You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cast. Galen Clavio, Scott Caulfield joining you. Happy May. It's May 2nd of 2025. We got through April, Scott, Long month. April was a long month. Lot happened in April, but only 30 days. I know. But you know, we went from not having a roster in basketball to having an almost complete roster in basketball. And yeah, we got Little 5. We got a bunch of other stuff
with football, spring game. I mean, there's just a ton of things that happened. I went on a bourbon tasting with Mike Kadik and Sydney Parrish. A lot occurred. That's the end of the honest era in Milwaukee. Yes. I was at Game 5, as were you. Yeah, yeah. We'll, we'll, we'll experience. We'll chat about that a little bit later. That's that's an experience. I think that's worth worth retelling for the peeps out there.
But before we get started, just a reminder we're brought to you by Home Field Apparel. Your place to go for the finest in college fashions, the softest fabrics, the coolest designs. And as I often say, Scott, not just college fashions, but they just launched an updated IMS. I know they come into race. It's like they do the little 5 they do IMS. They have a whole Ed Carpenter line. It's it's like they're almost A at shirt brand for May and it's
like college is secondary. I mean, you know, that's a great point. Yes, but this new IMS collection looks awesome. I mean, the the last year's looked awesome too. And so it's not like it's a surprise that it looks awesome, but it's a maybe a mild surprise of how awesome it looks. I'm gonna pop it up on the screen here so the, the folks that are watching on YouTube or Spotify can see you've got that greatest spectacle bomber jacket. You can see there.
That thing is a spectacle. It is I, I'm not sure that I can define what that bomber jacket looks like. It's, it's a lot of colors, but it's cool looking, nice checkered line snapback hat. You've got some tanks which I will not be purchasing because because no one wants to see that. You got some cool T-shirt
designs. You got some very basic like those those straightforward heavyweight IMS TS that that black one in particular looks awesome and just a bunch of other cool apparel as well, including another hoodie from the home field apparel who I think is.
Great wearing any of those at the track it's funny we're taking our friends and neighbors they've never been to the 500 they moved here from Iowa. We're, we're taking them this year and just just this week the, the wife texts like what you know, should we coordinate outfits? It looks fun. And I was like, what should we wear? And I was like, you cannot be underdressed or overdressed. Like there is just, there's no
way to dress wrong. And you will find somebody below you or above you at IMS if you've not been to the race. I mean, you'll see all those looks, everything you just saw on the home field page, you'll see at the track. And it's just like it is, I'm like, wait till you get there because you can't explain what you're going to see.
It when you when you create a medium sized city in a day from a bunch of people from all over the place, they're gonna look different from each other as as people in a regular city would look. But yes, the the only thing that should really be dictating what you wear to the 500 is a combination of the weather and your own comfort level and I. Just said wear comfortable shoes, right?
That's the only given everything else is like, you could wear a bikini and you won't be underdressed and you could wear a suit and if somebody might have a better suit than you, so. Go to homefieldapparel.com you can get part of their new or the entire new collection. Use the code HOME 23 Get 15% off your first order again home field apparel.com proud presenting sponsor of the back home network. Also just a reminder, we are on YouTube. Go subscribe to search back home network on YouTube.
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give. So Scott, we put the bat signal out for questions from the audience on both the back home Network Discord and also on Twitter. So we've got several questions that we want to try to tackle. We're not going to be able to get to all of them. We got a ton of questions from both areas. So we'll try to hit the ones that make the most sense for
this context. I am going to, in case anybody asks or is curious, I am going to have a separate podcast I'm going to do at some point with Taylor Layman from Bite Sized Bison as we breakdown some of these recruits that IE football's getting. I did want to lead with the news today, which I thought was really interesting and and really highlights what a fundamentally different era we
are in right now. So news that occurred or news, I mean news occurred, whatever news broke or whatever the wording would be that about noon today, 11 O clock or noon that Derek Owings, the strength and conditioning coach for IU football, was being heavily courted by USC. Normally when you see that kind of a message, it's like, well, the guy's gone. And that's a big one 'cause, you know, Owings clearly took IU strength and conditioning to a completely different level this past year.
He'd been with Signetti at JMU. And then we got the news a couple hours later from Pete Thammel that IU had gotten a big pay raise and it signed a three-year extension basically. And I just think we need to pump the brakes for a second and think about like, IU just fended off USC, one of the top football brands in the history of college football. And paid him enough that he felt like, you know what I need to stay in Bloomington and continue to work for IU football.
This is this is an, an incomprehensible era of IU athletics and IU football. Scott, I don't even know how to process this news that that should be the marketing slogan for next year. An incomprehensible setting it it used to be 1015 years ago. If USC just accidentally butt dialed one of our coaches, that would be them Like, Oh yes, I'll, I'll take the job. I mean, the idea that you know, you're getting interest from USC is, is nuts. Yes, all everything you just said.
I was talking to somebody else about this. The the thing that I love that Signetti is doing is, you know, I was talking to somebody else just about how some colleges seem to be caught flat footed in this entire new realm of using actually having to spend money at a pretty high clip for nil. And some some colleges just look like, wow, we're not ready for this and we have to actually spend our money.
What what are we doing? What I've really enjoyed is you see Signetti in all of his interviews in the spring talk. It's not even just a hey, we're doing well. He always says we got to have continued support. It's like we need, We've had great support and we need to continue having support from the president athletic department. Like, I love that Signeti's not taking, it's like the pressure's
not off. He's still putting pressure on the team talking about, you know, the practice wasn't good enough today in April. But I think he's still putting pressure on Dolson and, you know, Pam Whitten and the president and just everyone at IU like, hey, this was great, Keep it up. And and what you see the results are IU steps up and fends off USC and gets more money here. And I think if you asked, you know, if you asked Signeti best about this, he would say, that's great.
We need to continue showing support like this in the future. I mean, that's what I love is it's not just, hey, we had a great year. It's we had a good time. We have good support. We've got to continue it. But you saw it with a, a higher, you know, a, a rehire, a a raise like this. Well, I think you're seeing it also in the portal activity. IU's been able to pull a couple of folks in in the portal and look, Signeti's 100% right. Like this is not just about generating initial support.
It's about maintaining a base. And, and the, the weird thing and the, the not great thing from a overall financial perspective is that there is no median. Like the median, the median keeps going up. It feels like every, it's just, it's just endless. Yeah, it's, it's, this is what happens with an unregulated marketplace. And that is ultimately one of those things where IU doesn't have a choice if they're going
to try to keep pace. And what I've been impressed with is, you know, they I think it was earlier in the year, I think it was Brian Haynes was getting courted. They end up ponying up to keep him. You know, Pitino Sinceri left, Pitino Sinceri went for a better job, like a, a better a better title. And, you know, you already had Mike Shanahan here and Kurt Signetti, you know, helping to, to kind of pilot things.
And so I, I'm just thrilled. And like Wes Houston said on Twitter, we used to roll over and give up when programs like USC came calling. Now we pony up and figure out a way to make it happen. We're in the multiverse now. And it does kind of feel that way. It just kind of feels like IU has decided almost overnight, we are going to be a player. We are going, we're not just going to let you take our best people.
And that this is where if you don't follow coaching moves or player moves too closely, historically in college football, this is what happens. Like it's not, it's not just that Michigan has resources and Indiana doesn't have resources historically. It's that when Indiana gets somebody good or, you know, Alabama comes and takes them or Michigan comes and takes them. And I use like whelp or.
Unfortunately, for a lot of years, none of those programs are even coming to take people because there's nobody worth taking. Right. I'm saying the rare, the rare occasion when you'd have somebody that would be worth hanging on to, it just wouldn't
happen. Well, yeah, the thing that I'll say because it will start to happen, you know, you you've you mentioned this earlier, you've mentioned on different pods, you know, these are kind of, you know, lateral moves like going from strength and conditioning from IU to USC.
You can fight those off. If this, you know, if he had been if if it's the, you know, strength and conditioning coach to like to offensive coordinator, you can't stop those moves like and I think we're going to start seeing. So, you know, and Caleb de Boer left, he left to be a head
coach. And that's one of those where there's really no, you know, IU fans need to be prepared because I think we're going to start seeing in the next year or two, our coaches are going to probably be leaving for moves up. And those are things, you know, if somebody offers you a head coaching job, there's only so many of those. If you're not a coordinator, somebody offers you a coordinator job, you got to take those. But in these like, for like
situations, you, you're right. Normally we would just say, oh, well, Congrats. Do you, do you want some forwarding mailing address labels? And it's like, no, we'll, we'll, we'll match that often. We'll probably exceed it. Let's dive into some of the questions that other folks asked and, and again, we had a a ton of them and I think let's for the moment, we're going to kind of get jump back and forth a little bit between football and
basketball. We had a lot of questions about the football or the the basketball roster more than anything else. And I guess maybe we'll dive in. I'm going to see if I've got some football items that we can tackle first and foremost. And as I'm looking through the questions here, so who's your knight or who's your Dada asks or Dada, any holes or positions of concerns for IU football
following spring ball? I mean, here's the thing, I feel pretty good about who they brought in and the fact that they still seem to be making some moves around the defensive line. And this is something I'm going to talk about with Taylor a bit more. But the big thing with IU is this like they they clearly have a good starting quarterback. This is a guy, as we'll talk about in one of the other questions, who has gotten mocked a couple of Times Now in the first round, right?
So this upcoming year, which the IU having first round draft pick Costco as a quarterback is not a thing that occurs. But I think people really are turned on by Fernando Mendoza's physicality, His his, you know, his ability to throw the ball effectively feels like a really great pick up in the portal, like almost one that was undervalued at the time that it occurred. But that it's one that I I liked. I liked it at the time. And the more film I watched, I've liked it even more.
You, you know, you go across the different skill positions. I feel really good about what they did there. I'm still, I'm interested to see how the tight end position works out on offense because I think you've got some really good possibilities there. But obviously you have to see how it plays out. The offensive line is obviously going to be one of the big ones. And again, they went out and got guys, you know, they, they go out and, and they get a starting
center. They go out and get a guy who hadn't played that much at Ohio State, but he's got a lot of physical promise. You know, they, they seem to have dudes there that they can roll with. And it just is going to depend on how quickly they coalesce. You know, I think Taylor's talked about this a lot, you know, but there's questions around the secondary and who
steps up and what they're doing. You know, so I think that's probably where the biggest question marks are, is, you know, does the defense coalesce around the personnel sets that they've got? And you know, that's that's where the coaching staff, I think last year did just tremendous work. I mean, you look what they did. They, you know, CJ W was not on the team the previous year.
They had to integrate him into the guys that had come over from JMU and the the returning players they were on the roster and they did a really good job of that.
So I feel pretty good right now about where IU football is at in terms of where the roster is. Now the the caveat I'll throw in on that is that I don't think that you could really say for sure that this is a team that could repeat, you know, 11 and one or or do better, but that it may be a better roster, but it might have a slightly worse outcome simply because the schedule is it looks at least on paper right now, Scott, that it's going to be a harder schedule than last year.
So I'm not really looking at anything and saying, well, there's a major concern there or there's a major concern there. But I like generally what they've done up to this point. It's really just going to depend on how it meshes over the course of the rest of the summer and into full ball. Yeah, no, I, I would, I I'm going to kind of leave this one for you and Taylor to and go more in depth in.
But I, I also like you, the more I've dug into Mendoza have been really, really intrigued because watching the film from him on Cal, it's like he does a lot of RPO. He's just a little bit bigger and has seems to have a little bit of a bigger arm than Rourke did. And as we know, Rourke had a torn ACL the entire season. And I continually go back to it just feels like if you are a coach and you know your quarterback is a torn ACL, you're probably throwing half your playbook out just like,
well, we can't run that. And. So. He was, you know, we were already kind of 1 hot hand tied behind our back. So I'm, I'm excited that I'll let you pull it up. There was a couple questions about football 1 about like what we thought the the the attendance would be the first
couple games. I was going to get to that second, but the next one I was going to get to from Hoosiers 7681. Where exactly is a fair slash justifiable place for IU football fans expectations to be for next season given last year's blockbuster contrasted by the overall history of the program? Well worded question there. So I think I said this when we first really started looking at the schedule in earnest after
last year ended. I think right now it would be a big disappointment if if the floor for the season wasn't seven wins. Just given the way that things lay out. I'm anticipating Indiana's probably going to win 8 or 9. I wouldn't be shocked if they went over that. I think it'll just require this team to continue to take leaps in ways that, you know, they they didn't even necessarily fully take last year.
And I guess what I mean by that is if you look at the schedule, the the tough games, the home game against Illinois, the game at Iowa, the game at Oregon, the game at Penn State, like those are all really challenging games even for very, very good teams.
And you know, it's for Indiana. I think the big question mark is going to be how how much of last year transfers over and how much confidence does Indiana have going into these games and how much, you know, consistent contribution can they get from the new players? Can they do better in terms of their overall offensive efficiency? Can they do more in terms of, you know, continue to make stops on defense and force turnovers and all the things that made
last season so special for IU? It is. There's no question that when you look back at what Indiana did last year, it was an amazing season. But it also was one of those seasons where things broke like exactly right. You, you know, UCLA was worse than people thought that they would be. Maryland was worse than people thought they would be. Nebraska was worse than people thought they would be. You know, Washington was about the same, maybe slightly worse.
Michigan was certainly worse. And Indiana deserves credit for winning all of those games in the way that they did. But, you know, I think relying on that to like go into Iowa, where Indiana does not historically play well, or going into Penn State where Indiana has never won a football game might be a bridge too far. That said, you know, if Indiana wins 8 or 9 games, as I've said over and over again, that is already like one of the top five most successful seasons in IU
football history. And I don't. Well, I've talked to a ton of IU football fans. A ton of IU football fans talk to me. I have not detected from anybody that they are concerned about an 8 or 9 win season. I think that would be a great baseline and I think it's bonus. On top of that, but Scott, where are you landing on this season so far? Very similarly. I mean, the the thing that I've been telling people is mostly, you know, non IU fans who are
trying to gaslight. It's like our goal isn't, is not to make the College Football Playoff. Like like if the goal of that of us making the College Football Playoff going into a season is probably still 5 or 6 years away. And that would be stacking 5 or 6 really good seasons on top of each other. Last year was was an aberration. It was awesome even after last year. And even I think we did really well were we could, like you said, be a better team this
year. I don't go into the season thinking well we should make the College Football Playoff. Like that is just a, a bar in a different area. I'm in a very similar spot where, you know, I would always say, dude, we, we've been bad for so long. You just got to make a bowl and win a bowl game, which by the way, we still haven't done. Like I still would like to see
us win a bowl. Not knocking last year at all, but just like there, there's still that piece out there, like let's try and win a bowl game for the first time since what, like 91. So, you know, I, I do think the floor has raised in that six wins would probably, even when we go to like the Motor City Bowl, it's like, all right, that would be something maybe didn't go right that, that the floor has raised to seven. But we're splitting hairs.
You know, to me, I, I think very similarly to what you said, 7-8 wins feels like a really good season that again, would still be a historically better season. We've had most years out of the last 2025 years. That's nothing to scoff at. That's a really good year. And I think the way the schedule lays out, I think it's reasonable to say a very successful season would be as if you defend Memorial Stadium, you know, the Illinois game is going to be tough.
It's not insurmountable. The Wisconsin game, you know, I'm not again, the history of playing football against Wisconsin. I can't just I'm scared of getting hit by lightning on this beautiful sunny day saying, well, you know, that's not insurmountable because we've seen that. Oh never beat them outside of a couple of random years. But it's not insurmountable to say we can beat Wisconsin at home.
I think that's a really good spot to say, can you go 7 and O or six and one at home and start continuing? You know, last year they go undefeated at home. Can you start to show Memorial Stadium is a place where you can't just come in and kick Indiana around. This is a place where we're going to have a winning record and most years will be undefeated or have maybe one loss. It's not going to be a place
where we're having 5-6 losses. I think that's another good place to go. So I think those are all really good benchmarks. And you know, if you get seven or eight wins, you're going to one of the 7 best bowls Indiana's ever been to. Six, We've only been to like 12, but you're one of the five best bowls Indiana's ever been to. So you know, I, I would say for anybody who's saying, you know, we don't meet the expectation, we don't meet the results of
last year, it's like that. That's not what Indiana is looking to do. But I do think for me, the floor is raised. We're normally out, you know, 12 months ago, I would always say we just got to win six games. Like that's our, that's, that's the baseline. I think last year raised the floor to me to like, all right, we can go to seven. Yeah. Well, the one other thing I'll note on, I think you, you summed
up a lot of that very well. I think the one other thing I would note is that, you know, Indiana's got those four games that I would consider to be really tough games. And it's not that the other ones are going to be pushovers by any means. They got Wisconsin at home, they're going to be tough. They've got Michigan State will be better, UCLA will probably be better. But you know, the, the games I read off at home versus Illinois at Iowa, at Oregon, at Penn State, that's a, that's a pretty
tough sled. But the other contending teams in the conference also have tough slates. Like so you know, Ohio State, who lost a ton, and I mean, it's Ohio State. So they're going to reload, but they've got Texas at home. They've got to go to Washington, which is tricky. They've got to go to Illinois, they've got to go to Wisconsin. They've got Penn State at home and Penn State's loaded for bear and they got to go to Michigan. I mean, that's a they don't. Have any in?
That's, that's right. Well, then they don't have Indiana, you know, Penn State, they've got Oregon at home. They've got, they're at Iowa, they're at Ohio State. They may have the easiest schedule of the group. Illinois, who everybody's been, you know, essentially shining for this entire offseason. They've got to go to Indiana, which is I think a tough game for Illinois.
Clearly Ohio State at home, they're at Wisconsin, they're at Washington. So, you know, and even Michigan, who I think people are expecting to have a bounce back here, got to go to Nebraska, got to go to USC, got to go to Michigan
State, got Ohio State at home. So that what I'm saying in this is like if Indiana can find a pathway to get to 10 and two, which I think is very reasonable, like I could see Indiana, you know, they could beat Illinois and they, they could, you know, maybe knock off Iowa on the road cause Iowa's kind of been hit or miss. I think Indiana could outscore them. You lose at Oregon and you lose at Penn State, but you win the rest of your games.
Like you're right in the mix, not just for a Big 10 championship game appearance. You're in the mix for College Football Playoff at 10 and two, like 10 and 2 is, you know, might be on the fringes, but you collect a couple of top 25 wins, you get yourself in the top ten, top 15 early and you're able to
stay there. That's a pretty good spot to be in Indiana. I, I think, you know, so much of last year's narrative was that the fact that Indiana started on the outside of the top 25 and really had to fight to get that consideration. They're going to be starting with a much higher floor in the eyes of the committee. And I do think that that matters a lot in terms of College
Football Playoff aspirations. But even beyond that, like you said, you know, even an 8 or 9 win season would get you to a really good spot. So after 10 and 2, you know, you, you're going to have a win either at Oregon, at Iowa or at Penn State. So, so the, the narrative of all, they haven't beaten anybody. It's like, well, we will have beaten somebody. But I, I will just say this to Indiana fans who, who had to
deal with all of that last year. If we're ten and two, and let's say we lose at Oregon and lose at Ohio at Iowa, or maybe lose, let's say we lose at Oregon, lose at Penn State, but we, we win at Iowa. And maybe Iowa isn't where they've always been. You know, they're, they're outside of the top 25, you know, unfortunately, just be prepared for probably some residual national annoyance from last year coming back to this year. It's like we still haven't
played anybody. It's like some of that might come over. And if we, if we get punted from a College Football Playoff because of just crappy narrative, so be it. Like, you know, it's, it's not the end of the world, But I just I, I, I can already kind of foresee that happening. Is that if that's the way that we get to 10 and two it, it could be there. But I like you mentioned, that scenario might be good enough to get us into the Big 10 title game, which is also pretty cool.
Let's keep knocking off things we've never done before. You're kidding. We had another question. I, I have a question for you. I'm going to, I'm, I'm pulling rank and I'm putting in a Twitter question. We're on a, you know, it's, it's, I have a note here like, you know, days since Galen has not been to an, to an IU football game. We have a calendar going there. There's the days. It's, you know, 365 days.
You went to all games last year. I look back the end of the 2023 season ended at Purdue. So I'm assuming you didn't go to that game. I don't think you went to that game. I did. I did not go to that game. Year of the the Allen era. So. You will start next season. You know you have season tickets as do I. You'll go to Old Dominion, go to Kennesaw State, Indiana State, you go to Illinois. The 1st Rd. game is Iowa. Like is September 27th when your year long streak is?
Are we going to hit 400 days? Like what? What's the street going to end of days you get? You haven't been to an IU football game. You know, you, you're putting a lot of pressure on me with this. I hadn't thought about it in those terms, but you're right. It, it's, I need to think through this a little bit more because I, I don't think I'm making it out to Iowa because Iowa, which sucks, going to Iowa always sucks. Like it's, it's not just the journey, it's also the
destination that sucks. But but the but and there may be some other things going on that I need to be in Bloomington for which might preclude me from going right. That's a tease out there, folks. I can't tell you what the tease is, but at that, just just know that there may be some things in Bloomington that weekend, but I that might put pressure on me to head out there for that game. But that that's the first one. Now I am going to go to Oregon. That's the plan.
And then then from there you're you're looking at. Michigan State, you see. Your home games, you know, Then the the Next Rd. game is that game at Maryland. Maryland's a tough sled. That's a tough place. Like if you can fly there, you can't really drive there. You almost have to go to Maryland and then stay and kind of work your way back to hit State College.
That would be tough with my job. But you know, the, the Penn State game's an interesting one because what's fascinating about that week is that Indiana plays at Penn State in football. That's Week 11 on a Saturday. We don't know what time. We won't know what time until probably about two weeks before.
Then the next day, Indiana's in Chicago basketball playing Marquette at the United Center. So I, I am tempted to like rent an RV or a sprinter van and do the, the double like, you know, drive to State College, go to the football game and then drive to Chicago and do the basketball game and then come back to Bloomington. I don't think I'm actually going to do it, but I'm I'm really contemplating it right now.
Let me in on the the planning for that because you and I in college, we, we had the idea of ballparks across America. I think it was what we called. No, it was the Take Me Out to the ballpark store. Scott and I were both on the WIUS Sports Broadcasting staff and we would just kind of sit around and BS during meetings, much to the consternation of Sean Bartel and Mike Petrie about the ballparks.
Yeah, but we had this idea, and this was in 1998, I want to say it was where we wanted to rent a bus. We wanted, or it was a bus originally, and we were going to go visit all of the ballparks in Major League Baseball, which now like people do that all the time. But at the time it felt kind of it was like Rd. rule, you know, like Rd. rules or whatever, you know, for, for the sports scene. And we wanted to visit a bunch of parks we thought might close
down relatively soon. Like Tiger Stadium was one that we wanted to hit. There were a couple of others and we never knew. The prices right too. It's like we want to throw in the prices right visit and and honestly, it's one of the, you know, we have a lot of younger listeners. If you're in college, they do it like I, I don't have a lot of regrets in my life. I was like, dude, what, what did I do that summer that would be more memorable than that. That would have been.
And it's like you, we get to be in your, you have to be in your 40s. You have kids like me doing that is off the table. Well, I, I, I think thinking back on it, our primary restraint is probably the reason why most college age students don't do it, which is money. Like, I had to get a job that summer. Yeah, so did I I worked at a summer camp. Yeah. You can only give so much blood, you know and and still like drive with any level of effect.
That could be that could be take us out to the ballpark tour to do do duo right yeah, Penn State and the market anyway, all all I'm saying is, you know, if you if you go to Oregon and then your home Michigan State, UCLA to go to like having the whole of Iowa there, it's just a big hole. No, Galen. Let's, let's not. Nothing's decided yet. Let's just put it that way, OK?
Nothing's decided yet. Question from another question on Twitter. What do you anticipate the intendants being for the first three IU football games? I'd imagine it's much higher than last year's non con, but are we talking 60% full? 90% full? You know, here's the thing, I think the attendance is going to be significantly higher, you know, for those first three games because I think Cignetti is going to wave his his magic wand and get people out and people people want to view.
So like last year, if you want to see this team last year, the official attendance for those first three games, which you can only trust to a small degree, I know, but it was 44,150 for the FIU game, it was 39,000 and 82 for the Western Illinois game. And then for the Charlotte game, which was a blazing hot day, if you will recall, it was 43,000 one O 9 and we were kind of wondering if anybody was going to show up. And then they showed up for the Maryland game, which had some
weather issues. Obviously you had some remnants of a tropical storm that were blowing through at that point. But that is 48,000. And from there, attendance, Indiana sold out all the remaining games. I will be surprised if the first game of the season, which is the Old Dominion game, if that doesn't have close to 50,000 people, I don't know if it'll be a complete sell out.
I think there's going to be a ton of things there's there's already a ton of things I know about that people are going to want to be in the stands for for that game. And so I think that that's going to draw a lot of people. Hopefully it's an evening game. It'd be nice to not have something in the blazing sun on August 30th. I think Kennesaw State will probably also be pretty well attended. That's Labor Day weekend, so that's always an interesting one.
Just in terms of people going on vacation, I could see it dipping a bit for Indiana State, 'cause it's Week 3 and then back in earnest for that Illinois game. That Illinois game's going to be a sellout. But I wouldn't be shocked if all those games were in the 46 to 50,000 range, which we haven't had a lot of games in early September against, you know, that level of competition. Get up to that mark.
I mean, you, you go back last, not last year, two years ago, that opener against Ohio State drew 50,000 and 50, but it was Ohio State and then it was back to 42,000 when Indiana played Indiana State the following day. So I, I do think there'll be a lot of people though, a lot more than we're used to seeing just because there's going to be so much excitement about the team. And I think tickets will be a little more affordable for people. I I agree with all that.
I think the other thing that you have in play is, you know, you go back and look at last season, the games against FIU, Western Illinois and Charlotte, kind of the three Gimme or you know, non big Ted games. We won them, but the scores were 31 to 777 to 3, 52 to 14. I mean, just just ass kickings across the board. I remember us having the pod after Western Illinois where it's like, that's just fun. And we don't get to do that a lot.
It's like it's fun watching our team go and just kick somebody out. Versus 2023, we played Akron and we won in quadruple overtime, 29 to 27, where it's like, you know, games like that is when people are like, I, I, you know, do I want to go watch Indiana almost lose to Kennesaw State? You know, if they, if they have a tough time against Old Dominion, that's what that's not going to happen.
Like Signeti has shown that he's going to take these games seriously and that he's going to come out and we're probably going to lay the smack down to Old Dominion, Kennesaw State and Indiana State. And that's going to get its own level of excitement. You know, it's like, oh wow, this is kind of fun to watch IU score 5 touchdowns at like so I I agree with you on those numbers, but it's all leading up to that Illinois game is going to be awesome.
So it's going it should be. I'm pretty sure Illinois don't have their schedule in front. I think they have a pretty easy Rd. into that game as well. That should be two top 20 or 25 teams. It is leading up to kind of a
very early big 10 matchup. That could honestly be another big noon Saturday, Saturday, just like keep keep stacking those up. But I, I think that alone knowing that's kind of on the way, like I remember this a long time ago, the, you know, the year we played Michigan and we were four and oh, and they were four and oh, it was like the Ben Chapel year that there was excitement building up in the games leading up to it. Like, oh, we just got to keep winning. And like we, that Michigan game
is going to be big. I think you'll see something similar with Kennesaw State and Indiana State where you see the crowd start to grow because it's like, all right, I want to start getting my feel for this team because we got a real 1 coming up on September 20th. Yeah, I mean, I, I just think the vibe will be really good and I think it'll stay that way until people feel like they, they don't have a reason for the
vibe to be good anymore. But you know, that's, I don't anticipate that being that big of an issue, at least not in the short term. So let's let's jump to some other questions. As again, we had we had a ton of them across the board. So let's jump over to basketball as, as we had a ton of questions there. So we had a question from Robbie Malkinson. Could the summer trip for the men's basketball team to play overseas help with building early team chemistry?
And the rumor is, I think somewhere in the Caribbean. Yes. I mean, the question is absolutely yes. And I think, you know, we, we've seen Indiana do trips every now and again. You, you're, you can only, and under the current NCAA rules, you can only do a certain number or like you do 1 and then you have to wait a couple years before you can do another one.
But I think for IU, it's going to be really, really important that they get one of these under their belt and the guys can learn how to play with each other in an actual game setting. You know, you, you can do informal, you know, games, you can do, you know, certain limited amounts of practices, but you just, you can't substitute what you get when you actually put everybody on the floor. They get used to what their roles are and how it works.
And so I think it absolutely helps with chemistry. And I think it may actually just be a necessity to get this team up and running, given that it is a bunch of guys who largely have not played with each other up to this point. I, I agree or I tend to agree, but you know, I, I go back to
like, was it 2000? I'm looking up right now 2021 the team went to the Bahamas before the season and a lot of it came out like, oh, are they, they kind of gelled and coalesced and that was a team that think that's a team that went 7:00 and 12:00. If I have my years right, team ended in 2021. I mean that was either the last year of Archie or the first year of Woodson. It's like it's first year of Woodson.
The midterm. It's I, it's like, I think these pre season trips, you can kind of bend them to whatever the result of the season is that if the team ends up looking pretty good, it's like, oh, that trip made the difference. If it doesn't, the team is not great. It's like, well, that didn't do much. I I agree, I think it's going to hurt. And I agree that with 12 guys who don't really know each other, putting together more time in the Crucible together is
going to be good. But I think it ends up coming down to, you know, if, if you have the right coaching staff in place, these trips are going to matter. And I, I think we both, I have the hope that Derezza is the right answer to that. I just, we, we've done these before and had seasons that are kind of lackluster of seasons where it's like, man, this team doesn't look connected. I guess that Bahamas trip didn't matter, but I don't think it can hurt. That's my whole thing.
I don't see it hurting at all. And I and I think ultimately you just got to have some kind of an environment, especially with how quickly the season starts. I mean, you're playing Marquette on what I think November 9th. You, you know, you're, you're going to have to figure out a way to mesh a little bit ahead of time. And look, even with that, it's going to be a work in progress through the first month or so. Not too different from football last year.
You know, people forget there was some questions after that FIU game and it was like, we'll pump the brakes because they're rounding into shape. And that's exactly what happened. And I think with this point, you got to give Darren Devries and his staff some, some credit and some grace, I guess, in trying to put piece all this together. But I, I do think the trip will be helpful. Let's see, we had a question regarding some other items with IU basketball. I'll just kind of digging into
some of these here. Someone asked, does IU is lore StarCraft? Does IU need a rim protector to compete in the Big 10? So, so here's the thing, like I feel like rim protection is both important and overemphasized because when you look at the last couple of years, you know, if you're looking at it from the perspective of block percentage, like, you know, are you, are you collecting blocks at the rim?
Are you altering shots? You know, last year the, the top two teams in the league, Michigan State and, and Maryland was tied for second. They were, they were #1 and #2IN block percentage. But I think it's important to keep in mind that the third best team in block percentage in the conference last year was Minnesota, who was not a good team. You know, that that was a team that was not particularly talented. They, they struggled quite a bit throughout the course of the
year. And, and even when you look at, you know, something like offensive rebounding percentage, it wasn't an exact correlation to teams necessarily being great. You know, defensive rebounding percentage and things like that. I I don't think you necessarily need A7 footer or like a, a hyper large big in there doing that. I think if you can, if you have two athletic post players who can rebound and defend effectively, I think that's more important than having a quote UN
quote rim protector. You know, certainly rim protection's nice, but again, it's like, I'll point back to the 2022 season when Indiana's rim protection that whole season was a six, nine guy in Trace Jackson Davis and a six, eight guy in Race Thompson. And that's essentially the sizes of what Indiana's got out there going into this upcoming year.
So, you know, I keep hearing this refrain like they got to get a rim protector and they may still like they're not done building the roster, but I could absolutely see a scenario where Indiana's like we would rather have a a more agile, slightly smaller frontline. Because it might be easier for them to rebound, you know, and, and look, there's so many different ways to win basketball games. And I've talked about this on the show before.
You're, you know, Indiana has kind of largely predicated a lot of what it's done the last few years on this idea that they were going to focus on certain aspects of defense and, and of offense. And, you know, if you look at Mike Woodson's statistical profile, it was like, we're going to have a high assist rate offensively and we're going to try to shoot the ball relative relatively well and we're going to try to hold the opposition down to a lower shooting
percentage. And that kind of worked. It didn't work the last two years. It worked the first two. But the flip side of that is, you know, Indiana, you know, kind of voluntarily chose not to be particularly great at offensive rebounding. They they didn't really focus on limiting their own turnovers or turning the opposition over. Those are just as important ways to win if you look at the four factors of basketball and what contributes statistically to victory.
So, you know, look, there's still time to add to the roster. I'm still interested to see if they had somebody else. But if the roster that they have now is what they go in with primarily, I think you can be a very successful team in the conference with that type of a roster if you've got the right system and you're coaching it properly.
Yeah, you you took one of the, one of the thoughts right out of my mind is that, you know, the, the most successful season we had in the last four years was 2022. And that was Trey Jackson Davis, who had a block percentage of, you know, he was 24th in the country in block percentage, but he's 69. You know, then the years after that, you had Khalil Ware at 7 foot and Omar Balo at 7 foot or seven One, you'd be like, oh, just that's a better rim defensive. And it's like, Nope, the the
results weren't there. I would also say that, you know, you look at just a quick NBA corollary. You know, the Pacers just played the Bucks Giannis Anton and Kupo is definitely a rim protector. But I, I think this is something that you see with the way that Indiana basketball is putting IU college basketball is putting their roster together is similar in a way to what the Pacers are doing is that the last couple years the Pacers have been fun because they're using offense as
defense. And what I mean by that is their offense scores very, very high points per possession. And they're also very efficient. Don't turn the ball over. So, you know, it's like they're playing the Bucks like, great, we're going to hit a three, hit a 2. Great, we're going to hit a two, you're going to turn it over. Great. We're going to hit a 2, you're going to turn it over. We're going to hit a three, you're going to hit 2. Suddenly you're down 6 points.
The Bucks are down 6 points. And it's like we now have to do way more on offense. Not because the Pacers defense is awesome, it's just the Pacers offense is so efficient and scores at a high clip that it puts a lot of pressure on the other team's offense. And I think the way that Devries is in building this roster, scoring is at a premium and shooting is at a premium. And I think that, you know, you're not going to fill all of the holes.
But if Indiana can score a little bit more, a little more effectively and a with a little more points per possession, that's going to put pressure on other teams when they hit Lols even more than a rim protector would. That's the thing, if if you if you're shooting well, it takes a lot of pressure off of your offense and your defense. And it's clear from my evaluation of what they're doing in the portal that that's what they're aiming at.
They're aiming at shooting. They're aiming at being able to switch effectively on defense and and they're aiming at having guys that can drive to the basket and create both opportunities for themselves and space for their teammates.
So again, it's a different style and it does kind of beg the question and and this was actually, I think asked by Patrick, can you build a roster for modern basketball parentheses the tournament and the Big 10 or does there have to be a shift in the conference style first? You know, I I would look at it like this. I don't think Indiana is built right now to compete for the Big 10 title unless a bunch of stuff goes right.
And that's fine. Now they might and, and I'm not trying to put an artificial cap on them, but you know, I think Indiana, just like the, the, the talent floor is probably a little too low for that. Just in terms of, you know, if you've got questions about the players Indiana's brought into the portal, they're all pretty high performance guys at lower levels. And then the question becomes, well, how do they transition to the higher level? I think they're going to transition pretty well.
But even with that, there's just going to be certain teams that are going to have a higher caliber of athlete and higher caliber of, of, you know, basketball ability. But I do think that this Indiana team is built really well to be a good shooting team. That would be a really difficult out in the NCAA tournament. And then it's really just about matchups. So I, I think that, you know, there are circumstances where you can compete and do both.
I think it's frankly what John Beeline did the best at Michigan was he figured out a way to kind of have it where he could be a competitive team in the Big 10 but could still compete in the NCAA Tournament. I think Beau Ryan figured that out very late in his tenure and and that was really what elevated Wisconsin. You know, Purdue has done it. I mean, I think you got to give them credit, but they've done it by kind of like taking the Big 10 style and making it work in
the NCAA. Tournament and Michigan State both kind of just pushed the Big 10 style as far as it can go in the tournament, so. Look, I, I, there's, there's a lot of question marks. We had another question that I, I'm not going to try to tackle right now about like what are the early power rankings when it comes to the teams in the Big 10 for the upcoming year? I mean, it's hard to say like the rosters aren't even complete yet. And until the dust settles, it's almost a fool's errand to try to
evaluate that. But I do think Indiana's in a good spot right now because they've got interchangeable parts. They've got parts that look like they can step up and, and, and be the leading scorer one night and then step into the background for the next couple of nights and not have to be that big of a deal. But that's the kind of thing I think to keep an eye on. And as you try to cobble a roster together this year, it's going to be different than what you're going to have moving
forward. There was another question that really ties into this is what our. Rankings just got me thinking of I. I do love it. Just tangential but I love the meme of the Brad Underwood in like the 80s. That is 80s, but he looks like he's like coaching in Belgrade. Yeah, I know it's pretty. You haven't seen his photo yet. I must see if I can call it up. They. Sign they sign like a bunch of just euro players with names that are, you know, like Akovic and but the picture is just
great that's been going around. It's like the the Russian assistant coach from 88 or. Something. Yeah, it's it's pretty remarkable how I, I always appreciate when we get coaches. I I think I've found it here. Here we go. Let me let me call this up real quick. Know their know their like they know what they like. Well, not just that, but I like, I like coaches that will go along. There we go. Yeah.
That that's just a great photo right there for those of you who are watching on YouTube or Spotify. I mean a little John C Reilly. It's like, I think that looks like John C Reilly's next role. Yeah. See, people thought this was AI. That's actually what Illinois campus looks like. I mean, if you've been and if you've been, you know exactly what I'm talking about that that that, you know, champagne or Urbana, right? Well, they're both depressing would be what I would say.
But no, look, there's going to be a lot of teams in the mix. But like this year is a great example. Like, I don't know that anybody would have guessed that the particular mix of teams that were good played the way that they played this year. And you also have teams like Oregon that were just hot and cold all year, and they'd win a game. You'd be like, wow, that's incredible. And then they'd lose by 20 at home to Illinois. And it's like, what? And this. Goes into, you know, for IE like
you're, you're building a team. You know, the, it's, it's tough to project. It's also tough to get too concerned about what you see on paper. Cause to your point this year, Rutgers should have been awesome. It's like 2 top five picks in the draft like that. That's awesome. Every team would take that. It's like, well, but maybe they're going to suck. We had another question from the Discord. This is from camera 26.
Would love your perspective on the perfect mix between Portal and high school recruits going forward. How should someone like Devries handle that, especially in a basketball rich state like Indiana versus Pitino's comments on not worrying about high school recruiting? So I don't think anybody really knows what the best. Approach is here, yeah. And let me try to explain it this way. Like there are going to be some surefire freshman that you're going to want to bring in.
But the problem that I think you're going to run into with high school recruiting is in order to like look at what Indiana's done. Like most of the players that they brought in in the portal are they have, they have one year left, they might have two years left. There's there's not very many players with multiple years of eligibility that are going to be on the roster. Trent Cisley being one of them, obviously is the is the lone incoming recruit as of right now.
So the question is less about, well, what's the balance of high school recruiting and portal acquisition and more. Let's say you go get two or three really good high school players. What are you going to tell them? Hey, come here, but you're not as good as the upper class players that we have brought in. So you're going to sit, are they going to be like, wow, coach, that sounds great.
Now, maybe maybe with NIL in a different way and maybe with some more ironclad contracts, they'd be willing to do that. But a lot of those players would be like, well, why don't I just go play at another major school that's lower down in the in the pecking order, get a year of training and then figure out who wants me the following year? Because the flip side is you could go be a freshman somewhere.
Think of all the freshmen that Indiana have had over the course of the last five or six seasons that didn't pan out and transferred either eventually or immediately. You know you can and you can just, you know, you go through the rosters. I'll, I'll skip this past year's roster because it's not really a fair one to think about. But like look at look at the roster last year and the guys who were high school recruits that Indiana brought in.
See it Gabe Cups who's gone, Caleb Banks gone, CJ Gunn gone, McKenzie and Bacco now gone. Although you got 2 good years out of him, you know, you go back to a, a couple of years prior you had Lake Renew also a recruit gone well, right. But, but that's a different category. I think the, the Renew, what I'm talking about is not the guys that can come in and start right away with the guys who are growers. You know, the, the Jordan Geronimo is an example of that type of player.
Like are you going to roll the dice on a guy like Jordan Geronimo that is a developmental player? Or are you going to be like maybe go play at Iona for a year and then we'll see where things land?
So that's where I don't really know what the balance is going to be for a school like Indiana, which the expectation is going to be that Indiana is going to be back up to a level where they're competing for, you know, at the very least, single digit seeds in the NCAA tournament under the debris there and hopefully a lot more than that. So I wish I had a good answer.
I would like to see Indiana have enough recruiting juice to bring in a couple of stud high school recruits every year, like 2, maybe three, if you can guarantee that they're going to be better than the people that you could get in the portal and go ahead and roll the dice with them. And and then the rest of the guys are guys that you're filling in portal positions with over, you know, over the the
spring session. But there's going to be coaches like Patina who are going to be like, why would I even bother with high school recruiting when I can go get players that have already gotten a chance to scout for two years at the college level? And I just have to make sure that they're the right fits for my system.
You know, I think you can't take a lot of what Debris is doing right now as necessarily what Debris is going to do in the future because Debris is trying to build something from scratch right now. Not just a new roster, but a new roster that fits a new system. It won't be a new system next year. And it'll be more about, OK, what can we plug in? What pieces do you lose? How does all that reconcile? I think it's a really fascinating question and I wish I was smart enough to have the
answer to it right now. But I think it's really going to depend on circumstance and the way that you like. You're always going to learn lessons based upon what happened the first time. And that might end up like impacting the way you decide to approach it the next time. I mean, the answer is you want to have 72% transfers, not random numbers. This is great. Yeah, 70, maybe 71%. But if they're if they're over that, you know, you're you're screwed.
No, it, it's not only going to be basis year to year, it's also circumstantial. So, I mean, you know, I, I think there's some, it, it's very similar like to Indiana, you know, recruiting Indiana, like the the years that, you know, Greg Owen and Mike Conley are seniors in, in Indiana high school basketball. It's like, yeah, you should probably get those guys on your team. The years where, you know, it's there's not a great player, maybe you don't recruit Indiana that year.
I I think again, this this is a a very circumstantial year for debris. He's doing what he has to do to me. I think the answer is you. I don't think the answer is going to be all one way or all the other way. Like I think the coaches who are kind of, you know, askewing the transfer portal, we're doing this straight the old way with nothing but recruits. I think they're going to struggle for for a lot of the
reasons we talked about. It's like it's just tough to to know, you know, what you're getting with high school recruits. But I also look at, you know, guys like Pitino who are just saying apps screw it, we'll just do nothing but transfers. I think they're going to struggle for for other reasons. I, I think it's always going to be best to have a mix, but I think that mix alchemy is going to change every year based on who are the recruits you're getting? Is your recruiting base?
Are there a lot of five stars that year that you're in the mix for? Then maybe that's a year you go heavy recruiting. If it's not, then maybe it's a year you go heavy transfers. Do you feel like there's some transfers coming in that you're going to get it the handle on? So I, I think the answer, you know, the answer is both interesting but kind of boring and that it's, it's probably, it's going to be a mix and it probably should be a mix that
changes year over year. And I just think to me, the answer is, I don't want a coach who's stuck hard one way or the other because I don't think that's the right answer. I think the right answer is going to change in some years. It might be we should have 7 high school recruits because we got a ton of great five stars who all can come in and start.
And then some years maybe we go nothing but portal because we have no good recruits coming in. And I think you have, if anything you're seeing now, you need coaches who are flexible and, and not so tied to a system or a viewpoint, but I want my coach to be flexible and basically to build the team the way that they're going to get the best players on that team or the best players. That fit what they're trying to do with that team. I should say no, I think that's
reasonable. And and again, it's it's going to be very situational and I think I always know what it comes down to. Like, you know, even Duke relied on a a couple of of transfers from elsewhere this year. We did a scion James had been at Tulane, Mason Gillis, who came off the bench a decent amount was obviously at Purdue. Malik Brown came in from Syracuse and they were, you know, Gillis and Brown were more like bit players.
But even Duke, who, you know, probably can get whatever five stars they want in any given year, wasn't afraid to dip into the portal a bit. But I think their ratio is likely going to be OK. We'll suck up the five stars. And I think for a lot of other teams, it's like, well, we got to figure out some other approaches to doing things. Yeah. And I, I, you are right. But it's also like they're like they're getting guys like Cooper
flag. It's like that's that's a five star that you know, is going to be a five star. Who can start. Yeah. Crimson Fire asked on Twitter. Beyond year one, do you see IE men's basketball bringing in more high end true freshmen? They're just going to roll with one or two yearly with Clark, Adams and Johnson, the assistant coaching group, which is a really good recruiting group. Rod Clark, I hope so.
Rod Clark the the the Tennessee recruiting coach now an IU coach and obviously Drew Adams and Kenny Johnson. We know, but you have three guys that can get dudes, especially high end freshmen. Look, here's the thing. Indiana's kind of starting from scratch with a lot of these recruits, right? New coaching staff, but also a coaching staff that was struggling to land these
players. They know they end up going to Connecticut or they end up going to other places, Maryland and so Kentucky, you know, and you've got to build relationships early with those players. And I think I saw news the other day, like Drew Adams was up at Lawrence North or something seeing a top. Level prospect like a four-star center that's, that's going to take a little bit of time.
Yeah. You're, you're looking right now at freshman and sophomore, which means you're not getting them till what, the 20/28/2020 nine class. The one thing though is, I mean, Indiana is, is in really good NIL shape. I don't think people realize how good of NIL shape Indiana is in Indiana has spent a ton of money on on both football and basketball. But but a basketball, I mean it, it significantly exceeds what
they spent last year. And that's going to help in this process as well because that does ultimately resonate with with people and you would expect that. So let's see a couple of other questions. I, I wanted to get us out roughly after an hour. I didn't want to go too far on this, but but some good questions from people overall. Hoosier Lee on the Discord ask. Curious about your take on the IU basketball staff. To me, it seems reflective of Debris's general approach.
Solid, not flashy, ready to do the heavy lifting. I mean, it's a fairly flashy group in terms of like you've got you've got a guy in Drew Adams who has a pretty sizeable recruiting footprint. You've got Kenny Johnson, who obviously we're very familiar with, has a has a lot of connections to the DMV where you've got a ton of recruits to come out every year. And Indiana's gotten some some pretty good players out of there, including Victor Oladipo.
And you know, Rod Clark coming in from Tennessee was heavily involved with the Dalton Connect recruitment, which Indiana lost just heavily involved with, you know, a couple of other recruitments of note. I'm, I would call them more than just solid. I think that's a really, really formidable recruiting group that all has different strengths. And you know, you got Nick Norton and you've the, the other coach whose name had just escaped me.
I apologize. Who I'm assuming you're going to be focusing more on on court coaching and training. I think that's the kind of mix that you need moving forward. So I, I really like the staff. It's a, it's a fascinating staff. It's a staff that's got a lot of different facets to it. And again, you a, you never really know how all of that's going to fit together, as we talked about with some other things.
But on paper, you know, you think about some of the names that were tossed around earlier for some of the assistance. This is a pretty good spot to land with this group, it feels like, all things considered. Agreed. I agree with you. Yeah. Couple of other quick questions. So we had a question from Hoosier in Japan and this I I promised everybody that I was going to be doing a series on nil and the house settlement. I've been waiting on the House settlement to actually settle so
I can do that podcast series. But in the meantime, Hoosier in Japan asked, is it possible to have a regulated, fair and equitable system for player payment and portal transfers that promotes parentheses, not buys allegiance to a school or team? So here's how I will say my answer to this I I think it's absolutely possible to have an equitable system for player payment and portal transfer, but it requires the schools and the conferences involved to create
rules. And these cannot be one way unilaterally imposed rules like the NCAA and its member schools have gotten used to doing. It has to be a system where there's some collective bargaining involved with the athletes. This cannot be a situation where all these things are being dictated to people. Because I just, I think we've seen consistently now that the courts are like, your business is not that special.
College athletics, like your business is not so unique and so dependent on. I mean, remember the big argument was if players get paid, people will stop watching college sports. Meanwhile, we just had like the highest rated Final Four in a while. I think it was, I mean, like it's ludicrous that, and it always was ludicrous, this idea that somehow people were going to stop watching college sports because there was money
involved. So the, the NCAA has gotten so used to dictating these terms that there is a pathway to a, a more equitable system, but it requires what the professional leagues have, which is a player union or something similar and collective bargaining between that and the teams in the
conferences involved. I don't know that we'll get there with the way that the current leadership of the NCAA is approaching things because their answer to everything really for the last 15 years has been, well, we'll just throw more lawyers at it, which is not, that's not a system that's going to produce anything fair and equitable. Now, the one other thing I'll say, though, about what Hoosier in Japan asked about, you know, a, a, a system that promotes you've. Been real quick on that.
This is more your expertise than mine, but I'm just as a, as a sideline fan. But knowing how it all works, I, I love hearing this. I also get in these debates of how we can set it up and all this. But I think in the end it is all just wasted breath. Because even if what you need is exactly what you mentioned, which is collective bargaining, but you need a league and you know, the NBA has a commissioner and a commissioner can dictate
terms. And in the end, the Pacers and Bucks are, are competing, but they are also part of a collective. And they, they do things that are for the best of the NBA and the owners, you know that they're, they're competing against other, but they are also collectively working together to make the NBA better because they all make money that way. Unfortunately, the NCAA is like Bloodsport. It's just everyone is out for
their own. Like Indiana University is theoretically kind of partnered with other Big 10 schools, but they're not. And if they can do things that kills Michigan State or Michigan, it's like they will do that. The the conferences are theoretically working together for the collective good of the NCAA, but they're not. And if the Big 10 can RIP out schools from the PAC 12, they will do it in an instant.
And then suddenly those schools are now in the Big 10 and they're blood sporty against these other schools. And they're just. And then, you know, you also have, you know, as you've mentioned many times, you have the TV partners, which are in their own battles between each other, using schools as proxies to fight their own battles. And a lot of times they're the ones pulling the strings.
There's I don't just, I just don't see a way of having all of this being put together in a spot where everyone who's been kind of acting as their own sheriff for 140 years, you're going to get someone to be the commissioner of all of this. And everyone's going to kind of work in the best interest of the overarching good. And so I unfortunately think it's just going to be little band aids here and there. And you're going to have, these are all interesting ideas.
We can talk about it. Not to pour cold water on it, but I just, I don't see how it ever gets kind of resolved in a way that makes sense. Well, it'll just be kind of these theories of every year. It's like, man, this is really stupid. And that kid got 5 million. What the hell? Like, they're getting underpaid and they have so much money and like, man, they're blowing a lot of money. And like, that's the way it's going to be because everyone is there.
There is no person who's leading the collective. Charge it requires there to be adults in the room who who I'm seriously, it requires because you're, you're right. And I'm going to talk about this a lot more in depth on the NIL series. But it requires people acknowledging that, hey, what we have done doesn't work anymore and the courts have said that it doesn't work anymore.
And we're not going to get somebody in Congress to wave a magic wand and fix it for us, which has been the entire strategy of the NCAA, it seems like, for the last four years. Well, even in the sorry, even in the NBA, they put rules in to like protect the owners from themselves. Like they'll do this. Like you can't trade 5 future draft draft. You only trade like every other
year 'cause it's a fun story. They get the owner of the Cavs traded literally every draft pick in the 80s just one off these and just try and like this sucks. And so they put factors in to stop themselves from kind of being themselves. You just don't have any of that
in the instant way. So the, the one other thing I'll note just in terms of the, the, the question that Hoosier in Japan asked about, you know, the, the loyalty being, you know, promoting loyalty as opposed to buying allegiance. And I just, here's the thing that I think we have to keep in mind on all of this. People have jobs. Why do we work where we work? You know, why do we do?
You're different, you're self-employed, but you know, you know, for those of us who have to work for other people, why do you do what you do? Do you do it because of an abiding loyalty to the company? If that's your primary motivating factor, you're probably not getting paid your actual market value. And that isn't to say that that that's wrong or that that's bad, but I think you you can't.
I've never felt like in these sorts of circumstances where there is significant value of what you do. And let's be honest, like college basketball players, college football players, the reason why there's so much money is because there's so much interest. And the reason there's so much interest is that these are very, very elite people at something that's very, very public.
It's not a whole lot different than why do movie stars get paid a lot of money, you know, or, or why do people in other pursuits where there's a very finite small number of people that have
the opportunities? So, you know, the idea that a lot of people have that, you know, loyalty needs to be the primary factor here is I think part of the issue with the way that people are viewing the whole NIL situation in the transfer portal, 'cause you'll see people entering the transfer portal still and it'll be like, oh, that, you know, that guy quit or that guy left his team and is chasing something.
And you see this even in the NBA, You know, when LeBron James leaves the Cavs and goes to the Heat or leaves the Cavs and goes to the Lakers, it's like, well, you're just ring chasing. And it's like, well, the the flip side of that is what you see with Giannis right now where, you know, here's, you know, Giannis, they win a title and they've watched their entire roster collapse around them due to bad management.
And there's been some bad luck. Obviously, if Giannis leaves this offseason to go to another team, there's going to be people who will be like, oh, he just, you know, left to go chase a ring. And it's like, he already won a ring. Like, like, loyalty only goes so far. You have to watch out for
yourself to some degree. And I don't think it's fair in college athletics to hold players accountable on a loyalty perspective to teams that the coaches themselves do not have much loyalty to beyond whatever the paycheck is. And there are certainly exceptions to that, but most of the exceptions are people that are paid incredibly well and have set up a system that is very successful for themselves
to stay at that point. You know, So this is where I, I do think as you, as we go into this era, we don't like if a, if a, if a, a regular college student decides after a year of going to Indiana that they don't want to go there anymore and they want to transfer to Butler or Ball State or or Iowa or something like that. We're not like, well, gosh, where's your allegiance? And we're just like, well, OK, they just, they, they went somewhere else.
It wasn't for them. But, you know, but we have this psychological issue with sports where we feel like the athletes owe the fans something above and beyond what we would expect out of any other employee. And I just don't think that that's healthy because I don't think it's realistic. And I think ultimately it's a two way St. We want players to be loyal and have like, you know, unbought
allegiance to schools. And yet the schools will get rid of a player at the drop of a hat if they're not good enough. It's. Not a four year scholarship. Right, you know, so, so that's where the you know, the the questions are really good one, but it's like a two-part question and both parts are really complicated because I don't if I'm a player and I'm looking at this current system, it's like, what exactly am I supposed to be loyal to?
Look at all the coaching movement that happened in the offseason this year. You know it, it's there.
There's so much going on that I don't even know with a collective bargaining system like you would you would you would still be buying allegiance at that point because what you would be doing is you would be signing a contract and you would be saying I'm staying here for two years or three years or however long, which would actually be better for the player than the system that existed before, like you just said, which is 1 where it's one year renewable, but it could be
not renewed for whatever reason. That's the thing I think people have to understand is like this is not players suddenly getting disloyal because they're greedy. It's players seeking out their market value because now they have the chance to do so for the first time. And unless the schools are willing to say you're an employee, we're willing to pay you as such. I don't know where the loyalty exactly is coming from on that side. Well, yeah, I'm, I'm just going to re quote you in like 12
different times. It's like the, the, the analogy to people in their jobs is, is perfect 'cause people have their jobs and they get paid. It, it reminds me of one of my get to a point here, but it reminds me of one of my quotes from the, the show Mad Men, where, you know, the, the, the character of Peggy is like, well, you got an award and like, I gave you all the ideas and you never said thank you. And he's like, that's what the money's for.
Like that's why you get paid. Like that's your thank you is the money. But you know, the the reason I think people get and for the most part, people understand pro sports. It's like, oh, well, you're going to go, you know, if if Miles Turner this you get a lot of Pacers talk. But if Miles Turner gets a, you know, 5, you know, three-year, $45 million deal and the Pacers can't match it, it's like, well, yeah, he's got to take that.
It's more money. People understand that because these are employees and everyone has a job and they know that this goes back something you said ad nauseam, but it's so true. Part of the problem is the NCAA doesn't like they don't know what business they're in. And because they no one can just say these are employees. It's like it's well, they're student athletes and they're
doing it for the like. When you start talking about all the things that I think fans forget the connection to employees like, well, they should have allegiance just but but they shouldn't. If you're just like, oh, these
are employees. These are guys who work for IU, just like, you know, Tyrese Halliburton, I'm sure he likes the Pacers, but he also gets paid by the Pacers and he's an employee of the Pacers. You know, I just, I think that because nobody can just come out and say their employees, you start to when you start talking in all these other terms, I think that's where it gets mixed up.
But if you look at them just as employees, everyone understands like, yeah, that's you're, you're doing it for the money and you have allegiance. Some people probably like here. It's like some students love going there and love the university, and most people who play for it, they probably care about it, but in the end, it's still transactional. Good place to stop. We'll we'll obviously have a lot
more on this. We're we're waiting for more is the thing today where I guess Donald Trump met with Nick Saban and and now he's talking about an executive order about who, who knows about college pay. For athletes, Bill Simmons could finally get his sports bar. Sports is our job. Amazing. Wow. So a lot to talk about with this as we move forward and a lot of other questions that we couldn't get to, which we will get to again at some point in the near future.
We will have more podcasts coming. Schedules are starting to settle down a little bit. We're into May little lighter time, but we got plenty to talk about here. So be sure to keep staying like tuning in to the back home network. Be sure to subscribe to us here on on Crimson cast and we'll go ahead and wrap things up. Scott, it's always a pleasure. Great to talk to you on a Friday afternoon and I hope you have a good rest of the weekend. You too, man.
All right. Thanks for watching or listening to Crimson Cast or both. We will catch you folks. On the flip side, stay never daunted, Bring back the Bison and just remember, folks, we got the Indy 500 at the end of the month. Always the best month of the year. Pacers in the playoffs, plenty of good things catch you on the flip side. So everybody.