Ep 989 - Louisville Recap

You're listening to the Back Home network presented by Home Field apparel. How you doing folks? Back at it again here on Crimson Cast, I'm Galen Clavio got Scott Caulfield with us and it is the 17th of September a Sunday as we are here to recap Indiana's loss this past weekend to the Louisville Cardinals up in Lucas Oil Stadium by the square of 21 to 14. We're going to talk about the

game. We're going to talk about personnel or talk about some things we liked and didn't like and we'll see where the conversation goes. Scott, good to see you. How you doing today? I'm doing great, man. How you doing? Good to see you. Happy Sunday and start to cool off. We're getting there. You're getting there. I'm. I'm leaving where I want to be and you're getting to where you want to be. So I the yeah, the cool.

It's I I we had a little party yesterday on on our deck with some folks over to watch the game and we actually had to move inside because we got attacked by a squadron of bees that would not leave us alone. Which was kind of a shame because I was looking forward to watching the game outside. But that's a great example of why, you know like the changing seasons and like being outside in general. I think you're kind of highly overrated in and of themselves.

I don't know if the bees have any idea of getting getting cooler, but I'm going to go and blame that on them because I've sat outside on the deck most of the last month and they haven't come and attacked us so. I do have to say this the the Venn diagram of the amount of time I talk about the weather versus the amount we talked to start the podcast is like way out of kilter. I know. Well I I talk to you all the time.

We never never yeah we this is a crutch we need to get off because I think people think we're way more into the weather than we are. It's a good it's actually it's a great point. Well it's good though we're you know we're we're throwing some subterfuge up so people don't know where we're coming from. But yeah no I think Scott and I have ever talked about the weather other than on the

podcast but we always come back. I just, I think honestly it's a distraction mechanism because it's almost always during football season that we talk about the weather. So I don't think it's us and I don't think the weather is to blame. I think it's actually I U football. So we'll get to that. But first of all just a reminder folks that we are brought to you by home field apparel, your place to go for the finest in college fashions, the softest fabrics, the the coolest

designs. You know, they they just they they don't miss, as we say, a lot of home field magic out there throughout college football. This past weekend I saw several fan bases claiming home field magic when their team unexpectedly won. And that's what you could be a part of, folks. You go to homefieldapparel.com and check out their wares and if you use new code Scott. If you use the code home 23 you get 15% off your first order. So check them out home field

apparel.com. Check them out on social media as well. Check them out. They're they're doing like a little Rd. tour. They are. They're going to the graduate in if you want to go to Ann Arbor on in like 5 days in September 22nd and then October 20th, they will be at the Bloomington Graduate from 4:00 to 8:00 on October 20th and 7:00 AM to 12:00 PM to noon as we call it on October 21st, 7:00 AM.

Man Connor's getting up early and maybe they'll do like a bacon shirt, Like a bacon and eggs, you know, special shirt. I think this is where you need interns. Right. This is this. You have a 7:00 AM merch shop opening you it. That's like, hey, intern, this is this is your time to shine Intern, right. Yeah. You know, this is it's not it's not all just kind of, you know, sitting there at 3:00 in the afternoon and then people walk in and, you know, pay you money for shirts.

You got to get up with this the crack of dawn there. But now that'd be great. They've been down I think once before for a little pop up at the Graduate. If you haven't been to the Graduate, it is at Grant, not Grant at Lincoln and Kirkwood and that'll be a great time to go at 4:00 to 8:00 on that Friday. I think it's for Friday leading in. I mean the streets will still be closed. Kirkwood is pedestrian traffic only for the most part until October 31st, So head down there.

Check out the home field apparel shop in the Graduate on Homecoming weekend both before and both Friday and before the game it sounds like. Anyway, Scott, let's go ahead and dive into this Indiana loses to Louisville 21 to 14. God, there's a lot to unpack with this king. And again, I remember when we started doing our initial preview podcasts for I U football, we talked about how, you know, a lot of the the talk around I U and the way that people discuss I U you it's like a Rorschach test.

You can kind of read into it whatever you want to. And we were talking about that with the offseason and with some of the changes that had been made where some people would interpret them if they were, you know, pro Tom Allen. And and you know, really believed in his tenure that all these things were, you know, showing that there was a renewed commitment to the the the program and the team and the

things were turning around. And the people who felt the opposite would just say, well, this is more of the same and it's not going to work out. I feel like this Louisville, Indiana game is going to be a lot of the same kind of talk because on the one hand, Indiana played horribly for 30 minutes, like some of the worst football that I've seen them play in terms of just, you know, not making plays when it mattered and letting the other team make plays.

Then on the flip side, Indiana made a great comeback in the second-half, one that any I U fan would be proud of. They got themselves back in the game. They did it through some trickeration. They did it through good solid play. They had a couple of big plays themselves and and really looked like a team that belonged on the field with what it appeared to be, an overwhelmingly more athletic team that they were playing against in the first half.

Then you have the ending offensive sequence which just kind of erased all of the other 28 minutes or so of goodwill or you know that have been generated in that second-half. And that's really what a lot of people, I think have been focusing on since the game ended. A lot of positives and a lot of negatives to take out of this one. Scott, where do you want to begin and? Then you also forgot, after that there was the, you know, the the discussion I want to get to

later. We're going to put a pin in this, but the the the game kind of ends with a whimper because we don't have any timeouts to stop things. We have to kind of let it go, but let's put a pin in that. I want to come back to timeouts. My I'm going to leave this to the like. The thing that I was taking notes on during the game is just how you know, for those who play poker, it's not always having the best hand.

It's also like the stack is also how much money you have is a big, you know, big part of it. So if you if you're playing against somebody who has you know a lot more money than you, they can just go in on a bunch of hands and put you in really tough situations. And I was thinking like. This unfortunately, is like a situation I U Football gets itself in way too often where they have these in my mind or like these are really must drives for the offense and the

defense. But they're happening like in the second quarter or early in the third quarter, Like they're happening really early in the game. Like I've marked, you know, after Louisville goes up 14 to nothing. I was like we are next time we had the ball. Like this is really a must drive for us to do something. They ended up with third and 26 and didn't do anything. And I guess I was wrong because they still had a chance to get back in the game.

But the rest of the third quarter, it felt like we were just in these, you know, the defense, we got a hold here. The offense has to do something. And I I think that just puts a stress on the team. And it's it's bothersome that in these games where you know, Louisville is not Michigan, Penn State or Ohio State, it feels like too often in these games against similar matched opponents, it's like we're put

short stacked. Really early in the game and it feels like we can't have anything else go wrong. And then when you know like the the low snap to Jackson during that drive that I'm talking about kind of killed that drive and it. It sucks but it's like and it's one mistake. So it's like people can make one

mistake. The trouble is when you've pushed it to this point where like every drive is now really a high leverage Dr. you don't have the ability to make mistakes and still be in the game yet we know Indiana's going to make mistakes so it's kind of not it's more maybe a little more like you know high level than this game. But it felt like that's was one of the issues with this game is you get to a point where you're just back against the wall for so much of the game that you

know again that 4th and. Phone call wasn't awesome, but it's like that's kind of a symptom of having like pressure on you for 48 minutes when Louisville kind of doesn't.

So yeah, it's high level take on the game, no. And I think it's it's an interesting one because in addition to what you just described, Indiana has a tendency to they'll get right up to the precipice and we've seen this over and over under Allen. They'll get, they'll come back, they'll get right up to the precipice of being able to completely square the game or even take control of the game. And then they're almost like a spent force at that point.

You know they they can't push it over the heat and you know you think about it like Indiana came back. They they get the touchdown on the the drive that's immediately succeeded the onside kick in this game and then they get another touchdown and you know the all the momentum is in their favor. And then essentially you know Indiana then allows an 8 play drive which was granted only 20

yards. But it's like man you get a if you could even can just buckle down and get a three and out there you really feel like maybe the momentum does ride. But as often happens, Indiana spends a lot of time digging itself out of holes, digging itself out of its mistakes. And then by the time they get to the point where they need to get a push, they can't quite get there.

And I, it's kind of honestly, watching this game in a lot of ways, reminded me of many of the games I U played against Purdue when Braun was coaching there. We know where none of those games, except for I think one of them has been blowouts. But with the exception of the game up in West Lafayette in 2019, which almost went the way I just described, Indiana has always struggled to get over the hump because adjustments get made on the other end and Indiana can't overcome the

mistakes that they've made. And I think you bring up a really good point. I mean, this is really through three games now. This team, I think we've established the following things. This team does have talent on the roster, like this is not a bereft team of talent, and they're clearly still to some degree learning how to play with each other.

But this is also very much like a lot of the Allen coach teams that Indiana's had in that they really hurt themselves in a variety of ways in that that are controllable. And whether that is penalties at inopportune times, whether that is poor strategy on play calling, whether that is missed assignments, You know, again as you said to some degree, you know it's you could you, you can't pick any one play or any one penalty and point to that and say that's why Indiana lost

that game. But what you can do most of the time is look at the collective like accrual of things that Indiana does in these games and realize that, well, yeah, I know, you know, I can't blame this play or that play, but I can blame in collection the 15 or 20 times that it happened in the course of the game. And that generally ends up being

the difference. I mean, this is what's irritated me about a lot of I use games is that, you know, Indiana hasn't been untalented, but Indiana has struggled with a coherent plan and the execution of that plan on on more occasions than we can count. And so it takes a performance against a team like Louisville from my perspective, which again, there's a lot of positives which I want to get to

here in a second. But it it, you know, you end up looking at it as if it's cast in the exact same light as all of the other times. We've seen a similar formula to this result in Indiana losing a winnable game against an opponent that perhaps people didn't think they'd be able to compete against when the ball was kicked. And so that's kind of my high level take on it.

And it's just, it's frustrating, but it's frustrating in the same way that like, you know, the utility company continuing to bill you for something that you turned off 10 years ago is it's like it's frustrating and there's like literally nothing that can be done about it, it feels like, because nothing ever changes year after year. It's there you go. There's our tagline for next year. I U Football. We're like Citizens Energy or

like water. Alright, Do you want to go positive and then negative or negative and then positive? I want to hit the positives first because positive and this. I will probably say this 12 more times. I will stop bringing up the Ohio State game, but this is a positive. Give it up to Alan, the coaching staff, the players like this shows why sometimes being aggressive is really helpful. And that's what was so like.

Then last thing about Ohio, it's so bothersome about the Ohio State game is it just seemed like they were just. Waiting to be put out of their misery coming out of the start of the second-half. I mean, I mean sorry out of halftime. The onside kick was great. Like that's a great call. I love it and it goose the offense and then you have a three play drive kicked off by like a 35 yard pass play like you're being super aggressive. I think the team rallies around that.

You have kind of, you know that they kind of get into this passing offense, much more aggressive offense. And just by doing a couple of plays like that, you really see it kind of kick Indiana into gear and they looked like the aggressive team, the team that was going for it, Louisville looked like they were on their heels.

Even to the point that, you know, we call that, you know, the play that looks similar to like the the Colts punt play where it's like you have everybody on one side of the field. It didn't end up doing much, but I did kind of like that. I like that. I think it really goosed the offense and got things going.

So in a positive note, a lot of credit to that cuz I think you kind of needed something to kind of kick, you know, lack a better term, kick this whole team in the ass, like hey, play the football game and so a lot of kudos to that. I love starting out with that. Yeah. No, I agree. I think this is where what happened at the end of the game is maybe not the best

representation I know. I U does this where they start getting like that they what works is kind of being aggressive and they get super conservative at the end. I was just I was trying to stay positive. But no, but it's it's the case. I mean what's fascinating about it is that you know I I think that in the second-half for the 1st 26 minutes I U looked really good on offense.

I mean they they, you know, if you look at the statistics, you know, 299 yards through the air and you know, I think 2/3 of that happened in the second-half. They didn't look great running the ball, but they figured out ways at key moments to try to move the ball on the ground. But they really did leverage the passing game effectively and there were some clever plays that were called that were

really confusing. Louisville and I think Walt Bell and the offensive staff deserve a lot of credit for that particular segment of time. And this is kind of the duality of I U Football. Is that on for, you know, unfortunately. But I think realistically you can't just hang your hat on those 27 minutes and say, see, we're doing what we're supposed to do because the other 33 minutes of the game just worn up the stuff.

But we're going to hold off talking about that because that's obviously not in the positives category. Now, tied directly into that, Scott is another positive that has a negative side to it, which is it appears Indiana has a quarterback. I mean Taven Jackson. I've been watching I U. Football for a long time and very few players have come in and within a short period of time established both the pocket presence and a general mental approach to the game where they don't look freaked out.

They're not constantly looking to run. I mean, this was what made Michael Panic such an intriguing quarterback when he was here. It, to some degree, is what made Peyton Ramsey look like he was potentially going to be the future when he first got here. And there's been a couple of others like that. But you know, for a guy who didn't win the starting job in the offseason and barely played at Tennessee, you know it really does feel like Indiana's found a

bit of a gem here in that given. I mean, you could look at the pass blocking grades, they were terrible. I mean, Indiana pass block grade in this game was 45.4 on Pro Football Focus, which that ain't it folks. And yet with that, Taven Jackson manages to complete 2434 passes for 299 yards, get the touchdown. The interception was not entirely his faults, you know, it was something that really shared with the the receiver. But man, you know Taven Jackson. That's something to get excited

about. I think for I, U, and and you know for all the the questions about the quarterback position, they do seem like they're going to be set there as long as they utilize him properly. Yes, trying to stay positive because like there there's a tinge of negative. But yes, everything you say is 100% right. He he looks great. I mean some of his passes are a little bit high. That can be worked out. That could be adrenaline just getting used to it.

Maybe it's not enough snaps by not being the starter to start the year. But you know he looks really good. The other thing is I wrote this in my notes he looks really good as a pocket passer. He looks doesn't look as great running a triple option which not like. I just have to get to this point like. I, you and I are podcasters. Like, I don't know more about football. I'm not watching practice. But like, I remember in 2021, after that first game at Iowa, it's like Pennix isn't ready.

Like, how did anybody on the staff think he was ready? I can see he's not ready. As I'm watching this game yesterday, I look at this and it's like Jackson looks like a quarterback who can play really good in the pocket. He doesn't look like a guy who can run the triple option with Fine, not. Everybody. But it makes me wonder. Why were we going into this year running a triple option? Why do we run so much triple

option against Ohio? It's like that does not look like that's what he's good at, which is fine. Like I'm also not good at like driving Indy cars. I don't do that on a weekend basis. Like I that's where I get frustrated. But no, Jackson looks really good. His numbers look really good. And what I like about him is he has in this respect not so much the running as Payton Ramsey, but with Payton Ramsey, you know, he got a lot of, you know,

a lot of completions. At a short yardage but could still hit a longer shot when needed. And you see what with Haven Jackson like he's 24 for 34. Really good completion percentage. A lot of that is kind of shorter passes but he's making those completions which we didn't see counter base lack do as much last year but he's also able to hit Jay Lucas for 30 yards when need be. So no, I I agree.

I just hope that now the staff fees like this is a guy who needs more time and practice running as a quarterback, not doing, you know a triple option or being a dual threat quarterback. Yeah, I know. I mean all of what you said there. I mean I want to, I want to circle back to that a little bit. But it's It is fascinating watching I U playing this kind of a game and having what Indiana's doing on offense be what logically they should be

doing. But having it be so diametrically opposed to what the coaching staff has indicated that they want to be doing, that's a hard thing to get my head wrapped around. This is. Where like I just have to jump in. Like this is where our season previews are always so hard. Cuz I feel like this happens every year where it's like you and I are doing our preview. We've been told we're running a wishbone or we're running a, you know, a triple option and then it's like by game three it's like.

Yeah, we're not doing that because that's not what this team does. Like that's where the previews so hard because like, I feel like year after year you and I are told one thing. It's like, hey, we're going to be running like we're not going to, we're never going to punt all year and then all of a sudden we're punting on 3rd down every play. It's like this anyway. This just it's but that's where we're at. I also positively, if you don't mind, I just like he's electric,

like Jalen Lucas is so good. Like I know, we've been saying on all of these pods. You know you do with Taylor and it's like it's true, like we just got to find wise. They find ways to get him the ball in space, but he is just electric whatever he touches the ball. Now it's true and look, I mean Lucas was such a huge part of the offense and you hope that that would be the case and that

was what we were asking for. And look, I think the coaching staff clearly did realize that he ends up with the most touches of any non quarterback. On I use roster 10 catches for 98 yards 8 carries for 29 yards which is a separate thing but you know it's clear that for Indiana and the fact that they're the offensive line is is still not good.

I I think I can go ahead and officially say that Scott the the the grading in both passing and running is not good in the yardage and running has been terrible but.

Lucas is such a great safety valve and as we talked about in the preseason, getting him into space in the situations where you're basically using the short pass as the run, that appears to be one of the big keys to Indiana's offense being able to do what they need to do, You know, Another positive that I'd like to point out is that after a shaky start to things, I thought the defense played pretty well down the stretch. You know, Aaron Casey had another big game.

I had two sacks, had three tackles for loss. Those were things we talked about in the pregame podcast. Indiana was going to have to create some havoc plays. You know, Louis Moore had a I had a pretty good game overall and and certainly made a lot of tackles for you had the most solo tackles on the roster and look, Noah Pierre, who's you know, been somewhat derided, you know, in the past for some of his play I thought was pretty good.

He came up with some key breakups of passes that otherwise probably would have been long completions or touchdowns. You know, so there were there were individual elements with the defensive players where it does appear that they're they're melding into a unit that knows what they're doing. And what was interesting I think was the adaptation that was made in the second-half.

You know it Louisville looked so athletically superior to Indiana in the first half that I think I legitimately felt like it could be a 40 or 45 point loss. I mean it. They just look like I use defense could not keep up and. Yet when you know after they score on that offensive or that onside kick, you look at what they were able to do against Louisville for most of the second-half.

They force A5 play 13 yard drive, They intercept Louisville on a three play 8 yard drive, they force A8 play 20 yard drive that results in a punt and then they force A5 play 18 yard drive. I mean, up until that drive at the very end of the game, they had Louisville completely under wraps in that second-half and. That that's really encouraging, both in terms of the individual play and in terms of the overall collective play that the defense, you know, was able to do. So I like that.

I mean, the one thing you're you got to ask yourself about, and it's clearly something that actually got even addressed in the postgame press conference, is like, why did it take 1/2 for Indiana to figure out how to defend Louisville schematically? You know, I know. I mean, clearly there is a difference in athleticism between the two teams, but.

Indiana looked just a bit unprepared in that first half on both sides of the ball, but defensively, especially for them To put in such a good performance where they shut out Louisville in the second-half, it just makes you wonder why they couldn't have done that from the beginning. And again it's one of those things that goes back to the death by 1000 cuts model of I U. Football. Well it's it let's staying positive.

I mean this so many times we we kind of you know get annoyed at the coaching staff of IU for not making halftime adjustments especially against a coach like Brahm at Purdue. You know, this is 1 where again, he came out aggressive with the onside kick. The defense played better in the second-half. You know, this is 1 where I'd say we we made the halftime adjustments that got us back

into the game. It's just this is kind of the whack, A mole problem with I U. Football is it'd be awesome if we had the the right game plan to start the game and the halftime adjustments put together so you actually have a coherent game plan. It's like, I feel like next week we might start out great and then you know or against Maryland, you know, Akron might not be like Maryland's, like we might start out great and then not have the half.

It's like we either great and don't have the halftime adjustments or we kind of don't have everything set up right. You get down 21, nothing. It's like, oh, again, now it's time to kind of kick in. But from a positive note, you know it. If you had to grade this out, no question Indiana came. Had the much better halftime adjustments than Louisville did. Yeah, I mean it's this is one of

the things we've asked. A lot about over the course of time is, you know, why is it that Indiana struggles so much? We even talked about it I think in the pregame where it's like I was more concerned about Indiana playing Louisville close in the first half. And then you know being out adjusted going into the second-half.

So this was a nice reversal that unfortunately had the exact same outcome as we're used to, you know, but like Spiderman wears, like, yeah, Spiderman one or Spiderman two different villain, but hey, Spiderman Go wins. Indiana's first and second-half is pointing at each other angrily in an alley. Yeah. So yeah, look, this is. So now I guess we have to talk about the the end of the game, I mean. The the last. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry, go ahead.

You sure? Yes. I I look at things and I say, you know that last, the last drive that Indiana has, it was, it was an interesting one. They they get the ball at their own 10 yard line. You know, this was, and this was part of this weird sequence that happened where you know, Indiana got the ball back after stopping

Louisville and they just, you know, they threw. 2 incompletions and then a pass that was the route didn't get to the sticks and then they did a good job of stopping Louisville after they picked up a first out and Indiana then puts together a really, really nice drive And it was a it was a mix of things but it you know most of the big gainers getting down the field

were. Based upon the passing game and he had a nice 12 yard run early in the down early in the sequence, but Indiana really got through the middle of the field with the pass to camper, the pass to Lucas, the pass interference call. So they get down to the five yard line and then they do the following the false start which pushes them back to the 10 And that's what that happens.

Believe it or not, with six minutes and 14 seconds left in the game, it feels like they were down there, you know, in the red zone. At the death basically of the game, but it was 6-6 minutes and 15 seconds left of the game. So they false start, then they run the ball to Lucas for three yards, then they hand the ball off again, loss of a yard. Then they attempt to pass but end up that. That forces the Jackson run where he is, I think rightfully ruled down at about the half yard line.

And then they run like everyone had. It's like, it's immediately like, Oh my God, like Michael Pennick Junior. I mean, it's like, except for the fact it's not Memorial Stadium, it's not against a good team. It's like like it did have a lot of the Michael Pennicks Junior, the shades of that play. Anyway, go ahead. Then on the flip side of things, you know we're not the flip side but the the tail end of that sequence. They on 1/4 and and goal at the

one. Run a an incredibly slow running run play but the only after calling a timeout from the sidelines so they could have extra time to talk about what they were going to do and predictably that gets stuffed And it just you mentioned this earlier on it's more frustrating than anything else because you know I don't think that it's fair to trash the overall play calling of of Walt Bell and the

offensive staff when. They managed to get 90 or 89 yards down the field in that drive and had a potential, you know, played at 4 plays really to tie the game up. But the mentality when Indiana gets into these situations, as you mentioned earlier, it's like it completely changes for no good reason whatsoever. It's like they lose confidence in the thing that got them there in the 1st place and.

It was just really frustrating that Indiana decided on three of those four plays that they're just going to kind of run into the teeth of the Louisville defense when that hadn't worked all game. I mean, for the entire game, Indiana ended up with a grand total of 58 rushing yards on 27 attempts. That's 2.1 yards per attempt. And you know, figure of that 58 Henderson had rushed for 12 of

them, you know, on in one run. And so you're really not talking about an offensive approach, that it worked the whole game. So why when the game is on the line, is that what you default to on three of the four plays? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I mean this is this work where I get really frustrated because like you know Alan in the postgame is he, you know, he's asked about the 4th down play and he says, well we don't second guess that, which OK,

whatever. But then he's like, man, you just gotta, you just gotta make the play and it's like Tom. Your team hasn't effectively blocked for the run in those sorts of situations the whole game. Like why would you think that they suddenly would be able to? I mean, this isn't a sports movie. Like it's not like the the guys are going to be on the sideline and like reach in and grab some some inner depth of purpose that

didn't exist before that play. I mean the physics are involved here and you know, so it just that that kind of thing. Especially when you, you know you look at the entire package of things you don't you kind of throw away 2 downs you through and and you also shoot yourself in the foot and you get a penalty. You know for a false start which you just can't have in that situation because it means you've got 5 yards further to go.

You, you know you get to a point where you've got the 4th down. You don't run out. Get your defense or get your offense set, see what the defense has to offer and then call time out to see what you can do. You're just like there's going to call time out, Okay? The, the decision making process and the way that things happened there I think are are more frustrating than the actual execution of the player, lack thereof.

Because asking that asking are you at that point to do something that they hadn't really been able to do for almost the entire game seemed fanciful. And it's hard at that point from my perspective to be like Oh well they, you know they they did their the best that they could do because. There were a myriad of different things that could have been done there, all of which would have had a higher likelihood of succeeding than what they chose to do. It's just total side note.

I, it's funny you mentioned like the movie mentality because I've made this joke in my seats hundreds of times over the last like 10 years of football games. Like I've joked like, you know, all right when they make the movie of the Kevin Wilson era radio. When the military to lend it like this is the moment when the music starts to swell. Like it's like we'll have a drive against like Michigan. We're down 12. It's like this is the moment where we're going to make it never happen.

So I I want it. You, you mentioned two things I want to hit on because if you go to the time, the drive before that drive where we got down to the goal line, you mentioned it for a second. What's funny is I had that drive marked out because all the momentum, Louisville just punted. We have all the momentum. We come out and fall start to start that drive. It's first and 15, we run Jackson up the middle. It's second and 15. You have an incomplete pass

almost picked off. And then then they they do go for it on A they get to 4th and three, they go for it. And I wrote that. I like the call. I was like the problem is you have a false start and you basically burned a first down. So now it's like you're you're running with three downs to get to like you you basically you burned it down and you had a false start. It's funny I'd actually forgotten we got to the goal line we also false started but it's exactly what you said like

the the the problem. I don't like the play call. I thought it was a bad play call but it's like it's compounded by that you exactly you mentioned we false started and then you burned another play before that that that first downplay where

you just run up the middle. It's like we do this so often and that's what's bothersome about these runs up the middle is it's like you're just throwing it down away and that's what bothers me is you're doing those types of things and it's it's even more compounding I'm I'm stealing your line from Twitter or I'm calling it Twitter. I'm sorry high school friend that changed their name. It's like you were Twitter to me you're not X your Twitter.

Like I think the next play that Louisville has their on, obviously like the the half yard line they run like they just run an out with plumber. He gets like 9 yards and it's like hey, Louisville showing us what we should have done the last play we had the ball. Yeah it's just it's it's frustrating. It wasn't a great play but to me it's it's like less about that play. It's more about burning downs and fall starts and again mistakes that hey man, we're gonna make mistakes.

We're not a well oiled machine on football. But again, when everything is high leverage, the mistakes just are a big deal and it is. I'll wrap with this like I the preview with you and Taylor, I think one of the questions was about like hey, how, you know, paraphrasing like how how are we gonna get penalties off of you know the second the, the.

Special teams and it's like man we don't you know like kind of joking if it said it's not something we really work on and you know I know this question will come up it's like how are we going to get these you know these false start these silly penalties out. It's like I this is a feature not a bug of this program. It's not even in.

This is not even tore down. Like just since you and I have been watching football except for maybe a couple years under Mallory. Like this is just it just we're not there yet. Like we're just not there as a program. And so it's frustrating and we can ask every year and I think it's worth asking, but it's like I just don't think until we're able to demonstrate five or six years of continuity and being good like you're always going to

have these penalties. But it's just it the problem start to compound and then you get there anyway. No, look, I think ultimately what what makes it the most frustrating? To me, yes, the penalty and it's funny because Indiana only committed 4 penalties that they actually got penalized for in the game but they all felt like they came at key moments and and that that it's it's it's that as

much as anything. But I'll also say the following my my biggest complaint about the play call at the end hey it was a terribly designed play. I mean if you go back and watch the Vikings Eagles game from Thursday night and if you look at. Think that's a team that had confidence in their offensive line, had a very tightly packed formation and really focused on shoving the quarterback into the line of scrimmage and over the goal line. Indiana doesn't have that offensive line.

So lining up the back 8 yards behind the line of scrimmage on a play where you have to gain a yard, I mean if you go back and look at the replay the the the top down replay. Indiana, by the time Henderson gets the ball is like 3 yard line. Contact happens at the three. The ball was snapped at the half yard line. I mean, and and you know what's fascinating is as somebody pointed out, like nobody blocks the left side of the line.

There's another still picture. The ball is snapped and there's three offensive lineman who still have their hands on the ground. And I say all that not to try to pick on the offensive line, but more. You know what frustrates me a lot in sports is when we see teams and coaches try to force their team or players to do something that they're not capable of doing.

And that to me that whole sequence felt like, you know, I you deciding that they were going to run the ball in and and you kind of, I mean you got that sense even in Allen's postgame explanation of the call and it's like your team doesn't do that well and it hasn't done it well. All game and it really hasn't done it well all season. What have you done? Well, you've you've you've passed blocked a little bit, at least enough that you can get some short yardage stuff.

You have a quarterback who has shown the ability to throw the ball. You also had a formation that if you were thinking you know if if Jackson doesn't hand the ball off to Henderson and just bootlegs it. To the left, he he could have crawled on his hands and knees into the end zone without anybody being there. Louisville was so committed to stopping the run in the box.

And so all of that just frustrates me because we see it over and over again with I U where they get into these situations and not only do they go Uber conservative, but they also tend to try to force themselves to do something that the other team is really good at stopping and has already demonstrated an ability to stop. There's rarely any innovation. In how they approach those situations and you know the the few times that there have been all kind of happened in 2019.

It felt like when there was a very different mentality about how Indiana was calling the place And so that's that makes the last thing I'll say about this game. It makes it hard to effectively evaluate what to think coming out of this game. I said on that pregame podcast that. You know, a moral victory in in air quotes where Indiana plays Louisville tough for the whole game and loses by, like, you know, seven points or whatever at the end would not be bad. And I believe that.

I believe that. I still believe that. But the manner in which it happened makes it hard to know exactly what to think. You know, I think only the most foolish or uninitiated. Of of I, U fans, people that that that haven't been through this before would look at that and say see that's something that I use definitely going to build on. That's a game that they're going

to get better from. Because we've seen these games so often in Allen's history, and we saw it with Wilson as well, where this type of game gets played and then nothing actually grows out of it as you move forward, because it's. You know, and this one I think is especially hard to parse out because what do you focus on? Do you focus on the fight in the second-half and how well they played?

You could, but then what about the no show on both sides of the ball for 30 minutes in the first half? You could focus on the bad offensive play calling at the end of the game for Indiana, but then what are you going to ignore the great play by by Jackson and by Lucas and and the overall contributions from the skill position players that we saw for most of the rest of the second-half?

You could focus on the defense not being able to stop anybody, but then you're going to ignore the fact that they did. It's even the play calling in general. I mean it's just like it's so it's so Jekyll and Hyde. So I don't know what to make of this at this point. I don't know whether to feel ambivalent. I don't know whether to feel discouraged. I don't know whether to feel encouraged.

I do think that we, as we've learned more and more about the team, as I said at the top of this, they're not untalented. But I'm still not entirely sure that they are going to be much better than the three and nine record that I predicted at the start of the year. Because this team has a remarkable history of playing down to whatever level opponent they're playing and oftentimes just under.

And that has not shown to be a winning formula thus far under most of the time that Alan's been here. So we're nearing episode 1000. But I'm get I'm slowly getting better. I wanted to talk about timeouts. You should be proud of it instead of me just jamming it in on a 10 minute monologue where you're trying to cut me off In the beginning I've I've been patient and I've waited so I'm

I'm slowly getting better. I want the the last thing I want to talk about on this game is just the timeouts because as we mentioned after you don't get it on 4th down Louisville they have the ball. The game's over. Like you don't have anymore timeouts. And this is. I'm going to get a little bit pissed here, but this is just like this has been going on for

seven years. This absolute mismanagement of timeouts all of the time, as if they don't matter when you're when, when you're on a razor's edge and you're having these games that are really close, having the ability to get one more shot at the apple is a big deal. These these football coaches, all they ever talk about is you know how important possessions are and like you know we gotta prized possessions and then you just piss away time outs, which

is giving away a possession. So first half, this isn't the the end of the first quarter. We're still in the first quarter. We're on offense. We call two time outs in one effing series. On the first time out, we come out and we get no yards on the play. We run a second play, third down, we come down. We have to call time out again. That results in us throwing an interception.

Now this is where I get really retroactively pissed, because both those timeouts looks like Jackson was having a hard time getting the offense set. Louisville is moving some stuff around. He comes up to the line and suddenly it's like we're the play clocks running down. He's got to burn a timeout. That's in one world. It's fine. Like, I get retroactively pissed because it's like, hey, maybe we don't screw around with this Jackson Sorosby thing so much the beginning of the year.

Maybe more reps at the beginning of the year. Let as the number one quarterback with this crew gets Jackson the ability to let me just, let's finish time out gets his ability to to see those things get ready for it. But so you have two timeouts in the first half and then the second-half you have a timeout. It's a third and 14 play. There's a holding play which brings back a touchdown and then we just we call time out on defense. Well, everyone's kind of getting things figured out.

We come out and we're immediately off sides. Like out of a timeout we come out, we're off sides, and then we have a timeout before that 4th down play. So we have 4 timeouts there. Our ending result is no gain, an interception on defense, we're off sides and then a two yard loss of the goal line. Like at some point, if you're gonna use timeouts, not at the end of the game, they need to provide a value for the team because right now it just looks

like we're mismanaging. We're not ready or we come out and then we have an immediately another penalty that just negates everything. So, like, we've got to get this figured out because timeouts are important at the end of half and end of games. So I think you hit upon an important point. I think that I was talking to somebody yesterday and they said accurately, it felt like Indiana just kind of punted the first two games of the year. And treated them like an extension of practice.

And they got the results that you would expected. They lost to Ohio State. They beat Indiana State. But your point about the lack of repetitions coming back to bite you, I really do think that there's an active question that needs to be asked. Like, you know, if you have Tavin Jackson and the number one offensive unit out there and they're playing all the snaps against Ohio State. And they're playing most of the snaps against Indiana State. Are they better prepared for this game?

And I think, I mean I don't know how you could for all meet, we hear about the importance of practice. For all, we hear about practice and repetitions, the idea that they would be not better prepared if that had been the approach. That's what I think has been most frustrating about the start of the year is like it's hard for me to believe that Taven Jackson just became.

A quality quarterback that you could tell that he could make throws and had moxie in the pocket that that just happened in the last week like that really stretches credulity. And so if if you're able to see that, rather than mess around with a quarterback competition that ended like everybody assumed that it would. You know, why don't you just say, look what is really important? We get 12 games, we're going to need to win six of them. We have a brand new quarterback coming in.

Why not just whoever it was? You pick a person based upon what you see in practice. You don't do these rotations because you have to get practice running plays against live opposition that aren't your own practice squad or your own defense. Like that is. Really frustrating and it really makes you wonder in a game like this where you had executional issues with with some aspects of the offense, you know, especially in the run game, it's like would more reps with him at quarterback.

Reading defenses mattered. I think it would have mattered in a positive way because those first two timeouts on that series, like, I don't blame Jackson. Like I blame the coaching staff because I you're. Going to, you're going to do that with it. You're doing that with the software, you know, with a with a young quarterback, you know and as much as we talked about while he's young and he's still. Starting Okay. There's no substitute for doing that in games.

And you know, yes, it stinks that Indiana had to start against Ohio State, but you could have still run plays against Ohio State. You could have still figured out yo Okay. So we have to focus on specific areas, but only playing him for half of that game essentially, and then not getting the full amount of reps in the Indiana State game. It just seems very.

Counterintuitive, knowing that you have to get your quarterback up and running four games, like the Louisville game of the other thing, I'll say you know, within that confine, given that they didn't name Jackson the starter and they didn't have him play all the snaps the first two, the offensive timeouts are a little more understandable. I don't like them.

But the fact that they happen in the first half and the fact that, you know, even though they didn't have a good outcome initially, at least you are establishing at that point. OK, no. When you're not sure what to do, let's take a break and let's figure out what we're supposed to do. That's fine. What irks me is the second-half timeouts. So you mentioned. The third and 14, they get penalized or they though they get all time out because they only have 10 men on the field in that.

It's like that's a fundamental, like very basic error. The after 1/3 is after a long play. Where it was it was called back. So you had this like long intermission. It wasn't like a quick Bang Bang play. And then as you mentioned you, you commit a penalty right afterwards. And and and that. That's really, really

frustrating. But then the other one that really hurts me I talked about earlier is this idea that, you know when you're at the goal line, you have certain things that you can use to your advantages and offense. And one of them is you can force the defense to show you a look. And then you can make a decision. If you were just planning on going and taking a time out, fine. But you can motion people. You can see if they're just going to focus on the box.

You can read the defense a little bit more. You know you can. You could. There's so many different things that you can do before you call a time out. Rather than just saying what we really need to just talk about this. It almost felt like they didn't know what they should be doing

in that particular situation. And he got to know that and and that's so that not only was the time out from the time that it was taken irksome, but the fact that they felt compelled to do it right up front because they they were, they were they seemed unsure about they were supposed to do that is really problematic as well. But again it fits in with a lot of what we've seen historically. So it's again going back to kind of what I started the segment on.

There are positives. That you can take out of this and and I'm really like a lot of the players that Indiana's got on their roster particularly the skill position players on offense and I really like Jackson and you know we we had a we had a strong suspicion the offensive line wasn't going to be good. Okay, We knew that already. But overall like I'm impressed by the players but the the structure that they're playing in is not doing a whole lot

right now and. You know, you can look at the game and say, well, gosh, that's a Louisville team that'll probably win 8-9 games. You know, the fact that you came back and almost tied it in the end and maybe would have gone for two, I mean, that's great. But the flip side is I don't know how much of a lesson is going to get actually learned out of this because it looked an awful lot like things that we've seen before and very few lessons appeared to be learned from

those situations either. So it's just going to be really interesting to see. What this means, and I still don't know that we've necessarily grasped the bigger truth of whatever this team is at this point. Now through three games, you know that that's we're not we're not any closer to it than we were before the game started. Scott I don't think, no, I mean if there's ever and no will never be a Indiana football category on Jeopardy, that would

be insane. But if there was a great, like, you know, $1000 double Jeopardy question would be, you know, if Jackson has, which we hope has a fantastic year this year, it's like hey, who is who is the game one starting quarterback for the 2023 Indiana Hoosiers. You'd be like, oh that was that was Tavin Jackson's big breakout year. It's like, no, that was Brendan Soros. Me like that was you know it's the I'll end with this that you know I agree with you. I'm not sure.

I think I have a feel for how this team is going to be. I think, I think I have a feel for him. I don't think this is like definitive. It was getting there when we're 21, nothing. It's like, all right, this is, this is really going to be rough. They they pick themselves up off the mat, but like you said, they kind of did and then at the very precipice of doing something they didn't.

And so I'm not sure what we have here, but you know, I was talking with a friend the other day, you know that it's like we're not going to win the bit, You know, we're not going to be winning big 10s. We're not going to the football playoffs. So it's like you're talking about, you know, do balls matter at all? I'm like, well, for us they do like they have balls have to matter because they don't like I don't know what we're doing here

because we're not. We're not playing in that upper echelon where bowls matter and you know, trying to get, you know, if getting to a ball, to me as I think like a, that would be a really nice benchmark for a season because if we're winning, you know, three games or four games, it's kind of like then we're just circling the drain. Like who cares, you know the road now narrows like it's just like this was a game that it's not like this means we can't make it to a bowl.

And we were very competitive and if you change a couple little things we could win games like, you know, Maryland and Purdue and Michigan State and Illinois coming up this year. But it's just it's it's frustrating at this point because the road is narrowing and it feels like we're always in that spot. Like like I started the you know my initial thought with the game is how we're always kind of getting our backs to the wall and we're short stacked.

It's like we get that way in a season 2 where the the road starts narrowing. We're not even a September 18th yet like in the road already you know the the the medians are already cut off by construction so to speak and we're getting down to I see that the the the merge arrow for one lane coming up. So it's like that's that's what is frustrating but it's not all bad a lot of good things and I I I'm with you Jackson's really good.

Lucas is good like on offense we have some we have at least a pulse that I thought lat you know two weeks ago I'm not sure we had. I'd like to say welcome to the party, Bradley. Archer who, you know, I mean grad transfer from Stanford tight end. This was not a guy I was expecting to see a whole lot of, made a couple of great catches in the game and and actually ended up as Indiana's highest graded pass catcher right in front of Jalen Lucas. So that's great.

I mean tight end has been a big question mark just because of the the lack of experience at that position and the fact that he was able to come in and provide a safety valve of sorts and the Jackson was able to cite him and use them was great. You know and and look I think the the receiving corps continues to look pretty good overall despite the fact that the the past blockings been kind of uneven from various people on

the line. I I don't know I'm it's really I see individual moments or individual efforts where I'm like I this could add up to something. And I still think that a lot of the games we highlighted in the early, like in the preseason podcasts, those are still leveraged games. I think Indiana at this point, I can at least say, has shown that they're not going to be incompetent to the point that they can't compete in those

games. You know, you look at obviously Maryland coming up in a couple of weeks. You look at Rutgers, you look at Illinois, you look at Michigan State, Wisconsin, Purdue. I mean, there's that six teams on the schedule right now. But I think Indiana has at least a puncher's chance of beating. If you think about you know how everything sets up and that's good.

I mean you know so I. So we have learned that at least I guess what concerns me is more that when you look at this Indiana team, their ability to. Seal the deal in games that are close against teams like that. I'm just a little bit concerned about. I mean, the one game Indiana was favored by or favored in according to FPI, which is ESPN's predictive statistic in the Big 10 going into the season

was the Rutgers game. And Rutgers has played well enough now at 3 and O that Rutgers is now a slight favored in that game according to FPI. And so that's what worries me. It's like. We we as as observers and fans and people watching this team as we often do in the in the preseason for I, U Football, I think we get activated and turned on by individual moments of good play by by players or by position groups. And that's fine.

But a lot of people take that and then run with it and say see Indiana will compete in the conference. But we tend to not look at the statistical output as it compares to the other teams that Indiana's going to be playing and that's why we have predictive statistics. Indiana will still probably be rated second worst in the conference when the new SP Plus ratings come out because other teams have just played better than them. Maybe they'll be third best because maybe Michigan State

falls behind them. But if everything is pointed towards, can Indiana get to a bowl? I do worry still about their ability to pick up the four wins that they would need to against that group of six teams. And by losing to Louisville, that's what you've essentially left yourself with on outside of a couple of years, we we're kind of always in the we're either bad or it's like we're we're good enough to be close in games.

But you know, being really close and it's like I don't want to get into moral victory talk, but being really close and then winning a game, like those are two totally different worlds. And you're right, we get to the precipice and then we can't win. But it's it's not just one play like I think we've tried to outline in this pod, like the the the ability to step over that precipice and take a 21 to 14 loss to Louisville, which was

close. Like, yeah, that 4th down play, everyone focuses on it. It's like it is the timeouts. It's the, you know, the fall starts. It's like 5 or 6 mistakes. You can't just pick one of them. You got to clean all those up. And that's what takes a loss to a win. And then to win all four of those, you got to keep them cleaned up for all four or five of those games. And that's something that just historically Indiana has had a really hard time doing.

And that's why winning is tough because we've shown as a program we can get really close. We have a bunch of like Matt Zimmerman says, like we're like the king of moral victories and you know we're defined by our close losses because those are not that hard, hard to do. It's how do you take the next step and then turn those all into W's. That is that is really, really hard.

It involves kind of solving not just one of the mistakes we outline, but you kind of have to solve 80% of those mistakes to turn a close loss into a what is just a close win. And so I'm with you. I'm not sure if they are going to be able to get all those things done, but I'm I'm with you that the road is still there and it's it's I'm more optimistic of four to five wins now than I was two weeks ago.

But I'm also realistic that is probably going to get closer to the 3-4 that you and I predicted at the beginning of the year. I mean, you know, it's interesting because there's a lot of toss up games on Indiana schedule. I mean, the Indiana's of 91% favored against Akron Maryland. Indiana is is only a 27% favorite. And and honestly, as as Jekyll and Hyde as Maryland has looked, their explosiveness on offense is pretty frightening.

So if you take that out, particularly since it's on the road, you know the Indiana, Rutgers, I mean that's a very even game. It's 5446 in terms of FPI slightly in favor of Rutgers. The Wisconsin game is actually Wisconsin has not looked that great so far this year. That's 64% in favor of Wisconsin, 36% in favor of Indiana. That's I mean that's that's a better chance than they had at the beginning of the year. Illinois, it's 61% to 38% in favor of Illinois.

Well that's closer than it was in Illinois has not looked very good. And Michigan State, Indiana is basically it's going to be too at that point. Yeah, I mean that's right. Yeah. Michigan State might not exist as a university at that stage, but that's a toss up right now. So, but it really ends up okay if if we exclude the Maryland game from the sample for the moment. And you look at those other five games, it's like, can Indiana win four of those five?

And that has to be the destination. I mean, I I think there might have been an argument that, you know, 3:00 and 9:00 or 4:00 and 8:00 would have been acceptable if Indiana didn't have an effective quarterback and if Indiana didn't have the skill position players that they clearly have and if they didn't have some of the defensive personnel like Aaron Casey, like Andre Carter. But they've got all those pieces.

So to me, this is a team. That should go to a bowl and I don't want to hear about the Big 10 E because again, you've got Maryland, Illinois, Michigan State, Purdue, Rutgers, you know, all on the schedule and Wisconsin and you get Wisconsin at home who's, you know, been not that great looking so far. So you know, now I think maybe I adjust my expectation of what the team should do up a little bit because they've shown that

they have a pulse. But in the back of my head, I'm like, I don't think this is a whole lot different from what we saw last year probably in terms of what the outcomes will be because they still look like a team that's going to struggle to close games out against teams that are roughly equal in strength. So anyway any final thoughts before we wrap up Scott. No, no man.

I think you know we're I I probably won't be doing that the preview on Akron with you but I I I stand by what I said with Indiana State you know because I I say you just got to get a win. Like I I know we kind of slightly disagreed you know very minimally on that but you know if you look at Indiana State like they played well they got some confidence what did it get them coming out looking comatose against Louisville Like I'm not

sure how much. Like to me, we're back at the point with Akron like style points don't matter. Like get a W like really, really close. Like having to do it in the last field goal probably wouldn't be awesome, but I I don't think there's much you can take. This team is showing that it's not like they're going to get a bunch of confidence boost and then you know they might come out DOA against Maryland. Like to me, Akron is just that is a complete you've got to get a win in that game.

So that becomes the next task and that'll be a 730 kickoff for Indiana prime time hopefully on the actual Big 10 network, not Big 10 network overflow one like the Louisville game was. So we'll we'll keep an eye out for that. Couple things real quick before we wrap up. First, our condolences to. The I, U football family over the loss of Marty Clark. The Earlier this week Marty, longtime football employee, passed away and Marty was actually my neighbor. I think I mentioned this on a

podcast about a year ago. I was neighbor neighbors of Marty for about 3 years. I had a couple of graduate classes with him. Great. You know, great guy to talk with and will certainly be missed and I know that. His loss was was clearly felt throughout the entire I U football community. So we are condolences to his family and our best wishes with

them moving forward. The other thing I'll note is that as we are moving into the next couple of months, we will be ramping up basketball coverage alongside of football coverage. And just a reminder that Crimson Cast is on sub stack, you should go ahead and subscribe it's. Crimsoncast.substack.com It's free and you'll get emails directly to your inbox noting when an episode comes out.

We've got additional thoughts and and items that we'll throw out there as well, so go ahead and subscribe if you'd like to as we're trying to move away from X bit by bit, so crimsoncast.substack.com We'd love to have you join us. Again, signing up is free. No obligation beyond that. Anyway, Scott, as always, a pleasure. Looking forward to chatting with you again in the future and my thanks to all you folks for listening in. Our thanks to our friends at home field apparel and across

the entire back home network. Be sure to tune in throughout the course of the week. We'll have preview podcasts coming up for the Indiana Akron game as well as the weekly Crimson Cash, which you should catch on Thursday nights, Friday mornings. For Scott, I'm Galen, this is Crimson Cash. We'll catch you folks. On the flip side, bring back the Bison. So everybody.