You're listening to the back home network presented by home field apparel, welcome back to Crimson, Cask ale and clavius got Caulfield joining you here 23rd of October. Pockets of Indiana. Football today is the Hoosiers come off a loss last night or yesterday afternoon. I guess it was to the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. So we're going to talk through what that meant, how that happened, and where we're at with everything and see where it
lands us, I guess. But first, just a reminder, that Crimson cast is part of the back home network. In the back home network, is brought to you by home-field apparel, your place to go for the softest, vintage Collegiate threads out, Just some tremendous stuff from home field apparel on a regular basis. Lot of great IU stuff, basketball, season is just around the corner and they've got some tremendous basketball where that you can hop into. Also, just some great random stuff.
You know, Scott. I mentioned on the preview podcast your your Marshall hoodie which I know you love, they've got more Marshall stuff now and I'm sure you're already on that and they've got I bought a Big Sky Conference hoodie the other day. I don't know why I have no affiliation with. Like Northern Italy, are Northern Arizona Sacramento State. I've never been to any of those schools but gosh it's a really cool logo so get over to home-field apparel, folks 15
percent off your first order. If you use the code home Home2 gun that's home field. Apparel.com or on Twitter, Scott, welcome back. Scott has been in much nicer surroundings than Indiana over the course of the last week is he was on vacation. How are you doing my friend? I'm doing great. Yeah, we're in the Caribbean Turks and Caicos it was amazing. My lips got sunburn which kind of sucks but no it was, it was fantastic. And yeah I had a fun time. YouTube TV is not available in
Turks and Caicos FYI. So I was not able to watch the IU. Maryland game, does keeping track of the score at dinner and it was like going great and my God looks like we're going to win and then, you know, I see to leave 0 and goes out and like all right, well this the sounds pretty good form as you can tell with the score and then it's like I put the Away like have a nice, you know, shrimp cocktail and watch it, and it's like oh we lost and so it's like I I've
actually not watched much of the game. I used your pre-review podcast with Griffin is kind of my way of figuring things out and I have a lot of thoughts to pull from that one, but yeah, it was overall is a great, absolutely awesome vacation. Good. Well, we're all we know you needed a break so, you know, it's, it's, I'm glad that as it is weird, you know, I told you
in the last One coming back. Like I we potted after the Michigan game and then we haven't done as like it was only like, you know, 10 days since we've last talk but it's like I feel like we'll know where Seasons gonna be when I get back because we'll have Maryland and Rutgers in our rearview mirror and feels like I know where Seasons going now. Not good. Let's go back to Turks. Yeah, no kidding. It's not the things are not going. Well as I think everybody is
painfully aware at this point. But yeah, let's talk about it in the air. Now one in four on the season in the Big Ten, three and five, overall, they lose their fifth consecutive game on the season. And, you know, we talked back in September, and I think many people thought we were being alarmist. About the need to take advantage of winnable games because there weren't going to be a lot of other games that you could count on Indiana.
Winning if they didn't pick up, you know, the the low-hanging fruit I'm not going. Say the easy games, but the stuff at the bottom of the tree, well, they've now essentially failed to pick any of that fruit. And now they find themselves staring down the barrel of the we do, or maybe the gauntlet. I guess you could say of the rest of the Big Ten season with a quasi reward against a Stoke
contending. But not as great as people were thinking, they were Purdue team now that people thought pretty was great, but they were, you know, going into yesterday if they'd beaten Wisconsin, would have really been in a great position. Indiana's in real real trouble and we have to talk not just about what happened yesterday. We'll talk a little bit about it.
I mean I think everybody got a chance to see the game but programmatically this this program feels drift in a way that is kind of hard to Fathom given where it was just a few years ago and what the trajectory of the program up here to be and it just doesn't appear that that's actually
reality. So Scott, let's Talk about the Rutgers game first, so Indiana comes out and returns a kick for a touchdown which I honestly, I'm sure it's happened with IU football, Scott, but I couldn't remember the last time it had happened, any kind of positive special teams play outside of like a field goal. Always seems like, just something that happens to other kids, but never happens to us.
And then it happens in this and it was almost, it might have been the easiest looking kick return I've ever seen. College football, I think they got one arm on Jaylen Lucas before he busted out to the side. There was just nobody there and you know I two things came to mind immediately. It's like wow, this might be Indiana's day after all and be while Rutgers really looks
awful, like that. Like if that's the effort that Rutgers is going to give, this is going to be a cakewalk to the point that I might have hopped on some live, betting apps, and dropped some extra cash on Indiana, that puts possible. And then, of course, Indiana comes out. They Yeah, really good. Defensive possession to start
Rutgers first drive. I mean, you know, it would have been nice to have not given up the first down, but they stopped them on the second series and then Indiana comes out puts this long drive together, pull stuff out. We haven't seen before there's option plays and there's good like timing routes and you know, they're finding open, guys, in the flat. And they're running for 15 yards and it's like, hey Indiana put it together.
Yes, it's Rutgers. It's a weaker competition, but Rutgers looked Ed like they looked like they were just not going to show up and this is going to be one of those weird games that you look back on 20 years later and I got in the at 11:59 23. You know, just it had that Vibe. At least that's how I felt where were you as all of that was happening in terms of your mentality, very similar. Yeah, I can't remember the first time we had a kickoff return to
start the game, right? It's just like, wow, that I've seen it against us, many times. Not, not us doing it, and then. Yeah, you know, the first He Is We Hold Rutgers you know do a six play Drive, stop them, we score, it's 14-nothing. And yeah the way the plays were going you just had I remember thinking to myself like all right well this is why Rutgers is the worst team in the Big Ten like they look really really
bad. You are run, is able to you were actually able to get some movement on the run and get some positive yardage and I we had a wild stretch. We got back from vacation Friday night at 1:30 and we had a wedding in Fort Wayne last night. So I'm like watching the first half and I'm kind of like, all right? And Rutgers scores which is also like at the time. It's like did he get his foot down? Like I'm not sure.
It's like, it's like we're okay. Just using our timeouts willy-nilly but like any kind of review. It's like we'll just, you know, don't worry about that. We don't need to review a possible touchdown, but it's like I left the first half going getting ready for the shower and like being like, all right, we're gonna, we're gonna be fine like this. This Rucker's does not look as good as we do, and I'll watch the second half in the car on my iPhone. And and then we just think it's
not, it's like it all stopped. And this goes to something that I'm going to hit on later. But you know, something we've talked about here many times, something you and Griffin mentioned in the, in the review of the Maryland game. We make no adjustments or other teams make adjustments that we can't adjust against. This is a common theme where we've looked pretty good. In first half of games, you played Michigan really well, we played the games that we've
lost. We've actually The first half's pretty well, we played Nebraska pretty well and then it's the only played Cincinnati. Okay and then it's like the second half. We just we seized up and it can't just be that we suck. We're not able to do anything because the first five minutes the game we were able to do a lot of things. This is one of the points of like a real problem. With this team is we are getting out adjusted every single game and it's frightening.
It's different when it's Michigan. You're like okay they have better seconds. Ring players they have maybe a you know more experience coaching staff. This is Rutgers this is anyway. So yeah it's the last thing I will say about this is listening to your preview to the game, you know, you're kind of dancing around how, you know, Rutgers really doesn't have a quarterback. That is you'll Big Ten Ready or
Not a Big Ten player. I'm thinking like wasn't been trailed the same quarterback who put 33 on us last year. I was like, oh yeah, he was, it's like he wasn't supposed to play like this, they didn't announce he was supposed to play until yesterday morning. I mean, I That so pardon me. I was looking at the everybody, the, I think Federal had passed by the great job on that mispronunciation, you were up to two so far with you today. It's great.
But you look at the passing numbers have been Evans, Simon pretty much the whole year you know who was a sophomore quarterback? And so this was vegetables, first I think full-time start and it wasn't like he played great IV. Let's, let's not kid ourselves. I mean he was Was 12 of 24 for 113 yards on the game is qbr was 33.5. But point taken certainly at least they had a guy who's played both varsity football and varsity basketball in the Big Ten.
I mean that you know Wonder Indiana couldn't compete against that. But no, the game was it was really, you know, and we've talked about this phenomenon with I you many times before we've unfortunately done so many of these. Game podcasts that, you know, you there comes a moment in an IU game where you suddenly realize that the moment, whatever the moment is in the moment, just could be like going out to get like milk at the grocery store. The moment is too big for the
team and the coaching staff. And, you know, to me it was it was, you know, that was the clarity I guess kind of came when Rutgers came down and drove down the field at the beginning of the second half. And yes, they only kicked a
field goal. But it was like clear at that moment that it was just a matter of time before Rutgers was going to take the lead and Indiana wasn't going to have it answer and I don't even necessarily think that the defense played that badly in this game it's this was one of the the defense has better games. In fact if you look at Pro Football Focus it was their best game of the season in terms of
grading. You know, the next closest good game that they had was Nebraska which that wasn't that great of a game either. But You know, Indiana did a good job of containing the passing game. Not that there was much of a passing game to contain, but they didn't. It wasn't, you know, as much as there were some bad individual moments. It wasn't like Indiana's. Secondary was just getting shredded, and it really wasn't even like Indiana was getting
shredded on the ground. I mean, they let up three point. Eight yards, a carry, which was not, you know, I mean, that's, that's pretty good if you can hold a team under four yards. A carry, that's a good thing, you know? But the problem was they just couldn't get off the field.
You know, they couldn't put themselves in a position where they were, you know, able to just like, stop drives for Rutgers or if they did the offense then couldn't turn around and do what they needed to do on offense to keep the defense off the field. And so I think what was actually a relatively good defensive game was undone by the fact that the offense let them down and the defense got tired well we've been sick. It's like it I know it's a very
doing this over. No, no, I'm not not what you're saying. It's like, you look at the drive chart, every game. You look at the drive, chart, Lucy? Wait, wait, Scott Scott. We have a segment for this, what is it? Okay, come on. You see. This was your big, you're big stick, like two years ago, the recite the drives thing. Remember try to block it out, right? Everyone. Get your shot glasses. Ready? Don't let me sit on, WE punch hole because you will die. Yes. This restart recite the drive
chart got, it's so tiring. It's like so first one to touch down 11 plays, 91 yards, that's a functional Drive 4 minutes and 20 seconds, the rest of hard drives, this is not even weird. I've been doing second half step, just to rest the game punt, punt, punt punt half. Well, thank God for that punt punt punt field goal attempt. What you missed interception Punt. And most of those were three plays, 40 yards or less it is this is actually I think more
informative. So yeah, give them credit for the 11-play 91 yard. Drive at the beginning. But then it goes eight plays, 22 yards, punt for plays nine yards, put 3-play 0, yd putt, six plays 28 yards punt, three, plays 17 yards end of half where I think there were three draw plays called in quick succession. There three plays - two yards pump to start the second half, three plays 0, yd punt, three plays, five yards punt, five plays 19 yards, missed field goal the a 52-yard field goal,
which included a draw. Call on Third and 16. If you'll remember to plays - three yards, pick six going the other direction, three plays - four yards, eight plays 70 yards, I guess they wanted to book end things properly, with some nice drives. And then the end of the game that is really bad Scott. Like and and I think it's worth pointing out, but you can't see their Galen. You're playing Ohio State here like a really good team. You're at the Horseshoe. Oh no!
Wait you're playing? It's like, like, you're playing rockers a team that, like, by the way, we heard a thousand times, the broadcast hasn't won a home game in, like, in the Big Ten in a thousand days. So, I'm going to start cussing, like, I'm just letting everybody know, like, it's probably gonna fly out a little bit here and, and I want to thank 10, get home game in years. So it's not like, you're playing
a bridge too far. Like, I mean, you know, I'm scattershot in here, but, you know, we look at 2019 2020. I'm going to go. I want to go to this aberration talk in a But what made me a 20-19, what made that year special was we 15 Big 10 games but we won four of them in a row against Rutgers Maryland, Nebraska and North Western, and then we beat Purdue. It's not like that year. I'm, and I'm, that was a good year, but it's not like that
year. We beat Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan, selling all the bitching. We do about these tough teams, like, know, if you can beat the teams at your level and below your level, you can have great Seasons like guess what we played Nebraska.
We played Maryland. Play drucker's this year like these are all teams that we could be beating you know and if you beat these teams you win five, big ten games, you go to a nice we went to a Florida bowl game that year without beating any of the teams that are boogeymen in the Big 10 East. It's like a tough tough schedule.
So it's it's wild that that is the drive chart for a game at Rutgers where there's like six thousand people in the stands and it is just mind-boggling if that's that drive chart. Honestly looks like it could have been against you in Michigan or Ohio State. Well, and I think it's it's even worse when you think about this is a, it's, this isn't a Rutgers team that in their last four games had scored 16 10, 10 and
13 points. They get 24 points against Indiana. So I mean, it's not even like they, you know, I mean, that doesn't have a huge amount of points. But for Rutgers that's like scoring 45, you know, to be able to put that many points up on the Board and yeah, you hit on something that I wanted to talk about. So we'll go ahead and transition to that which is real quick. I will just say I joked early on that like our goal as a team should be get out of the Matt,
Millen color commentary. God, think we need to move up and you mentioned the field goal miss. Well first off its like he's comparing the Rutgers running back to Derrick Henry. It's like can you find a slightly different cop from like a Heisman Trophy winner and a lead possible MVP like Rutgers does not. Have that kind of talent nor do we, but that missed field.
Goal the 53 yarder, I forgot who was doing the play-by-play, and he's like, a kick is up and on its wide left, three-second pause, and then Bill and comes in. He missed it because I had decided to go out to watch the game. So I was at the Here in Bloomington and I couldn't really hear the commentators. It was, it was like a conversation like four tables over. That was that kind of volume where you could, it would pop up occasionally only and every time it pops up. I'd be like man.
I'm glad I can't hear anything that's being said on this broadcast. Yeah, we really I think it's right now. Indiana. Absolutely needs to get out of the Matt Millen broadcast slot. It's about as bad as it gets and it should not be to get naked to a boy like that to be our marketing for next year. Like let's get out of the map Mill and Spotlight but I got you
that we're on the right move. But I think you hit on the reason why they're not getting out of the mat, no one spot which is for all the complaints legitimate complaints about Indiana being in the Big Ten East and having to play Ohio state every year and having to play Michigan every year and having to play Michigan State every year Penn State, whoever the reality is, those complaints are largely kind of eliminated when you can't beat Maryland. And Rutgers the two teams that
are kind of, they share your genetic material in terms of football. All they're not recruiting at high levels, they're not coached by Geniuses. Although I think Greg Schiano is a really good coach there.
These are the teams that if you are serious, about yourselves and serious about being a good football program, you have to beat those teams at least two out of every three times, and now we've seen Indiana lose two games in a row to Maryland, two games in a row to Rutgers and I think what's frustrating to me.
Umi, is, you look at those two programs and, you know, Mike locksley has, you know, he's been there for a while now, but it's not like that was a football program that you looked at 34 years ago and said, wow, they're going to be ahead of Indiana with the trajectories like Indiana. I would argue had edged. At least slightly ahead of Maryland in terms of what they were able to do on the football field and now it looks like Marilyn has shot.
Buy them entirely Maryland, sitting at 6 and 2 on the season they're three and two in the Big Ten Conference there they're not only on their way to a bowl but they could be on their way to you know, like a like a the fifth or sixth bowl that the Big Ten hands out Rutgers with that was a complete dumpster fire of a program, they had zero Talent, they had zero motivation, they they were not able to get out of their own way and then Schiano comes in and takes them to a bowl last year.
Now granted, they were were five and seven, but they still went to a bowl last year. And I don't think they're very good this year. Therefore, and three, this might be the last game that they win, but they won the game and they, you know, they managed to beat Indiana. They've beaten Indiana, two years in a row, and you just
have to look at that. And you have to say, Tom Allen has been here since December of 2016 and to to be in a position where you've now lost twice in a row to the two teams that you cannot afford to lose. If you were going to be competitive, just raises a tremendous number of questions about where this program is, you look around the conference.
It's like, if you can't beat Rutgers and you can't beat Maryland. You're essentially the worst program in the conference, perhaps, with the exception of Northwestern right now. And that's to me pretty unacceptable, given that you are six full seasons into the reign of the head coach. Like that has to be the bare minimum. If you're going to be at Indiana like, okay, we're going to employ. You and we're not expecting Miracles. We're not expecting Rose Bowls, but you got to beat Maryland.
You got to be truckers. I mean, that's, that's like you. There's no way around that Scott. Totally agreed listening to your Maryland, postgame with Griffin, you're talking about Illinois and the turnaround they had.
And you both kind of said, like, they hired Bielema and you both match like, well, you know, I think BLM has a good coach and then, you know, I, I hear it's funny listening to the, to one of the post game that, you know, not doing a week of postgame and then kind of stepping back and taking it. Bottom and listening to it from afar so to speak.
You know I hear a lot of the same things you want are talking about but you're kind of dance, not intentionally dancing around it but you're you know saying you know this team has you know bad scheme adjustments during the game. The team looks undisciplined at times and then you know we talked about the development of the the lack of development of some of these players. It's like those are all bad code. That's all signs of a bad coaching staff. Like and Tom Allen seems like a
nice guy. I'm going to be rough here. This is a results-based business but it just is. There are big Dollars around because it's a results-based business. It's about wins and losses. That's what we're here to do. And, you know, it's funny. I see some things on Twitter. I'm not going to call people out, but, you know, one person tweeted out who been tweeting to the Crimson cast account. But, you know, IU has fake fraud fans who expect the world while giving the program nothing but
grief and bitching. Every single time something goes wrong. It's like like, you would. I have said, I Want to be respectable, right? I just like to not be the worst team in the Big Ten. I'd love to maybe have a shot at going to a bowl every so often. And I also just gonna go on a rant here. I also get really tired of this. Like, what about 2019? What about 2020 like those years happen?
It's like yes they did. But when you look at the history of IU football, the last 20 years last 40 years, like you could say the same thing about IU basketball. What about 2009-2010? Like we suck those years like okay, those were a beret. Actions. Like that's the definition of an aberration normally IU basketball is good. It's not very good years where we go over in the Big Ten and basketball are minimal in in football. It's like 19 and 20 are starting
to look like aberrations. And for people who are like, well, he can come out and did that. It's like, okay, well, he's got to start fucking doing it very soon again, because when you look at the history of IU football, which is littered Litter with Bad seasons, coaches that have Furs in the Big Ten followed up by a one-year season with one big 10 win. There's not a lot of them. Kevin Wilson. Did it his, he went over his first year but then 12, Big 10 games.
His second year, going for an eight, oddly enough, Bill Mallory book ended his career, he started his career over in the Big Ten, went 17, the next year, but then did go to three straight bowls and then he ended his career. Oh, and eight and one in seven in the Big Ten and then was fired. After everything he had done one of the best coaches of the last 50 years was fired after going 0
and 8 and then one in seven. Well, Tom Allen, when towing nine last year and is one, and for this year, and that, that's the thing that I have to say, is for everybody, who's like, you can't forget about twenty, twenty and twenty nineteen. It's like I haven't those were great years but you cannot also forget 2021 was an absolute dumpster fire of a season. The likes of which Indiana football hasn't In, which is saying a lot because Indiana football has had a lot of bad
here. So you can't just write that off. And then, you can't just have two years in a row, where you lose out in October, and November, and just end the season with a complete dumpster fire or shit show. So to speak. And it's like, so next year, I don't know how. I don't know, man. Like. Well, nobody cares have to its, I don't know. But it's like, yeah, go ahead. No. I this is It's a real difficult. the thing to get your head around, because I think a lot of people who have invested so
fully in the, how do I put this? A lot of people invest their thoughts and their emotions in a coach as an avatar for the program. Forgetting often times. That those two things are actually separate, and I think that you can, you can like the coach a lot from a personal perspective. You also have to look at what the coach is actually doing on the field.
And I think you, you know, this was something that was talked about during the offseason and it would recommend everybody go back and listen to that podcast you did with, with punt, John punt. Because they talked about this, it's you can say, look, clearly there, were there have been accomplishments, but the flip side is, there's clearly a trend downward in terms of how the program is, operating.
And I think that for so many people Who have, you know, so, you know, quote-unquote hopped off the Tom Allen bandwagon. It's because we've seen this movie before and what makes it frustrating is, When you look at what's gone on since, let's say since Bill winch was fired. And, you know, so take that 2010
season and look forward. Someone there was a there was a Reddit comment last night I was reading that really summed it up. Well you've watched I you kind of Hit the nadir of the football program in the 2000s. It was just weird to think about it. Really, kind of hit it twice, it hit in the jury dinardo, period. And then it hit it again with Lynch.
We're let's just couldn't win games in the conference and they hire Wilson and Wilson wasn't perfect and they finish the facility upgrades and you watch this, I you team kind of slowly pull itself out of the muck and go from being a laughing stock, type of team who wasn't competitive, who didn't play complete games to a program. That was a, you know, they weren't as good as the Mallory era teams, where, you know,
those teams were winning. Six, seven, eight games in a given season, but they were, at least competitive in a lot of games. The games were frustrating, but they were entertaining. Ting. And it felt like to some degree 2019 and to a lesser extent and I know it sounds weird to say but like in terms of a full season 2020, kind of that was the culmination of hey Indiana's at this next level now and to watch Indiana tumble back down to the point where they are arguably the worst or second.
Worst team in the conference is just, you know, for those people that care about IU football, if you're going to give Tom On the credit for 2019 and 2020. Like you said, who's who owns 20, 21 and 20 22 like it. Do we, you know, is that decisions a get-out-of-jail-free card that applies for 10 seasons because you get Indiana to the Outback Bowl or the Gator Bowl?
Is that how it works? That doesn't work anywhere in college football, and I think that your, when you look at the way that other programs, not just Illinois but Kansas state is able to go out and find a guy that can come in and win some games and, you know, you've found teams that aren't good programs that aren't historically good. They don't have to be historically, bad all the time. You can go find people who can build infrastructure that allows
winning at a decent level. Maybe not the highest level but that's six seven, eight win range that we've talked about consistently and it's not like Indiana's like coming up. Just short in these games where it's like man if they just had One more player this year that it is a gradual D Evolution and
happened. Last year, it's happening this year where the team has one good drive or they have a couple of good series and that's it. And you know I mean like if the Rutgers game went on for two more quarters, we were lost by 40. Yeah no it's true. I mean the the momentum had gone exactly the opposite direction and this is happening over and over again. I mean, it's the, the fourth quarter struggles, the, the, you know, they didn't have a bad first quarter in this game, but
they had a bad, everything else. They had a bad second quarter and a bad third quarter in a bad fourth quarter. And I think I talked about this about this on the preview podcast, it's like this program seems to be incapable of plugging a hole in the dam without three others springing up and I'm sorry. That is an infrastructure issue. That is an administrative issue. That is how the program is built. I mean, I'm watching a lot of the discussion right now is centered around.
Won't bail and will gosh, what bills offense? Why are we running this fast tempo? You know, it's not working Indiana's not scoring and it's like there is no line infrastructure like the offensive line actually had a fairly decent day to day.
And I say fairly because it's only in comparison to the games that they've had up to this point and it's been terrible all year and it was terrible all last year and hey it actually wasn't very good in 2020 either but you had a generational for Indiana at least quarterback in there. That was able to make throws in spite of the lack of protection. You haven't had a good running game and what three four years this is there's no there's no basis.
There's no Foundation that this program is built on right now except this vague concept of elio. And I don't even like to talk about. A lot of people throw it around is it's almost it's a kind of insult at this point, for some people. It's a rallying cry, for others, whatever you want to call it, call it what it is, which is not a foundation upon, which you can build a competitive Big Ten program year after year and ultimately, you're right. It's a results-based business.
I would love Tom Allen to be successful. Tom Allen is a great story, Tom Allen cells IU football really well to the national press, which is something that Kevin Owen Wilson could never do but Tom Allen has not demonstrated an ability to consistently perform and look it's your 6 or you know, I mean we're talking about its all-time Allen's recruits its time Allen's coaches. It's Tom Allens game plan and this program looks lost. I mean, I was discussing with that.
Blast gun text yesterday is this season worse than 2011? And, you know, 2011, was that season where they went 111 their own? When was against South Carolina state. It's you can't look at this season and say well it's that bad, they're not going one and eleven but that team competed that team was like three or four plays away from being 4 and 8 or 5 and 7. And that team basically had nothing on the roster.
This, this right now, as you said, I mean, over the course of the last 21 games, Indiana is 5 and 16 over the course of the last 14, Big 10 games. Indiana is one and 13. And they're like, one and a half plays away from being 0 and 14 in Big 10 games over those last 14. For those who are defending Tom Allen and saying, stay on the
Tom Allen bandwagon. I mean I'd love something to be optimistic about but, you know, there's, there's no, you know, there's like one or two really exciting, young players, who in the transfer portal era. You can't even really get excited about young talent because the chances of them sticking around are not necessarily. 100%.
I mean as much as people talk about McCullough, it's like in the next breath it's always like well and we'll see him at Notre Dame next year or will see him somewhere else next year and look, I don't know that. I don't know what that young man's like mentality is, but it wouldn't be a surprise.
And I mean, the same thing could happen with Jalen Lucas for all we know, there just doesn't seem to be an infrastructure, under Tom Allen that's working and that is really hard to square with the idea that we should be still. Till like unquestioningly supportive of this coach who yes accomplished a lot in 2019 and yes gave Indiana A Thrill Ride of the season in 2020 but football is about consistency. Like you have to be able to demonstrate something.
All we heard Scott over the offseason was last year, was the result of bad apples. Last season was the result of a bat, you know, bad chemistry bad mojo. And that there were guys that gave up and that those guys were supposedly gone. And we heard, oh, the team has Focus themselves on being good this year and that's the tenor of all the press conferences and everything.
And it it just kind of seems to miss the point which is that this program is not capable of playing 60 Minutes of football. And when you're losing to Rutgers and giving them their first home, win in the Big Ten in 1800 days, or whatever it is, when you are Nebraska's first win against an FBS opponent in a year that doesn't happen to good teams that are unlucky, that happens to bad teams and Indiana. Is a bad team. There are bad program right now.
And the question is, how did it get to this point? So a couple of all head-nodding agreement to all of that, I'm going to pull a couple things out the back to the results, based business for those who are, you know, saying we're being too rough on Alan. It's like the first two years in 2017. And 2018 when they were 5 & 7 & 2 & 7, in the Big Ten, there is very few people out there defending Allen this way, the Elio thing kind of got eye
rolls. It's like all right like this is okay, another stupid slogan, like The only time that it became like were in on this that when he became, you know, the cover of Sports Illustrated, you know, the sports art, the Sports Illustrated article, you know, come play for this man is when he went six and one in the big tent. It's like when there were results to go along with it, that's when it all changed and then the result stopped.
It's like the results with with just a Leo and nothing else. Like that's the issue to your larger point about last year. Yes, the whole talk was like, oh it's a couple of bad apples like The team didn't, you know, they got too big on the cells in the offseason, you know, they didn't come in with the right preparation. Like you pull away all of the coach talked. This is a team built on culture, as we've said many times it's built on Vibes.
However, you want to say but it's built on culture and Good Vibes and Elio. It's not built on fundamentals and doing the little things, right? Because they don't do that. And it's very weird that last year is being Step 2, bad culture when your entire program is built on culture and it's not like it's your to where it's like. I got to get Wilson's guys out of here. It's like no that was year.
What seven like this is this is your program after the most success and suddenly the biggest problem is what should be your number one asset, which is culture fine. What is it this year? Yeah, they're going to more than likely lose out again and for everyone is like, Yeah, well they, you know least they want a Big Ten game is here. It's like the order of operations does matter.
The fact that that came at the first game of the season, like it sucks a little bit for them, but it's also like it's, it's going to be forgotten. It's like, I forgot like we're going to lose out. Everyone's going to stop caring and it's like what's what's, What's it gonna be this time? Is it bad culture? Again, like you have more bad apples, you got to get rid of and then it's like then it's like, you know, that now it's a consistent problem.
Like now, next year we're not going to be good because All new players like this treadmill has to stop. And again, you talk about the dinardo era as this, you know, awful moment in IU football, which I am not going to argue with Denardo, never went over in the big tent dinardo. Never had a two-year stretch where he won one big 10 game. We're going to be there like by quit, you know, me, likely very, very likely unless this team can turn it around and do something
that is going. NG to be shocking. And that's kind of what, where they're at and what they're going to have to do the last thing that I want to shoehorn in here. Yeah, but I was thinking about this morning as well, is I absolutely hate the narrative that because we're going to stop here in a second, talk
basketball. But I absolutely hate the narrative that, you know, I you fans once, you know, once the calendar turns to october-november, like they check out and they all they care about is basketball. It's not that it Not that it's two separate things. A, our basketball team has. Historically been competitive fun to watch wins, fun games, and a good team to watch.
So there's that and therefore has a requisite, fanbase, that follows it. There are fans like you and I who like IU football and then I start to focus on IU basketball. For a very simple reason, like this season students and fans have shown time and time and time again, when there's a little bit It to get excited about. They will show up and support. I you football look at Michigan.
This year the the students were there, the fans were there, they were excited, they will show up the fact that people check out of football has nothing to do with basketball. It has everything to do with us being a shitty football team like people, newsflash for everybody out there. People don't like watching shitty sports, teams go to go to what Conseco Arab. Got us a game breaking Bridge Fieldhouse. Yeah people are going because
it's kind of bitter. Like I want to see how bad it can be to get Victory, won bin, Yabba. I can pronounce that up your face, people know, but up your faith of your faith. Try not to cuss too much. Yeah, you failed. I failed it miserably but it's like people don't like to see bad teams. Well, look at the Sacramento, Kings, I like, you know, that's what's going on here. Yeah, like people, it's that I say, oh, if you are, you fans caret basketball.
I know there are A lot of football fans, they want to show up. This team is just garbage, most of the time at the end of the season and specifics, particularly last year, and this year, and you're not going to see a lot of fans in the stands. And you know what? It's not the fans fault, it's the football team's fault like it is and they suck and they need to do something different, but more than likely, they're going to lose out.
We're going to hear a lot of rhetoric and I will end with this, the athletic department, this whole program. They boxed themselves into a very, very tough situation for which I don't know what the answer is. But I feel like you have to do something. The trouble is you've already changed all your coordinators so you can be pissed at well, but it's like, aren't we going to go out and get another, you know, Walt Bell like this. You're going to hire the best coordinator in the country.
What do you do in there? And you can't just go through three Queen for coordinators in four years. Nobody was happy with Hiller great. But again, I don't think I don't think offensive line coach is solving all of these problems. And, you know, let's put the Tom Allen thing aside, whether You'd like him or don't like the way that his contract is structured, he is not going anywhere
anywhere for next year. Yeah. So you're going to have a team that loses out two years in a row in October, and November a team that has won five games in two years. And you're basically going to have zero changes in the offseason. Like I don't know what they can do and it's going to be weird to be like you know normally that's where you have some wholesale changes. They're not going to have any changes so I don't know what they do.
That's the thing, I think the thing that's the most Troublesome. And I think everything you said is is absolutely on the mark in terms of the apathy towards the program. People want a successful football program and in the end this is what I keep coming back to it. Like there's this fiction that's existed for years that people didn't want to invest time and effort in Indiana football because they were just like, I don't know, intrinsically opposed to the idea of football.
It's not the case at all. It's because I you football. Does not love you back. And, and what's weird is there's all there's this Stockholm syndrome that occurs with the hardcore, Indiana, football fans, and I think we've all experienced those folks. Before, who there? It's almost like a badge of honor that they root for the football team. And as a result, They they look at any positive result as like a reward to them and any negative result that causes people to stop paying attention.
It's because those people aren't true believers. It's almost religious in a way. Now look I've been going to all you football games since the early 80s like this was my dad brought me into this weird almost. Like I don't know what you would call it. It's like an old-school like you know polytheistic death cult. You know, your it's it's it's not you know it's not one of those that rewards you for things.
It's one that punishes you for not being a devout enough and that's kind of how I feel about IU football like I shouldn't have to sit through ten seasons of losing football to be rewarded with like a seven and five season and a trip to Jacksonville like that that that's not really a you lose. Yeah. Where you lose. That's not really a vacuum and adequate reward structure. And I'm done mostly joking about all of that. But my point is very straight forward on this.
I think there is a market for IU football to be good. I do agree with you that. Unfortunately, I you boxed themselves into a corner with Alan, I don't totally blame them because if you look at when the extension was offered, it was the spring of twenty one. You're coming off two of the most successful seasons on paper and Indiana history. You've got this Dynamic guy who a lot of the fanbase loves and who other schools are probably token.
How about a little bit say hey that guy would work really well here and unfortunately you bet the farm on that guy. You you said we're going to put a huge amount of money down to make sure that this guy goes nowhere because we're convinced that this is Mallory 2.0. I mean that I don't even have that might have been close to the actual wording of the press conference. I know it was very similar to the wording that Fred glass used when he hired Tom Allen
full-time. And look it was a Bad Bet at this point it looks like a bad bet it looks like a very bad bet because what we discovered in Immediately after that extension, was that there wasn't a lot holding up the foundation of the program and to have seen things devolved to this degree.
My big problem is it's not so much that I you had a talent fall off or had an important coordinator leave but they've got this burgeoning pocket of young talent that they're bringing to the Forefront and it's just maturing look at who Indiana's playing in these games. Look at the the top Tacklers for Indiana football. Like they're almost all seniors. Look at the offensive players.
I mean, outside of Jalen Lucas. It's transfers and it's you know guys that have been in the program for a while. There's not this huge reservoir of young Talent. That's gradually learning how to play the game. There's not this clearly defined system. You know, there's not a long time coordinator or two, that is just constantly pumping out. Top level people, you know?
Oh, and and you know, you and I have talked about this a lot strength and conditioning wise, you know, they had two really good guys guys that are now at, Alabama and Indiana, strength, and conditioning looks awful. They're constantly, losing people to injury. They're constantly again. Like they were in the late 2000s and early 2010's.
They look like they don't measure up physically to the teams that they're playing against and so my concern and where I've really gotten to a point where it's hard to enjoy. Even I thought of the future is, if this was supposed to be the bounce-back year to last season, which was supposed to be the huge aberration be well, gosh, we got a little too far out over our skis and this is the recovery one.
This is a very similar season to last year, they're scoring slightly better than they've exceeded the 100-point. Mark in Big Ten play which they didn't do period last year. They've done that through five games, but they're one in foreign conference. And there's really I don't see the foundation. For Success moving forward because as you said, they hire a new offensive line coach, let's get take a couple years to actually get guys up and running and get the talent in recruiting wise.
You're not going to be able to do all that through the portal. Tom Allen has taken over the defense and the defense looks worse than it did last year. Like what's the fix there? Is he going to fire himself as defensive coordinator again and put somebody else in? I'm serious. Like what's the answer there? Because if Alan who made his bones as a defensive coordinator Fix the defense who's going to come in and fix the defense. If Allen's insistent on, we have
to run my system. That's not gonna work, and I think we've already seen Alan, can't do both jobs at the same time. He tried it in 2017 and 2018 and it didn't work and that's why he had to bring cane Wommack in to take over his defensive coordinator. I mean, it's, these are the kinds of things that really, I think if you're paying attention, and you're not just along for the vibe of IU football.
These are the The things that are making, most people not just concerned, but utterly pessimistic about the current regime. And, you know, the one thing I'll say is that Alan is going to almost, certainly get a couple years to fix it because this, the whole, the cold hard facts of money. And I see people talking about, well, if I, you, if I you Athletics really cared, they make a change guys, 25 million dollars is a lot of money.
It's a lot of money. It is that is If of the Athletics budget for the entire year and there's, I mean, because of everything we've talked about, because of these, huge deserts of lack of success with IU football over the decades. There's not a reservoir of donors that are going to come in and fix the problem that's been created. And so you got to hope that Tom
Allen can fix it himself. And I hope he does because it's bad for IU football as a program for them to be this bad for the program to look this disorganized for them to not be able to beat on. Nebraska or a Rutgers or a Maryland to be in a position where they're one of the two worst teams in the conference. It's bad for business.
I don't want to see it. I I wish Tom Allen would figure it out but if he couldn't figure it out this year and at least figure out ways to get his teams to play 60 Minutes against teams that probably heard worse than they are from a talent perspective. I don't know how that suddenly gets fixed moving forward. Given as you said, they've already changed a bunch of stuff and it hasn't worked. Anyway, yeah, and I will know and I'll go on record.
I was on record at the time and I'm not going to, you know, go back and change my feel like I thought the extension was the right move at the time and I still think it was the right move to give Alan that extension. I do wish retrospectively, maybe there wasn't as much guaranteed money. That's kind of what's putting
you in a tougher by now. But, yeah, I've made, Nebraska didn't want to fire Scott Frost for a lot less money, and they have a much bigger pool of donors and football, I mean, I as much as I would love to spend all this money and I'm always a little bit frustrated, that, you know, Indiana isn't going a little bit harder on the, the coordinator side.
But yeah, 35 million dollars is a huge number 25 years but yes, sorry 25 night it's a huge huge number that most schools would balk at like even major schools like Notre Dame, Alabama, like I'm not sure they would cover it and Indiana football definitely isn't going to cover it, so they've got to figure this out. But this is where I think you have to look up it.
You No this is where this goes to the entire athletic department goes to Dolson. Like someone's got to figure out and I say this not joking but you know maybe you need to hire somebody to kind of be, you know, a coach helper or something. Because right now, Alan feels like he said, he's he doesn't seem to have any. He doesn't seem to have any answers and this is probably the
thing answers. One in the thing that you brought up that a lot of people don't get is like he's doing two jobs, which were both full time jobs, he's defensive coordinator, and head coach. There's a reason why both of those jobs are paid, hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars. Each they are big important jobs, is not. Most people can't do this. And you know, I'm big in be a fan, most teams that have a general manager at a head coach that are the same person don't
work. It's just it's very tough to do two of these jobs and he's not, he's not capable of doing it. So you need, you need somebody to come in and help. Give some answers help, provide some guidance, you know, Alan has made it very clear. He's not, you know, very plugged into what's going on the offensive side of the the ball and so maybe you know as crazy as it sounds, maybe you do
change coordinators again. This offseason and maybe you go out and you spent you try and find who are the absolute best coordinators. But you've got to, you've got to hit, I don't know again, I don't know. But here's what I will say, you know, this is something that you brought up which I think is interesting in, in regards to last year, in regards to this year, you know, 2019 2020 that the talk of those seasons is like we're moving up and we're
raising the floor. And then just go to and 10. And now maybe, you know, 3 & 9. It's like, all right. Well, I thought that the floor was at least us getting to a bowl. And, you know, the thing that I always said with the Archie Miller era in basketball, that drove me nuts is, you can't underperform for two years, and then just perform adequately and be okay. It's like if you under perform at some point, you now need to
over perform. And so, now, we've now underperform for two straight years. Like it was not supposed to be Ballgame ballgame and then you know yes and wins. Yeah so you know honestly I don't know how you're going to get there but it's like you got to make a bowl game. Next year like you've got to make and not just squeak in six and six you might need to win
seven games. You know I was looking at it's not the best analogy but I was looking at you know Pat Fitzgerald at Notre Dame sorry at Northwestern because he kind of has this cyclical like they're good and they're bad and they're good but it's like when they're good first off the Pretty good. They had a run, you know, in 2008. They go to five straight bowls,
they win one of them. But one of the years they go 10, and 3, and when the Gator Bowl and then, yeah, they're five and seven, five and seven, they're not that bad. Then they go 10, + 3 7 + 6, 10, and 39. If I mean, he went to Seasons five and seven and they went 10 and 3, it's like, that's kind of what I'm what we need to start doing is like, if you have, if you stacked up now, five or six really good recruiting classes and you have all this, you know, great Elio. Sure.
Like I'm gonna be really pissed. If next year, they go like five and seven, and it's like, oh well, you know, we're making progress. Like, that's not what we were sold. We were not sold a full-scale rebuild after 2020. The idea was, we're on to bigger and better things, which again, I'm not saying Big Ten title like bigger and better was just like, we're going to make a bowl every of Music City Bowl, every year, maybe win one of them.
And like so the idea of like next year, maybe we can get to four wins and two Big Ten wins like that is not good enough. Like at some point. Point you now have 2 over over exceed, what you've done and I don't, I don't know how they get there. It's funny. You said hope twice. I'm going to say it twice here to like, I hope they could figure this out. But, you know, they have a, they've dug themselves quite a
whole and to your point. This is why there's not a lot of Indiana football fans as it's just it's just bad bad times at the last thing I'll say to your point like to there being an appetite for football like when you and I grew up in the 80s in This whole area was basketball and like this was a Pacers town. I remember when the Pacers made the playoffs, for the first time they were flying. A flag above the time bank one, the bank one building, you know, it was all Pacers and the Colts
were an absolute afterthought. What changed? That was consistent years of success and winning but and Peyton Manning. But with that, this is now a Colts town. This is now a football town. The Pacers are the afterthought and it's all Based on results. But there is an appetite for football and good football in this area, but you need to have good football. You can't just hope for it and then be too intense. So yeah, I don't know, I'm I'm done.
Talking is not the on making any more points but now look I finish this. The one thing I will say to close up. It's like there's there's nothing about Indiana, that makes it impossible for it to be at least, decent at football as a program. And to some degree, I feel like a lot of the people that are big Tom Allen, Fans, they they lean on that old inaccurate Trope from around when Tom crane was fired.
It's like well if you're fired Tom Allen you're not gonna be able to find anybody better that'll come at tiny foot Bots.
That's like that's crap. I mean Washington State went out and hired Mike Leach and Mike Leach has his own problems with Mike leads you know by year three had a six and six season and then made five straight Bowls in the next six seasons and that's you know and it's Washington State man that's not that mean they've you want to talk about a program that doesn't have Natural recruiting violation or violation doesn't
mean natural. Recruiting area doesn't have any, you know, any particularly large donors doesn't have nearly the money that Indiana's got, they figured out a way to go hire, somebody who came in and was able to do what they needed to do to to build something sustainable. Not just to have a couple of good years sandwiched with mediocrity on one end and Abyss on the other Kansas state, has figured out how to pull themselves out with similar.
Our problems and similar restrictions TCU, which is like the eighth most attractive school to go to, and Kansas or excuse me in Texas, they've figured out a way to be successful. You're not Vanderbilt who doesn't care about sports, you know, because they're this top level Academic Program. Like there's, there's nothing about Indiana intrinsically that makes it impossible to have a
good football program. It's it's really about making the right hires And putting enough support behind those hires to make it work and look I don't think there's an argument to be made that Tom Allen hasn't gotten enough financial support from the University. I mean you could I guess if you want to make the argument about the Sheridan thing maybe. But I mean realistically this is there's enough support.
There's enough financial structure in place right now that this program should be in a better spot than it is right now. And it's it's not a matter of where, you know, and A lack of gratefulness because we'll gosh, Tom Allen, 18 games, and then went six and one in the pandemic year. It's like, okay, as you said, you should be able to do that and then not immediately drop back to a to win season. Followed by potentially a three win season, that is not acceptable.
I don't care who's the coach or what they're doing. That's not an acceptable chain of results. So, anyway it as we talked about A lot of this just feels like yelling into the wind and you know, what are you going to do about it? But I do think ultimately, something's got to be fixed and I don't know, I don't see. I don't see the route right now. I'd love to be proven wrong. I'd love to see Tom Allen be successful here, but it's got to
start showing up on the field. It can't just be in the press conferences and when you lose to Rutgers and you come out and say, well, everything is up for evaluation including the quarterback and it's week eight. Essentially going into a bye week. It tells me, you don't have any answers and if you don't have any answers for the program that you've coached since 2017, and it's 2022, that is a real problem. Yeah, it did.
Yeah the that bothers me because when I watch this team, the last thing that I think is like this is a counter base like problem.
Like I'm not saying he's great, he's not like the best quarterback in the Big Ten but I've never thought like, I mean, he's just making a, he's no time, he can't do anything, it's not he didn't have a good deed out of a good game against Rutgers. No question and and yet as Taylor Layman pointed out in bite-sized bison, It's almost been impossible throughout the rest of the year to evaluate Bay's like because he's had no time because he hasn't been able
to do anything. Now if you want, if you're if you think. Okay, let's do Jack total out there. Let's do Dexter Williams out there. If you honestly think that that's going to make a difference fine try it. I would be shocked if it made a difference at this point because ultimately the problem is not the quarterback. The problem is the lack of depth at wide receiver, the completely inept offensive line in terms of Stanley blocking. I mean, there's so many other problems.
Everybody wants to point to the quarterback and again, I'll be the first to say basil. Act probably his worst game in Indiana uniform but this isn't this is a guy who if he was that he didn't get so bad leaving Mizzou that. These are his this is who he is. Now I find that really hard to believe. The fact that you take a guy who was adequate at Mizzou but didn't measure up in the SEC, you plug them into this system and he gets like three levels worse. That should tell you a lot.
What about the infrastructure that he was plugged into? And the fact that Jack Tuttle who's been in that infrastructure for multiple years. Couldn't win the job, coming into the season, hasn't thrown a pass should tell you a lot as well. So anyway, That'll do it for us on football. No podcasts next week because it's a bye week and I think everybody needs a rest but we'll be back to preview Penn State. That game is going to be the first Saturday of November.
We'll see what that looks like Penn State big win yesterday, kind of righted the ship, they're six and one right now, three and one overall in the conference and, you know, still in shouting distance of Michigan and Ohio State trip up of doing something in the Big Ten East. So Scott is always a pleasure and we'll look forward to talking with all you folks later on. Thanks, don't feel the Peril for joining us. Thanks to our Brethren and sistren in the back home network.
Be sure to check out assembly call as it's basketball season. A lot of great podcasts coming up from them as we get ready for the preseason games. What this week next week. It's right here. It's right in our backyard. Anyway, folks will catch you on the flip side. Bring back the Bison song, everybody.