviously, there's some outside chatter for the Twitter world saying, oh, Florida, but the Napier was guaranteed to stay at least another year for the state. But who knows what's going on there going back to his home
West Virginia, stuff like that. But when it it was all said and done, I just noticed his demeanor and his investment even before like going to a dance marathon. It was like the UCLA game when he just embraced all the answer is like this seems real. Like he's he's noticing the effort that the the outside perspective is putting in to him being there. So I think good, good all around, all parties. Yeah, it's really interesting because I think ultimately and and let's let's just hear from
Signetti himself. Like he talked about the extension and why he wanted to re sign with Indiana. We've got some sound on that. You know, some people say, well, you know, why would you do that when you know, this one may open, that one may open, you know, and you're going to be a hot commodity and blah, blah, blah. And the fact that matter is we're the emerging superpower in college football. Why would I leave?
I'm excited about our future. We've done a lot of good things, got a lot of people behind us and this is where I wanted to be. I played the What if game with my wife and my agent 3 weeks ago. 4 weeks ago and it all pointed to where I'm at right now. I mean, first of all, it's really gratifying that a guy who's clearly got this guy's level of ability as a head coach gets hired at a place and feels the love, it feels the support and feels strongly enough about sticking around.
And his wife feels the same way. You know, as much as we've heard for years and years like no one wants to coach football at IU or nobody wants to live in Bloomington, that does not seem to be the case in either of these circumstances. And that's really exciting. But I loved, I loved the emerging superpower in college football quote cause it, it
bothered so many people. Like I saw so many comments on, on social media who were like, all right, this is no longer funny, you know, and it's, there's two things about it. A it is, it's hilarious because you, you, you could take it as if he was, he was saying it seriously, or you could also take it tongue in cheek, which I think it clearly was tongue in
cheek to some degree. But that kind of statement, especially the way he delivers it, it instills a level of confidence and a feeling of self worth in a fan base that just simply has never had either of those things. I mean, and with students, especially Joe, last thing I'll say like that fires students up when they hear that. And when they that to the people at other schools like it is, it might seem like boastfulness, but it's really bravado, and
bravado is what sells in sports. I mean, I will say on the student side, there is a lot of out of state kids that go to Indiana and especially freshmen that this is their first ever view of IU football. So their first ever vision of IU football is A10 to no season with this Uber confident head coach. But I will say this is a guy that's been calling his shot since the moment he got to campus. I mean go back to Big 10 media days where he he's making a comment, he's like we're picked
to finish 17th. That's happened two other times we've come out on top of the conference. When that happens, this is time #3 And look where they are right now. I mean, they're, they're guaranteed a top four finish in an 18 team conference, the arguable one or two conference in the entire landscape of college football. So they've done The Dirty work so far. And he is called his shot from the get go. And I think that's just so impressive. There's so much confidence and I
mean, that's where it starts. If you don't believe, you can't make it happen. And he believes and is making it happen well. Yeah. And that's the thing, like so much of this ends up getting wrapped up in this idea of what are you doing? Like, what's what's your program stand for and why should people care? And it's always been so hard to answer that question for Indiana. And Signetti has no problem highlighting exactly what the program stands for and why people should care.
And he wants people out there and the connection that's growing between him and the fan base already. We've seen it at Rd. Games. We see it in these interviews. It's it's what makes this whole thing so special. And you know, it's not just that they signed a coach to an extension and you you mentioned about like the group of five coaches and like maybe this gives some of them some shots that they might not have had
otherwise. The thing with Signeti, I think it's going to be fascinating to watch is how many people are going to revisit their hiring practice and say, how did we miss this guy? Like, how did how did this guy? How is this guy sitting there for years? And of all the Power Five programs, only Indiana thought, you know what, let's hand this guy the keys and see what he does. I'm really fascinated to see how
that process goes. I I also think with that point, he might ruin in a sense the the hiring process because now these other teams are going to have this expectations that they can go from 3:00 and 9:00 to 10:00 and O. That's not how it works usually 95% of the time, maybe even more. This is a rare occurrence in sports, not just college football, but in sports in general. That much of A turn around.
I understand the amount of player turnover, but their ability to just jump into like from Sunbelt to Big 10 has been incredible up to this point. I mean, just like a hypothetical if Mike Norville over at Florida State gets fired for this awesome season that Florida State's having right now and they go out and and grab, I'm not sure maybe Boise State's coach is on the market something like that. Are they, is their expectation right away to have this kind of
immediate success? I I'm not sure what what, what the landscape of of this new head coach hiring process will be. And I think will be interesting and I think I think in the future, we're going to see more coaches fired within two years. And you're going to start to see kind of like how the NBA works, like where the job security is just going to get worse. And that's how it starts right there. I mean, you set a tone. And obviously I'm making a very bold prediction right there.
That's fine. That's what we expect from you, Jerry. That's why you're on the show. You're you're the wild card. All right? I'm the boring conservative guy here. No, I'm kidding. Let's switch gears a little bit. It was the bye week and that was welcome not just for Indiana, but for a lot of other programs and really comes at an opportune time, I think for Indiana given their next opponent. Let's hear what Coach Signetti had to say on that front.
In terms of the bye week, I think across college football, everybody's hurting a little bit at this point, right? Even when you're playing every play in the game, you've got something. The off week came at a great time because it was a physical football game. We've played a number of games in a row and it was good for everybody to catch a breather and get refreshed and recharged and gave us a little extra time on the next opponent.
And you need the time on the next opponent, when the next opponent is Ohio State and they're ranked, you know, second in the country. And you're, you know, you haven't beaten Ohio State since 1988. I mean, there's there's so much about this game that needs attention and some of it I think Joe comes to you look at the Michigan game. Indiana wins that game, gets to 10 and O, but you know, they lose Miles Price to an injury. It sounds like he's going to be back.
But they kind of lost their offense in the second-half of that game. Like Michigan figured some things out, made it really hard for Indiana to move the ball. They did when they absolutely had to at the end of the game. But you've seen that game, the Washington game, like a couple of games now in a row against physical competition, which Ohio State certainly is, where Indiana started to struggle in the offensive phase. And so, you know, to me, this
coaching staff is so smart. You know, both sides. You know, MM Shanahan and Tino Cinceri on the offensive side, Brian Haynes and his staff on the defensive side. They're going to get 2 weeks to go back, look at what's working, look at what's been sussed out on film, look at what Ohio State's doing and what's worked against them. And they're going to be able to game plan for this entire time.
Whereas Ohio State, like they had to play Northwestern this last week and they've got Michigan next week. They're they're kind of stuck in this spot where they have to pay attention to Indiana, but they don't get to pay as much attention as Indiana's getting to pay to them. I do think they are catching a slight break that Michigan's having the season they're having.
If Michigan was, you know, in the 8-9 win category, this could be a dangerous scenario for Ohio State because of the way they played against Michigan these past couple seasons. And just knowing that, I mean, the entire fan base of Ohio State would be calling for Ryan's day job to be torched if they lost to Michigan again, which would be interesting, especially this year. But I will say again, we talked about it last week. The bye week just came at a
perfect time. Like you said, Miles Price goes down. It just seems like a lot of physical games in the row. Curtis Schwartz misses that Washington game. He's, you know, a few weeks removed from surgery, gets another week and two full weeks to kind of get back at that throwing motion more intact. Get a feel for how everything's feeling with his thumb, because that's the most important appendage of when you're throwing a football is. The thumb in general is.
Pretty important. I don't know if I would just. Want to but like I'm saying of the of the fingers the thumb is probably the most important but like some people don't call thumb a finger so I just said appendage. Fair enough. I I'm. A doctor. I don't know, I, I, I'm in sports media. I'm I'm not in the Med school. Well, all good. I, I appreciate your thought process on that. But no all of that is right.
And I think also for Indiana, one of the things that's really going to be fascinating and, and maybe the thing that ultimately decides the game is can you slow Ohio State's offense down? And, you know, as good as the defensive line especially has played recently, the way that they disrupted Michigan, they had Michigan had the worst running game they've had all year against Indiana. And and that's saying something because they're a really good running team.
As much as these members of the secondary have really started to kind of increase in, in their quality of play, the defense is really going to be zeroing in on what Ohio State tries to do. And it's a tough assignment cause Ohio State's a really athletic and good team. But what's really exciting is that they're going to have all of this time to work through it. And I am, for one, very fascinated to see how all of this plays out as we go into this bye.
We or gonna come out of the bye, we can go into the game. Yeah, I, I was taking deep dives into watching Ohio State film, looking at their stats side by side, Indiana stats, they're very similar. And IU, IU has the nod in some like very glare, like the points, the red zone touchdowns. That is like unreal. Like IU is first by a lot in their red zone performance, red zone touchdowns this season. Doctor Joe Cronin, I guess that's my new label. I don't want my doctor quite yet.
That's a long time in the works. Maybe one day. Like Jugie Howser, but the sports media version. So yeah. I'm not sure a little. Old for you, but they go on. One thing about Ohio State that I do that could be a concern with Indiana is something I noticed in the IU Michigan game is there were some balls that were open in the middle of the field kind of that second level looking for the tight end and Davis Warren just missed it
overthrew him way to the side. And I do think Will Howard is he's, I mean, he's one of the better quarterbacks in the conference. I'd say top five, top four, whether or not with Drew Aller, where, wherever your rankings are, I'm not really sure. But accuracy wise, he's above 70%. He's thrown over 20 touchdowns. He's top 4IN yards and also has two of the best receivers in the entire conference, yet alone the country.
There's your area of concern right there because defensive line, I do think I will be able to get in their backfield and limit the rushing attack, which is crazy to think 'cause they have Quinch on Quinch on Judkins and Trayvon Henderson. But I just think, you know, James Carpenter, Michael Camara have just been feasting all season long. They feasting against a very good Michigan offensive line and that Ohio State offensive line is similar, right around the
same tier. I think that will be fine. It's really that second level secondary, the line back of the past defense that could be some areas of concern. Definitely going to have eyes out for that. We'll see if the pass rush can force Howard into some, you know, sacks, throw away, stuff like that. But that's the first thing that I noticed when when seeing the
Ohio State offense thriving. Indiana's offense has, you know, had some really good experiences, obviously, but but has had some fits and starts over the course of the last few games. I'm really fascinated to see, you know, what does Indiana lean on Now? There's there's one big thing that has not been talked about yet in relation to this game, and I think it's worth bringing
up right now. Now, these things can change, as we know, but I just want to note the weather forecast right now for Columbus right now, 47, but with a wind chill of 39 W northwest winds of 14 miles an hour with gusts to 27, a 60% chance of precipitation, not a huge amount of precipitation, but it's going to be cloudy. It's going to be ugly. There's kind of competing arguments on this.
We had Dane Sansenbacher on the podcast earlier today, and one of the things that he talked about was he felt that that was an advantage for Indiana because it kind of levels the playing field. It it, it takes away some of the home field advantage, it'll take the crowd out of it a little bit if it's that nasty. Taylor Lehman, in our preview later on this week, has really felt like Indiana might have a
chance to test. This passing defense for Ohio State, given you've got 5 functional, not dysfunctional, but really good receivers and a quarterback in Curtis work that can get the ball to them. So I don't know what that forecast means. We have seen Indiana play in these conditions kind of so far this year. It was warmer, but Maryland was not. Nice conditions versus Ohio State really hasn't played in conditions like this at all so far this year.
So interesting twist in terms of what exactly might you might expect from this game and and how that might affect what you were expecting. Well, the first thing I did notice is how at least you've given me an alert of how I need to dress for being on the sidelines. Cause the reason I had I you, you would show up in like shorts. No, no. No, no, I'm not. I'm not showing up in shorts, not showing up in shorts all year, But I did. It was last year, it was at Michigan.
It was their fall break. It was the what, 52 to 7, something like that. It was like 40 and rainy and I had a short sleeve shirt on and like pants and I was like, this is horrible. What have I done to myself anyways, regardless of that with the weather? It. Kind of goes into, it kind of goes into what I just said with Ohio State's passing game, that kind of takes it away a little bit.
And I think IU will be able to run the ball well enough because, again, Justice Ellison and Tyson Luton are great running backs. That offensive line for IU has just been so good. And with the noise, I'm going to counter that. The noise is going to be there.
Ryan Day talked to his press conference today and he was like, this is the chance to show the country that these are what he said, the best damn fans in all the land they're gonna fill 110,000 and this is an IU. This is an IU team that has not seen a stadium like that outside of a select few guys. But all those guys are on the offensive line. That's why I think the offensive line will be fine.
Here's well, you're probably right on that, but the the interesting thing about that, that's the second time that I know of this week that Ryan Day has had to say something to the fans about being loud. And this is, it's interesting to think about because what, you know, this happens in Michigan a lot, but it actually doesn't get that loud there because the fans are just kind of expecting wins and they only get really fired up against opponents that they feel like they need to get fired
up against. Ohio State, They got Michigan next week. You need no 'cause to get fired up for that. You got Penn State normally comes in, you can get fired up for that. Indiana's hard to get fired up for if you're fans and it's a noon game, you know, there's a lot of these things where you're just kind of like, well, it, it's, it might not be as compelling of an environment, it'll still be nuts with 110,000 people in there. But there's levels to these
things. And it does make me wonder, like, can Indiana get out to a fast start against Ohio State? Can they try to take the crowd out of it a little bit or at least make them nervous 'cause if they can, they'll you add in the weather conditions, you add in the fact it's a noon kick like that starts to have some impacts. Absolutely. And something with crowd is always like the pre snap penalties, getting the snap off and I want to go back to it. IU center Mike Kadik, he's been
at IU for six years. He has played at Penn State, he has played at Ohio City, he's played at Michigan. If there's anyone that will be comfortable snapping the ball like that is about the perfect option you can have. And I think like that might negate some of the pre snap problems that you might expect a team that hasn't gone into an environment like this. But I will say, I think Ohio State understands what's on the line.
I think their fan base understands what's on the line because if they lose, they are not in the Big 10 championship and they are now fringe. Now they are traveling for a playoff game. Like like they're at the late at the end side of the playoffs. So they know what's on the line for this. And I mean, I think Ryan Day understands like another loss in the regular season, although like he's had a terrific regular season record. He has 9 losses in his six years that that's fantastic just with
the weight of that job. His job security now just goes way down the drain if he loses to Indiana. So I think there is a lot on the line with this team. They spent $20 million on this roster. So I think the fans will show up for that. We've got the College Football Playoff reveal going on right now. I'm going to fill in the rankings that we've seen so far. We got Illinois at 25th which is a surprise. I'm baffled at the love for Illinois. I I look at this.
Just what they want to do. They want to get one more Big 10 team in there. They're tied out. Too bad. Five top five or four top five teams. UNOV at 24, Mizzou at 23. Another one I don't really get. Iowa. Should not be ranked. Oh my. Iowa State 22. Arizona State 21. Tulane 20 and then we got Army at 19. That's a really interesting one for a couple of reasons.
South Carolina at 18, Clemson at 17 and then Colorado comes in at 16. So, you know, not a lot that is I guess shocking in that other than I don't, I still don't understand the infatuation with Missouri. But this is kind of holding serve based upon what we thought we were going to see with all of this. Perhaps a little bit of a surprise that the the two teams in the American Army in Tulane are that close together and that could have some implications down the line, which we'll talk
about here shortly. Texas A&M at 15th, which is exactly where they were in the last rankings. And again, that's going to be an interesting one because they get to play Texas later. BYU drops 8 spots. So BYU now 14th in the rankings and I believe they are the still at this point the they are the highest rated and projected Big 12 champ. But that would mean if I'm doing my math properly that they would not have a buy, they would be
the 5th conference champion. Because this appear that what they've done here is they put Boise State ahead of BYU, which means Boise State will get the fourth seed and there is no fifth seed there means no, there's no 5th, there's no 5th buy is what I'm saying. So that would mean BYU, if they are indeed the highest ranked Big 12 team, would be 12th in
the bracket. SMU moves ahead of BYU in this, even though interestingly enough, BYU beat SMU earlier in the season as Sam Newcomb just pointed out in the in the chat. But no SMU at 13th and they continue to like slowly creep up the rankings. That's good news for the ACC Joe Joe might be frozen, so we're going to wait to see. No, he's back. There he is. It just unfroze. It just unfroze. I I'm not going to lie, I kind of missed the question. That's fine. We're going to move forward.
Boise State is 12th in this. And so that means that if I'm doing my math correct, I don't think the 11th ranked team is in the playoff right now. This is this is interesting. So Boise State moves up one, they're in 12th. Let's see what the 11th spot ends up being revealed as. Here we're just taking a a dramatic pause for everybody and it's Tennessee. So Tennessee drops 4 spots after that loss to Georgia. So now they are 11th in the
rankings at 8:00 and 2:00. We're going to move into the top 10. Georgia only moves up two spots. A lot of people thought Georgia was going to move up a lot more than this, but Georgia ends up being 10th in the rankings. They only climb up two spots. I would argue that's very good news for Indiana for reasons we can talk about later. Ole Miss also moves up two spots.
And I guess they're trying to keep the logical consistency of the fact that Ole Miss beat Georgia and therefore should be ahead of Georgia, which means we all need to be rooting for Florida to knock off Ole Miss. I think that's the logical conclusion of that line of thought #8 is Miami, who moves up a spot. All right, so this is this is trending in a positive direction because again, and I think we we keep losing Joe, he's having some Internet issues.
But this is interesting because Miami is a one loss team without any real good wins is still 8th ahead of those two SEC teams. And I think that's a really important point. Alabama up three spots to 7th. So they have decided that Alabama's resume with the win over Georgia is more impressive than Ole Miss's win over Georgia because of the rest of Alabama's schedule, probably because they beat LSU, Notre Dame up two spots. They go to 6th. This means Indiana is is top five in this.
This is pretty wild. There they are Indiana, they're fifth. They stick around in the top five. And Emily, you want to hop on since Joe's not on anymore. No, we got a big no from Emily on that one. I don't know. I can't hear. I'm certain that Greg McElroy is saying something stupid about Indiana or, or, or or Joey Galloway. Somebody, someone ought to fill me in later on this. But Indiana does not jump Penn State. So Penn State's going to stick
around. And they're going to still be, I'm assuming in fourth place in this ranking. I, I, I got to tell you folks, I really think the fact Indiana's fifth with this record, with their current strength of schedule, which is actually going to get better regardless of what happens in that Ohio State game. This is really good news for Indiana. The fact that they are still 5th in the rankings. And I think we're going to, we got it.
OK, good. We got Joe back, Trent saying what I was not surprised to hear they said IU just has to keep it close against Ohio State to stay in. I don't know if they need to keep it close. I mean, if they cause again, it's like it would be helpful to keep it close. But I mean, what is close? Define close To me is close like 2 touchdowns if that's the case. Yeah, I think they know that's that's certainly doable. And then Texas third, Ohio State 2nd and Oregon first.
If I'm doing my math right here, I think this means Indiana is is once again the seven seed because of this screwy bracketing process they've got where they're putting teams in. So, yeah, so as we look at the way that they're going to bracket this rounding here, and I'm sorry for those of you who aren't watching, who are listening to the broadcast after the fact, you're going to have Oregon is your number one seed, Texas is your two seed, Miami is your three seed and Boise State
is your four. And then BYU, who's 14th would be the 12. And there's a comment in the in the in the in the chat about Indiana playing BYU. That's not the way that these will actually work. And and here's why. Because the top seeded remaining team in this mix is actually Ohio State. So Ohio State would be the five, Penn State would be the six, Indiana would be the seven as the seven. Indiana would match up against Texas in the second round were
they to win that game. And I believe that this also, well, let's let's just watch the bracket. Eventually they're going to pop all of them in there we are. So the Indiana as the seven, Notre Dame as the 8, even though they're the 6th overall seed because of the the power rankings, which means again, we'd have a match up where Indiana would be playing Alabama in the first round in Memorial Stadium in Bloomington. No, I'm sorry, I was wrong.
Alabama would play Notre Dame, Indiana would play Ole Miss, Penn State would play Georgia, and Ohio State would play BYU. So we've traded out Kaylin de Boer for a rematch with Lane Kiffin from the Outback Bolger. What are your thoughts on the reveal as it sits right now? You know, I, I didn't expect much motion from the top five considering they didn't lose or they didn't play. Obviously with the SEC doing SEC things this year, there's going to be a lot of shake up.
I mean, Ole Miss is it's, they're such an interesting team. I think their ceiling is very high. Their ceiling is a team that can make a run, but their floor has also been some 2 not great losses. I will say they do have the best defensive line in the country. They have like 46 sacks and 10 games, which is ridiculous. They're just living in opponents backfields, which is that is if they come to Bloomington, that
would be #1 area right there. And then obviously you can look at some of the offensive guys like Jackson darts, a good quarterback, a proven quarterback's been been there for a while. But I think solid rankings. I do like, you know, punishing teams for losing, like BYU not giving them that automatic buy. And I think the big 12's going to be really interesting because I think Colorado honestly could be the team that comes out of the Big 12.
I think they're more talented than BYU, which would you know, that's giving Boise State a little bye week that's fought Ash and Genti with some rest. That is that's a dangerous side Espe. I mean, sure, the team that's going to play Boise State's going to be like, Oh my, it's Boise State, but I mean Ash and Genti and it's one of the best players in all college football. I'd be I'd be scared after
giving that guy some rest. Well, you know, looking at these, these overall rankings and some of the things to think about, I, I, I'm going to keep going back to what I've said before, which is that the, the committee is clearly preferring different things. OK, we're talking about Indiana again on the, on the broadcast that Indiana it like needs a special episode done on them at this point.
I. Think they do Same with like Monday Night Football. I need to hear a little bit more about what's going on with with this conversation. So maybe the chat can help with that a little bit. You know, so Booger apparently said if IU doesn't play well against Ohio State, they aren't guaranteed a playoff spot.
OK, fair enough. You know, this is one of those things where I think you can look at, you know, how do you how do we measure what other teams have done and and where are we willing or not willing to punish those other teams? If Indiana loses by 14 to Ohio State, they wouldn't cover. But I'll note Tennessee lost by 14 points to Georgia this past weekend. They're still in the hunt. Clearly, they're not in the playoff right now.
But you know, look, I think there's no question Indiana needs to show that they can compete against Ohio State. What that ultimately means from a final numbers perspective is really going to be interesting to see how that susses out.
But I will say, I think the committee is giving Indiana and its resume a lot more credence than the national conversation has been around Indiana. And that's refreshing because you look at this again, it's like you've got your 4 SEC teams, you know, you've got the, as they do a, a, a resume
comparison with these three. And again, they, you know, I'm glad they're at least putting strength of record in as a as the top stat and not strength of schedule 'cause it does highlight some things, but also highlights like Texas's best two wins or Vanderbilt in Arkansas and Indiana's 2.
Wins. Yeah. But I do think from, you know, from Indiana's perspective, if you look at this, you say, all right, even with everything that's happened up to this point, they've got, you know, Alabama, Georgia, Ole Miss, Tennessee, in that order. All those teams have two losses and at least one of them is guaranteed to have an additional loss because chances are, you know, Alabama, Georgia is probably going to be the SEC title game or Texas, you know, could be in there.
I guess would be that'd be the more likely scenario, Texas versus one of those. But that means that you're going to have another team probably drop out of the running because they're going to have three losses. There's just a lot of things that are are adding up well for Indiana as far as I'm concerned because it's showing as you see with how they've got Miami ranked 8th a loss. As long as you're not going to get blown out, I don't think it's going to kill Indiana in this mix.
They do have. They have done enough, based upon what the committee is preferring thus far in all of this. I do want to point out apparently Joey Galloway to pull up this comment said that Curtis work should not play what this is I'm getting I'm getting buzzed and clearly one of one of the viewers saw that I don't even know how to process that. I mean like. I I'm ready for Tyler Cherry to take over college football. I'm just not sure it should happen right now, I think.
I think what he's. Saying is like don't risk him like a loss is in but I, I, I think that mentality is incredibly. I mean, I don't understand how one week you can say IU doesn't deserve to be ranked like this. They haven't. Played. No, don't play your starter quarterback, Yeah. No, don't play your starters. That's. The the moment they play their their top competition, which that is wow. I I will say.
Yes, go on. I was having a conversation with with my roommate Zach and it was like I could imagine like 2-3 years down the road if they kind of keep the same format that there's going to get a point like the the final week of the season is almost traded like the final week of the NFL season where it's like if team is in comfortably and can just take their loss, you're going to arrest their guys.
This is where maybe even miss out of a championship to avoid another lot like something like it's. Interesting. They may wanna do what they wanted to do during the COVID year but couldn't because of COVID, which was they were gonna have the regular schedule and then the final week of the season you were gonna have the Big 10 title game, but everybody else was gonna match up against like an opponent that was essentially in the same echelon as they were. So everybody had to play.
And I think especially in a 12 team playoff era where the SEC and the Big 10 are probably gonna be having three or four teams minimum in every year, there's going to have to be some kind of a change in terms of how we do all of this. Because right now, if you're if you make it to the title game and you lose, you're putting yourself in peril.
I mean, right now, like Alabama has got to be looking at it and say, well, if we go to the SEC title game and we lose to Texas, or if Georgia goes to the SEC title game and loses to Texas, it's like when now you got 3 losses that should be disqualified. You know, I mean, whatever you want to say how good those teams are, Three losses should be disqualified based upon the best upon the entire history of how college football is chosen to govern itself over the history
of time. I will say the only time that it wasn't that was 2022, but that was it was TCU. They were undefeated the regular season, lost to Kansas State in the Big 12 championship and still got in at that fourth spot. And I think the the argument it was, I think USC, all they really needed to do was win the PAC 12 championship against Utah. But Cam rising in his seventh year at the time, I know it's his 7th year now, but I'm making a joke about his age beat USC.
But that was that was the argument. It was like they earn that spot that championship game. So should the loss really be something that is punishing them for making it to the top of the top? That's where that's where it walks this fine line, like how much more weight is a loss in the championship game as compared to the regular season? I mean so good friend of the pod and IE sports media along Stu Jackson just just texted me and said this arguing on the CFP ranking show is ridiculous.
Also heard from Matt Blaska. Everyone is cherry picking and that doesn't surprise me. This is the big issue I have. It's like it's, I know that, you know, these guys are hired to debate, but. It's not that hard to take a holistic look at these things rather than just trying to be absolute on one team. Because most of the arguments you make against Indiana, you could also make against Notre Dame. Yet nobody's making them.
Like people want to criticize Indiana for having like, strength the schedule like 100th or 106th Notre Dame strength the schedule is 86th. It's not like they've played a murderer's row of teams so far this season. Here's Heather Dennich on air. I can't. You can only imagine what she's saying about Indiana. But it'll be interesting as we as we see all this play out over
this next week or two. We got some other comments coming in from Trent. We're also knocking Texas for their best win being Vanderbilt and Notre Dame for their NIU loss. Chris Fowler is undaunted. Good. No, Heather, shockingly, Heather is apparently daunted. I had no idea. But yeah, look, The thing is ultimately, and and for those of you who have been engaging in the discourse on social media here over the last week, week and a half, it's only gonna get
worse. And it's fascinating, Joe. And I've had this conversation with several people. I was not expecting IU to break college football or break the SEC. And that seems to be exactly what they've done. I don't know that I've ever, I mean, the Florida State arguments last year were kind of
vicious. I don't it was nowhere close to what happens when IU decides to crash the party and and it's really, really wild that all of this is coalescing the way that it is. So I will say this from, from someone who I, I've been very, you know, I was glued to college football ever since really the playoffs started because that's kind of when you know, the frontal lobes starting to develop a little more fell in love with the game. Then I have noticed when things are out of the ordinary.
I, I have noticed when things are out of the ordinary in college football, people get pissed. Look at like when Alabama and Georgia and Alabama and Clemson were winning their were winning their winning their titles. No one's really bad and odd. Just let it happen. Michigan wins. Everyone's pissed off. Obviously they did do some sign steal and stuff like that regardless, but I want to go back to 2021-2022.
Cincinnati makes the College Football Playoff and everyone is bent out of shape that an undefeated team made the College Football Playoff. That competition was there.
Yes, they lose big to Alabama, but how are you going to know without giving these teams these shots that that's that's what it all comes down to. And then the next year with TCU, they beat Michigan in the semifinals and they get boat raced in a not good game against Georgia and one of the toughest watch of any national championship I've ever seen or any final I've ever seen. But still, how are you not going to give them that shot when it they had earned it and had even
made it to the next level? It it, it's become the norm within this sport that when, when something is different, when something is changing, people are going to get mad.
When it's not the same teams every time, those big fan bases get mad that someone else is getting stealing the attention away from Alabama. I mean, it's, it's an interesting thing because I was talking about this to some folks today and, and really one of the things to understand about college football culture is that it hates new money. And, and what I mean by that is this like it, it hates when people who they don't perceive is supposed to be there crash
the party. It's, it's really not like that in college basketball. Like you, you, you know, you, yes, you've got your blue bloods, but it's such a variable sport. That's what the NCAA Tournament is about. Everyone's always like, Oh my gosh, the the variety of things happening that that's their big thing. Yeah. But you know, but there's a real resistance and there's there's
like there's your core brands. And we all know the core brands, Alabama, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio State, USC, you know, Texas is in that mix. Oklahoma, you've got the brands that it's like, well, if they're in the party for a little bit, we don't care too much. Clemson, I think falls into that category. Michigan State falls into that category. LSU is always kind of like halfway in and halfway out the door. Tennessee is kind of the same way.
But anybody that comes from outside that at TCU is a great example of that. You know, there's a few others that have popped into the mix and it's just like there's a real resistance and a real soreness about it. Like, well, they don't belong or they're not good enough or, well, we would beat them if we played them. It's always these this, this very negative response.
And I just think it's a fascinating and very different kind of culture from what most people in Indiana are used to because let's be honest, we don't know anything about college football in terms of the larger cultures. A few people that do in the fan base, but that's not what IU has been weaned on historically. And so I, I think it's something to keep in mind. The arguments are only going to get worse regardless of what happens. Like, and honestly, like if Indiana beats Ohio State, what
you know what's going to happen? It'll it's going to shut up the arguments about Indiana and immediately all the attention is going to get paid to Ohio State. Well, they don't belong. They're not they clearly aren't that good. They just lost at home to Indiana. Like the, the, the arguments are never going to change. So stop expecting people to embrace logic or embrace the
idea that you belong. It's it's kind of like a, it's like an 80s high school movie where like everybody picks on the one kid who's desperately trying to gain social acceptance and he never actually gains social acceptance. But by the end of the movie, he's like, I don't need you people. You know, I'm fine by myself. At least you know, that's how the plot line should work. That's how Indiana and its fans. I didn't have to approach it.
Don't expect people to welcome you, expect them to spit in your face and talk about you behind your back. And that's totally fine. What you do is you then go in and do the same with them. That's that's that's how this stuff is supposed to work. We had a question. We had a question from Patrick. Do you think, do we really think Sankey, the SEC commissioner, is out pushing an SEC narrative or are we just paranoid? I don't think. So. You don't think which one?
I, I think that, I mean they have 4/4 of the top five teams are Big 10. I think that speaks volume, right? There hold. On time. Out not with the committee rankings, but with the discourse, with the media discourse that's been coming in. And, and I do think there's something to be said like it it, the reaction's gotten more and more negative as Indiana has moved up. You know, they moved up a couple weeks ago and they've stayed
there. Now, the reaction to that has engendered this assault on Indiana, which was, if you remember, Joe, 3 weeks ago, Indiana was the feel good story of college football. Everybody was talking about how cool it was that Indiana was 8 and O and was on game day. And then the moment the calendar turns, the idea that the idea that all of these people at once independently were like, you
know who doesn't belong? Indiana, it just seems a little bit of a stretch and when you especially when you consider many of these narratives are coming from ESPNA company, I'll note that's in an official business partnership with the SEC and not the Big 10. There's just a lot of interesting little pieces that you think you may have to consider with all of this. That's fair. I, I don't know. I've always been, I've always been the the committee and the I think the playoffs is cool.
I think it's good for college football. It's just the way they do it, the way they talk about it, I mean, there's 134 teams. It's hard in the grand scheme of things to narrow it down. And especially when they play vastly different schedules and you know, when it comes down to these 12 teams will have very few common opponents because they're all from different conferences and stuff like that.
So it's hard to gauge whether is an undefeated Oregon team better than a one loss Texas team when Texas lost to Georgia. Like what what is the difference right there outside of the record? So it it just is a bunch of yapping in my opinion. I just think it's it's too much talk. Let let the teams go out and play. The team that plays better will win. That's what Kurt Singh that he said on Monday, The team that play will the teams that plays
better will win. That's how he feels about this Saturday and that's how these teams probably feel. That's a good thing about the teams. It seems like they're able to block out the noise pretty well, especially these top level teams. It's like don't worry about like like Georgia. I mean, Kirby's smart. There's no way he's going in saying all right, guys, we're ranked here like we need to win this. No, he's locked in next week, next game. Like that's just what it is.
I don't know. Collegeable has so much money, so much media presence that sometimes it's hard to block out that noise. But the best of the best will be able to do it. Push aside whatever SEC bias there is. I don't know. Does the SEC even realize that there's bias? Probably not because it's favoring them. Anyway, I I think it's a really Ward manual had this comment. Of course we look at strength of schedule, but we also look at how teams are playing. Good Ward.
I'm happy to hear it. Well, let's hope Indiana continues to play well if that's going to be one of the things that they're looking at. Anyway, we are going to go ahead and wrap up the Bison chat for the night. We got the rankings out. We got a chance to see what's going on. Still really good news for Indiana and I think it'll likely stay that way. Joe, any final thoughts from you before we wrap up today?
Well, I mean, Saturday is game of the year for these two teams because Ohio State has really their rest of the season on the line. Indiana is trying to prove that they belong in this top five. I mean, that's how you do it right there. You compete, you come away with a win maybe for in Columbus, that's how you do it. It is one of two ranked games this weekend. The other one is Army in Notre Dame at 7:30.
The entire nation is going to be watching this because I don't think they're going to be watching Florida and Ole Miss respectfully. I really, I don't think that's going to be happen. The entire country is going to be watching. I think it's going to shatter any sort of viewing records that for the weekend.
So it's going to be fun. Columbus is going to be rowdy, maybe some gross big 10. I I'm not a better, but that over under is looking very healthy to the under considering the weather, considering these two teams. It's going to be low scoring physical. It's going to be fun. I'm excited. It's gonna be amazing. I'm looking forward to it. We're gonna have a lot more podcast coming up later this
week. If you haven't listened to the interview with Dane Sansenbacher from earlier on today, that's on the feed, it's on the YouTube channel. Go check that out. We've got a special guest who's got IU ties but has a unique perspective on this matchup that's gonna be joining us on Thursday morning, so be sure to tune in for that. We still got our preview podcast with Taylor Layman coming up later on this week. We've got Crimson Cash coming up later on this week.
James Turner will make you some money. And then I'll be off to Columbus as will Joe, as will many other people. The number of people, students especially I've talked to who have said some combination of we're going and we don't have tickets yet. We're going to figure it out when we get there is pretty fascinating. So I'm looking forward to seeing how all this plays out. Joe. It's going to be an amazing time. I, I, I can only imagine your anticipation covering this game.
I'm excited just to be there. I will say like, this is a moment where I'll be down on the field for this one doing video and stuff like that. I'm going to have to take a second to kind of like embrace it and be like, maybe obviously not cheer, not nothing like that, but just watch what's happening, watch 2 top five teams in one of the best
stadiums in the country. And I don't know, I'm getting I'm getting kind of amped up thinking about it like this is kind of like when I was young, like I've always wanted to go to a game like this and now I'm able to go to a game like this and cover a game like this. So it's fun. I mean, these are two very good teams. Obviously, the $20 million roster versus the young and hungry Hoosiers, I mean, they're not very young, but young and spry for for being good at college football.
Yeah, well, as always, folks, we, we love having you here on Bison Chat. We'll be back next week. It'll be a holiday episode. Is is your Wi-Fi at home better than your Wi-Fi and your? Apartment. Oh, absolutely, yeah. Maybe. Maybe, maybe mom and Dad Cronin can hop on the the show for a little bit then as well. But anyway, I don't know. Thank you. Emily Fox dipped a little early, but she cut everything up and made all the magic happen. So thank you to Emily Joe thank you.
Thanks to all you folks for hopping on whether you're watching us live or whether you're tuning in on the podcast frequencies that we have Spotify, Apple podcast, what have you, or on the YouTube channel. We will be back next week with more Bison chat Tuesday night.
We'll we'll kind of, well, probably again have it around when the actual CFP reveal is and we'll have lots to talk about one way or the other as we also recap what happened in Indiana, Ohio State and get you ready for the big game that comes up at the end of that week. We'll talk about that then for Joe Cronin, for Emily Fox and for the entire back home network. I'm Galen Clavio saying thank you for joining us here on Bison Chat. We'll catch you folks.
On the flip side, bring back the Bisons. Stay. Never daunted. So long, everybody.