Music and hello, folks. Galen Clavio here and welcome back to Crimson Cast. It is Sunday, July 27th. It's been too long. We've had a bit of a hiatus thanks to vacations and just a little bit of a slow time period as everything's going on. But we got plenty to talk about today. We're going to do a shorter IU football podcast. We'll have more IU football content coming up later on this week and beyond.
And I just wanted to answer some of you folks's questions and talk a little bit about what I saw out in Vegas for Big 10 football Media day and lot to talk about. And we are getting closer and closer. 34 days until kickoff for IU football and even less than that for the kickoff of college football in general. So we're going to dive into it
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Football content, all right? I promised we would be getting to your questions and I wanted to go ahead and dive right into them as there's a lot to go through. Let me start off. I first I'll be able to say this, I'm not going to be able to get to all of these questions. Because there were a ton of these questions and I appreciate everybody jumping in. We are going to have multiple shows throughout the course of
this week. And you know, I think it's important that we we try to break this down into different areas. So the first thing I wanted to tackle was some of the non team specific areas is I want to have Taylor or Scott or some other folks on with me. I think those things work better as conversation pieces. But let's start with this question from Christian Ellerding. Are we thinking Big Noon kickoff or maybe even college game day for the Illinois game?
So this is an interesting one and I've gotten this question quite a bit. And this is where I think it's sometimes interesting when we try to figure out when games are happening. As many of you know, games initially will get selected by networks. And we've walked through how that process goes where there's essentially a draft that happens, but they don't draft the whole season. They'll draft kind of week by week after they get to a certain point, really after you're up
until like week two or three. Now, we're already seeing some games being selected by networks and that has narrowed down the options, I think a bit in terms of where this IU Illinois game is going to be. The IU Illinois game, of course, a game that everybody's really looking forward to. We've had like Danny Cannell talk about how this is a game that could have playoff implications, certainly is going to have implications as far as the standings in the Big 10.
But when, when's it going to happen during the day? So this is Week 4. There are some games that have already been apportioned out or have been selected by networks during Week 4. And you have to keep in mind, like there's essentially a top tier list of, you know, the games that are going to be going on within each conference. And then you break it down from there and it gets a little bit
less and less important. And that's where games get shoved down to Big 10 Network, or maybe onto a streaming service like Peacock. So if you look at the. Games in the Big 10 that have been selected so far that weekend, Iowa at Rutgers on Friday, that's the Fox game. So that's out of the equation at this point. Then you've got essentially 3 games that have been apportioned to networks already. You've got Michigan at Nebraska, which is the 330 game on CBS. You got Purdue, Notre Dame,
which is the 330 game on NBC. And then you got the Apple Cup between Washington and Washington State, which is 7:30
on CBS. The other four games in the Big 10 for that week that haven't been assigned yet, you have Michigan State at USC, you've got Maryland at Wisconsin, you've got Oregon State at Oregon, and you've got Illinois at Indiana. Now of those four, there's a couple of different directions that I think you can see this go. I wouldn't be shocked to see Illinois, Indiana as the night game because and, and I know you've got Washington, Washington State, but you got to
keep in mind that's not really a national game. That is a regional game and it's not even a full Big 10 game, obviously, because Washington State is still in the PAC 12. Does that mean that they would schedule Illinois? Indiana to go up against that, very possibly. But the other complicating factor here and where Big Noon might actually be in play is you've got Michigan State, USC. That's not going to be Big Noon kickoff.
That's at USC. They're not going to do Big Noon kickoff for a game that would start at 9:00. They might, they might bump it back a little bit, but the the actual noon kick itself as opposed to like ESP or Fox being
there. You know, if they were going to have the the program be a bridge program into the kickoff like they did earlier on this year with I think it was the Nebraska game, it'd be more likely that Illinois, Indiana would get that slot than Michigan State. USCI also wouldn't be surprised if NBC decided that they wanted to go Michigan State, USC as a 730 game kind of to counter program. CBS having a West Coast team like Washington, which has a big
following. I don't think Illinois Indiana's going to be the 330 game again because you've already got Michigan, Nebraska in that slot. And I think Illinois Indiana's going to trump whatever people might think is going to be Maryland, Wisconsin. So I went into this originally thinking that Indiana might be the 330 game. Then they moved Michigan, Nebraska to it. So my guess is at this point it's probably a noon kick for Illinois, Indiana, but I wouldn't be shocked if it was a
7 or 730 kick. It really just depends on what NBC decides they want to do in that evening time slot, if they're even going to have a game there since they've gotten the the Notre Dame Purdue game earlier on in the day. So again, I feel like we're not going to know for a little while, but I wouldn't be surprised if we knew before the season started. That is going to be a wild
weekend one way or another. I think, you know, from the perspective of people outside of Bloomington, I know people don't like night kickoffs because of the long, relatively long drive to get back home, although it's a lot easier with the Interstate. I don't really want to melt as as along with other people in the sun at noon. I'll do it. I'll be happy to do it. But I that just seems like such a cool game to be in the
evening. It would, I'm not going to say be a shame because I'll look, I'll take a national televised broadcast with two ranked teams. You know, that's that's totally fine. I just in the back of my head, I keep thinking that's going to be an evening game. I think it's really just going to depend on what kind of juice the networks think Michigan State, USC might have and where they end up slotting that. So we'll see what happens, but nothing definitive yet as far as the the time.
And I know even the folks that I've talked to in the television business have been a little bit uncertain. And there's even been I was told definitively it was going to be at one time before and then was recently told, well, no, that's. Actually not accurate. It's my. It might change to a different time now. So. So there you go.
We had some other questions. Some of these are kind of funny and and yet there's some grains of truth in them and they to some degree overlap with what I saw out at Big 10 media day. So in 49 States asks, is it true that this year's Indiana is Indiana? Which is kind of funny because this has been a narrative we've seen in some ESPN posts. It's been some things we've seen in some other companies posts where everybody's been asking like who is this year's Indiana?
And hilariously, someone that I saw listed said, oh, it's Illinois. It's not Illinois like Illinois last year. I think people forget this Illinois finished ten and three. There were six and three in conference. They were a good football team Last year. They finished 16th in the country to be this year's Indiana. You could not be coming off A10 win season. To be this year's Indiana, you have to be coming off like a three win season, really 3 consecutive 3 or 4 win seasons.
You have to be in a position where. You come out of absolutely nowhere and you are suddenly a national player and making or getting close to making the College Football Playoff. There are not a lot of. Teams that fit that bill and the ones that do, I mean, if you go back and look at the standings from last year, who are the teams that maybe fit that profile? You know, I would argue Maryland does not fit that profile, even though they were one and eight in the league last year.
Maryland's been OK the in the years prior to that, they've been in contention for bowls. They've made a couple of bowls. They would not be this who's Indiana because they would not be coming out of absolutely nothing over the last three years to get to where they would want to get to you. You look at the Big 12, who are the teams that finished in the bottom reaches of that conference? Last year's Oklahoma State was O and 9:00.
They've had too much success to ever qualify as this year's Indiana. You've got Utah, UCF and Arizona again. I'm not sure. Any of those teams would really qualify. The most hilarious one to me is Florida State, which again, would not qualify given that they were on the doorstep of a playoff appearance 2 years ago. But they were one and seven last year and 2:00 and 10:00 in the ACC. Or excuse me, two and ten overall, one and seven in the
ACC. So I look at all of that and I don't even know if there's a good candidate for this year's Indiana. It's certainly you. You look across the board and almost every team that would potentially qualify either had too good of a season last year like Vanderbilt or Oklahoma or Arkansas. All of those teams made bowls or they're teams that have just had too much success to really ever qualify as this year's Indiana.
So I think I do think it's funny that and I appreciate the media trying to fold Indiana into the national narrative and yet another way. But realistically, there is no chance in my mind of a this year's Indiana and the very unique aspects of what made it such a special season, such a unique season in Indiana. Football or college football history? Really not just Indiana.
Let's see, I wanted to jump to another scheduling post and again, this kind of ties in to what we saw over in Vegas for this Big 10 football media day. I will say that what's hilarious and I want to find the the comment that someone left on this because it would really summed up a lot of the hilarity that I find in all of this. Buff Komodo asked the following question. How glorious is it that IU football now occupies a space in every media members brain rent free? It is glorious.
It's also hilarious and I think it's really special that for two years in a row now, IU and Kurt Signetti have come out of Big 10 Football Media Day. With the most people. Kind of craning their necks, looking at them saying like, what if you recall last year, Signetti?
Brashley says, you know, it said, you know, gets up on the desk and, you know, talks about how they, you know, it's, it's kind of a preview or whatever the language was of them coming back for the conference title game later on that year. And they almost did it. If Minnesota knocks off Penn State. Like they were poised to do. That prophecy comes true this year. Signetti goes in and makes all the buzz about talking about the scheduling, you know, adopting SEC scheduling principles.
Just amazing. And I once again am impressed with Curt Cignetti's ability to say things in ways that just cut right through the media divide and get people fired up one way or another. If you're an IU fan, you're ready to run through a brick wall for the guy in most cases. If you're another Big 10 coach. I mean, there were several Big 10 coaches, including Jed Fish, including Ryan Day, including Lincoln Riley, who said some version of what Kurt Signetti
said. And yes, all of that to some degree is being coordinated by Tony Petiti in the Big 10 Conference. But it's fun to watch IU, and Kurt Signetti in particular, become this entity that people are. Paying attention to at such a unique level. And even on the podcasts from the various places out there that we've seen over the course of the last few days, you know, ever since Signetti went up there and talked, it's been a talking point that everybody has
had. And so I think it's great that you've got IU and Kurt Signetti continuing to keep themselves at the forefront of the conversation. Now. It requires that you back up the talk and back up the the appearance in the conversation with actual results. But they did that last year, and there's no reason to believe that Indiana won't be able to do that this year. As well, it does put a little more pressure on your team, but I think that that's what Kurt
Signetti wants. And I think this is an interesting lesson for a lot of IU fans who are still trying to figure out exactly how to navigate being an IU football fan at a time when IU football is more relevant than it's ever been nationally. As Signeti has alluded to or outright said in several different media appearances, people don't like it when you crash a party that they don't think that you belong to, is essentially what he said.
And that is how college football has worked historically. The upper echelons of college football is one of the biggest versions of Mean Girls that you're going to find in that it's very exclusionary, it's very catty and there's a a real resistance to non blue bloods and non established programs not just knocking on the door, but actually walking into the room and staying there. This is very much an old boys club in in a lot of ways and fans and media treat it that
way. And I think Kurt Signeti understands that, but he also understands that the longer you can stay in the at a level of relevance within the conversation nationally. The more people start to accept that you belong in the conversation. Now, I don't think Indiana's ever going to actually be fully embraced unless they do this for 2530 years in a row. But the idea, the way that IU got reacted to last year in relation to the College Football Playoff was silly.
And you, you just can't play nice when you're getting reacted to that way. And I think Signeti understands that you have to argue for your place and you have to essentially defend and justify the things that you're doing. And I thought Signetti did a really good job of predicating what IU did after they got criticized quite a bit over that cancelling of the Virginia series.
And they were legitimate reasons why they did that even above and beyond the SEC scheduling principles thing, you know, largely the extra revenue from a home game and the fact that that series got scheduled at a time when Signetti was not yet the coach. It it is funny that, you know, Signetti's also gotten blamed for the Louisville series cancellation, which he wasn't even a part of.
And I'm going to get to something on that that that pit Hoosier wrote in. But much like we saw Lincoln Riley get criticized this year for even daring to animate that, it might not make sense that the Notre Dame game stay on USC schedule. You got a lot of people who are approaching their commentary on college sports and I'm not I'm leaving the fans, the online fans out of this entirely.
But even at the media level, you got a lot of people who are approaching this from what they think is the best interest of college football without ever really defining what that means or acknowledging that what they think might be in the best interest of college football in their quotes might not actually be in the best interest of a lot of the teams in the programs that are participating in college football.
And so I think with Signetti, if IU is going to be in people's mouths anyway, you might as well twist it so that they are talking about things on your terms as opposed to talking about it as if you're just this interloper who's doing dumb things that are hurting the sport.
None of which is true, but. That is clearly how IU has been categorized in multiple circles over the course of, oh really, since November. So I love the fact that IU has become this weird rally and cry to the point that like Ari Wasserman from On Three wrote a whole piece about this, focusing specifically on how the fact that it was Indiana that was involved in the scheduling situation last year was itself. A shock, I guess, for lack of a better term.
So bravo to Kurt Zignetti for knowing how to navigate this. And it's just awesome that Indiana's getting talked about at this level. And it's awesome that Indiana went out and backed up what they were doing in terms of winning 11 games last year. And I'm fascinated to see what they do coming up for this season. So let's stick on the scheduling thing to start with. I I alluded to this one earlier, but pit Hoosier asking the
following question. And I think this question is still even more pertinent now given Lincoln Riley's comments at Big 10 media Day. But the question was given IU's controversial scheduling philosophy, I don't know how controversial it it actually should be. But given IU's philosophy that resulted in the Louisville and Virginia gays being bought out, should and will IU keep? The Notre Dame series in 30 and 31.
So again, we we saw comments about this from Lincoln Riley because he was asked specifically about that series and he brought it back again to this idea of scheduling needs to be consistent across the board. And you know, we don't want this situation to be there where USC, Notre Dame might hurt USC in their quest to get into the College Football Playoff.
A lot of people jumped on that and criticized Lincoln Riley in particular and criticized the Big 10 for I think somebody, Stewart Mandel referred to it as gaslighting, which is ludicrous. Here's the thing to keep in mind about scheduling right now.
If the. Reality of college football is that we're going to focus on a playoff and I think we should, and this is something we're going to get into a lot more in depth on football Weather, which is the college football podcast that I do with Matt Blaska that's also on the back home network. We're going to talk about this more in depth on our episode from this weekend.
If the goal is to get into the playoff, I think you have to have some kind of acknowledgement that the entire system of scheduling, which has been essentially predicated around getting to bowl games but not necessarily getting to the playoff, is not really a great system for a lot of the teams that have been at the heart of it over the course of time.
And so when you look at an Indiana, as much as they've gotten criticized for canceling the Louisville series or or buying their way out of the Virginia series, the reality of the situation is Indiana, along with many other teams in college football, and I would put USC in that mix now don't have the luxury of throwing a game away as a loss potentially if they want to be in contention for the playoff.
And the idea that those teams should just continue to schedule that way, regardless of whether or not it's good for them because it's somehow good for the greater good. I, I just, I'm not seeing that argument being extended to a lot of other teams in college football. You know, why is it that Indiana who if you look at the history of Indiana, has always over scheduled itself to the point where it over scheduled itself out of bowl games, out of out of
contention for bowl games. Because instead of just doing what other teams in the conference or teams in the SEC were doing and scheduling a very weak non conference. Indiana historically has always felt like it's had to fill up its schedule with a lot of good non conference games. Often times because of what I would argue was a short sighted focus on ticket sales and not nearly as much of A focus on building up a program. And this is not a new problem.
This went all the way back to the League Corso era. Go back and look at some of those non. Conference League Corso schedules they're playing. USC in a home and home, they're playing Washington, they're playing teams that they had no business playing at that point 'cause they weren't that good and they didn't get good, they didn't get to the Bulls that would have helped them to establish themselves so to. Round this out and go back to
this Notre Dame series. I think that's part of the the scenario that has to be evaluated. If you're Indiana, do you get? Enough out of the Notre Dame game. In terms of prestige, do you have a chance at winning those games? I think by 30 or 31 they will, but is it? Worth losing that game and then having to play the full 9 game schedule in the Big 10. You've left yourself no margin
for error. And that this is where I really push back on what a lot of the national pundits are saying, where they're like, well, you know, what's the purpose in playing the game? If it's, if it won't hurt you one way or the other. And the flip side is what's the
purpose in playing the game? If you significantly increase the percentage that you're going to get edged out of the playoff if other teams aren't having to play that type of a game in a given year, and whether or not we like that or don't like that philosophically, you have to think about it strategically.
Now for Indiana, the other thing I think is worth noting here is that ultimately there's a an element to Notre Dame to some degree being able to coast on being an independent from a scheduling perspective that I think the conference in general is looked at and said maybe this isn't something that we want to be helping them out with as we move forward. I mean, think about last year. They're caught. Their schedule overall was not that strong.
At the end of the day, they played a bunch of ACC teams. None of them really ended up being particularly good. They won at USC, who didn't end up being particularly good. They played Purdue, who was real bad. They played Northern Illinois, who they lost to, and they won at Texas A&M, who also didn't end up being particularly good. If you look at the teams that they've been playing lately versus who they used to play, they're no longer playing Michigan in a home and home every year.
They used to do that. They're no longer playing Michigan State. You know, the Purdue series has been intermittent, and I think there may be some communication or some conversation happening where it's almost like, you know, Notre Dame to some degree, getting to pick and choose teams to play in the Big 10. That's propping them up from a schedule perspective in a way that perhaps the Big 10 should not be engaging in because it gives Notre Dame all the
benefits of being able to pick and choose their games without really having to play a conference schedule that the Big 10 teams or the SEC teams are having to play. And there's been enough talk about the ACC, and I think everybody's aware of this. The ACC has just not been particularly good over the course of the last five or six years. They've had some really good teams, you know, Clemson being a great example of that.
But they certainly haven't had the depth in that conference that the Big 10 of the SEC has had. And yet those teams are good enough that Notre Dame is playing that it gives them a big advantage overall because they played a power conference, it's schedule without actually playing a power conference schedule. And they're playing a bunch of teams from what is not really a true power conference at this point. If you look at the, the, the widespread within the ACC.
So I I do wonder at some point if Indiana from a conference perspective looks at that. And says maybe this isn't what we're going to do, but I could also see that series actually happening. I think I would love to see it happen. I'm not. Advocating for it not happening, but I am trying to take to some degree kind of the real politic approach of figuring out what is going to make the most sense. And does the Big 10 as a conference say we really. Need to have Notre Dame stop.
They need to stop having the best of both worlds. And every Big 10 team that schedules them into a home and home essentially helps to prolong their ability to stay independent, reap all of the financial benefits from that and not face any of the actual consequences of not being in the Big 10 or the SEC. So I know some people may not like that, but that's how I would be looking at it right now if I was the Big 10. And I think Indiana, as we've
seen, understands that. Wins are still the most important thing and the idea that you would voluntarily schedule games that reduce your ability to get the maximum number of wins when you already have to play a nine game schedule against a very tough conference slate. Those are the kinds of things I do think you have to think
about. And as much as that series makes a lot of sense from a geographical perspective, it again probably makes less sense for Indiana than it makes for Notre Dame at this point, given the fact that Indiana is in the Big 10 and Notre Dame is not. Let's see some other comments
coming up or some questions. So we had a bunch of questions about overall record and I'm not going to give our overall record projection at this stage, but Sir Elvis Greenspan asking what record does IU need to maintain its recruiting momentum? That that's a good question. We had another similar question regarding the overall approach to things that we would expect. Indiana the need to have in terms of this season. Let's So who's your beer guy asks the following question.
Do you think IU starts out the year ranked and say IU? Goes 10 and 2 with losses at Penn State and Oregon, do you think we would find it hard to make the playoff due to residual push back from last year slash the schedule narrative? I look at those two questions as kind of similar to each other. So first of all, what record does Indiana need to maintain recruiting momentum? I think eight or nine wins at a minimum. Now you can definitively say last year was not a. Flash in the pan.
Last year was not a mistake. Last year was not a blip on the radar. Last year was the new Indiana and that Indiana is here to stay.
If you look at the comments that recruits have made about Indiana this cycle, not just the ones that have committed to Indiana, but the ones that are on the fence, Indiana's in their top 8 or whatever, What you see is a real interesting and gratifying set of positive comments about Kurt Zignetti and the staff and about what's going on in Bloomington right now. If you hear Kurt Zignetti talking about how the recruiting process went last year, he's talked about how, well, look
what we've done. What we had to do was go in and promise a bunch of things based upon what we had done at James Madison. It's a lot different this year because what you can now do is point to the fact you made the College Football Playoff. You lost one game in the regular season in the Big 10. You had eleven wins overall. Like those things really carry. That gets you in the door and now you can explain your developmental process where guys
fit, things like that. So I think if you win, I think even seven wins would probably maintain that. But 8 or 9 and I would really circle like nine wins is the sweet spot. You can easily then walk into a recruits living room and say we told you that we were here to
stay. We told you that last year was not a fluke, as I'm sure those players have heard from coaching Staffs at places like Tennessee, like Michigan, like LSU, like Florida. Now that takes that out of the equation as far as an argument's concerned. And now you can say, look, we've we've accomplished just almost as much as we did last year and we put ourselves in a position where we are one of the players, You know, what is the what did
Signetti say on CBS last year? The emerging superpower in college football? You can go into recruits homes and say that even more definitively now if you've won eight or nine games. So that's what I would aim for in this season as a minimum. I think Indiana's ceiling is higher than that. The more that I've looked with the schedule and the more that I've evaluated what's going on, I do think Indiana ceiling is higher than that 88 and a half win total that I've seen in a bunch of places.
Now, the Hoosier beer guys, question about do we think IU starts off the year ranked? I do, I think Indiana, I'm going to guess Indiana's going to start the season ranked 17th in the AP poll. I think they should probably be a little bit higher, but I can also see the arguments for them being in that range. I think they'll probably be somewhere between 15th and 22nd. In both polls, it's a great
place to start. And as we saw last year, starting ranked is much better than not because you're in the conversation from the beginning and going back to the arguments about scheduling, which we'll talk about here with the last question that we'll we'll field SEC teams. So many of them start the season ranked, win against subpar competition or worse, and then the fact that they were ranked at the beginning of the year is used as justification in concert with the wins against easy teams.
Whereas Indiana, as you'll recall, had to really fight to get up, not just into the rankings, but then eventually up into that top ten, top 15 range because they started the season unranked. They just didn't get the benefit of the doubt from voters. As we also learned last year, the voting sucks. Like the not just on the coach's
side either. Like, you know, there is so much provinciality, especially among southern and weirdly Western writers and people voting in this poll, that when you go through and breakdown what they are doing week by week in the voting, there is so much credence being given. You know, if you wanted to take a very charitable approach, credence being given to teams that were already in the
rankings. It looks really like the credence is being given or the benefit of the doubt is being given to SEC teams regardless of what they're doing, because the expectation is, oh, those teams are just so much better. And you can always point to the fact that they started off ranked as the justification for that. It's silly, but that seems to be how it works. But Indiana being ranked to start the season is a big deal.
And as far as the scenario the Hoosier beer guy lays out, which again was 10 and two with losses at Penn State and at Oregon, would that would we find it hard for IU to make the playoff due to residual push back from the schedule narrative and from last year? This year will be different from last year unless those teams fall completely off the wagon that Indiana's got on their schedule currently. So take the non conference out of the equation for a minute.
The scenario that Hoosier beer guys laying out here would be a loss at Oregon, who many people think might be the second best team in the conference, or maybe the best team in the conference. Penn State, who many people think is the best team in the conference, losing at both of those teams. But then by virtue of the proposed record here, winning at home versus Illinois, who will be ranked, winning at Iowa, which is going to be a tough game.
And I think Iowa's going to win 8 or 9 games this year like they almost always do. Winning at home versus UCLA, who I think will be better. Winning at home versus Michigan State, who I think will be better. Winning on the road at Maryland, who I think will be at least a bowl team this year, That would carry a long way in terms of
getting into the playoff. You're probably not winning, but well, here's the thing I was going to say, you're probably not winning the Big 10, seven and two in the conference might get you into the Big 10 title game this year. One of the things that I think we got to note as we go into this upcoming season is that all of these teams that we're looking at as potentially the best teams in the conference, all of them have some pretty tough schedules this year.
You know, Indiana got let down quite a bit last year by the fact that their schedule had Washington and Washington was not good. You know, they were, they were OK. They had UCLA, who was supposed to be good. They were not. It had Nebraska. Nebraska was not good. It had Michigan, who Indiana beat. Michigan should have been better than they were last year. So there were several games on the schedule.
Maryland's another one, like who was anticipating Maryland was going to go 4:00 and 8:00 last year. So Indiana had games on their schedule that should have yielded a much greater overall strength of schedule and much greater levels of respect across the country. But the teams that they played, Michigan State was another one who should have been better than they were. It never manifested in those teams actually doing anything.
So assuming the wheels don't fall off Illinois, the wheels don't fall off Iowa. Assuming Michigan State and UCLA and Maryland are better. Like, you know, Wisconsin I think could be decent this year as well. Those would all be really good wins and those would be wins that I think would help Indiana to escape the perception that they had last year, that they had beaten just a bunch of cream puffs, which was an unfair argument.
But it was an argument that the reality of which was born in the way that the teams that they had on their schedule performed elsewhere. And that was not up to par, unfortunately. What I think is worth noting though is, and I'll go back to the thing I was talking about with the conference and whether Indiana will be in contention for the title this year. 7 and 2 is not that's that's not far off from what I think might get you into the conference title game
this year. Because if you think about like Illinois, who everybody's been talking about non-stop Illinois schedule this year includes at Indiana, USC at home, Ohio State at home, at Washington, at Wisconsin, plus they've got to go to Duke, which is a non conference game. But still, I mean, that's that's five pretty 4/4 really tough games I would say in the big 10. And the idea that Illinois is going to sweep all of those I don't really think is plausible.
It's possible, I guess, but I could see Illinois being a really good team and being seven and two in conference. You know, if you look at the schedule that Penn State who has been most people's odds on favorite to win this conference, they've got Illinois at home. They've got at sorry, hold on a second. They've let me let me get the right schedule up here. Penn State does not have Illinois, I apologize, but they do have Oregon at home. There we go. They've got to go to Iowa.
They've got to go to Ohio State. They've got to go to Michigan State. They've got Indiana at home. That is five really tough games in the conference. You know that's that's a team that's going to have to play perfect even to be in position to have one loss going into that game that they host versus Indiana, Oregon schedule for this upcoming year. They got to go to Penn State. They've got Indiana at home. They've got to go to Iowa. They've got Minnesota at home, they've got USC at home.
They've got to go to Washington in the last game of the year. Those are some really tough games and even going over to what Ohio State has to do this year, Ohio State schedule at Washington, Minnesota at home, at Illinois, Penn State at home, you know, at Michigan to close the season. My, my point being, this is a gauntlet type of schedule for a lot of these teams at the top of the conference.
And the idea that everybody's just going to sail through this year and, and get an have an undefeated record or have only one loss that may not be on the cards. Even Michigan, you know, Michigan in the conference at Nebraska, at USC, Washington at home, at Michigan State, Ohio
State at home. And that's assuming that they play well at Northwestern, they play well at Maryland, they play well at home versus Wisconsin. You know, there's a lot of games for a true freshman quarterback like Michigan's going to have to use that are going to be tricky. So my point is simply that AI think 10 and two with the losses that Hoosier beer guy
highlighted. If they lose at Penn State and lose at Oregon, but they win those other two games and win the other games at home, that's a really good year for IU. And that is, I think, smack dab in playoff contention. If you finish the year 10 and two, I think you're still right in it. Does Indiana get the benefit of the doubt? If the committee's doing their job and they're being objective with this, I think Indiana will be right in the conversation just as they were last year.
And if they don't do their job and they let what was talked about last year affect the way they deliberate IU this year, then at that point the committee is not doing its job and frankly needs to be replaced with something else. Last question from Rick Carter and ties in again, both with what we heard of Big 10 media Day and also what I've been talking about here. Schedule wise, how realistic is Signetti's proposal of having a level of schedule uniformity
between the Big 10 and the SEC? What really intrigues me is his idea of non conference matchups between Big 10 and SEC schools. I think it's plausible because of two things. A, it's more money for everybody. And that seems to be the driving force whether we like it or not. I think both Greg Sankey and Tony Petiti realize that they are the ones in the driver's seat with college football.
And I think they also realize that if we end up moving to this automatic qualifier model, which I know Greg Sankey has come out and said he doesn't want, but prior to the SEC meetings this year, it sounded like they were all like certainly open to it.
And they're probably still are. If you listen to the podcast with Andy Staples and Ari Wasserman from On Three, they animated very heavily that it was the coaches in the SEC that didn't want the automatic qualifier model, that that 44221 model, but that Sankey was actually in favor of it.
And that there's a conspiracy theory that perhaps Patiti's going out and playing the heavy here and stating, look, we got to have 9 conference games across the board or else we're not going to change the model that we've currently got. What this would do if the SEC went to 9 games, but you had a guaranteed game that went across the two conferences an A, an SEC Big 10 challenge basically, which we've seen in basketball.
Well, now you've got a very legitimate locked in model where you've got the top 2 conferences who make the most money, make the SE CS, I think making additional money at that point because I'm assuming ESPN will have to ante up and pay for that 9th conference game. And they should because they'll make more money off of that than they're currently making. The SEC gets into alignment with the Big 10 and now we lock in
that additional game. And you could half those games could go to ESPN and half those games could go to Fox. And what you create at that point is an actual unified model that looks a lot like the NFL scheduling model. And I know a lot of people are like, we don't want college football to be the NFL and I get that.
But if we're going to have a College Football Playoff, and I think we need one, and I'll go into those details and, you know, kind of like the state of college football on football weather. So be sure to tune in for that when it gets published. But if you're going to have that, you can't have apples and oranges or there's not even apples and oranges. They're both fruits.
You know, you can't you can't have two completely different approaches to scheduling and then expect a committee to suss all of it out later. That's that just doesn't work. So if you think about the way the NFL does their scheduling, it's very uniform and it's very consistent. And you play the teams in your division and you also play the teams in your conference and then you play some games from out of the conference. But there's a clear formula and
that's what you need in this. Now, does that make it more difficult on the Big 12 and the ACC? Yes, it does, but I don't this is where the the problems with the Big 12 and the ACC are financial in nature. And at some point the expectation can't be, well, we're just going to keep everything as the status quo.
And I think what is being talked about with this equal model that Signetti talked about where you have a an exchange game essentially, I'd love to see two more teams in the SEC or I'd love to see both conferences at 20 to make it all even. I think you could do that with relatively little fuss. Well, a little fuss in terms of what the of what those conferences won. There would be big fuss in the Big 12 in the ACC with that approach.
But, you know, my philosophy on this is essentially you can't let nostalgia for the past affect what's going on right now. There were a lot of, you know, there were a lot of predictions that people would stop watching college football if it got more professionalized. And that hasn't happened. And I don't think that we're anywhere close to that happening. So now you got to look at the. Formatting and I think as much
as you're hearing. Media members and certain people in the SEC kicking and screaming about this. It doesn't make any sense for one of these conferences to play 9 conference games and the other one to play 8. I do think the SEC is going to eventually have to come around on this and I honestly think from a financial perspective, they want to. It's just a matter of making it worth their while. And that will then lead to these
kinds of opportunities. And it would be interesting watching these big tenant SEC teams matching up consistently with each other over the course of of the next cycle of scheduling. And I think it's a different version of what fans would be interested in in the 1st place. And that's I think something that we should be embracing as opposed to resisting as we move forward with things. So I appreciate the question, Rick.
It's a good question. And I do believe that it's it's going to be one of those things that we have to keep an eye on as we move forward. And it ties back into even the conversation about the scheduling with Notre Dame that I was talking about earlier on from that other question. So a lot of fun things to talk about and a lot of things to keep in mind as we move forward. We will go ahead and wrap up this particular episode of Crimson Cast and talk more as we
move forward about IU football. We'll have some answers to your questions on personnel. We'll have some answers to your questions on Memorial Stadium. A lot of you asked about that. And. We'll have, of course, all of our buddies back to talk about this upcoming season. I'm Galen Clavio. We'll catch you folks. On the flip side, stay never daunted. It's all everybody.