You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cast, Galen Clavio, Scott Caulfield joining you. Happy Friday. We don't pot that much on Fridays. Scott This is a nice change of pace. It's nice. Kind of end of the week on a on a high note. Yeah. Little Friday news dump for
everybody. Between the news the hot yes the the between the news of I U naming their permanent offensive coordinator and also the Indiana Kentucky series and basketball coming back. We had a couple things we wanted to hit as we went into the weekend since there's no football game to talk about this weekend. So we didn't want to leave you folks high and dry. Of course, folks, if you haven't listened to Crimson Cash which came out yesterday, you should definitely check that out.
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We've got two big items we want to talk about, one of them of course being the the FOIA information that came out that the Indy Star with Zach Osterman reported today regarding the terms of the permanent offensive coordinator, now Rod Kerry who's on staff and we're going to talk about that. And then there's some questions we probably should ask about this whole process. But there was a another big story that came out earlier in the week that we wanted to talk
about as well. On the basketball side of things, there's really a couple of stories. Is it there's a, there's the television component, which I want to touch on as well. But the big news is that the I U Kentucky series is coming back. A4 game series was announced with Indiana hosting one game in Bloomington, IN hosting another game at Lucas Oil Stadium, and then Kentucky hosting 2 games at Rupp Arena. This series is a little bit in the future. As you know.
The announcement was that the series was going to resume in, what was it, 2025? So we still got a couple of of, or at least one season of waiting, maybe two. I think it's probably going to be two because I think it's 2526, but that's, you know, still it's cool to hear. And yes, indeed it is the 2526 season that it will resume. And so you're talking about not this season, not next season,
but the season afterwards. And Scott, we've heard people, you know, begging Dick Vitale, you know, finally lived to see the day where this series is back. He can stop tweeting about it now, which is great. These teams haven't played in the regular season since, of course, December of 2011, when Indiana, of course we know what Indiana did. We're not. We don't have to mention it again here. They obviously played once in the postseason in 2016. Indiana won that as well. You're what?
Oh, no. They played in the postseason twice. They played in the postseason after the like they played in the postseason twice since that regular season game. Yes. Yeah, I'm sorry, Yeah, that you are correct. But your thoughts overall on the series coming back? It's all, I mean I wish you would have had a series with Louisville and I'm kidding. It's great picked up here. Louisville made more Missouri games. No it this is, this is absolutely fantastic.
Like this needs to happen. I know that the Dick Vitale thing does get a little Mimi, but it it's true like this is where you know for for 10 years the series isn't happening. And then of course ESPN has their own reasons for doing it. But it's like all you hear about is, you know, Duke, North Carolina, this. Duke, North Carolina, that it's like this is one of the key rivalries in college basketball.
It should be happening. I remember vividly with my dad year after year, unfortunately a lot of losses but driving down to Freedom Hall to watch the game. We go to the RCA Dome to watch the game. And while I do like it on campus, I I've always loved the neutral site games against Kentucky where it's blue on 1/2, red on the other. You know the the thing that obviously you know the. Most people listen to this podcast, No I U Basketball and care about it.
But I think for those who aren't initiated into it, like, you know, the other piece is unlike a lot of these other rivalries, like at the high school level, the Indiana, Kentucky high school basketball game is a big deal. Like having the Mr. Basketball, Indiana play, the Mr. Kentucky Basketball. Like that's a big deal. Like this is something that starts young, starts in high school. It's so nice to have. So there's really nothing. I mean, but I want to talk about the. Rights.
I think it does kind of give credence to what always seemed like that the the the games kind of broke apart because COW or Kentucky didn't want to play home games or play an Assembly Hall. That kind of was like an urban legend, which I thought was true. But the way this broke out, it definitely feels that way. But on the surface I mean this is this is great for Indiana. It's another highlevel opponent. It's great for the area.
It's great for recruiting like they're really is outside of the fact that we only get one assembly hall. There's really no way to spin this in a bad way and I'll just finish on this like, you know what? We'll talk about the sites. But there is a world where, you know, I hate to say it, but you know, Kentucky has been the better program and there is a part where it's like if one team's going to have to concede a little bit to get this going, it's going to have to be us and not them.
And so I'm happy we did it. And you know what, let's beat the hell out of them and earn two home games in the next 4 game run. So I hope this just continues, but no, it's it's there. There's nothing bad and.
Last thing, sorry, last little thing that the marketing department took some heat for the football snapping video and that's all I'll say they they did release something on Instagram with like a bread line and a blue line that like outline the States and have like highlights the games behind it. Awesome. Like just an awesome awesome from the I U marketing department and and it shows. Like this is one that matters and it's funny.
You know for Kentucky fans, I I like kind of hopping on their blog sometimes and seeing what they say and they're kind, you know, for them it's like they just want to play the best opponents. It's kind of like Oh well, I guess you know we'll give Indiana they they want this. As much as they may not say, but it's like this matters to them too. Beating us matters to them more than sometimes beating like a Michigan State or a Kansas. Like there really is animosity there.
It's great. And you know it's it's it's all good. Yes. Yeah. I mean look, the series should not have ended, right. And I look, I've always maintained yes, Calipari, certainly I I think he looked at it and says I have very little to gain and a lot to lose in this series if I win. Well, I U hasn't been on our level in a while, which is true. Indiana lost 10:50 games in this series from the mid 1990s to the the mid 2000s.
You know, and I also think that Calipari probably looked at it and said, you know, if I lose the game, I get in significant more trouble than the ratio I would get of of applaud. It's like we're expected to beat Indiana. It's not worth the risk of losing. But I also think look, I, you know, there were I you needed to be willing to put it into different markers. I mean, you know, for the longest time this series as you mentioned was played on neutral courts.
You know, you get past 1990 and it was not played in either Assembly Hall or Rupp Arena until 2008, you know, So this this was a series that for almost 2 decades was a neutral site showcase. That was always where I disagreed with the arguments that came out of the I U athletic department and out of Crane and in particular where it's like, well, this had to be campus sites that Fred Glass used to say, as it doesn't have to be campus sites. It never was, but it was almost a convenient.
It was convenient for both parties. It was convenient for Indiana because Indiana, your cream, didn't really want Kentucky on their schedule. I don't think that Archie Miller wanted Kentucky on the schedule for various reasons. Both of those coaches had a lot of heat on them anyway, and Indiana fans do get mad when Kentucky constantly beats them. We saw it with Bob Knight.
We saw it with Mike Davis and it had just kind of become so onesided that I think Indiana, even though they obviously won the game in 2011 and they won that game in the tournament in 2016, really felt to some degree like, you know, at least their coaches did, felt like it was more trouble than it was worth. But it's unfortunate because it is such a good historical measuring stick for both programs. You know there's there's no question.
Kentucky has certainly had overall the the better of the series, but it's not by a huge margin. It's a seven, you know seven wins, 32 to 25 and there have been stretches where Indiana's been dominant. You know the the early 1970s Indiana was a pretty dominant team the you know late 8, mid to 80s to early 90s. Indiana rattled off more wins than losses in that stretch.
Anyway, I'm I'm just appreciative of Mike Day, of Mike Woodson. Sorry for saying at the beginning of his tenure that he wanted this series back and then figuring out a way to make it happen. There was a a really nice piece on Eamon Brennan's sub stack where he talked about, you know, and the title of it is right there, Indiana versus Kentucky is back because Mike Woodson is
chill. And you pointed out like, yeah, it would have been nice to have had two home games in Bloomington and two home games in Rupp Arena or all of them on neutral sites. And it felt like if you're looking at it from the outside, perhaps Kentucky got the better end of the deal and that they get to host it twice. But frankly, if I'm Woodson and I and Woodson may not even be here for the entire length of the series because you know, he might retire at some point, probably will.
But my contention with all of these, Scott and and we've seen the change now with Woodson, is that playing these kinds of games against the team that's almost always going to be in the top 20 in Kentucky as a program on the road or on neutral sites. Doesn't hurt you. It doesn't hurt your tournament chances. It doesn't hurt your profile. You go to Kentucky and you lose. That's not going to be a
problem. That's not going to be a problem on Selection Sunday. It's not going to be a problem in terms of national reputation and it also helps you to measure yourself against the team that's always got some of the top basketball players and top athletes in college basketball. So you know the the argument that it wouldn't be something that you would want to do. I'd never bought that.
And I think it really does help I you as they climb their way back up the college basketball ladder, having that series, getting that Kansas series, that Indiana's playing the second game of this season. These are the games we've been asking for since the 80s. And I think for the I U fans that were like, well, Dawson got job or Woodson shouldn't agree to the setup. I think you said it perfectly. Indiana was not in a position to dictate terms. Even though Kentucky hasn't won titles.
Kentucky's been significantly better at basketball over the course of the last decade than Indiana has, and I'm glad the series is back. And I'm glad that Woodson was willing to say, yeah, shit, we'll play them anywhere, which is essentially seems like how it went down. You look no further than Michigan State in the Big 10 like this is that's a team that has had a lot of success and
they play anybody, anywhere. They'll play on aircraft carriers like they're just they play a brutal nonconference schedule it seems like every year and and that's something that we just weren't doing and it's it's as a fan like it it. It's annoying because it's not preparing us for the tournament, but it's also just boring that, like for a couple years there just wasn't a lot of good preseason. You and I would always kind of go to the best one.
As I remember, one year was like St. John's. It's like we had St. John's at home and now look back-to-back years. You and I went to Vegas last year. We're both going to New York this year. I'm already excited for the Bahamas next year like we are, you know, it's kind of like the, you know, this is very like Oprah S but like, you know, act as if, you know, like just at, you know, there was a secret. Like, you know, assume it and it'll it'll become true, you know?
This is kind of what Woods is doing with the scheduling is, is you know I think he came in and said look we're going to our goals to win a title like whether we get there or not. But like we're going to act like a program that's trying to do
that. And you know from the scheduling point of view Woodson just in my mind has to get a pluses across the board because it's like you you you mentioned the Kansas series like we're playing you know this Empire classic, we played Arizona and Awana playing Auburn and a one off. Both of those were in kind of like unique arenas.
You know, we're doing the. The the Bahamas you know the the battle for Atlantis. Now we brought Kentucky back on the the the P and I agree with the the idea of like it's it's partially because Woodson is chill because it does feel like our man. Yeah whatever. We'll do one of Lucas. Like who like it's kind of like our man like whatever you need like baby gets his bottle.
Our Kentucky. You want you want to do one of Lucas like fine do one of Lucas. We'll have 40,000 tickets And what's great about it is I saw like Rick Bosage had a tweet like I talked to Scott. I thought this was funny, like I, you know, talk to Scott Dolson and like, you know, IU is controlling. The majority of those Lucas Oil tickets and first tweet underneath it was a Kentucky fan being like, Blue's going to take over the stadium. It's like to me, it's like that's great.
Like This is why this rivalry is awesome. It's like it's already starting. And I will also quote Bosich was on Alex Bosich's podcast podcast on the Brink. I don't know how we got him on the great. We really do need to get Rick on Crimson cast. So we do. Yeah, we do. And Alex too. But Rick had a great point. He's like, you know, this is, you know, Indiana signed the home and home with kids and I get it.
Totally, a little bit different. It's like nobody was complaining about, you know what, Kansas got the first home game. It's like nobody cared about that. But yet for this series, like there's actual arguments about where the games were. Now I get it's a little bit different, but I think had no matter how it happened, people have been like, well, how come the first one's in rough? Like, why isn't the first one on Assembly?
Like, to me that's all good. But I think this goes to Woodson. Teaching, taking this program and kind of acting, you know, as if like as if we are a national champion. This is the way you schedule and honestly, this is the way you schedule. This is the way you activate fans. It's like these are great moments and yes, at some point you need to start winning some of these games, but the first step is to schedule them, get into them, which we're doing.
And now you have engaged fans. Like, I mean again, you and I were in Vegas last year. I you know, no question Arizona has been a better program than Indiana over 1520 years. And that place was 70% full of Indiana fans. Yeah. And it it's, I think you, you hit the nail on the head. A lot of it really comes down to you can't schedule out of fear and you can't schedule to try to mitigate risk. And it really felt like Tom Crean, that his scheduling was about mitigating risk.
And and I don't know if that's because he started off with the losing records and was selfconscious about that and that certainly wasn't entirely his fault. But the way that it changed, the way that Indiana had always scheduled and when they scheduled, I mean, when when Calvin Sampson was here, when Mike Davis here, go back and look at those Mike Davis schedules like they were brutal.
Mike, you know, Bob Knight obviously always tried to schedule pretty tough when you look around the country. And and I don't want to eliminate Archie Miller. I mean, Archie Miller also didn't exactly line up a murderer's row of nonconference opponents for Indiana. But if you look at the way that over the last 20 years, Michigan State has become one of the four programs that's always in, you know, whatever that Champions Classic is at the beginning of
the year, it's them. Which is so galling. But yeah, that's the thing. It's like that used to be Indiana's spot in the pecking order. And they will. They've willingly seated it over the course of the last couple of decades. This is how you go back to that and and it requires you playing games that you might lose. I mean, Indiana lost that game pretty handily to Arizona last year. They got blown out by Kansas. Guess what?
They were a four seed. You know, they were the second best team in the Big 10. And they're probably not that way if they don't have that measuring stick early on saying, you know, this is the teams you're going to have to beat. Not Eastern Washington, you know, not not Chicago State. Like, these are the teams that you're going to have to play
against and even like. I mean, it was a Gavoc game, but the playing at Xavier last year was a really helpful game and that, you know, you don't get a whole lot of credit for scheduling those or the ACC Big 10 Challenge games. But the fact that when you do have a chance to schedule these things. This is why getting rid of the Crossroads Classic was so important. This is why we kept talking about this, that when you look at the dates, you know the 2027 game, the dates are already
scheduled. So it's like, mark your calendars, December 18th, 2027, that was a Crossroad Classic area date, and December 16th, 2028, like that's a Crossroad Classic date. And you and I were always on the same page of this. Like the Crossroad Classic was nice. It was cute what lasted. But at some point you're just playing Notre Dame and Butler just over and over again and it just it gets tiresome.
And there's. So many other great teams to play and that weekend it's like that was always kind of that open weekend where everybody has these big games and so 100% agree. Yeah, I mean ultimately and and look, I know this sounds arrogant coming from I U fans whose teams, frankly, have not done much on the national stage over the course of the last 30 years.
But Indiana's destiny? Where Indiana fans feel like they should be, where Indiana's athletic department certainly acts like the basketball program should be is in that top echelon of games. And the Crossroads Classic, to me always felt like a a conceit that didn't need to be made. And it's not the station that's Purdue station, frankly, that's Notre Dame station. These are good. You know they're they're, they're respected basketball brands that are regional in nature in Indiana.
I think by constantly throwing themselves into the Crossroads classic kind of, I hate to say lowered themselves to that level, but certainly drop themselves down a station or two from where I use aspirations should be. And this has really been when we talk about the philosophical heart of I U Basketball and kind of the struggles with.
You know arguments over whether Crean was a good enough coach to be here or or what to do with Archie at the and you you I think deserve a lot of credit for bringing this up over and over again during the Crean era especially this idea that we're not do we're not acting like a top level program we're acting like a program that is concerned about winning games not necessarily winning championships and.
What I love about the Mike Woodson era, one of the many things not and we see it in recruiting as much as we're now seeing it and scheduling is he's like this is we're supposed to be up here. We're not supposed to be down in this area. There's a mentality to that that is so critical to being a program that's up there. And I think you see it with UConn I mean. You know Dan Hurley has taken that program and he said we should not be middling around in you know and not playing against
teams. We we're going to ramp this up to a level where there's no question that we are going to compete against the best. We might not win all the time and then of course you know that they turn in win a national championship last year. So I'm I'm thrilled that it's back. I don't care about where the games are at. I you know and because again I think Indiana had has something to prove in this and Kentucky
right now doesn't. Yeah no. And and the thing the the bigger point on Woodson too is just this it is, as you're saying, like it is kind of hitting this, you know, acting as if. But yeah, you schedule a lot of these games and you're going to lose some of them. Like, I don't think we're going to go four and O in this. Like we're probably, you know, going to struggle in the Empire classic And but you see it in recruiting too.
You know, right now we don't have, I think anybody signed for the 2024 class, but we have I think four or five, five stars all on the docket that we're up there for. And it is, it is kind of like you have to pull the fan base, myself sometimes included, into that mindset of like, yeah. Like if you're going to play with the big boys like, yeah, you're going to kind of do it without a net like. And yeah, we're not going to have a bunch of three stars
signed for the 2024 class. Like we're going after five, five stars and we're not going to get them all. But it's like it's going to be a little bit of a high wire act. But that's what Kentucky does. That's what Duke does.
And they do it with a little more confidence because they normally start every year with like a Fivestar already locked in. But I always felt that way with Archie and Cream, with the recruiting, it's like, well, you know, at this point I feel like Archie or Cream would have like just filled the class with like two or three, no offense, like Tim Priller's like, well, we got to get a couple guys in the we gotta get somebody locked in. And I love how Woodson is
approaching and you see kind of fans are nervous about it, but it's like, hey, this is, yeah, it's, it's, it's high stakes. But Woodson is like, hey man, I think I'm gonna get two or three of these guys and I'm not gonna waste a spot on a three star who may or may not be good. Like, I'm gonna try and fill it all with five stars and we're gonna play a bunch of tough games. And guess what we might like last year? We might lose all those tough games. And guess what?
It's not the end of the season. The The surest way to lose in a poker tournament is to be focused on protecting your chip stack. Yes, 100%. So. Anyway, it's great. And the last thing I'll say, I I heard this from dosage as well. I'm just stealing everything from his pod. But he it's a great point that you know you have a couple of again, take a shot. I don't really follow recruiting, but I do know there are some really good high school kids coming up through the ranks of Indiana.
And this is a great selling point to those Indiana kids like, hey, you're going to play the Indiana Kentucky basketball thing. Like you can help restart this rivalry. You know, this is a great recruiting tool. You want you know everybody wants to lock up the state and get nothing to Indiana recruits. Like this is a great way to do it.
And so yeah, I think this is great and it's it's funny man, for a guy who's so sleepy and not paying attention and isn't really able to do the job, he he's definitely pushing us forward and getting a lot of very good things done. Yeah, funny how that works, isn't it? You know, just I guess, I guess you could just lazy yourself into, you know, five star recruiting conversations and and getting Kentucky back on the schedule, you know, a harder working, longtime college basketball coach.
You know, surely. Never mind. Anyway, I love the idea too, that like that Calipari did this deal knowing he won't be there to play the game, the Calipari. Might not be there in March, you know, I mean let alone in 2025. So it's it's a it's a no risk thing for Calipari. I'll be I I'll bet you $50.00 right now he's not on the sideline for the first game of this series. I wouldn't take that game. I'm sure that the contract might
say like Kentucky will come. Like we'll also provide the jerseys like cow bars like who cares? Like well we'll pay for the catering for the game and Assembly hall like sure, whatever. I'm not going to be there. Well, anyway, so the one last thing I wanted to say on the basketball front, the television schedules came out for basketball. And people were not pleased, I think. Is it why it's great to be an IndyCar family? You already have Peacock, like being an IndyCar fan doesn't pay
off much at all. But it paid off here because you and I are Peacock subscribers already. So it's like this is just value add for me baby. It is well, and I also have a big Premier League guy, and I've already got it for that too. And now it's this is actually the best case scenario for NBC because I can't cancel in the offseason of the Premier League and bring it back.
I'm going to need it the whole time at this point, but that's OK. So you know, if you look at the breakdown, Indiana has five games on Peacock. The one that really got stuck in people's craw was the Purdue at Indiana game in January is on Peacock and. That really upset a bunch of people.
And if you look at the breakdown overall, it's interesting because the programs that have the most games on Peacock this year are the programs you would expect to get the most attention for the most part about Minnesota accepted. But you know, Purdue's got 6, Indiana's got 5, Michigan's got 5, Michigan State's got 5, Ohio State's got 5 and Wisconsin's got 5. And that's those are the the, you know the the way the strategy works in television is
obviously. You want to put inventory on that's going to cause people to sign up and stay signed up. And if someone put together a handy guide about like, what months, you're going to need Peacock to watch I U. People are also complaining about, you know, there's a couple of I U exhibition games on BTM Plus. There's, you know, fortunately for Indiana, there's no ESPN plus games and Nebraska has one of those, which is kind of an
odd one. But Indiana, you know a. It has a decent number of national television games. They've got three games on Fox, they've got four on FS1, they've got 12 on BTN, they've got three on CBS and they've got one on ESPN and one on ESPNU. So there's there's a lot of opportunities for people to see I U, but you know, five games being on Peacock really shook people up.
I understand the concern, Scott, in that I don't think people really understood the ramifications of all of the things that we talked about in the offseason with. The new Big 10 television deal and with Peacock getting involved, what you know, I would say I guess to start off with, I understand why people are frustrated because things they used to not have to get an extra subscription for, they're having to get an extra subscription for. But this is, this is what everybody like.
This is kind of the cost of doing business in the Big 10. At this point, you are in a conference that is in so much better financial shape than anybody else.
This is the inventory that is the trade off for that financial security and I'm not, I'm not saying that people shouldn't, you know, be excited about it, but I think it's a bit over the top some of the responses and reactions that people had to it because it's going to actually get worse like next year wait for the Paramount plus games to start popping up. You know, I mean that, you know that will, that will certainly happen as CBS becomes fully vested into the Big 10
television package. So look that, yeah, I'll say this, I think that the overall production quality on Peacock has gotten pretty good. It's mostly just inconvenient for people to have to watch games on Peacock if they're also trying to watch other things on cable television. But overall, it's it. This was going to happen. It's almost not something you can get mad about or happy about. This was just the inevitable outcome of what this whole thing was going to turn into.
I mean here's what I'll say is Brooklyn 99 is a great show and so you get all Brooklyn 99 being on Peacock. You get all the office with no interruptions of it's great. Yeah. No the you are 100% right. It is funny looking at it like you do have the one random like Purdue's playing in the SEC Network Plus like that's going
to be a tough pot to get. It is funny talking I'm I'm in this you know again weird Culdesac with a lot of like random other Big 10 fans and not Indiana fans and all of them to a man have they were all kind of yeah I guess I'd Peacock for somebody like I gotta get Peacock but everyone's kind of like yeah but I'm not getting BTN Plus it's just a putt too
far. Like I've always kind of been on that boat like I'll just miss the exhibition games or just catch them up a little bit later So BTN Plus needs a little bit but to your point this is where you don't get it both ways. Like Indiana is one of the premier brands of the Big 10 and that's great for us. But it also means that like Peacock didn't sign that deal to just get nothing but Minnesota,
Northwestern games on there. Like they're like, hey, hey man, you know our check for whatever, 15,000,000, we'd love to see one of those good teams come on our our network. And so as a fan of it, Indiana like one of your good games probably every year is going to be on Peacock and like you said, you guys are being on Paramount. Plus, like this is the way of the services. Hopefully. You know, I listen to Derek Thompson's podcast a lot and he has a great line of like meeting.
It's just a history of bundling and unbundling bundles. And it's like right now we're in unbundling mode. The nice thing is wait 10 years, it'll probably all be bundled into like BTN Plus and then you just get everything, It'll be there and then you can have that run for 15 years. But no, this is, this is the new reality. I I'm signed up for too many different streaming services. I know it. And it's just like you either have to do it or you don't. And you know, I'm, I'm with you.
This is, this is the way it goes and it's inventory and they're going to want to spread it across all of their partners. Yeah, I mean. The only thing worse than having your stuff on a streaming service that you have to pay something for is not having your stuff anywhere. And that ultimately is a far worse outcome than this and this. Again, there's a lot of things being thrown at fans that they don't like that, you know, fans don't like that they have to donate to NIL collectives.
They don't like that they're not having to pay extra for things. And it's it's interesting because that the I heard that same Derek Thompson podcast that I've I've read it done in some other areas. What we're watching is essentially finally sports fans being asked to front the bill directly for things that non sports fans have been been not asked to, but it has been required to front the bill for
for a couple of decades now. And you know, so much of the original economic packages that have funded Big 10 expansion have funded all this money. Pouring into the athletic departments has been people who never have turned on Big 10 network in their life, paying the Big 10 directly a couple of bucks a month because it's on the cable package. Or people who never watch ESPN paying $7.50 a month to ESPN because it's in the cable package.
That's how this stuff works. And so I understand that there's now sticker shock. And I think especially with the NIL front, this is where universities have to do a lot of public relations and help explain to people that, no, this isn't kids getting stuff they don't deserve. This is their economic reality, and you don't have to like it. You can hope for things how they used to be, but the reality was that money was still being spent, it was just coming from
somebody else. Now to some degree it's more fair because it's coming from the people who are the actual consumers. Well and this is I hate to be get off my lawn guy but we are getting we are getting slightly older as a couple of texts we had last night about like out time is weird but you know to to the idea like the way it used to be. I mean it used to be you know that there was kind of it's a sweet spot where a lot of games
are on ESPN. But it used to be when like when Indiana was on ESPN it was on local you know WTTV 4. But if like if I was driving somewhere or I was in Fort Wayne, it's like you were not getting the IU game if you didn't get WTV 4. And you know that that is our younger listeners like yes, this does kind of suck. You have to sign up for two or three different services.
But the flip side is you live in a world where you can watch every single I U game live and if you miss it, you can get it on DVR or recording where you and I lived in a world, you know, back back in the day when it didn't cost as much. It also was kind of hard to get the game sometimes. And like some of the games if they weren't on WT so some weren't even televised. That's the thing just like we you, you tap in Indianapolis and it's like I am not able to watch
this. I U fans historically have been so spoiled by how many games basketball game, men's basketball games were available to watch. Almost all of them. I remember there was a random tournament, I think it was before the 9899 season in Indianapolis. IN played South Carolina in one game and they played Seton Hall in the other game.
They got broadcast one of those games with Mike Petry, maybe both of them, I I don't totally remember, but they they were on like an obscure cable channel that you couldn't pick up. I I was even more spoiled because you know in addition to WTTV or WTTK, if you lived in the northern part of the state, we had a big dish satellite at my house. And so my there was like a there was a game that I you played in the Bay Area. I think it was against USF and
it was on nothing. But my dad found the wild feed of that game. I think I've got that recording up on YouTube. There there's, I mean, there's Big 10 teams that didn't have the majority of their games televised. And even when they were televised, they were just televised in the state of Indiana because they were playing Indiana, They weren't televising the random, you know, Minnesota Northwestern game. And on the flip side, I mentioned this.
So when I was on NPR News EDITION last week talking about this topic, humble brag. I mean, you know, not everybody can be on NPR News Edition, but the. But I U, football games, largely. We're not on television, you know? I mean, there were a lot of, yeah, a lot of I U football games just never made it. And so it I, you know, this is still a much better environment. There's so much more stuff available. It is more expensive, but it's also essentially. These things just didn't
materialize on their own. Like sports being as professionalized and as global as they've gotten, There's a price tag attached to that and that money has to come from somewhere. And in this case, we see where it's coming from. So I understand people's consternation that they have to add something that they didn't have before. I I would just say, say, you know, if you want to get mad about this, keep your powder dry because you're probably going to be more mad about it next year.
And you know, I think what I'm also interested in. We talked about this with one of our business chats about, you know, why do they break football off from the other sports?
The basketball schedule that you just saw is the reason why that doesn't work, because the subscribers that you're going to get off of men's basketball games, off of women's basketball games, the women I think have even more games on Peacock than the men do. You know you're going to start to see volleyball popping up on some of these streaming services. This is what this is now. The the Big 10 is now an entertainment package.
And if you look at the football schedules that just came out, you know, someone on on the college football subreddit was like, you know, the Big 10 is is going to have a ratings bonanza with some of these games. You know you're going to have Washington, MI, you're going to have, you know, Ohio State, USC. You've got, you know, all of these great matchups with these great brands that are going to resonate nationwide.
And we're already seeing it like there's some of these Big 10 games that have been on. In prime time on NBC have drawn really good numbers despite not always being great games. And so again, it's not going to be for everybody. And I guess my, my, my, my main message here is I understand why
are you fans are upset. But I think this is something that it ultimately you'd rather be upset about this then be sitting where like Washington State is right now or the Big 12 schools where a lot of their games are just going to be behind the ESPN Plus paywall. And largely not that popular or important in the big scheme of things. Again, just become a Premier League fan or an IndyCar fan. Then you get you get double your money.
Anyway, let's let's wrap up by talking about the other big news from today, which was the announcement. And it was really the announcement happened earlier, but there was a story that came out in the Indy Star, a Freedom of Information Act request on the new contract given to now. Permanent offensive coordinator Rod Kerry and this one took a lot of people by surprise and I think it's worth talking about. So let's start I guess with the terms of the contract.
The the the terms of the contract is noted in the Indy Star article where that Kerry's going to receive $815,000 per year contract runs through December 31st, 2025. It does make. Rod Carey, the highest paid coordinator in I U history and you know by about probably 100,115 thousand over what Walt Bell was being paid before Kaylin de Boer got I think above that number. But it was incentive driven as opposed to being part of his core contract. There are certainly incentives
built into this as well. There's a lot of people, I think, and I certainly looked at it and I was like, okay that. This is why there was a lot of question when we recorded that podcast addendum on Sunday about why are they naming Rod Kerry the offensive coordinator as opposed to just the interim offensive coordinator. There's some interesting language in the contract. If Kerry himself gets fired without cause, he'd be owed the entire 100% of his remaining
guaranteed money. It is interesting there's a passage in here I'm just going to read verbatim. In the event Carrie were dismissed as a result of the firing of the head coach, Indiana would owe Carry 100% of the remaining guaranteed compensation through June. The June 30th following the head coach's termination. For example of Alan were let go in January, I you would owe Carry Severance Eagle to 100% of his guaranteed compensation through the end of June. Of the same year.
So it's not honestly not as bad as I initially thought from a compensation perspective because if if there was a change that happened, you would only be obligated for essentially what you'd already paid the person for that year. The reason June 30 is the is the date is that's the end of the fiscal year at I U, so. It's not like they've guaranteed him $2.4 million or whatever it is over the course of the the three seasons, but it is a pretty sizable financial
investment. And Scott, there's some questions I think that have to be asked surrounding this. As we've said, with pretty much everything around I U. Football so far this season is where would you like to start? So I'm going to ask you a question about it because as we talked about it, you know, both on the pod and a little bit off,
you know. It seems the logical way to do this would be to make this position interim and then make it run to the end of the year, which isn't saying you couldn't hire. I'm not saying Kerry's going to be good or bad and it's saying you back, hey, we could hire you at the end of the year. We're just like. I don't. The Kerry's not in the position where he can just demand like I'm going to get a three-year contract like he's being promoted up.
There's really no reason why I U needs to go for a two year deal. There's no reason to name him the fulltime coordinator and when you have a head coach who seems to be on the hot seat what was or just feels like it it it could be a very interesting season if things don't go significantly better. My question to you is why wouldn't I you just say. We're going to go interim and we're just going to give this a year because now it kind of I you can still make a choice at
the end of the year. I'm not getting into these should or shouldn't we not fire Allen discussion. But now it makes if you wanted to make a move on Allen, there's already some contractual pieces that make it difficult. Now you're just adding more money to that because now you have an offensive coordinator who theoretically would have to be bought out. You've just made it a lot harder. My question to you is like why
would you? Why would you give yourself even more inflexibility this year when you don't have to? It didn't make a lot of sense to me. I mean, look, my The first thing I wrote down in my notes before the podcast was why I want. To guess why question mark close but it was more I under I actually do understand availability sorry I I I there's a prism through which I understand why Alan hired Kerry as the permanent OC.
My question is what's the rush? But this year you know there's there's seven games left on the schedule and what I don't understand is why it was so important to name Rod Kerry the offense, the permanent offensive coordinator. Now as opposed to saying, Rob, we really want you to come in and try to salvage something on offense this year and you're going to get every bit of consideration for the full time job. But we want to see how it goes
and see how to evaluate things. They didn't do that. Instead they they they fire Walt Bell and and it and the and that is weird to me. But I'm we'll get back to that in a second. Not that they fired him, but there's some there's some circumstances around that that I've been chewing on that are just odd. And so rather than saying okay, we're going to we're going to take our time and we're going to try to evaluate.
I mean that was that's been the watchword, right, Scott and we're going to evaluate everything. So they are there to evaluate all the players, all the systems, everything. But they they needed so little evaluation of the person that they were going to hire is the fulltime offensive coordinator that they gave him a contract that day that ran through 2025. I don't understand that. I really don't. I think that there's a there's a
couple of real problems there. A Rockery's been around for a couple of years in the I, U offensive staff. He took over as the offensive line coach last year. Has he been so removed from the running of the offense and everything that he hasn't touched any of any of that, that he's just been completely separated from it?
He's been part of the staff. I mean, he's been a quality control coach, whatever that is. But he was part of the offensive staff last year, so he clearly has some sense and has has had his hands in it in some way, shape or form. So what was it that you saw from him at that point that caused you, instead of hiring him as cooffensive coordinator this past offseason, to instead hire Anthony Tucker, who worked with Walt Bell before, who was the offensive coordinator at Utah
State in 2021 and 2022? You named him Anthony Tucker, cooffensive coordinator when he was hired with Walt Bell. If Rod Carey was, you know, a guy that you were trusting that much, why wouldn't you have just named him cooffensive coordinator? That there's there's a lot of elements to the the way that the personnel aspects have been hired that don't really make a whole lot of sense. The other the other thing though, we'll go ahead and comment on that and then I've got another larger thing.
All right. But no, like to those points like I I always look to take a step up like my question would then be to Dolson where again not saying you have to make a decision on Alan now, but why are you? Again, from the outside, it looks like like, why are you kind of letting Alan now make these calls? Like if I'm Dulson, I kind of come in and say, all right, like we're going to fire. Well, Bell, that's fine. Whoever we pick is interim. Like obviously we're not going
to do a national search. We're going to bring somebody up. And to your point, which is valid, it's like the offenses has been bad. So whoever we're bringing up is kind of already been somewhat
involved in this bad offense. You know, anybody's going to be interim like I I just don't fully understand why if you're Dulson, you're not like, hey, we're not making any more like I'm going to be so. What involved in these decisions Tom, and we're not we're not going to lock anything in past this year like let's just interim everything let's get kind of things triage figured out and we don't need to be making longterm decisions in week 4 of what looks like has
not been an awesome season thus far. Again, I just, I I look at that and I'm not sure why if you're dolson you kind of let what it looks like like. I'm assuming letting Alan make these calls. If Dole is making these calls I don't I don't don't know why you're letting any of these calls to be to be made and why you're you're kind of still letting Alan run his program as if he's got the mandate to do whatever he wants for the next
five years. The other thing and and this kind of I agree with that I I think the the larger point here is I heard so Zach Osterman recorded a video where he was trying to explain what he thought the perspective was of the athletic department. It's worth the watch about 10
minutes long. It's actually in the star piece that I'd recommend everybody read and he put forward this, this hypothesis that well you know the offense is can bad it it can only be tinkered with a little bit right now you want to give Rob Kerry a full head of steam you know knowing the personnel and hitting the ground running in January to try to reform the offense. Which I kind of makes I guess it
makes sense on its face. Except I'd like to note that the single best year in I U. Football in the last 20 years offensively came as a result of a guy who got hired on January
27th. I think it was of 2019 named Caitlin de Boer who somehow came in, you know, amazing how that happens without a head of steam and without a head of steam, without knowing the personnel and somehow managed to take what have been a a pretty meh kind of offense under Mike Debord and turn it into something that got Indiana eight wins. And you know, my point on it would be you you you've got to make a national search out of this.
I I'm sorry. I don't think that Tom Allen deserves the benefit of the doubt in terms of choosing his offensive coordinators just because they happen to be in the building his his coordinator hires have not worked out. I mean, you know, Nick Sheridan flames out basically at the beginning of year two. He's now had to fire Walt Bell, who he went out and hired. He had to fire or dismiss. I don't know what happened with Charlton Warren, but he's no longer here. I mean, that's three in a row
essentially. And now your answer to, again, a Big 10 football program. We just talked about all of the importance of the Big 10 as an inventory piece and the importance of football. And here you've gone in the building again, and you've hired a guy who certainly has more experience than a Walt Bell did. But was he the best solution,
really? And is it really something where, given the performance of the offense the last two years, the judgments need to be coming from inside the house as opposed to new perspective coming from outside the house? Because that sure seemed to work in 2019. Go back and like, read the articles and listen to the podcast. There were a lot of question marks about I use offense those first two years, and suddenly it was really good. And now it's not. You know, there was at least an argument.
Well, Nick Sheridan, that's continuity. I didn't like that you and I talked at the time about how Indiana needed to do a national search because you didn't know if that was really the best candidate. And here we have another situation where we don't wait until the end of the season to see Indiana actually doing a national surge. And people have brought up the idea that, well, people wouldn't come because Alan might be a
dead man walking. First of all, if that's the case, that's a much bigger problem the athletic department needs to deal with head on. I mean, I'm sorry, like if if it's like, well, we have to hire this guy and give me $100,000 a year because nobody else will come because they think the head coach is going to get fired. You might want to do something about that. But it is, you know, like our football stadium's on fire every game. It's like, well, maybe we should oh, that problem as well.
Yes, sorry. But, but you know, putting that aside, the idea that you are going to, without seeing how things go with Rod Kerry as the offensive coordinator, you're just going to hire him on that much of a contract. And and look, I'm not caught up in the money. I don't The money is the money. The money is, is what it is. At this point, that's about what you're going to pay for an offensive coordinator, particularly a guy who's been a head coach before. But but why make that higher?
Like you don't have to right now? Why not wait? See how the season goes? What if the offense goes entirely the opposite direction? Like even worse? Like, you know that? What if this isn't rock bottom with the offense you've got a perfectly acceptable business reason to say look we're going to we need the seven games. Let's see how this goes. We're going to judge you very lightly but we at least want to see how do you deal with the quarterback situation.
Can you get a running game going. Can you get the passing game like working in some way where receivers are actually open. Can you fix the offensive line? Because I I don't know Scott. All I heard all offseason was that Bob boasted had fixed the offensive line. And I'm, I'm, I'm, I, I know I don't want to rush to judgment, but the offensive line doesn't look like they've really gotten
fixed too much over last year. It just adds up to a whole bunch of trust us or trust Tom. He knows what he's doing based on, based on what evidence at this point should we trust the judgment. And I know that sounds harsh and it's not meant to be a personal or negative thing towards Rob Kerry. But I don't know that Indiana's in a position where they can roll the dice again without at least making an effort to go outside and see who's out there.
And this idea that people wouldn't come to a Big 10 school to to make a mark as an offensive coordinator, even if it's just a one year thing. I mean this coaches that get fired after one year all the time. It's who knows. Tom Allen, I'd like to note, came in as a coordinator and got named the head coach at the end
of that season. You know the the just the cognitive dissonance about some of the arguments around this is is really bizarre to me. Yeah, it's no, the point that you bring up that that is so valid is like you're you're creating a possible problem that you don't need to create in that by naming him the full offensive coordinator. You know. So now one of two things is going to happen, like the offense. Well, I guess three things. The offense could stay the same,
which is a problem. The offense could get worse, which is a bigger problem. The offense could get better, like that's the offense gets better. That's great as like, are we worried like? Are we worried that, like, the only way the only reason you do this is if you're so sure that Kerry's going to turn it around to the point that he's going to get hired to become like Auburn's offensive coordinator? Like you need to protect it now. And it's like, we don't know that.
And by the way, if that's the case, great. Like that. Like, it hasn't happened a lot. It happened with the board of the board. Like, that's OK, I'll take that as a possibility. But you bring like, if the offense stays the same or the offense gets worse, you've now created another situation at the end of the year. Like, now there's another point of like, do we need to fire carry? Do we need to discuss this? Like, do we need a new offensive
coordinator? As opposed to just you could have been been like ease it eased into a we're going to open the search up without having this big debate because now you want you know, for all the talk of like you got to have continuity. This is going to be what, 4 offensive coordinators in 5 1/2 years And if you get to the end of the season it's not better. It's well, problem. And the last thing I'll say like is a pick on, it's picking on Kerry, but it is, hey man, like you said it.
You and I have done ad nauseam stat breakdowns of how bad the offense has been whether it's, you know scoring or points or you know, red zone this year, the three years or whatever for him to come out. And and again, it's all coach speak. But like you picked the wrong coach speak button out of your options to come out as a quote in the Indy Star. This isn't there's no time to make drastic changes. It's going to be the small details that are going to add up to the difference is what Kerry
said. And it's like. I think it's time to make drastic changes like you can't push the ball in the red zone. Like you're not able to score. Like you're not getting Jay and Lucas the ball. Like I, if we're making, like, if you're not going to make any changes, then let's like, can I call you Walt Bell? It's just like it also doesn't jive with what Allen himself has said on multiple occasions. We got to evaluate, reevaluate
everything. So you're just reevaluating small things now, not the whole thing. I don't get it. I mean the one, the last thing I'll say because we want to wrap up before we hit the power mark. A lot has been made about Rod Kerry's pedigree and again this is a guy who played it I you didn't coach it I you but you know he's he's I I have zero question about his passion for I U. Football his interest in making I U. Football. Good. Put that aside for a second.
If you look at what this is all courtesy of of our friend Taylor Layman at Bite Size Bison, like Rod Kerry was the offensive coordinator in 2012 at Northern Illinois. They had a very good offense that year. They had a good offense the previous year. They were in that they were in the top quarter of the country and SP plus offensive efficiency. In 2012 and 2013, they were right around the 75% mark, so
almost in that upper quartile. By the time Rod Kerry left Northern Illinois to go take over Temple, their offensive percentile dropped down to about 46%. Then it was 47%, then it was 48%, then it was about 40%. Then it dropped all the way down in his last year to under 25%. That's compared to the rest of the country.
That's that's that's disturbing. He he also as the head coach at Temple, you know when he took over that program, they went from a team who's S&P plus percentile on offense was about 70% in 2018. By the time he left, it was at about 8:00 or 9%. I mean, there was significant drops in both areas. You know, you can then say, well, Rod Kerry had an offensive coordinator at both places.
That's fine. But then it feels weird that we're giving him credit for offenses at both places when the actual numbers didn't look that good and tended to trend down both of the places that he was at. I hope that's not the case here. I sincerely hope that Rod Kerry's able to fix this offense up and make it happen and and get Indiana back on track because I U has risen and fallen in terms of program success based upon who the offensive coordinators been and what they've been able to do.
But I I do think that the statistics don't look great if you're just looking at that as evidence that these going to be able to come in and do this and larger to the point, it just felt like they rushed into something that they didn't need to. You could have given him a trial and seen if he had the answer and if not you have a responsibility as a coach and as a program to go try to find
their best person to do the job. And it's just really hard for me and you, I think, and I think other people in the fan base to accept that of all the people who could potentially be in this role, that would be the best for the job. They just happened to be down the hallway as a quality control coach. Now I'm gonna say like, I mean, you mentioned, you know, De Boer coming in like that was a high point. Like, you know, this much more at the top of your head than I do.
Like, are there any other times that we've promoted from within in the coordinator position where it was a glaring success? Like either offensive or defensive side of the ball. And I'm not knocking. I mean, we haven't. Had a lot of like a lot of great successes with coordinators period. So thing is like normally when you don't have a lot of great success, you also aren't like
great success downstream. But it's like I would look at that and be like, hey, we're kind of having trouble all over the, all over the board like we we might need some fresh new ideas. I just look at it from the point again you've locked in where you have, you know probably a 70%
chance. Again, based on the three outcomes of things getting better, staying the same, getting worse of having another really like divisive decision to make at the end of the season, all because you made a decision now you don't have to fine, promote Kerry, make a mentor, make him the office coordinator, give him a one year contract, like have it end this year. And then you have a natural point where it's not contentious. There's no firing, there's no having to pay extra.
You can make the decision. If he's great, hire him again. And yeah, on that note, we're going to wrap up. Yeah, please. So we'll be back next week. Got some goodies coming for you folks as we'll be talking actual games again. Michigan next week of course, but also I U Basketball getting ready and we've got a thousandth episode that we've got a plan at some point. We're going to do our big basketball preview, at least in part I think during that. So keep an eye out for that
sometime very soon. That'll be coming. Your direction again, thanks to our friends at home field. Thanks to our friends at the back home network assembly call back up and running again. Do the work, podcast back up and running. Be sure to check those out. Crimson cast women's basketball show coming back as well. Looking forward to that, be sure to subscribe to us on substack crimsoncast.substack.com For Scott, I'm Galen. This is Crimson Cast. We'll catch you folks On the
flip side. Bring back the Bison. So long, everybody.