Ep 979 - Final Preview Podcast for 2023 IU Football

You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cast, Galen Clavio, Scott Caulfield joining you once again. It's the penultimate day of August. Recording this the night of August 30th, You may be listening to it on August 31st. Hard to believe the month went by so quickly, although they always seem to and we are now on the doorstep of I U Football's season opener.

As that's coming up on Saturday, we're going to talk a little bit about the game but more about the the season. We've done a bunch of preview episodes. We never let you folks down. We we always try to talk to a lot of interesting people about their thoughts on I U, football and. Having heard from all those folks, we will give our final thoughts as we head into the season. Scott, good to see you and talk to you again. How you doing? It's great to be back again. Good to see you again.

Well, you know, we each kind of we did our own, we did our own path. We we come back together. That's right. We're we're like the East and West Forks of the White River. We will eventually rejoin, you know, somewhere in Greene County or wherever that happens. Anyway, before we get started, couple of notes.

First of all, just a reminder that Crimson Cast is part of the Back Home Network, which includes of course our friends over at Assembly Call and the Do the Work Pod and the Your Coaches Corner or Coaches Room with Tony Adrania. And just a reminder that the back Home network is brought to you by Home Field apparel. Your place to go for the finest in college fashions. The softest fabrics. Coolest designs. And some great deals along the

way. They have been unleashing all kinds of awesome stuff here over the course the last couple of weeks, really getting everybody in the football mood. Scott Bomber jackets and, you know, special boxes with multiple types of things coming out of them, Hoodies and sweatshirts and crew necks and joggers and the whole it's it's like the, you know, it's like the greatest hits album of home

field. Where you know you, you get all of the different things that have caused you to love home field over the years, but you get them in one box and it's it's just great to see. They always have fun stuff planned for the beginning of the football season, and this year was certainly no exception. 100% yes. Bomber. Jackets Galore. Bombers. And boxes. Yeah, Scott's got 12 Bomber jackets now.

It's tremendous, actually. Scott Scott and his neighborhood are waiting on the home field tuxedo collection. As we're going to do a bomber jacket testing, we're just going all wear different bomber jackets and yeah. I like that you need like you need like home field cufflinks, right? You know for your for your next party. Yes, I'm in. Yes, Cotter, let's go. Special edition home field cufflinks. There's enough time between now and Christmas. We can definitely do some

holiday gifts. Just a reminder, if you've never shopped at home field Apparel, welcome to Earth and we'd love to offer you 15% off your first order. So use the code HOME HOME. And take advantage of that offer. You'll find that that will be the first of many special offers that will come your way down the line. As Home Field always has some deals, some specials, some savings, this is a great way to

get started. If you haven't shop there before, get Home Field apparel.com be sure to check them out also in internal programming. Note Crimson Cast is now on sub stack. We've we've been talking quite a bit about a problem and this was actually brought up. By one of the folks that follows along with us on on X now, which is what do we do if we don't want to be on X anymore but we want to follow along with what Crimson Cast is doing. That was essentially the the,

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We're looking forward to to that new venture and the podcasts are still going to be on, you know, Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And you know, but I would say this is, you know, hey, do this or we're going to threads. So like if you don't want to go on Threads or, you know, we tried Myspace. That wasn't there. It doesn't work. No, it's I, I I liked it. I mean I you kind of set this up and all of a sudden like I I had an e-mail.

So we had a pet. We had a Crimson Castle go to Spotify and listen to, it's great. No. I Scott was surprised that there were episodes. He's like, wait, you do stuff without me? What's going on now? So kidding. How long has this been going on, I wonder? We never did our Kelvin. Sampson recap. That's right. Yes. Wow. All right, so we got to dive into it. I U Football. We are on the eve of the season. By the time most of you listen to this, it's going to be.

Either Thursday or maybe Friday, or maybe you're listening to it on the way down to the game. There's still time. You can turn around. Like if you're listening to the way down, you can turn around. No, a lot of great balls you can go to Nick. There's great. It'll be great times. The weather's going to be awesome this weekend and people will enjoy the company of each other and that's the important thing. But no, I U Football, it's here. And I mean.

We don't know. We kind of know what to expect, but we don't know exactly what to expect. If you listen to the podcast that I did with Teddy Bailey yesterday, you probably picked up on some of that. You know, if you listened, go back and listen to Scott's conversation with Ken Bikoff. That was really a a good show. And then Ken always brings a a really fascinating perspective. IS is a guy who's covered the team for a really long time.

Yo, Scott, one of the things that we wanted to talk about, you wanted to bring up specifically was something that we talked about a bit on the episode yesterday with Teddy, which is the lack of of of a lot to go off of if you're an I U fan trying to get pumped up going into the season. It's interesting because we talk about this every year. We do these episodes. We look at the the depth chart back in the days when we had a depth chart. You know, the back in the olden days.

You know we look at the schedule, we we look at players. We hear players getting talked up and practice and we talk ourselves normally into a better record than Indiana really has a a shot at getting. You know we always tend to talk ourselves two or three wins above the norm and most of the time it burns us. It didn't in 2019 but but it burned us in pretty much every other year. I I haven't gone that way this offseason. Like, if if anything, I think I've actually gotten.

More skeptical and more pessimistic as the month has gone along and that's never happened before and and this is this precedes Tom Allen. This goes back to Kevin Wilson. It goes back to, you know, Bill Lynch. But there's been something about this preseason that is really

felt. Frankly, dispiriting in terms of enthusiasm for this football program and where things are going right now and a lot of it is just a complete lack of of any concrete information about what we should be expecting when the snap happens at 3:30 on sundown Saturday this upcoming weekend. No, I've been thinking about this a lot since you've you've brought it up. You did a little short video on this on the sub stack and then you obviously you know with that with Teddy, the deeper

conversation. I've been thinking about it and it's, I have kind of like a three pronged approach on my thoughts of this. But the the first one is you're 100% right. I'm in the same boat. You don't feel any. I mean Ohio State's coming to town and like there's no buzz. It's a 330 game on CBSI don't feel like anyone's talking about it.

And here's the really frustrating part is it'd be one thing if it was just a normal year and it's like, all right, we're not sure if I use going to be good or bad. But like you you you've touched on this a little bit. But I I will just hit this hammer hard on the nail.

Hit the nail hard with the hammer is that they had the perfect opportunity in that I U Basketball is very popular from what I understand as an I U fan, one of the biggest players we've had in the last 1015 years just graduated in Trace. Jackson Davis his effing brother is possibly a quarterback for this football team and it's not like he's a walk on. He was a highly recreated quarterback. I mean, he hasn't thrown a bunch. We don't know anything about him.

But it's not like he's, you know, all flash like he was a highly rated recruit. He's traced Jackson, Davis's brother and it sounds like there's a bit of a, you know struggle for who the starter is. You know it's not like they're they're. Anyway, all saying is like just name him the starter. Like, give him a shot. Like, just imagine the buzz of of of having Trace Jackson, Davis's brother, as the starting quarterback. This would be like, in 1988. It's like, hey, guess who the

starting quarterback is? Like, it's, it's Steve Alford's brother. Like, really, Like Steve Alford has a brother. And like Calvert Chaney, I mean, like you and I were at school and when Antoine Randle, out going the other way, played basketball and he was like, in the three-point contest for the team that year in the preseason, like it was kind of a buzzer on campus. Like, I've not seen articles about, you know, how's Trace

going to watch the gate. Like to me it's like it is a massively wasted opportunity that they had at their at their hands and they just didn't do anything with it. And when you're going into a season where Jackson's probably going to play some quarterback, he's going to be, he was going to play some. Even if Soresby is ends up being the starting quarterback, come, you know, Saturday afternoon, I just look at this as like this is a massively wasted

opportunity. I have one other take on this. I'm going to take a breath and let you respond. Thanks. It is interesting because there was so much buzz. About Taven Jackson being, you know, recruited essentially as a transfer by Tom Allen and the IT is, it's odd. I mean I you went out and got Taven Jackson. They specifically wanted him to come here. It was a big news story when it happened. Not just because of the relationship with Trace Jackson Davis.

If he is not the starter, then you have to question. What the evaluation process was like to go out and get the guy because for as much hullabaloo has happened it's going to be really weird if he isn't starting and you know if he's a an afterthought. I guess on the depth chart like that's it's it's it's it'd be an odd circumstance if he is starting 100% agree with you that to.

You know in the name of like, oh, we're going to have a competition you know to not at some point to build some buzz behind the team say this is the guy that's going to be under center and to wait until the start of the of the game because you think it's going to give you some kind of hypothetical strategic advantage. Author's note it it will not. No. But you have to, you have to think a little bit, you know, on the it's interesting like on the

one hand. We hear a lot about how I U Football fans are, you know, they're they're fair weather or they don't exist, or they're mercurial or, you know, they leave early. And look, that all those things might be true to an extent. But one of the reasons why those things are true is that. And we've talked about this on

the show a lot, historically. Historically, I U has not given its football fans much of a reason to be football fans, and it hasn't given them much of a reason to get hyped up around seasons. It hasn't given them much. It when it has gotten them hyped up around seasons, it hasn't delivered a whole lot. And what really bothers me right now is that the most important position in football is

quarterback and. Regardless of the direction that you're going, I I just it's both of these guys are basically starting from Ground Zero. Like the idea that you're going to get an extra 5% out of 1 over the other and that's going to matter at all. It's probably not. Both of these quarterbacks are starting at the lowest level that you can start at as a Big 10 starter. They've never started games before. They've barely thrown passes before.

You, you know, you've almost overbuilt the expectation for whoever does get the starting job by doing it this way. Because if that person goes out and struggles, as they are almost certain to do against Ohio State, and in the early part of the season, it's going to be like, wow, how much did the other guy suck that he didn't get the job. And that's unfair for a variety of reasons. So, you know, it's not just the lack of of excitement.

Around the quarterback or around the roster, because we've been told so little. But it's also almost like, to some degree you've set people up to fail in the way that you've handled things. And that is really unfortunate. And it kind of feeds into this larger issue of the narrative of the program and whatever it happens to be at this point. It's not good. The other thing with this

program, I agree. I mean, I would even say even if it's if it's pretty much a dead heat, just name Jackson your starter. Just I think on one of your pods someone had the line or maybe it was you of like, you know, I U doesn't really judge, you know, success in winning and losing anymore. So it's like, which is kind of

true. So it's like just do this to get buzz, like if that helps sell it out, like if you get two games sold out because you're seeing, you know, Jackson's brother out there, do it. Here's the other So I started thinking about this more is I went back through my timeline to find this to to find these pictures in the spring of 2015 because listening to you talk to Teddy about how there's like no spring game and you know there's no info from the team in the

spring of 2019, they had a varsity club donors of which I am. I've been a varsity club donor like the Hoosier athlete level for a while. So humble brag for me. But is that something to brag about Scott? I mean, no it's not. It really isn't, they. They invited, you know, Varsity club members down and it was a great day. It was a spring day. They had a cookout in like the Knothole Park area. This is before the the the stadium was completely had a cookout in the Knothole Park

area. Everyone could walk the field. They had like receivers. You could like throw to receivers. I got a picture taken with my wife and my young. My son is now 10. He's like 2 at the time in front of Heps Rock. You were walking all over the tours of the new workout facility and I thought about it. They've never done that since that they've never. What year was that? 2015, OK. Or maybe they did it in 2016, like it. And now I understood.

I'm fully aware of Kovat. Like I do realize there was 2 odd years there but you know it used to what made I U football kind of fun and you and I used to joke about this is I'd be like I'm going to you know early on the 2010 eleven twelve. I moved back to Indiana and I'm like I'm going to get I U football tickets You're like just get tickets for a real program like why are you doing this And I'm like well the value like it's it doesn't cost that much.

It's a fun experience Like it's OK it's it's almost like and I I there's no better way to say it's almost like going to a minor League Baseball game like you have like you have access you can get on the field like all this stuff. What I don't like is like all of that's gone and it's like the the the first time we sniffed being somewhat good, like we had the 2019 we had the 2020 season, we got some success.

It's like all of a sudden we're just snap right into big time program like we're taking the big 10 patch off no access for fans. Like we're not telling you starters we're doing Nick Saban stuff. It's a bad look and then I was thinking about this too, you know, because the another, you know, NIO group, the Hoosier Hysterics just had their event at Assembly Hall for basketball.

It's completely separate thing. But like they have a, you know, they weren't allowed to have athletes this year but they haven't evented Assembly Hall. But they did have the the players are signing autographs and people are on the court playing. And I thought, like, Galen, if I would have told you when we were in college, you know, hey, in 25 years it's going to be a lot easier to have access to Assembly Hall, the Memorial Stadium.

You would say, oh God, so I you footballs won like, what, three Big 10 titles and like a national championship. But like, no, no, we still suck in football. But it's like, it's weird that, you know, basketball has this energy and they're they're allowing fans to get in and it's like on. And then it's like football's, you know, Allen's complaining there's no NIL dollars, there's no NIL support. It's like, well, you've locked

everything off. Like as a donor, when's my event to go on the field to see the fans? Like, this is not a, this is not Michigan, it's not Ohio State, it's not Penn State. So it's just the dichotomy of that versus basketball and just thinking back to how football used to kind of have this kind of fun. You know, we appreciate the fans who really stuck through now. That's like being a fan of a high level college football team, but none of the success to go with it.

And I don't want to get too deep into the larger programmatic things, but it isn't. It's a, it's a table center. Like why are we starting off the final preview pod with this? And it's frankly because, look, when we podded about almost a month ago, I think it was actually like July 31st or something like that, that we recorded the the first podcast about football. I was legitimately interested.

In what Indiana was planning on doing and and I assumed that is the the the month went along we were going to hear more things. We were going to hear about what I U was really going to do on offense. We were going to hear about who was going to be you know the the focal points. We're going to hear more about how the defense was going to set up. We were going to kicker. We were going to, well, that. But. But what we've gotten instead is a lot of vagaries.

We've gotten a lot of of unanswered questions, sometimes unasked questions. And it's frustrating because look from from, you know we're going to follow why you football here Crimson cast regardless that's that's what we do. But you know in the on the one hand you want to have a program that people are interested in want to pay attention to. On the other hand, it almost feels, as you said, like everything has been locked behind this wall.

At for no other reason than things have gotten uncomfortable the last couple of years and it's almost like instead of steering into that and saying look we are there's a there's a level of humility we need to have if we want people to show up. Like we we got people to show up in 2021 on the promise of a a team that was ranked on the promise of the winds that happened the previous year.

And those people were not given something that was entertaining or fun or galvanizing when they were in Memorial Stadium. And then essentially the same thing happened last year. You know, so I while I understand kind of on its face why there's such secrecy, this program can't afford to keep fans guessing. In my opinion, it does have an impact on whether people are interested in what's going on.

It's we talk about this a lot and I think you know so much in college sports and I U is not limited. They're not the only ones where this happens. So much in college sports historically has been centered around the coaches and the personality of the coach and that is absolutely how Indiana has chosen to conduct its football program. Since Tom Allen became the head coach, he has been the focal point.

You you know you would you I I guess you're supposed to go to games and follow the team and be a fan because of Tom Allen. Because we see more of Tom Allen than we see if any of the players we we see him talking constantly about this or that. Even though it doesn't really say very much about the team. And that can work if you're winning a lot of games and you're doing it across multiple editions of the team.

But that hasn't been the case. And so in an era where NIL and player focus is by far the most important thing for most programs, not the least of which is because you have to find money to pay players, it's just a really weird approach. And especially this, this particular year, which is a pivotal year, not just in terms of the perception of Tom Allen as a football coach at Indiana, but the perception of I, U football at a time when the entire business of college

sports is changing. To go into the season with this many unanswered questions, with this much secrecy around a program that's won six games in two years, is just hard to get my head wrapped around it. And and and again I understand, I understand some of the philosophy behind it, but I don't agree with it. And I think that, you know, my worry is as someone who wants people to follow I U Football.

Once people in the stadium, once people paying attention and taking it seriously week after week and holding the program to a certain level of accountability, this almost does the opposite of all those things. To completely agree. So, you know, so, so go ahead, yes. No, let's let's move on to like this season like we'll we'll go a little more micro and get out of the macro because I can I can talk about that forever and

maybe we can save that. We'll have, I think we'll have time this season to kind of get existential. So let's let's look at this season specifically. So, so let's talk. I mean so you know at this point from we, we there's not a lot to say about the roster, about the roster and the depth chart because we don't totally know. We've heard a lot of names thrown out. We've on both sides. Like we've yeah, I was talking

about this with Teddy yesterday. We don't know who the starting quarterback's going to be. We know that I use got a pretty decent running back core, which is led by Jalen Lucas and Josh Henderson. But we don't really know what Jalen Lucas's role is going to be in the offense or how they're going to get on the ball, or whether they're going to try to run them as a feature back or whether they're going to try to run him as a as a a special circumstances back go on.

I'm just going to cut you off for a second there, just cuz this is, this is what is so frustrating about I, U Football right now is everything feels like it's a shell game. And So what I mean by that is that, you know, 2017, 18/19/20 we were hearing and we were seeing the recruiting get better. It's like, oh man, Tom Allen is really on the recruiting show. We're getting all his recruits and now it's like. Oh, but the transfer portal, like, it's really good. The transfer, like, what

happened to the recruits? Don't worry about that. Look over here like we're talking about transfer portal. And as you're talking about like, you know, the running back core is really good. That is true. But it's like, but we're also talking about doing a dual threat quarterback or maybe even doing an option, you know, offense where the quarterback's going to run a lot. So it's like, are you focusing on that?

And then, you know, one of the things Teddy mentioned is, you know, the real strength of this team is the wide receiver core. Like we have a great wide receiver core and it's like, that's awesome. We don't have any quarterbacks who have completed more than like 7 passes at the collegiate level any anywhere on our roster. So how we planning on getting them the ball And it's like

don't worry about that. Like we're going to go every and it's like then if we have such a good wide receiver core why are we doing a running option, dual threat quarterback set up like none of these things make sense. If you have a great wide receiver core, you should probably have just like a pocket passer who's going to hand off and pass to the ball. So it's just everything feels like to me, like it's a shell

game where it's like. We're talking about one thing but it doesn't make sense with the other pieces. Well, and that's the thing. I mean, I I don't, I wish I didn't have a, you know, as cynical of a perspective on it

as as you just espoused there. But it does kind of feel like there's not there's there's a there's a significant lack of focus on details with all of this and and look and and that's true and there always has been and look I mean again that's the prerogative of the of the coach and the team but but the idea that that like a lot of it comes down to trust us we know what we're doing and I guess the big problem is I think a lot of that

trust got eroded the last couple of years when it was clear that they didn't know what they were doing. And that's that's I guess where a lot of this offseason is kind of sat poorly with me now. You know, it's it's clear that to some degree. Go ahead, go ahead. Even for people like you and me, like we we went to those first couple Purdue games early in Allen's tenure and we were bring this up when we talked about the Louisville game.

But it's like we're you and I were both like man we're just sloppy. Like early in the early in Allen's career when he was coaching against Braun at Purdue. It's like the talent's the same. We're just not like we looked really sloppy. So it's it's always sorry it's always been no no I I mean and look I mean that are cleaned up somewhat the following two years in 19 and 20 although they were still pretty sloppy in 20 but we had a guy with a cannon for an arm for most of that season.

I mean that that covered a multitude of sin but they went back to being very sloppy the last couple of years And and look as as we've talked about before this is not a program that's built on detail and discipline. It's a program that's really as we said was built on vibes.

It's a vibes based economy with I U football where it's like and actually you know even Alan had his he had his his his last but depending on what you say his first his first radio show tonight and a lot of the focus appeared to be on how the team built chemistry this offseason you know and and that some of that is needed because as Alan pointed out while we they're welcoming 50 new players on the roster which is an insane amount of new play. I know, I know.

But it but it also was like, oh, there was a quote about Alan telling them that they needed to do team building exercises once every month. And you know they needed to. They had a leadership council that that included like 25 players where they had to like come up with new ways where they could meet teammates and get to know them better. And now there there's a whole another line that we're not going to go down right now about culture and this football program if if that much is necessary.

Now granted you've got a huge amount of new players coming in, so maybe it is especially in this. But this is a program. There's who's whose culture has not looked that great the last couple of years. It it again makes you concerned though, if if so much of the focus is on what we got got. We got to get guys playing, you know, or feeling like they're more comfortable with each

other. That feels an awful lot like another season where you're going in where the details aren't maybe being focused on as much as they have been in the past. Now I say that and we have seen and heard from assistant coaches who do talk in more detail oriented terms and they have had some positive and interesting things to say. I mean whether it's Matt Gary, the new defensive or codefensive coordinator talking about what they're doing and the improvements that they've seen

over last year. And and some of the players have talked about this as well in terms of the improvements that they've felt in terms of how hard they're practicing and and the sorts of things they're focusing on. We've heard saying the similar things about the offensive line and you know that these are all positive signs, I think.

But it makes me concerned that as we head into another season where I use going to be at a talent disadvantage against the top teams and maybe within shouting distance of some of the middleclass teams in the conference, but probably still a step below. Just looking at the rankings and

who's on the roster. It it's just not inspiring a lot of confidence that you know, so much of the focus again, has been on how are the players getting along together and how are they meshing rather than necessarily what are you doing and and what's the plan And without being able to see any of

the practices. And it's not just me, it's also the media who they got to see a practice and we're told not to report on it. Like how do you, how do you, what are you placing your faith in if you're an observer of I, U. Football, in terms of what they're going to do on the field on a weekbyweek basis, and that is still unanswered and I think it'll probably remain unanswered

for a good while at this point. So as we look at Indiana's roster on the offensive side, we've got a lot of uncertainties per normal. We've got again an uncertainty at offensive line, but some optimism potentially because you've got new leadership on the offensive line. You've got from a coaching perspective, you still got a lot of the same players. You've got Matthew Bedford back, you know hopefully healthy at this point. You've got maybe some depth pieces because so many guys had

to play some snaps last year. You know, as we talked about in the podcast with with Teddy and if you kind of alluded to it a little bit, I guess with your podcast with Ken, it a lot of it really comes down to this idea of how does Indiana do something differently on offense that allows them to actually score points more consistently. I mean you and I brought up early on in the the preview sections that Indiana's offense in terms of pure numbers wasn't as bad as people suspected that

it would, that it was last year. I mean it felt for all the world, like Indiana's offense was just dead in the water and I think you know, Ken even brought up, you know, obviously you know that the defense was was a bigger problem in terms of the total number of points scored. But in terms of the offensive stuff, even though Indiana statistically wasn't as bad as it look, they still only averaged 23 points a game.

And once you got past the the Western Kentucky game last year, they only scored over 30 points twice and one of those was an overtime game and that was that that Michigan State game. You know it. It's it's an offense that is too often found itself stymied from both its first and second options, And that was with quarterbacks who could nominally throw the football even though they didn't have great offensive

lines. So I guess the question is, does Indiana with potentially a better and better drilled offensive line than they've had the past few seasons, but worse quarterback play as you're most likely to have, given that you've got two guys who have no experience, do they put themselves in a position where they can score more regularly? I don't know. I mean, what are your initial

thoughts on that? It it it it goes like I I need to be happy with this because I've I've been calling for like you know, you can't just do the same system over and over again and play normal football and expect to win. So there there is a world we're like, you know I've been harpering against the dual threat quarterback for a while but there's a world like maybe that is the way you have to go about this. Like, I think the offensive line. Again, hopefully is better.

You have a new coaching staff. You have now a full offseason. You now have like the full run of working with that offensive line that hopefully it's better. But you know, hopefully doing it with a dual threat allows you to kind of move things around, move things in the pocket. I mean, my only concern thinking about getting ready for this tonight is you look at Walt Bell and his history as an offensive coordinator, even as a head coach at UMass, Maryland, Florida State.

And most of those years his quarterbacks are going from 2016 Maryland up to now his. The quarterbacks in those years rushed for 254 yards 64168162 one 39. So Walt Bell doesn't have a lot of experience of. Coaching. I'm going to say he can't. Maybe he will, but it seems like his bread and butter is having kind of a pocket passer and running with a running back. Well, and so he did have, I mean in in Maryland, I mean he had I think it was Turtle Pigrome was the guy's name who who was a

running quarterback. That was kind of a unique situation. I mean there the the issue with Indiana's fascinating because if you look at the Tom Allen era, the average yards per rush that Indiana's had and every year of Tom Allen being here, they they averaged 3.48 yards per rush in 2017. And you got to keep in mind that these are always skewed a little bit by the fact that sacks count

against your rush yardage. But I think it's actually a good metric including that because you have to think about that as especially if you're going to have a dual threat quarterback, you have to think about getting tackled behind the line of scrimmage whether you're passing or running as part of the deal. But you know 3.48 yards for Indiana there in 2017, their opponents average 3 point, excuse me, 3.87.

In 2018 Indiana averaged their best in the Tom Allen era, 4.41 yards per carry, 2 opponents, 4.59. That was the big Stevie Scott year. The next year it dropped to 3.63. They allowed 3.92. In the COVID year, Indiana only averaged 3.13 yards per rush. Their opponents averaged 4 point O3. In 2021 Indiana averaged 3.2 yards a rush. Their opponents averaged 4.1 and last year Indiana averaged 3.36 yards per rush.

Their opponents averaged 4.14. So Indiana gets consistently out rushed and with the exception of one season, they've been under 4 yards per rush, again including quarterback sacks under Tom Allen. And that includes a year with Walt Bell as the offensive coordinator. I am. I look, I'll say it. I mean, I think people have been dancing around it a little bit. I'm really concerned with Indiana's ability to do a rush

first offense. They do not have the horses at offensive line proven over the course of more than a game and a half basically last year to run that kind of an offense. They haven't shown a historical predilection towards being a running team. They just haven't had the bodies. They don't have the tight end blocking at least not proven. I mean you might see you know Steinfeld be able to step up that you know there's there's other people that might be able to step up.

It's not to say that they can't but we haven't seen it done and ultimately I think that and this was something that we talked about yesterday, you have so many interesting intriguing maybe really good skill position players.

We not just Jalen Lucas, but you've got, you know that this wide receiver core that's got all of these interesting pieces, whether it's Anderson, Kobe or Cam Camper or EJ Williams or, you know, our Carter or, you know, Donovan Mcculley, who you know has been kind of a missing piece in all of this. And it's like, so how if you've got those pieces, how are you going to get them involved if you're not like And again, we

don't know. We are hypothesizing based upon what we've seen and read and what we read at the end of the year, which is like what we need to really focus on. You know, quarterbacks that can run. That doesn't mean you're not going to pass it all, but if you don't know how your quarterbacks are going to pass, how do you get your best weapons, the football. And if you're if you can't pass, that's going to really limit what the opposing defense has to worry about.

Which is essentially that's what did in Indiana's offense the last two years was the offense not being multidimensional. And I hate that. I don't want to switch over to defense like they they go in the intertwine because like. You you, you look at the, I mean the trouble with our defense affects the offense because once we got out of you know the the, you know, oddly we win Illinois, we win the Illinois game partially because we hold Illinois to 20 points.

Once you get into Big 10 schedule after that, it's like every team scores over 30 points. Except for the one game we hold Rutgers, the 24, we only score 17. And then, you know, we do end up beating Michigan State, but we let them score 31 points. And so this becomes kind of a double edged sword that you're gonna need to probably once you get into Big 10 schedule, be scoring. 30 to 35 points a game to win because. And again, I'm just going off of last year because let's not go

too far back after that. Just going off of last year, basically every team in the Big 10 was averaging at least 31 points against us. If you don't count Illinois, even if you I'm sure the average is higher because you like Ohio State there. But every team's getting 3035 points on us. And again, defense is even more of a question mark because if you like, read the bite size bison, which is awesome. Like you know, the entire

secondary is just all new. Like you've lost so many snaps across so many positions across the defense. So right, it's they really do go in. And this is unfortunately the problem is like the games that we have. You know, when we hold Rutgers at 24, it's like we can only score 17 and the game mucks up and we muck up the other team. It's like we end up mucking up our own offense. It feels like. And then when we kind of play a freewheeling game and it's.

Like, let things go. Our offense can score, but then we're not able to. Like the Maryland game the week before, we scored 33, but we let them score 38. Yeah, No, I mean, you know, even other other games last year they were like this. I mean, Nebraska, who was, you know, at the death last year. Yeah, I think Scott Frost had been fired. Out to be or I think he had. I think he did get fired before that game. I think cuz it was after the Georgia setting.

I haven't forgotten the exact chronology, but you know, Indiana lost that game by 143521. But people forget, like that game was tied at the end of the third quarter. Indiana scored 21 points in the second quarter of that game and then didn't score again, you know? And it wasn't like Nebraska was good. That was only in Nebraska's second win on the whole season. You know that.

That is where I really worry about Indiana from a just you can afford to not score a lot of points If you have Iowa's defense or if you have Wisconsin's defense historically, you you Indiana does not have the capacity to not score points. And I guess that's where if I've

got a if I'm, if I'm. I think the source of my pessimism, other than just having no information going into the season about what the team's going to do, really does center around the idea that offensively I have no clue what the plan is at this point. It's it seems to be if I put together the quotes correctly it seems to be that we're going to rely on athleticism and that we're going to rely on an

improved offensive line. We're going to try to get Jalen Lucas the ball a bunch more, even though he didn't really thrive that much in, you know, in non kickoff situations last year, at least not for not in volume and. You know, but but as you pointed out, so much of what they did last year offensively was so retrograde. You know, it was a lot of throwing passes behind the line

of scrimmage. And that's The thing is like every we, we you talk about all these targets on offense and it's always that we just got to get Jay Lucas in space. It's like. It kind of goes back like yes, that's great. Like that would be awesome. I would, I would love to do that as well. But like that's really hard to do and we've not shown the

ability to do that. You know the only thing that I can think of in the last four years where we've kind of gotten guys in spaces there was, you know in that 2020 season there is the into 19 two where it was just like kind of the I'm going to throw the ball to tie Fry Fogle and let him make a play. And that worked really well because for a, you know, period there Fry Fogle was awesome at getting the ball and he would just kind of go down the sideline.

But we we've seen this. This time and time again under Alan, under I U, football for years just we have really good skill position guys. We just have a hard time getting the ball. I don't think it's a I U specifically. I think this is a problem with like teams that are just don't have a lot of blue chip talent is you can have one or two guys and then it's it's easy for teams you know that are just slightly better than you to be like we're not going to let you get him in space.

Well, one of the one and I feel like we're kind of doing a historical evaluation on the Tom Allen era, which is all we have to go off of because we don't know what the future is going to look like. But I mentioned the rushing totals on offense before and again if you think we're being pessimistic here, I'm trying not to be, but I don't know what exactly to be optimistic, right. Well, but so go back to 2017. Richard Lego primary quarterback, But Peyton Ramsey

played quite a bit that year. Indiana completed 61% of their passes for 3100 and 8888. Yards, 25 touchdowns. Their opponents only completed 54 1/2% of their passes for 21156 years. It's a really good year for Indiana. I don't know how they didn't make a bowl that year, 2018, it was largely Ramsey with a small sprinkling of Pennix. Indiana completed 65.7% of their passes for 3094 yards compared to their opponents, 61% of the passes completed 28187 yards. Again, Indiana doesn't go to a

bowl despite those numbers. 2019 67.9% of passes completed for almost 4000 yards. Opponents completed 55.6% for 27178 yards. That's great. They did go to a bowl that year. You go to 2020. The completion percentage drops off a Cliff, 57.5% completed passes, 2007 yards. Some of that can be attributed to COVID because their opponents were actually slightly better in the percentage category but worse in the yards category. Then you get the last two years. 2021 Indiana completed 51% of

their passes for 21106 yards. Their opponents completed 62.3% of their passes for 2800 yards, and then last year Indiana completed 54% of their passes for 2600 yards and their opponents completed 64% of their passes for 3200 yards. So there's that. And this is where you can look at the offense and you can say, wow, Indiana's quarterback play and their overall passing game is really falling off a Cliff.

But then you can also look at it and say it's weird that Indiana's defense, which used to be really good at defending the past, has gotten progressively worse over the same period of time. Not a really great trend line in either direction for this program as we head into this

year. And you know, it's where on the one side you can say, well, maybe bringing 50 new players into the program is a good thing because while we've seen where the players that were in the program had gradually allowed it to get. But there's two problems with that. First of all, there's no guarantee that bringing in these new faces is going to make a whole lot of difference, might be scheme on both sides of the

ball. Also, as you have been often, you know, happy to point out all these great recruiting classes that we kept getting talked about in 2019-2020, 2021 did not really result in the program raising its floor. In fact, to some degree, it feels like the floor has been dropped down a few feet every year. If you look at the numbers and then you compare it to the records, it's not really a great story. One, as you're going through that progression goes back to my

thought of like. I I feel like you you if you're this staff, you should focus on like what what worked in 17/18/19 is you're laying that out. It's like having you know what work was having a passer, a pocket passer who could throw for you know 3 to 4000 yards,

the good completion percentage. And that has not been happening and it's fine like you know Pat Fitzgerald has it up and downs in Northwestern. You could have a couple off years but again where I get concerned going into this season is. There's no indication that we have a passer who's ready to do that. Now to be fair, last year you look at like, you know, they went out and got Connor Bayes Lack, who had kind of the pedigree of a pocket passer and it didn't workout for a variety

of reasons. I don't think it was as much base lacks fault as it might have been said at the time. But you know, so just saying, because just just being like, well, they didn't go out and get a pocket passer means they're not doing it. But it is concerned that it's like you're just completely. Not even trying it this year, not sure it's going to work, but you know, maybe again don't know, but it's like we're kind of going down.

This is what is concerning is like when you're in your seven, you're going down a new road of like we're going to try something to see if something new works. Not we're going to try and recreate what we did in the past. And hey, last year didn't work, but last year's because of offensive line and you know we're going to try it again because we know we have a formula that works. It's like we're trying to create new Coke every single year instead of just trying to.

To go back and like, what? Did we mess up with our original Coke formula? Let's just tweak one thing. Yeah, now it it's it's an odd trend. And again, it's like so much of the coverage of football, especially more so than basketball. So much of the coverage of football is through the eyes and the lens of the coaches because that's who talks to the media. That's the questions get asked. Players are told not to talk about things. So we get the perspective of the

coaches. Coaches always think they're doing the OR at least they're always going to say that they they know what they're doing. They think that they know what they're doing. They think they know where they're going. Certainly coaches, you know, I mean they have to deal with players just like everybody else

does. But the problem is if you're constantly say, well, this guy did this or coach this way or or you know, he we've, you know, we've heard from other coaches that this guy schemes well or this guy does this well or you know, we've seen from prior materials that XY&Z. I I think sometimes you lose the forest for the trees in that because what you end up with is this situation where you look at those numbers, you look at the direction that things are going.

It's hard to then turn around and say, well, the program's pointed in the right direction in the macro, but in the micro, it's like this is where faith is a hard thing to get your head wrapped around. Going into a season like this, when you've had such huge roster turnover and so many question marks at such key positions, which?

The other thing I just did with with the defense sliding over the years, you know, one thing that really masked it that I remember talking about going into 2021, but in 2020 there was just an an absolutely. Absurd number of interceptions and turnovers. Not the defense caused it. The defense gets credit for all of those, but it was definitely statistically off the radar. And you know, that was kind of

the question. Remember, going into 2021 is like, can the defense really continue to have this high number of takeaways? The answer was no. And then once that went away, then once that went away, you kind of realize like, oh, the underlying, the underlying defense is actually not very good in those takeaways. Again, the defense created them, but it's like the underlying foundation that defense had eroded those couple of years. And I think a lot of those takeaways kind of masked that in

that 1920 run through. Well, it's interesting because this was never a defensive system that was built on generating turnovers. It was really as, remember, if you go back six years and remember everything, this was a bend. But don't break defense. We've heard that more times than I would care to recount. It's like, well, if we give up a field goal, that's a win. You know, because we're not going to give up a touchdown, but we're not necessarily going to turn the opposition over.

And the first year that Alan was the head coach, you know, they were -7 in turnover margin. They had been -6 in his one year as defensive coordinator. They were actually plus five in 2018, they dropped back to +2 in 2019. In 2020 they were plus eight, which is the high watermark of the program for a while. And you know what was jarring about 2021? And it was one of the things that we talked about. We didn't think it was going to be a problem. It ended up being a big problem.

They went from plus 8 to -13. So they there the turnover margin went -21 over the course of a two year span. Now, it was actually better last year in that they were only -5 in turnovers. But this is where you know that if you look at the way that the program is constituted, you know that 2020 season, a lot of it ended up being capitalizing on

opponent mistakes. And even last year, even though that the turnovers weren't quite there, Indiana was, as I mentioned at the end of the last podcast, the program in the Power 5 conferences whose opponents got called for the most penalty yards of any of them, which is its own form of while we got some benefits like, you know, that's where we lost by 7, we could have lost by 21 if the other team hadn't gotten those 65 yards of penalties called at the wrong time, stuff

like that. So defensively when I look at the and you know the the thing about this defense, I think you and you and Ken brought it up a little bit with the pass rush. You know this is a program that has never really built itself around a pass rush per se. It's nice to have.

But you know they they have consistently gotten, if if you look at at sacks, it's kind of a much milder version of turnovers and the you know sack margin, how many you were picking up versus how many your opponents are picking up. Last year Indiana was -18 in SAC margin. On the season Indiana had 20 sacks, their opponents had 38. The previous year they were -12 in SAC margin. But the year before that in 2020 they were plus 15.

I mean the the, the, the level of 2020 just looks such like such an outlier and you don't necessarily need that SAC margin if you've got other things going for you. Like in 2019 the SAC margin was even it was a zero, it was like 27427 against. But that's that team had an offensive plan. It knew what it wanted to do offensively. It was really clever about getting the ball into space and getting it to different people and really utilizing the entire field.

And what worries me is that I've seen nothing these last two years that Indiana has the capacity on offense to do that. And defensively it's a big, like question mark about whether they can generate either turnovers or sacks or just consistent stops in, you know, in the red zone. You know, you you'd hope that all the things we're hearing about new coaching staff, new players coming in, maybe that translates into something big,

and maybe it will. But it's a big ask for a bunch of players who haven't really played well, played together at all before, in a system at a school that has struggled the last two years to suddenly come in at play at like a top 50 level when it comes to those sorts of things. And and the other thing with last season that you mentioned you you hit on this in the last podcast of Teddy is you know. There's a you know, Indiana won a couple games.

They should have, you know, maybe could have lost last year. They, you know, they lost a couple. They should have won. It's like, well, there's really three. They they like the Illinois, Western Kentucky and Michigan State. Like those are games they really could have lost. Like those were all like based on one play here or there. Whereas the Maryland Rutgers losses. I'm not sure how close those were to wins. I mean Maryland was a pretty nip and tuck game but it's like the

I U game. We're up 14. Nothing like yeah, that should have been a win, but we really like let Rutgers just boat race us and then it was over after we got up 14 nothing. So it it the the losses the wins that we had were really, really tight. I think people were forgetting that that this team you know and and if you change either the Illinois or the Western, you just change Western Kentucky to a loss. And by the way, I remember that game. I remember being there, being like.

We're going to lose this. If you change that to a loss, I think the trajectory of of the season last year could have been, you know, even worse because then it's like maybe they just completely check out after they've already lost to Western Kentucky. Maybe. I mean, it's hard to say. I mean, they looked, checked out and then they checked back in for the games at the end of the season, you know. So it's it's hard to say. I mean it, it's, it was a weird year last year.

I mean, you know if you're looking for reasons for optimism, you could look at it and say, well, you know realistically speaking down the stretch they were really only three games. They weren't competitive in the for the course of the of the of the game. One that was the game at home against Michigan, which was tied at half, but then Michigan ran away with it in the second-half. One was the game at home versus Penn State which was not close.

And one was the game at Ohio State, but every every other one, you know, they they were, they were obviously they were tied at the end of the third quarter with Nebraska. They were in the game against Maryland up until you're really the last few drives. They were in the game against Rutgers but couldn't get the the job done.

They beat Michigan State and they were in the game at least at half time against Purdue. So if you're looking for optimism, you know on the one hand you can say, well let me look. The team kind of rallied in those games. They stayed competitive. I'm not willing to write that off. The the downside is when you welcome 52 players to the

roster. A lot of those guys weren't here when they were being competitive in those games, and you wonder how much of that actually carries over given what kind of exodus Indiana experienced off of this roster. The other thing, and I I do want to be optimistic, I really do.

I'm going to get there. But you know, the other thing that I keep hearing is this, you know that you mentioned that Purdue game and there's this talk of like and you talked about a lot with Teddy that you know, Dexter Williams will be coming back at some point and maybe we're just keeping the

seat warm. For Dexter Williams, it's he you mentioned something earlier about like, you know, just this quarterback battle, it's kind of maybe you're making such a big deal of it that it does kind of make somebody is going to, you know, going to fail that you know. There's this narrative that it's like, oh, Dexter's get hurt. We probably win the Purdue game. It's like we lost that game at what 16 points. Like it's not like that was the last play of the game or something.

We we we lost to Purdue. And you know, yes, he beat Michigan State. It was a very gimmicky offense. This is a guy who completed 13 passes last year through for, you know 34% completion. This is not much better than you know, Donovan McCauley. And I'm not. I hope he's, I mean I hope he's healthy.

I hope he comes back in his well so there there was an update on the coaches show tonight that he's he's he's not ready to be on the roster like you know available to play and probably won't be for the first few weeks which you know it's interesting because like Taylor Layman and I have been talking back and forth about this about well could they just be keeping the seat warm for Dexter Williams. This was talked about in Bite Size Bison a bit like, is it possible that is it possible

that they're just they're going to pick the quarterback that most closely matches what Dexter Williams does with the idea that that's the offensive system? Yes, everything you brought up is true. Like you, you cannot you you can't look at the two games against Michigan State and Purdue and think that that's a sustainable model offensively for this I U team. At least I don't think so because of the lack of passing and all of that.

But the other thing I would unfortunately remind people if their thought is O, Dexter Williams is going to come back and be the starter. This program put a quarterback in way too early that suffered a similar injury, you know, a couple of years ago and he was clearly not ready for primetime. And that was when Michael Pennix was named the starter. You're going into the 2021 season and just was clearly not

there. You know I do worry if if they're underwhelmed with the quarterback options does Dex you know and Dexter Williams is seen as the guy that can get it done because they've used him before but he's not actually ready to compete. I mean that injury he suffered was at the end of November. You know, Week 3 or week four of the season A, that's ten months, that's, you know, that's that's that's not even a full calendar year to recuperate. And 2nd, that's a quarter of your season.

Like, that's, you know, you're talking about 1/4 to 1/3 of the games that you're going to play this year. This is what is always concerned me about not getting a veteran quarterback. You know, going with these two guys who don't have a lot of experience. You're the winnable games for this team are, you know, they're

kind of spread throughout. But the games you cannot afford to lose are all stacked at the beginning and all you have to do is look back at how Indiana struggled against Idaho last year to to say, you know a couple things go wrong in that game. Idaho starts believing weather stays bad. You never know what happens.

I do worry if if there's a if the clear pathway as far as this team's concerned is like somehow focusing on we're going to get Dexter Williams back and have him play when we haven't really seen him in competitive format, you know, essentially since the end of November. I do worry about that being the decision making process because that's a lot to put on a guy and it's a lot to put on an offensive system that isn't really geared towards those strengths, I would say at this

point. It's interesting you bring up that that Pennex in 2021 comp because I was thinking the exact same thing that you know I was there in Iowa and you were you were there. You're like you're being like he's not ready but he he he put up a game effort. You know he kept going until the Cincinnati game which was really close. People forget about that, but,

you know, you do wonder. I've often wondered, you know if by naming him so early and putting him in when it obviously Penix wasn't fully ready, how did that affect the team? Because you know that team after that Cincinnati game, they were done like that that 2021 team checked out. And I do wonder, were there players who like, they're practicing every day and they're like, we should be practicing with Tuttle? Like this is not like we're going we know we're going to be there.

Like it if if you know that, that miss. Call at quarterback if that is partially what made that team kind of check out, I don't know, but it's the same thing that worries me here is exactly everything you're saying is that if if Dexter's not ready and they're bringing him in, you know, are you, are you possibly going to lose the team again? Because they can see like this is not the right move to make it. And again, I just go back to. Dexter looked really interesting.

I I was very I'm intrigued to see him but it's like this is not panics of 2020 coming back there. This is a guy who's also a very like they're all unproven quarterbacks. So it is just there's this narrative that I think some people are picking up it's like well you know we'll keep the seat warm and then Dexter will come and then we'll be we'll be fine. It's like I, I I mean, there's no evidence that he's like the

savior either. Nor should we put that kind of, you know, that kind of piece on him. And it's I I will end, you know, with this is like it. Hate to keep focusing on the quarterback, but I also come back to sometimes it's just we talk about all of this stuff and it's just as simple as you know, I heard even you know a couple of podcasts would say you know it's a quarterbacks gaming. In the end, the college footballs quarterback game.

And it is. And we get to these points in the seasons like we were, our quarterback has a hard time throwing as a hard time moving the ball. And it's like we're just, we're done. We don't really aren't able to do much and that's it's it is we talked about it a lot, but it's also because it is so important and if you have a quarterback who can't complete more than 38% of their passes and most of them are going behind the line, you're just going to have a really hard time being

successful. Which does wrap back to the original point that we made at the beginning, which is that you're you're asking. A lot For people who have not seen any of these quarterbacks that are currently healthy to play, you haven't seen what they can do. All you got essentially is high school tape on them. It it doesn't do much for one's confidence. If you are trying as a fan to get excited about the season.

And even if you're looking at Dexter Williams, you know the again, I think as much as I think Dexter's got potentially a good future ahead. It's a really fraught pathway if that is going to be your solution for the season, given that we, you know, haven't seen him on a football field and it probably won't for a while, except he's done some limited stuff in practice from what I've been able to gather.

But as Alan said tonight, he's not even healthy enough to be the third string quarterback going into the start of the season. That to me doesn't bode particularly well if you're expecting this guy to play major minutes throughout the course of the season. So with all that said, let's pick some games. So. You know, it's interesting. You know, I've been watching, I've been trying to find as many projections for the season as I can, and it hasn't been pretty.

I mean, you know the Indiana was set at a 3.5 win over under, over under all the. Time and and. You know, I mean over has been bet a little bit more strongly. I think over was -135 and under was like plus 1/15. So people, the money's leaning towards Indiana being able to win four games instead of three. The athletic projected Indiana would go 2 and 10 and that's Stuart Mandel who's got his own, you know, issues in terms of like what he puts out there

sometimes. But ESPN predicted Indiana would go 3:00 and 9:00. And that's essentially where most of the projections have gone. I saw it was reading the IDs projections this morning and they were around the same. You know if you look at this season game by game, I mean clearly the Ohio State game, sorry, your floor has to be two. I mean like we'll start the, you know we always, we always give the losses first.

Let's be optimistic on wins like your floor has to be two because Indiana State and Akron are just. I mean it's wild that we're having this like they are. It must wins. Like if you lose either of those games, the wheels are off the bus. Like there's just no other way around it, like because. So it's just the floor is too, like, so now it's like how many big 10 games or Louisville games are you going to win? Because I'll just start there like you got to be it too.

Well, and it's interesting though, because you say that and you know Akron, Indiana aren't that far apart in the PFF rankings like Akron comes in. 128th out of 131 Indiana and PFF going into the season and again this is statistics based, is 91st out of 131. Wouldn't you agree that just all numbers aside, you can't lose that game? No, absolutely. You know that that that's, but I'm not talking about what they have to do. I'm talking about what I think they'll do.

And that is unfortunately for Indiana. I mean we've just, we've seen enough evidence in the past of Indiana struggling in those sorts of games that I don't know that you can take it for granted. I mean, I think they they'll probably win that, but I don't think that it's as foregone of the conclusion as what you just stated because, you know, at least on paper. These teams don't feel as far apart as we as they probably should feel going into the season, Agreed.

But I'm going to be optimistic and I'm just, I'm putting this is where this is my optimism, I'm giving those. Both. Well, let's just go through each game. So we start off with Ohio State, which I'm assuming you have as a loss. I also have it as a loss. Yes, yes. But let's just. All right. I've been so pessimistic on so much of this stuff. I'm just going to give the the like we have played Ohio State to start the season way too many times.

We've played them okay and some of these first halfs have been Okay. You know they they've not been awful. And as we've mentioned many times like at some point it's got to happen and it's probably not going to be you know, the year, why not this year? If we're going to do things on Hope like I'm going to pick us for a loss, like I'll, I'll cut to the chase. But there is the world where it's like if you're going to catch Ohio State, I think now would be the time to catch them.

I just there's a part of me too that it's like I I obviously want to beat Ohio State. It was a part where I don't want to. This is so tongue in cheek. Please understand it's like I don't want to win because then it's like. Tom Allen will never name anything ever again like we'll just like he'll be like, no, that we won because I didn't name any any positions. Like we don't know what churches we're going to wear next time. I I would note Indiana's only started the season with Ohio

State once. They've only started it with Ohio State once. I swear Nope it's this is the second time they started with Ohio State in 2017. That was August 31st, 2017. I think what you're thinking of is the 2019 season. But they played Ball State in Indianapolis first. Then they played Eastern Illinois, then they played Ohio State on the 14th of September. So it feels like they opened the season there, but that's just because the first two games were not the most memorable of games.

But even 2 times is probably too many times. You know, I I will give you that. No, I mean, look the the line on this game is already. Escalating. Well, it started at 28 1/2. It's now at 31 1/2, at least in some circles. James, just let me know the the first half line is 17, 1/2. Yeah, I mean, and look, Ohio State's, this is the sad thing to me about this game is that Ohio State is a little bit vulnerable to start this season because they don't have a

starting quarterback. I mean they kind of do, but they're going to go on a rotational basis and. They're, you know, they they don't they they're changing offensive coordinators there. There's a lot of pressure at Ohio State. It's clearly a game that they could overlook because, I mean, they've, you know, they've beaten Indiana significantly. You know, Ohio State. The problem is they're just so overwhelmingly talented and Indiana has not shown the ability to be consistently

competitive. Even in 2019, when they won eight games and went to a bowl and had one of the most successful seasons in I U. History. They lost 51 to 10 at home. To Ohio State, it's hard to see this vintage of Indiana doing anything other than that. And so that's where I would get concerned. Indiana State, I mean, again, this has been thrown into just a game that Indiana's going to win. Without any question. I would think that that would be the case. I do.

I would caution a little bit if Indiana doesn't have a solid game out of their starting quarterback. You know, that can cast a pall over the offense, but man, that's one of those things where Indiana's talent level should be able to exceed whatever Indiana State is able to throw at them. So I would, I would, I mean I'm assuming you would give them a W here because I certainly would as well. No. Yeah. If I'm if I'm you're giving an L here then you're going over.

So yeah, it win, yes. Then 111 Baby. So then he got Louisville. So Louisville on a neutral? Field in in in Indianapolis. I I would love to hear the logic behind why this series was scheduled in the 1st place. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Louisville is, according to the computers very good going into this year. They are ranked 33rd according to PFF. This is a team that struggled last year and. Now they have a new coach, and it's Jeff Brom who knows I U inside and out.

Jeff Brom, a guy who's only lost to Tom Allen once, and it was in overtime. That was that 2019 game. You know, Brahms had I U's number. A lot of people have gone in the direction of, well, you know,

this game. This isn't just a surefire thing for Louisville. This is a game that Indiana could compete in. And while I agree they could, it feels like Louisville. Even though they weren't great last year, just as starting from a completely different like level that Indiana is given that you know they you know Louisville overall has just I mean they've just been a better on on balance program over the last like what debt 1015 years.

Their talent level is probably not much different than Indiana's, maybe slightly higher, but. You know, I think about Louisville and I think about Bram, and then I think about what Indiana's going to be dealing with in terms of like they'll still be trying to find out who they are. They should be able to compete

in this game. But I would still look at this as probably a loss for Indiana. Yeah, I go back to the 2017 bucket game that you and I you and I. That's when we went to that was at Purdue. I U lost 31 to 24. And it's just I I remember being like these two teams are pretty much the same talent. And I feel like, you know, I, U and Louisville are close to

talent. Louisville might have more talent, but I remember at that time being like, you know, man, Brahms team looks way better coached at the time. At that time anyway, no, I agree. And. And I was going to say and also Louisville was eight and five last year, they were four and four in the ACC. That's that's that's a lot of concerns there. Because even if Louisville lost

some pieces off of that roster. You know, they they gain a new coach who's, you know, you know, I think overrated at this point. Brahm is overrated. But I also think Louisville has to feel fairly good about what they're coming into the season with and it's it's just going to be interesting to see how everything plays out. That's a Louisville team that's that's really run the ball well the last couple of years. I think better, certainly better than Indiana has.

And I just. I would not be shocked by any outcome there. But at this point, I would pick that as a Louisville victory. So that takes us to the Acrony game. I do the same thing and the last thing I'll say about that is I remember, I think the last time got my memories. I'm 45 now, so my memory is, going by my memory, the last time we played Lucas Oil was the the Ball State game. Kevin Wilson's first game. I believe that's the last time we played in Lucas Oil.

And no, no, no the balls. The Ball State game in 20. 20/19 was the last time we played at Lucas Oil. That was the There you go. Yeah so there you go. But but I the the so the one the Kevin Wilson game that that first year the win with Wilson year I just remember that crowd was was rough like it was became a very quick Ball State crowd. We ended up losing that game but it was it was not like an

electric I U crowd. So I'm not sure that this is going to be a great home field you know advantage even though it's Indianapolis. So I I'm with you. I think it's a loss to Louisville. It's tough because there's going to be more Louisville fans in there than there should be. And you know, it might be Purdue fans there too, just wanting to, you know. And I get that that was the original terms of the contract and all that. We're going to do a neutral site

game and then home in a way. Although now it looks like any guys going to cancel their home game because they want to get out of the series. And it's just like, man, this was a wasted opportunity to play an easier opponent or play it in Bloomington when you might have a little more of a home field advantage. Because yeah, you're right. Like the people that are going to show up are. You know, it's it's going to be tough to galvanize a crowd in that stadium for that kind of a game.

So Akron, the next game, we we talked about this. I mean, Akron really looks bad on paper. They could be better this year. It's hard to say. But again, that's a game that Indiana has to win. I would imagine they're going to win simply because you would hope by that point they would have worked some things out. So yeah, I've got them winning that game, which would have them at 2:00 and 2:00 on the season. I as well have them beating Akron for two and two. Let's go 500.

There you go. So then you hit the next game and this is Maryland. Maryland is an interesting case because Maryland obviously had a really good season last year and they they come in with some, you know, good projections. I guess you could say coming into the season they're, you know, they're they're 41st right now. In PFF, which is right around where a bunch of other I U opponents are. Louisville's 33rd, Wisconsin's 40th, Maryland's 41st, Purdue's 45th, Michigan State's 48th.

Like, that's where all those teams are in those projections. Maryland, you know, you look at what they've got to do at the beginning of the season, they have a much easier. On ramp to the year than Indiana does, they play thousand, then Charlotte, then Virginia, then they travel to Michigan State. So there's a real good chance that that Maryland team could be four and oh, going into that game against Indiana, which is

not ideal. You don't want them hosting a game four and oh with a chance to win one more game and get essentially like on the doorstep of bull eligibility. But these are always close games. I mean, it feels like Indiana and Maryland kind of just trade punches historically. And, you know, I mean, obviously Maryland bested Indiana last year and and the year before, but both of those games were close. I mean, in a in a sea of despair in 2021 at Maryland, Indiana

only lost by three points. They only lost by five points last year. And then, you know, you go back to some of those previous years, you know, they, they beat Maryland handily in 2020. They beat them in 2019. They beat them in 2018. They they lost by three in 2017. My point is like, these are always close games. I think Indiana's got a shot in this one.

If they can get their offense sorted by the time the game gets going, and if their defense can do something to slow down Tackle Viola, they weren't really able to do either. They were. They were. The offense was okay last year. They just couldn't slow down the Maryland offense. And that's, I guess what concerns me about this year is. If if they can't get steady pressure, I just worry about their ability to make the stops that they would need to actually win that game.

So I'm going to bug over the loss in this one unfortunately. Yeah, I mean just real quick while we're here, I'm at the macro view for me is you know if you're thinking I use going to get five or six wins, this is going to be interesting like most people are in kind of the three or four categories. So it's kind of like where where you picking your where you

picking your spots. And so I'm just we'll get through each game specifically, but it's like you know you you I get nervous picking at the end of the year because these I use had a history of kind of just playing out the string. I have a hit. I'm nervous about picking you know Rd. games because we don't play well on the road. And also kind of, you know we haven't played well at home really the Big 10 in a while either.

So you know, this looks like one of the the ones to pick up, but as you mentioned, this is an offense that really can light it up. Maryland's recently had our number. I'm just not sure a defense can hold up at this point and I'm not sure are you know, based on the quarterback play it's very unlikely we're going to have whoever the starter is, is going to have four like 4 game. I I feel like this is where we might start monkeying with

quarterbacks. It's just it feels like this is a spot where maybe we start trying some different things and that may not be good with the I don't know. So I'm going to chalk. This one up to a loss as well. Next game on the schedule, I mean it's at Michigan that that feels like it's going to be hurtful. I think would be the way that I would put it and you know, and it's it's funny there was a stat that came out I think it was

yesterday about how. Like Jim Harbaugh's lowest margin of victory against the Big 10 opponent over the course of his time at Michigan's been against Indiana where they only have like an average margin of victory of 14. Which I mean that includes a bunch of games and includes that game and was a 2017 that they lost in overtime.

It includes, obviously, the the the win that Indiana had in 2020. You know, Indiana has has been, they've kind of taken the competitiveness they used to have in Ohio State games and they've applied it to Michigan games. Michigan just looks so good this year that it's hard to envision a scenario where Indiana's going to walk into the big house and win something they haven't done in literally decades. Like before you and I were born was the last time they won there.

That does not feel like this is the time when that's going to change. It's I I have a way different. No, it's it's the only home game Michigan has in October. They only have three home games after September 23rd, Indiana, Purdue and Ohio State. So obviously the Ohio State game is going to be a pretty hot ticket, but it's just there's not a lot of home games for Michigan throughout the year. So they're they're going to live it up.

They're going to get excited. The only thing you can hope is they're coming off of two Rd. games, Nebraska, Minnesota, and they're playing at Michigan State the week after. Maybe, maybe there's a bit of a trap. But even if there is a trap, I still think Michigan could wake up in the third quarter of like, Oh yeah, we got to win this game and then we'll play Michigan State and I yeah, we're going to lose. So next. Next game is Rutgers. This is an interesting one.

Rutgers is ranked ahead of Indiana and the PFF rankings. I think there are records like 71st or something like that. What are they, 7078? Sorry. At Indiana goes in ranked 91st, but according to FPI, which is ESPN's analytics projector, Indiana actually is a 61% chance of victory in this. Which is actually kind of disappointing given that, you know, Rutgers only won one game in the Big 10 all last year and this is a road game. The problem is the one game they won was against Indiana, and

that was a galling game. People have forgotten how annoying that game was. Indiana took 14. Nothing in the first quarter. And and then lost that game because they they could not keep Rutgers from from scoring points and and only scored three points themselves afterwards And so man you look at Rutgers I mean they just there's and this is the I think probably the thing that annoyed me the most about last year Rutgers was so bad in the Big 10.

Here was Rutgers point totals last year 10/10/13. 24 in a win against Indiana 01721100 and the zeros you know didn't come against you know the the the cream of the crop in the Big 10 they got skunked 31 nothing by Minnesota and they got skunk 37 nothing by Maryland and. You know, I I think Indiana's going to win this game, but I would frankly, Scott, not be

shocked if they lost the game. Because for whatever reason, Indiana just doesn't seem to take Rutgers as seriously as they need to and other teams do. And so you end up in games like this where it's like you should win this game. Rutgers is you. You're bad, but you're probably not Rutgers bad in terms of talent. But Rutgers has found ways to beat you, and that's that's just not acceptable if you're going to be competitive in the Big 10.

The way they won, the way that Rutgers won last year really concerns, because they they took a huge punch and just didn't seem to be affected by it at all, when they could have easily just rolled over. I also don't like the last two years. This team has not had a good history of. We kind of have these games circled where it's like, all right, well, we'll be able to get the right man. It's homecoming. It's Rutgers. It's like they're not good.

And like, we don't show up well for those games where it's like, that's gonna be our chance for a win. We kind of show up in those, like, Illinois games where it's like, what? What? Wait, we're gonna beat Illinois? Illinois, actually, It's pretty good. Those are all the things. Again, it's gonna be a team on vibes. I'm gonna be a podcaster on vibes, like my vibes are. Those are all things that concern me.

And there's something by cough brought up I thought was an interesting point about the the lack of crowds IN2020I disagree. I still think that game against Michigan we were the better team. We're pushing him around. But his take was that you know enough I U fans have seen games against Michigan that had fans been there, you would have kind of gotten that, you know, early Red Sox 2000s crowd or the Cubs

crowd before they won. Kind of that like the crowd vibe where it's like everyone just knows it's going to happen. And that's my fear here, too, is that a fan base is like, all right, well, Rutgers is our last glimmer for a real Big 10 win. And then, you know, suddenly at 1714. And we throw a pick or something and then it's like the whole crowd is like, oh, come on And you can just feel that crowd give up and that those are all the things that concern me.

And so I I I see Rutgers winning this game. Wow. Well. I I don't. I thought about that. I didn't do it, but I thought about it. So next game at Penn State this is sent. I mean, it's not going to happen. We'll just move on. We don't play Penn State. Well, Wisconsin at home. This is one that initially I circled on the calendar as I guess could be a game that Indiana could compete in. FBI's got Wisconsin as a 75.5%

favored. In this game, Wisconsin's kind of an interesting spot because they're they got a brand new offense that they're running. They've got, you know, prior to the week before this game. And really if you look at their schedule overall, like they have a cream puff schedule, all things considered, outside of 1 game, they here's them. I read Wisconsin schedule for you, Buffalo at Washington State, Georgia Southern. At Purdue. Rutgers. Iowa. At Illinois. Ohio State.

At Indiana. Northwestern. Nebraska. At Minnesota. Like, they've got two games that I would be worried about if I was Luke Fickle. That Illinois game and then the the game against Indiana. No, I'm kidding. The game, The game at Ohio. At home against Ohio State. But it's a home game, you know? So this is a Wisconsin team that legitimately, by the time they play Indiana, could be 7:00 and 1:00 or 8:00. No, we'll probably have all the kinks worked out of their offense.

It's I think in a in a different reality, this is a game Indiana might have been able to compete in. It's really hard to see a route forward given the relative talent disparity on normal times. And unlike what happened in 2020, Indiana does not have the good vibes rolling for them this season. So I again, I think this is unfortunately a loss for this team. I have Indiana going into this game at 2:00 and 6:00. You would have them at 3:00 and 5:00. Either way it's not awesome.

Vibes would be off and we haven't played Wisconsin in a couple of years. We haven't had Wisconsin in in Memorial Stadium in a while. You know, our our younger listeners, maybe the college listeners, this will be a good, a good introduction to you think it's bad against Ohio State and like you're like, man, we play bad against Penn State. It's like no, no. Like Wisconsin has a special voodoo over us that maybe no other team like Ohio State kicks the snot out of us. But they are also just

ridiculously good. Like, Wisconsin beats us to a point that is absurd to They're not good enough to beat us the way they do, but they do. This is going to be a loss. Next game for Indiana, They're at Illinois. This is a game. This is a place Indiana's played well at. They've won, I think the last couple of games there. And you know, Illinois, this is another one of those games, like Indiana's got this run of games

at the end of the year where? You know, the like FBI looks at them and says, well, you've got kind of a one in four chance of winning this game. And if you look at it from an accrual perspective, it's like these last four Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan State, Indiana or Purdue. A1 in four chance with four games, you would hope that that would mean what we're going to win one out of the four.

That's not how I I learned. I I had to learn this much later because I didn't do well in math class. But apparently that's not how odds actually work. Scott. This is another one where Illinois looks like a team that could be a regression candidate. They lost four out of their last five last year. They only win that they had in those last five was against Northwestern, which was not a challenge at that point. They they lost to Indiana, obviously, although that was

early on in the year. Lot of people think that this team is going to be better than it was last year and there's certainly an argument for that given that Brett B Lima will have had a full year to even more completely implemented system. I I feel like if Indiana had played Illinois at any other point last year than the first game, they probably would have lost to Illinois and unfortunately they're not playing them in the first game

this year. So I would, I would say that this is again a game that I would pick the opposition in as opposed to Indiana these last three games and we're doing them one at a time. But these last three all kind of fall into that category that we had at the end of the year last year with with Rutgers, Maryland and Michigan State where we were pretty gamey and all three of them.

And then you know things broke right for us when we won at Michigan State. I think all three of these are going to be in that same category. And so I could see us, you know you would say maybe we'll win two out of three in a in a different world. You mentioned the very top of the pod kind of going in and

you're becoming more optimistic. I think under more normal circumstances I would have looked at these three and been like here's what we're going to finish off with three wins and that's going to get us to 5:00 and 7:00 and it's going to be like wow we really finished off strong and we're going to have a lot of momentum going in the next year like that that's this is where normally that's what I would come up with.

I I again of all the reasons we mentioned earlier I'm I I just feel rightly more pessimistic than in the past. I I don't I think they can go win at Illinois. I really do. And in you know this is where you you beat them last year obviously. So you know you can do it. Illinois is not like a House of horrors. It's not a tough place to play all of those things said I'm just I don't I don't think we're going to win. So I gave us another loss.

And and one thing to note, Illinois again looking at the projections is going to be good this year. Like their their PFF projection going into the season is 23rd, which is they're tied with Florida. They're just ahead of Washington, who you know some people look at it as a dark horse playoff team. They're ahead of Iowa. So I mean that's that's that's a team that I think is legitimately going to be good. Two more games to go on the schedule for I U.

Michigan State at home. So this is a game that a lot of people have circled is like a game Indiana's going to win. They beat Michigan State last year. Obviously Michigan State had a terrible, terrible offseason. You know, their their quarterback transferred out that they've lost a lot of players. There's a lot of uncertainty around Mel Tucker. And yet, with all of that, and with FBI knowing that those players aren't on the roster, they are still a 66% chance to win in Bloomington and.

You got to go back a long way to find a lot of consecutive Indiana wins in the Indiana, Michigan State series, you know, and honestly when Michigan State is down, they they have generally found a way to pick themselves back up again. Now this is a tough one for them, but they may have some momentum like going into the last quarter of the season because you know, they've got two really easy games to start with. They get Maryland at home. They have a road game at Rutgers.

They have Nebraska at home. I mean, they've got some winnable games like they're going to be again battling, I think, for bowl eligibility at this point. And I have a hard time thinking that they're not going to have some negative memories of that game that they lost at home last year with the idea they're going to go in and get some revenge. And so I know it's been a trendy pick. I talked about it as a game Indiana could win.

But much like you pick Rutgers to beat Indiana, I'm going to pick Michigan State to be Indiana in this one. To me, this is more about Michigan State than Indiana on this one. Like it is Michigan State going to have a good. You know that they're in a Mel Tucker's got some questions to answer to and his fan base. But like if they're going to kind of fall apart like they did last year, I think this is a very winnable game. You know they have a tough they they you know they have

Washington at home. You know they're they're going to Iowa, they're going to Minnesota playing at Ohio State the week before this game. You know they they have a tough Rd. There's a world where maybe Michigan states or Michigan State is out of bowl eligibility going into this game and it's like they've just packed it up like they've done last year and maybe the if it comes one that

we can grab. I I don't think that's the case and like you it's just in previous years I would have been for a three-game winning streak to end this. I just don't see this. And again, I think this is where we get into the fallacy of oh there's a home game or a home game against the non Ohio State, Penn State team that's going to where we're going to get our win. I I don't see it. So I'm going to continue us. We're at. We are still at two wins on my

board. And then the last game of the year, Purdue at Purdue, 65% winning chance for Purdue in this game. I mean, look, ultimately it's tough to look at Purdue and I mean they had it. They ended up with a very successful season last year. They made the Big 10 title game, which was very irksome on a

number of levels. And you know, they, they beat Indiana. You know, I mean, this is, you know, you would have thought Indiana would have won the game, you know, based on how people talk about the game. But I'm looking at the score right now pretty 1 by 14. I if I'm Purdue, if I'm a Purdue fan right now, I'm really scared about what's going to happen with their program because, you know, they hire this up and coming coach who's never been a head coach at the college level before.

Yes, he was a very good defensive coordinator. But you know, something we've talked about on this show with Indiana I think applies to Purdue as well, which is that Purdue is not a program that handles inexperienced head coaches particularly well. And we we saw it in the in the 20 tens. We saw it in the late, you know the post Joe Tiller era. They they are best in the hands of coaches who have already kind of figured out how to run a

program. And they also have a schizophrenic offensive defensive pairing, with Graham Harrell as their offensive coordinator but a defensive minded head coach. Now that said Purdue has another

pretty easy schedule. They do have to play Ohio State shock and horror you know but that but they get you know that that Charmin soft big 10 W schedule to go up against again you know I think Purdue's got that they're they're clearly not going to be as good as they have been and I could probably see them going into this game with five losses maybe even 6 losses but. I've yet to see anything out of I U, because we haven't seen anything period at this point.

But even over the last few years that would lead you to believe that Purdue will be worse than Indiana in terms of preparation, in terms of discipline. So I would really be concerned at this point about I use ability to go into Ross Aid Stadium and win a game. So I again, I'm going to pick, I'm going to have to pick Purdue in this, as much as I hate to say it, giving us a three and nine record as far as my

projections are concerned. So everything you met one of your podcasts is not even with Taylor like this. The line that stuck with me was like Illinois defensive coordinators is not where you go to higher head coaches or something along those lines. So it's wild. It's it's within, it's not within conference. It's within division. It's it's a pretty wild coaching

change. He has a different philosophy like they've been, you know the cradle of quarterbacks and offense and and outside of, you know Jeff Braun, even Braun's like a seven wins his first year it was it was tough to get there. You know Purdue has also been like I you. When they have this kind of massive shift change in coach, it's a real struggle. They go 1:00 and 11:00, they have a really tough year.

That's what I'm thinking you're going to see out of Purdue this year And so you and I took different routes to get there. I and you know this is where again it's like it it is true like the bucket game is always weird. And I I think this is going to be two teams that are just both, you know probably searching for their third win of the year. But I I'm going to pick I U to win this, this game.

Yeah. So I have us at 3:00 and I think we're going to win it Purdue because I again, I I looked I think three wins. I kind of backward designed it. I think three wins is going to be where we're going to finish off. So it's like where are you going to find the one big 10 win? Like I said, it's just I I didn't think we we don't normally get it early and and I will say this, when you do look at you know 2020, sorry 2021 that the team definitely checked out but you do have to give

credit to 20/20/20. Scott, years are tough. 2022 last season, you know Maryland game, the Rutgers game, the Michigan State game, even the, you know the 1st 25 minutes of the Purdue game, you know that team stayed locked in when there were losses mounting when things were not going well. So going off of recent history, I don't see this team checking out. By the time we get to Purdue, I have to hope that we see the same thing we saw last year. The team is still locked in. I think they are.

I think that there might be more stability at I U right now than there is at Purdue, even amid all the changes, even though we had more, you know, snaps lost than Purdue did. I should stop talking because maybe we don't have much stability, but I'm going to pick for I U to win here because I just, I'm not picking it. I'm just not going to. I'm not, I'm not optimistic. I'm not going to be too intent. Pessimistic I'm going three and nine.

I'm picking the Purdue. I mean it's weird in that you know Indiana you think you can make an argument has had more luck at Ross Aid than they've had it at at Memorial Stadium when they played Purdue over the course of time. It's a it's an odd phenomenon but you know I mean even you go back obviously. You know this. This last year, Indiana struggled. The game at Purdue in 2021 was awful, but.

You know, go back 2019, I mean they they did win that game at Purdue after losing at home to Purdue the previous year in a game that would have taken them to a bowl. So I don't know. I mean, I maybe, maybe Indiana does play better in a situation where they don't feel the pressure of their own crowd. It's a weird series. It always is. I just, I at this point, I think, you know, Allen's got to prove that he can win those types of games more regularly. That's probably.

You know, outside of the six wins in two years thing, that's probably the worst thing on his resume at this point is, is the lack of of success against Purdue in seasons where otherwise there was not a whole lot of other success to point to. I mean, that's that's where we really need to see in a season. If you're going to win three games, four games, somewhere in that range, beating Purdue when they're in a transition year would help to.

At least have some good feelings going into the offseason. Well, not not getting too big. Like, you know, we're probably not going to go to a bowl this year or probably not going to win a bowl this year or probably we're not going to win the Big 10 this year. You know, I I don't know this is the year we get the scalp where we beat Ohio State. You know, Michigan or Penn State.

But you know this is where if you're going to have small victories and start clogging your way back up like winning the bucket game is that's something. I mean that's that, you know, at least, you know in our two scenarios I like my season better. You have a You have a home win against like. To me, it's like you have a ton of losing, but you beat Purdue. You win the bucket. It's like you still finish the same way. It does suck that you go from

September 23rd. I mean to November 25th in my world, but it's like you still have a bucket win like this is where Maya does matter. To quote Norman Dale, my my season projections are not designed for your enjoyment, OK?

I just call them like I say. No, you're right though I given the choice of. We're going to beat Rutgers at home and go 3:00 and 9:00 and the other two wins are going to be Akron IN state versus your scenario where, hey, we're going to be we're going to beat State Rutger and then and then we're going to be Purdue on the road. Yes, that's absolutely a more successful season. These things matter. Like, I mean this, these little things matter like this.

It's a this is all we're going to have. Like we're not, you know, we're not going to win the Big 10 at any time in our near future. You know, we're we're not, like I said, bowls probably not going to happen this year. But you know, this is an attainable goal, right? Purdue is, Purdue is gettable. Even if they have, even if they have a nice little two or three-game run, like Purdue is not going to be an unattainable team this year.

So go in the bucket and you know, I'll end on trying on this positive note, something you've mentioned many times, that, you know, we're both pessimistic because we're both just it's we we've been fans for a while and there's not a lot to go on as we've talked about ad nauseam and all these previews. But all of that said, you know, at Maryland, home to Rutgers, at Illinois, you know, home to Michigan State, Purdue, those are all five, like legitimately winnable games.

I don't think we're going, I think we're going to win one of the four of them. But that's that's five winnable games and you have two must win games. You know, that's seven. There you go. Like, now you're going to are you going to get them all? No. But if you get, you know, four of the five and you get the two and you're at six, like there maybe in Louisville's, it's not like Louisville's Ohio State.

You're like there's a, I don't want to say there's a world you can get there because I don't think there is. But these are none of these are all like that. They're not unwinnable games. And that's the thing I think that, you know, when you talk about expectations, like that's what we should be looking at this year is like, I just want to make sure that we're having a puncher's chance in these games and we're not getting, you know, boat raced in those five or six

winnable games. Yeah, but I mean, I hope you're right and and look, no, I mean it's not, it's not a foregone conclusion that they're they're going to have this tough of a schedule or tough of a of an outcome in terms of things. But I also will say something that you've said, which is that, you know, after a while, I mean you've seen over the course of Allen's tenure so many games where, yeah, they were in it, but that's just college football.

It's like. It's it's hard to lose games by double digits, just like it's hard to win games by double digits, that the nature of the game kind of keeps teams close together unless there's a clear talent disparity. But the details are always the devil when it comes to Indiana. And that's where I would get concerned about Indiana's capabilities in terms of actually handling their business

in a lot of those games. And if they, you know, if they have a string of losses where they're losing by 7 to 13 points, I think the time for moral victories is over. You know, and it's been over for a long time. Like at some point you got to, you got to execute again. You executed, you know, four or five years ago, you had to execute again. And I'm not seeing a whole lot here that would give me optimism about that prospect. So anyway, we've gone way too long, so we'll go ahead and wrap

things up again. We'll be back on Sunday to talk about what happened in that Ohio State, Indiana game. That kick offs at 3:30. You know we'll we always do this every year if you're if you're new to Crimson cast and you've made it through this entire podcast and you're listening to this now hey you're in the right place clearly. But we'll we'll be recapping what happened in the game and we normally record that late Sunday morning and we have it out by

Sunday afternoon. So check that out if you've got questions you can always well, you can still tweet us on or access I don't know what the what the verb is there. But go to substackcrimsoncast@substack.com. That's the best place to catch up with us for things. And otherwise we'll hope the Hoosiers completely outdo our expectations and make us look foolish and make us apologize. That would be the best possible scenario with all of this. So my thanks to all you folks for listening in.

Thanks to our friends at the Back Home Network. Thanks to Home Field. Are presenting sponsor on field apparel that is thanks to you Scott and we will see what happens this year is Indiana football starts another campaign we will catch you folks on the flip side bring back the Bison. So long, everybody.