Ep 1256 - Indiana vs Old Dominion Recap and Analysis

Scott & Galen break down Indiana’s 27–14 Week 1 win over Old Dominion. We dig into why the run game (309 yards on 57 carries) set the tone, what the 41:28 time of possession says about control, and where red-zone execution must sharpen. We also hit the two explosive QB keepers that produced ODU’s scores, Mendoza’s timing with receivers, WR/TE usage, and defensive standouts.

Highlights

• Run-game dominance (57 for 309, 5.4 ypc)

• Defense: two big breakdowns, otherwise solid

• Red-zone & play-design tweaks to unlock more points

• Pass game: near-miss explosives and what’s fixable

• Gameday vibes: Hoosier the Bison, towels, the new chant, intro video

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Episode Transcript

(00:22):
None. And good morning, folks, or good
afternoon whenever you happen tobe watching or listening to
this. Galen Clavio and Scott Caulfield
joining you here on a new edition of Crimson Cast, our
first post game day after podcast of the 2025 IU football
season. Indiana coming off a victory,

(00:43):
although it didn't feel that wayat times, but it was actually a
victory. And we're going to talk about
all of it with this IU team and what to think and what to feel,
I guess, for lack of a better term, coming out of the win
against Old Dominion on this past Saturday.
Scott, good to see you as always.
How you doing this fine Sunday morning?

(01:04):
Good. I thought you were going to
parachute in. I, I, I was kind of expecting
you to be, you know, parachutinginto.
This my my plane which was supposed to follow the bison
plane got got delayed on the ground.
There was some people. 'Cause you're bringing back the
bison, it should have been you with, with like a flag.
I'm bringing them back and then you land and then you know,
Hoosier comes after you. I I think that that would have

(01:27):
been really entertaining for about 20 seconds until after I
jumped out of the plane and I'd be like, what on earth am I
doing? How did my wife lead to this
particular set of decisions? No, I'm great.
It's it's great to be back fun start to the season.
I think question mark no, it wasit was all good it.
Was good. It was good.
And this is we're going to dive into this quite a bit.
We're kind of joking around about the the tenor of the game,

(01:50):
but Indiana wins and that reallyis the most important thing and
some eerie interesting parallelsto last year at the same time.
And some things we need to talk about as far as that's
concerned, I'll take last year right now just more like eerie

(02:11):
in terms of like, wow, that was a very similar kind of feeling
coming out of that game, right down to the crowd leaving at
halftime. And so but a different set of
circumstances. And we're a talk through all of
it. Some of you have expressed some
comments and questions on X. We'll chat about that a little
bit as we move forward. But first of all, just a couple
of quick reminders. A few folks were brought to you
by Home Field Apparel, your place to go for the finest in

(02:31):
college fashions, the softest fabrics, the coolest designs.
Home Field launching new productlike it's their jobs because it
is. They just released some puff ink
trucker hats, which if you know me and my cranial size trucker
hats are what I have to go with.So I'm very intrigued by these.
Almost like a dazed and confusedkind of look with some of these

(02:54):
hats, which we need more of thatas far as I'm concerned.
The movie, not the not the stateof being, obviously.
Just standing there watching theteam, like man, the team keeps
getting younger. I stay the same age.
That's right. I messed that up.
No, it's fine. I get it was a good, it was a
good effort there. OK.
Couple other new pieces of product that have come out here

(03:14):
lately that you'll probably wantto keep an eye on.
If you haven't check out the football boxes, check those out
as well. And they've right now through
Monday, through Labor Day got 20% off Tees and classic fleece.
And they've also got some brand new Tri stripe crew necks.
Go to homefieldapparel.com. Use the code home 23.
I was that off your first order?I was walking through the

(03:36):
concourse and bumped into Connorfrom home field.
He stopped me. He was with his family, his his
son. It was great getting to see him
a little bit. But Connor is like what you'd
expect if you met like a wrestler off, you know, out of
the the the ring. It's like he's still wearing the
gear, like he's wearing the homefield shirt has the black IU
Oval bomber jacket just looks great.
But it's like he is just all as he should be all home field

(03:58):
apparel. But it was great talking to him.
So if anybody else saw him, likehe looked great.
And I'm sure the jacket didn't last because a black satin
jacket probably would have gotten a little toasty as the
day went on, But it looked good.I saw him in the beginning.
He was crisp, clean, looking good.
It was deceptively warm out there despite being a beautiful
day, but as we've learned, turned over time.
If you've ever been to the Indy 500 on a 75° and and sunny day,

(04:22):
the sun takes a toll after a while.
And one cloud would have been nice.
Yeah, a lot of people, that's the problem with the 2:30 or the
3:30 kick is you've generally been out in the sun since 10 at
that point, and you get to abouthalftime and it's like we had a
couple of folks around us. You had to have some EMT help.
Hopefully they're doing fine. It's just you know, it was it

(04:45):
was it was just unrelenting. Like you said, no clouds.
So anyway, also just quick reminder folks, we are on
YouTube. Go to back home network on
YouTube search that set the reminder subscribe.
We've got a ton of new shows on the feed and you know, you're
used to with Crimson Cast, us being the last word on football
until we come back and talk on Thursday.

(05:08):
Not the case anymore. You got the big red carpet with
Rhett Lewis coming out Monday evening.
You're going to want to catch that.
Rhett Lewis, of course, IU football alum and long time
broadcaster for NFL Network, Big10 Network.
He's going to have some interesting takes I'm sure and
I'm fascinated to see and hear what he has to say.
So check that out. Subscribe to Back Home Network

(05:30):
on the YouTube channel. We'd love to have you folks as
part of the community and the community keeps growing.
Nearly 8000 subscribers. My goal by September 1, if
you'll recall, Scott was 8000 subscribers.
We're almost. There so keep going people keep
going let's. Keep piling it on.
All right, let's talk about the game.
So Indiana wins against Old Dominion 27 to 14.

(05:54):
And this is one of those games where I've seen a lot of
discourse online about it and I'm actually at least in the
online spaces, fairly pleased that IU fans didn't completely
flip out and lose perspective onthis.
There are certainly concerns. There's also a victory in the

(06:16):
the win column, and it was by double digits.
And if we're being honest, Indiana never seriously was in
danger of losing the game as soon as they got it to 17 seven.
They lacked significant style points in this game.
They also LED up to explosive plays that led directly to the

(06:36):
two touchdowns that Old Dominionscored.
Colton Joseph on a essentially quarterback keeper early on,
very early on in the game, and then they get burned again on a
missed assignment late and Joseph scrambles for 78 yards.
That time you take those two plays out and Indiana's
defensive performance was prettyremarkable stuff.

(06:59):
But you can't take those two plays out and that's something
that you have to reconcile. Offensively.
Indiana had a lot of really goodindividual elements that you
could take out of it. The running game was dominant.
57 carries, 309 yards of 5.4 yard per carry average 2
touchdowns. All three of the starting or the

(07:21):
the the stable of running backs looked awesome.
The passing game had some good individual moments.
He had a couple of drops on veryeasily catchable balls that
would have completely changed the numbers for Fernando
Mendoza. He ends up with a game that will
probably pour a little bit of cold water on the 1st overall
draft pick chatter, which is probably best for everybody,

(07:44):
including Fernando Mendoza. So you come out of this game and
you look at it, on the one hand,you can say, well, Indiana was
favored by I think 23 1/2 pointswas what it was at the
beginning. They they kind of came close to
that and then they didn't come close to it at the end.
And on the flip side, they were pretty statistically dominant
throughout this entire game. They let up two plays that

(08:06):
mattered at the end of the day, and they had a bunch of
executional issues in the red zone.
It's not, again, too terribly different from what you would
have seen coming out of the FIU game at the beginning of last
year. But I understand the frustration
and the disappointment that manypeople had in the game and after
the game because the build up into this season has been more

(08:28):
along the lines of this will be a dominant team potentially
against these lesser opponents and that was certainly not on
display during Week 1. Yeah, it was like 3 or 4 years
ago a joke I made. But we had a we had a game where
I think we started the game witha penalty.
And I think I started the podcast like with a joke about
like, I wasn't ready or at something.

(08:48):
I was thinking like, you know, the, the, the way to start this
podcast would have been me beinglike, hey, GAIL, I'm, I'm
restarting my computer right now.
I got to do system updates 'cause it's like you have
Hoosier come down. You see the crowd is fired up,
like ready to go. It's funny, like driving down
with my family. My, my son is way more into
football this year was like, howdo you think the first score is
going to be? We're discussing like, is it
going to be a touchdown, a fieldgoal?

(09:10):
Who's going to get it? Who's going to win the toss?
And it's like that happens. It's like, wow, that was not on
my bingo card. Like that's just not what I had.
And I will say I wrote this down.
We, we slightly moved seats. We're down.
We're actually kind of like almost parallel to you, just
like 3 sections over. It's a great view.
We're right on the 30 yard line.I've been.
I've been. Advocating for those seats for a
while, you know, so they're good.

(09:31):
It's like we're row like 20 anyway.
It's great seats like just lowing up.
But anyway, we're like, I'm staring right at like the plays
coming at me. And then I catch Signetti out of
the corner of my eye who's just I'm going to stand up for.
Like he's just standing there, like on the sideline, like, you
know, arms on his side facing where the line of scrimmage was,
like facing that way. The play goes by him.

(09:53):
He never moves. He just continues to face where
the ball was. Like they score.
There's commotion on the side. You'll get, you'll get in the
the special teams ready and all that.
Like all of that's happening. People are running down to that
side of the field. Signetti doesn't move, just
still arms on his hips, staring at where the lightest scrimmage
was. It's like it wasn't until after
the extra point, like a minute later, he just starts walking

(10:15):
back down so he can just tell ithe was pissed.
Yeah. It wasn't the ideal start.
It's funny. And then, you know, we have we
come back, we have trouble in the red zone.
We fumble. My wife turns over to me.
She's like, are we just cursed? Like, is that just, that's what
we're having? But like, you, you know what,
what I'm trying to to figure outis, you know, last year it felt

(10:37):
like the offense had pedaled to the metal for most of the
season. I don't, you know, I don't
remember our first game as well.I remember we won.
But I remember just kind of being like, wow, this offense is
dynamic. You know, looking back, if you
look at the the stats from the first game last year against
FIU, you know, they had 40 attempts rushing and 15 attempts

(10:58):
passing for 234 rushing. It's a lot more Russian.
Yesterday against Old Dominion, they had 57 attempts passing and
18 attempts rushing. So not terrible, 18 attempts
passing, 57 rushing. Not terribly different.
It did it. My main take away is that I
really do hope this was just a vanilla game where we're just

(11:19):
going to just do what we got to do to win.
I hope this isn't a harbinger for like, hey, this is what our
new offense looks like. And I, I have faith in Signetti.
But yeah, it wasn't it. It wasn't terribly awesome in
the start. Was just kind of a kick in the
teeth where it's like, man, thatreally let the air out of the
balloon. Yeah.
I mean, look, last year, I thinkit's an important comparison

(11:41):
point. Indiana did the, the, the big
difference I think in that game was that Indiana got off to a
better start in terms of scoringearly and taking the lead
against FIU. And that game was 21 to 7 at
half. This game was 17 to 7 at half.
Like there wasn't a whole lot different except the way that
the plays happened. Last year, Indiana in the first

(12:04):
quarter, they punted on their first drive.
It was a three and out and then they scored on their next drive.
They scored on the drive after, they scored on the drive after
that. But then they let FIU drive down
the field, a 75 yard, 12 play drive and they scored right
before halftime. In this game, the fact that the

(12:25):
the touchdown was surrendered onthe first play of the game and
it was a 75 yard run from the quarterback when clearly it was
like the defense never processedthat the quarterback might keep
the ball and he's their primary option on that read option too.
It was a bad it was a bad read by a bunch of people and I give

(12:47):
Old Dominion a lot of credit forexecuting it.
They knew they had a guy that could they could take advantage
of a mismatch and misdirection there with Colton Joseph and it
just really it that then got compounded by the way that the
rest of the first half went in terms of the sequence of things
because Indiana then puts together a really nice drive,

(13:07):
goes the length of the field, gets a first and goal, has a
fourth and goal at the one triesto or it which you want to see
happen and it's an incomplete pass.
But the seeds there were sown for OK, there's some problems
here with the way the offensive line is blocking the interior in
the goal line. They don't seem to be able to
impose their will on Old Dominion's defensive front.

(13:31):
Old Dominion's defensive front is not a weakling.
They've got some really good athletes, some good dudes in
there. I'll also say they're not
anywhere close to Big 10 caliberor SEC caliber.
So I'm not trying to make them out to be the 85 Bears, but
they're also not like Indiana State in terms of their
defensive line. So you, you, you, you, you go,

(13:54):
you know, 4th and goal, you losethe ball there and then you
force a pod on the next drive. And then you got a great drive
going down the field. And then Lee BB fumbles the
ball, I think inside the 30. And now another drive is gone.
And then, you know, this is where again, it's like the
sequencing matters because you get the punt return, which was

(14:15):
an awesome play. It was one of the most awesome
punt returns I've ever seen in Memorial Stadium.
And then? In a risky, A risky grab like
that ball's bouncing, you get, you got to do something, you got
to either land on it 'cause it would have been, you know, dead
down to the two. But I mean, I was like getting
right, that's our corner. And it's like, man, that's a
risky 1 to grab and then just. Well, people were screaming
because it's like, why did you let it bounce?

(14:36):
Why didn't you just run up and catch it?
Now? It ended up working out here.
And again, you, you know, never look a gift horse in the mouth
when it comes to points. And sometimes the best kick
returns or punt returns come on plays where it looks dangerous,
but you need to get that extra second of the defense committing
One Direction so you can go the other.
And that's essentially what happened there.

(14:57):
But you know, so much of this game to me was like, if if
Indiana goes up 17 to nothing and then there's a 75 yard run
by Old Dominion's quarterback onthe first play of the next drive
and it's 17, seven at half, it kind of feels like the FIU game
did last year. It's like, hey, we were up 17,
nothing. We gave up that score, and

(15:18):
that's not ideal, but the vibe in the stadium just got real
dark when you put the the touchdown run on the first play
and the turnover on downs in thered zone.
And it masked what was a pretty dominant performance by Indiana,
statistically speaking. You know, and it's it's where
it's hard to draw ironclad evaluations about what to think

(15:43):
and what to expect. Where I've landed on this is
essentially, I think you can be disappointed and annoyed at the
executional issues, but you also, as you pointed out
earlier, I think can highlight much like last year, and we saw
this in the first couple of games last year.
Kurt Signeti clearly likes to keep it incredibly vanilla,

(16:05):
likes to keep it on the ground, doesn't want to show his hand
very much in the passing game. And they rushed really well
between the 10 yard lines and then stopped rushing effectively
when it was clear that that was all they were going to do in the
red zone. You know, they they clearly had
timing issues between Fernando Mendoza and his receivers from
Mendoza made some really odd targets.

(16:27):
He made some throws that were off, you know, for a guy who had
been hyped up as much as he had,I think.
And I was talking with with Taylor about this last night.
You forget that he wasn't the picture of efficiency last year
at Cal and that Curtis Rourke, while he didn't have much better
of a game in his first game, wasprobably a more polished
quarterback in terms of his mentality, his ability to sight

(16:50):
receivers. And then you got to add in, I
think the other factor in all ofthis, which is that as you think
about how Indiana approaches thegame and how they're trying to
perform within defensively speaking, you take the 2 long
touchdown runs out and it's, I think 34 yards on 21 carries,

(17:13):
which is a ridiculous amount. Like that's, that's insane.
And yet you can't take the 2 long carries out.
You have to factor those in. And you've got some PTSD coming
out of the Notre Dame game, given that they did a very
similar thing in the Notre Dame game where they really bottled
up Notre Dame's offense, especially in the rushing attack
outside of the long run that essentially broke the game open.

(17:36):
So you can't throw those things out.
But I guess my point in all of this is I think if you're
hitting the panic button becauseIndiana only beat Old Dominion
by 13 at home, it's probably very premature.
I think you can be annoyed at the executional issues.
I think you can be irritated that Indiana didn't look more
engaged from the very beginning.But I also frankly think that

(18:01):
this might be a very good thing for this team to realize that,
hey, we didn't play our best game.
We still won comfortably. There's clearly a lot to fix,
and now you've got two games against significantly weaker
competition to try to address itrather than having.
I remember Rhett Lewis on big red carpet mentioned he wished
this game was Week 3 instead of Week 1 because essentially he

(18:23):
wanted to see the team be able to practice and get ready for
this game. I'm almost happier it's in Week
1 because now you have film where you can say, guys, if you
play like this, Illinois is going to beat you by 30.
And I think the core talent on this team is there.
Like, we didn't. We didn't.
That wasn't an illusion that everybody imagined.

(18:43):
It's a matter of execution and it's a matter of understanding
what you're supposed to be doing.
And that did take them a couple of weeks to really round into
shape last year, too. Yeah.
I mean, my, my, and I'm not hitting the pan, the button
button at all. I do think Signetti was keeping
it vanilla. And honestly, as we got into the
meat of the game, once you take that, that, you know, initial
kind of three sequence out of, you know, touchdown bad red zone

(19:07):
fumble. Once that got away out of our
system. Sorry, you know, the game
reminded me of any number of games I've seen IU lose in the
past where we're on the other side, you know, and I'm not
trying to comp teams here, but like there's a lot of games
where we played Wisconsin, it's like Wisconsin's just running
the same play over and over again.

(19:28):
It's like we can't stop it. And then we'll have one kind of
dynamic play. We'll get within 10.
It's like, Oh my God, we give a shot.
It's like I know we have no shot.
Like they're just little brotherhand on our head, just letting
us swing around and that's what that game felt like for most of
the time. Yesterday is like we we when we
got up was like 10 seven or something.
She's like, all right, let's just let's just grind them into

(19:49):
to nothing. And we did that.
And to your point, very good point about the sequencing on
the defense. We always do the drive, you
know, name the drive chart, recite the drive.
I'm. Getting someone please sponsor
this segment so that I can just hand a card to Scott and say
here's what the segment's name. Is at this point I'm like, I'm
actively trying to not know it. So after the first touchdown,
here are the drives that we had punt, what our defense did to

(20:12):
Old Dominion, punt, punt, interception, punt 2 play,
interception, 3 play, punt one play, half four, play, punt 3,
play, punt, interception. And then and then and like
booking it with a bad touchdown.But but to your point, like
that's an amazing stretch of deep.
That's what you expect to see. You're not going to get them all
perfect. And again, you have a little
Notre Dame PTSD and on the offensive side, you know, again,

(20:37):
ifs and buts like these didn't happen.
But if you punch in that first score, that's seven more points.
If Phoebe doesn't fumble, maybe it's seven to three more points.
And then Omar Cooper junior who did caught everything last year
like that. You know, that was when Mendoza
did lock in like a perfect deep ball.
It's right there he drops again.Whatever man S happens like it's

(20:58):
first game of the year. Not a big deal.
He didn't he will not drop thoseagain this year.
Like right there is 1417 to 21 points.
You can just on top of the. Score and you didn't even
mention LeBron Bond who had a perfectly placed ball that he
didn't run fast enough out of his break in time to get in the
corner of the end of that. You're right, yeah.
He just kind of stopped up for asecond.
Yeah. So the point being when I see

(21:22):
all of that, you know, and I waswatching the game very intently
from from my spot there in the corner, there were executional
issues that can be fixed. It's going to take some work and
I think it's going to be a pretty rough week of practice
this week for the guys and deservedly so because the
execution wasn't there. This is why starting your season

(21:43):
with lesser opponents, especially in the transfer
portal era, is good because you have to have some live round
games to work these kinks out in.
And Indiana, unlike many of the teams that you know are heartily
flaunting their non conference schedules, Indiana does not have

(22:04):
the base level of skill to be able to just plug in and play a
top 25 team in the first week. And so this is one of those
games where you've got this combination of things, a clear
lack of execution, especially inthe red zone.
You've got some issues on the offensive line that clearly need
to be addressed. You've also got a playbook that

(22:26):
has been neutered on purpose because you don't want to show.
And that's going to be the case for the next two weeks because
you're not going to want to showanything about from Kennesaw
State and Indiana State either. And just real quick on those
points, like it does feel like the times they opened them up,
like the Omar Cooper junior play, the one you're talking
about where the receiver didn't run through, it's like they got
guys wide open. Like I felt like the times that
they look, let's try one of our good plays.

(22:47):
It was, it really worked well. And it's like, all right, let's
go back to the run. Yeah.
Well, because, and then this is the thing where even even what I
said earlier about the offensiveline having some issues.
Yeah, at one point, I think early in the fourth quarter, I
checked the stat calculator and IU was averaging like 7.1 yards
per carry, right. And that didn't dip until the

(23:09):
very end when they were just kind of running, you know, down
the clock. And it wasn't really that
imperative. I mean, that's a tremendous, you
know, set of blocks that are being thrown out there.
The different tackles too, like through through the middle
tackles. Like that's the thing.
Almost everything was right downthe middle.
And and again, a lot of that wasbecause you had the threat of

(23:29):
wide receivers going places, which disappears the closer you
get to the goal line. And Old Dominion was absolutely
firing off down there. And I get this.
I'm going to I yeah, you can choose what you want to believe.
I'm choosing to go with Indiana.Would rather get the practice
against teams that are teeing off directly against them in the

(23:51):
run in the red zone now and not show their hand about what they
want to do in the passing game. Then Oh, Indiana just can't
block, you know, because even there, it's like there were, it
was a borderline DPI call that didn't get flagged when Sarat
got thrown later, right? You know, there were, there was
a little bit of a late release from Mendoza.

(24:11):
It was more executional issues than Indiana not being able to
throw the ball in the red zone. But they were very basic
approaches to trying to throw inthe red zone.
So the only the PTSDI got with the red zone was just a little
bit back to that Louisville game, what, 2-3 years ago where
I thought we had three differenttimes in the red zone, couldn't
punch it in. And then that was a the week
next week where we had to go to overtime to beat Akron, and then

(24:34):
we went on to win one more game that year.
And again, there's no other similarities to make connections
there. It's just that's what run into
my mind is like, oh, that was that was a harbinger of really
bad things. I, I, this is again, where I
feel safer with the coaching staff.
And I feel like we he's this is actually a good thing because
it's going to give signetti timeto fix all these things.

(24:55):
And that's kind of, you know, going into this game, I was
thinking about before the game started this podcast we were
going to have, because I'm always thinking about you, man.
Just thinking about you in the pod was like, I, I don't really
know what, what I could see thatwould make me be like panic
button or hit be negative. Because if we win by a ton, it's
like, great, that's what we should be doing.
We're good. And if we we struggle, it's

(25:16):
like, all right, well, I trust my coaching staff to fix these
problems. Like I'm kind of in that spot,
you know, a 76 yard touchdown run the first play.
Like that's testing my medal just a tiny bit.
But but I still stand by that. Like there's really not much
that would have happened yesterday outside of a loss
where I'd be like, I'm really freaked out.
It's like, hey, it's the first week they're not showing their

(25:37):
hand and you know, Signeti knowswhat he's doing.
There's a world where it's like he's just not showing his hand
and letting it. You know, style points are
important, but maybe it's more important for him to get a bunch
of film and like, honestly, put his team in spots where it's
like, maybe this isn't going to work and this will work out
better for me because then I could just rail on them for two
weeks. Because again, you know, I'm

(25:57):
more worried about if I'm signeti.
It's like I want to be good for Iowa, Illinois, Illinois, Iowa,
Oregon. I don't really care if we're
super crisp against Old Dominion.
Yeah. I mean, Indiana, I think at some
point in this build with Signetiand group and and his coaching
staff will get to the point where they've got enough people

(26:20):
and they've got a system in place that you can more easily
plug people into where they'll be able to come out and just
whack an opponent in the first week.
I don't think that they're quitethere yet.
And whatever, I'd like them to be there.
But I'm also, again, if they come out and they look like crap
against Kennesaw State and and they're underwhelming against

(26:41):
Indiana State, then I think it'sa worthy conversation.
But there was enough in this game that I saw that told me
this is more of a matter of there was sloppy.
There was a lot of new pieces trying to get into positions.
They're trying some things out while also not trying to try

(27:01):
things out, if that makes any sense.
And we'll see if that is proven right or not proven right.
But what I would tell people to resist it.
And I heard this from a couple of people in my seating section,
which was not surprising. And I think it actually it goes
to a larger point that I want tomake people like, well, that

(27:23):
that looks like the, you know, Indiana football, like there's a
there's there's basically right now.
I heard that. Too.
There's yeah, there's there's one of the things about Signeti
that I I love is his approach from a philosophical perspective
as he talks about IU football inrelation to the fans, about
look, we've, you know, we got tostick around and be there for

(27:48):
the whole game. We need people in the stands.
This is a whole effort and that's great.
But there's basically two types of fans right now for IU
football. There's the people that just
hopped on the bandwagon who haven't been long time IU
football fans but are attracted to winning.
And last year there was a whole lot of winning.
There was a whole lot of success.

(28:09):
That group is expecting dominance the way that you saw
Indiana be dominant last year. You know, I mean, that Nebraska
game, the Washington game, the Michigan State game, the Purdue
game, like those are the games that that group of fans is going
to react well to. A lot of those people left at
halftime because Indiana was leading.

(28:29):
It wasn't a particularly entertaining game.
You still had the kind of gut punch of having let that
touchdown up early, which souredthe mood.
That group is going to be hard to keep in the stadium if you're
not being dominant week in, weekout.
Now, eventually more of those people will translate to more
hardcore fans, but this is stilla honeymoon period with the new
fans, the other group of fans, the fans that have been going to

(28:53):
games for a long time. Folks like you and me, Scott,
and a lot of the people that listen to this podcast are so
emotionally scarred by a lifetime of watching Indiana
football trip over itself at themoment when it tries to ascend
to another level that the the lingering warning signs going

(29:14):
off in one's head when watching a game like that, you
immediately want to go back to, well, there's the old Indiana,
which is not fair. And I think last year should
have dispelled a lot of that. And really the last decade, like
as Zach Osterman has pointed outon Indy Star multiple times,
this is a program that over the last decade has been to the
Pinstripe Bowl, has been to the Foster Farms Bowl, has been to

(29:35):
the Gator Bowl, has been to the Outback Bowl, has been to the
College Football Playoff. I mean, that's five out of the
last ten seasons with not just winning records, but seasons
that you would have been proud of in any era of IU football.
It's not the same IU football, but the specter of IU football's
history hangs over so many things that when you get a game,

(29:56):
like even a game like this where, you know, I was waiting
for Bill Connolly to drop his postgame win expectancy,
Indiana's postgame win expectancy in this game was
92.5%, which is stellar. Like that's, that's one of the
better ones. You know, by comparison, when
Iowa State beat Kansas State last week in week 0, their win
expectancy post game was 21.4%. You know, they're the, this,

(30:21):
it's basically a metric that says how dominant were you in
this game that you played? From a statistical perspective,
Indiana played a dominant game. Statistically, it did not
translate to what happened in terms of the final score.
I think you need to look at thatalongside because if you win the
game but you don't score as manypoints, but you're that

(30:43):
statistically dominant, the numbers show that will get
fixed. You will score points as you go
through the season. But it is so easy I think for
fans and I don't, I'm not questioning fans doing this.
I'm just reporting that it it happens and will happen, you're
still in a mode where you had this amazing season.
And there's always the fear in in the hardcore fans mind that

(31:04):
it could all be taken away at any moment.
And that was kind of the vibe that I felt right after that
first touchdown and then that 4th and goal missed opportunity
that the whole atmosphere of thestadium changed and they never
really got it back and a bunch of people left at halftime.
But that's, I mean, Signeti has to understand, and I'm sure he
does intrinsically, like you're still fighting history here,

(31:24):
even with how good last year went.
But with that said, I'm proud ofwhat I've seen from fans online
where it's like, let's not overreact on this because I
think that that's the right spotto be in at this point.
And that's kind of where you andI have landed as well.
Oh yeah, and around my section there was even like after the
the fumble, there was like some booing.
It's like, what are we doing? People like simmer down.

(31:45):
It's it's early. But I mean, but you're right,
it's, it's just that residual. Like you spend 30 years getting
gut punched at like at some point, Charlie isn't going to be
great at football when Lucy keeps pulling the football.
Like there's got to be some PTSDon that, like 5th PTSD reference
this podcast. A friend of mine, John actually
is now with like 2 rows behind me.

(32:06):
And I didn't realize until the third quarter.
I always start talking and then he kind of we're kind of
talking. What do you think?
We're both kind of like grumbling.
But then like he had probably the best outlook that I, I heard
yesterday. He's like, man wins a win.
Yes, like the in the end, like that is true.
And you know, hey, it would it be great to win all these games
67 to 7? Sure, that'd be awesome.

(32:26):
But it's like you're on one hand, you're not going to get
style points by the committee. On the other hand, like I'm just
pulled up. ESPN has an article, you know,
Week 1, what we thought, you know, good, bad, indifferent.
Guess who's not on it? Indiana.
Like we are just off the radar. If we would have won 100 to
nothing, we wouldn't be on there.
We, you know, did had a score that doesn't look great.

(32:47):
We're not on there. Like, sure, SEC people will just
poke at us because they want to.Like we're not at a point where
we're in the conversation enough.
Unless if we would have lost, then it would have been like,
you know, red lights all over inthe end, like style points kind
of matter for these games. But in the end, I I'm sure this
is what Signetti is thinking. Also, like what matters is are

(33:09):
you going to beat Illinois? Because like if if you blow out
these first 3 opponents, you lose to Illinois, that doesn't
matter. If you take these first three
games, you get better, you don'tlook good.
Maybe we drop one or two spots in the rankings.
Like who gives a shit? Because if we beat Illinois,
that's all that matters. And like that's I, I do think
that's a fan base change as well.
But I I love that mentality of just, yeah, man, that wins a

(33:30):
win. And like, it's not just, you
know, I'll take any win, but it's like, hey, you know, we're
working on stuff a wins a win. But yeah, it's definitely not
panic time. It's funny because talking to
folks in my section, talking to some folks, I went out a little
bit after the game and it was very much like we're complaining
about a 13 point win at home to start the season against a a

(33:52):
A-Team from a decent G5 conference.
These are first world problems, right?
And what's our ranking? Going to what's going to happen
to our ranking, right? I mean, and I will note as well
that other teams struggled in the same vein.
Some of them even lost, like Alabama, to a team that they

(34:13):
were favored by 13 1/2 points against, who went 2 and 10 last
year. Caitlin de Boer going to be on
our staff next. Year, you know no here's here's
some trivia for you Scott, do you know what Caitlin de Boer's
buyout is if they fire him at the end of this season without
cause and by the. Way no bigger Caitlin de Boer
fans than you and me, so I don'tknow why we're getting into.

(34:35):
This purely purely a math question.
Just randomly thinking without cause with his butt.
It's a great so I have no idea. I would assume he he didn't come
in like Harbaugh type so like I'm sure he didn't.
I would say it's lower than you would expect is would be my
guess. Give me a number.

(34:55):
Lower is not a number, so I would say 28 million.
If Caitlin Devore is fired at the end of this season and
without cause, meaning like he didn't like cheat or whatever,
his buyout is $69,000,000.69. They owe him 90% of his contract

(35:15):
and this is not an era when you can really afford to do that.
That's apropos of nothing, but Ijust wanted to get that out
there 'cause I saw a couple of Bill like he's going to get
fired at the end of the year. Much like Luke Fickle, his
contract is almost too big to fire at this point.
It's a fascinating thing. I'm sure Alabama loves, loves
hearing that. Good times for them.
Anyway, we're going to take a quick break.
We're going to come back, talk about a couple of other items

(35:37):
from the game. We're also going to talk about
some of the stadium atmosphere stuff and just other random
thoughts that we had coming out of Week 1.
Stick with us right after this. When the final buzzer sounds in
Bloomington, the conversation starts.
Here, the assembly call is IU basketball Live post game shows,

(35:57):
smart midweek breakdowns and no empty hot takes.
Jared Morris, coach Brian Tomsoni, Andy Bottoms and Ryan
Phillips dissect lineups, sets and recruiting so you know what
really happened and what it means for the Big 10 season,
March and beyond. Join the live chat on YouTube,

(36:18):
then catch the podcast on Spotify and Apple.
Just search assembly call and bepart of Hoosier Nation's most
trusted post game tradition. Welcome back to Crimson Cast,
Scott Caulfield, GAIL and Claviojoining you as we recap what
happened yesterday. You know, Scott, what's shaping
up to be a very important date for IU football this year.

(36:40):
It happens in about a week. And 1/2 is Lewis Moore will have
his temporary restraining order decided upon.
As far as whether he'll be around for the rest of the
season. You know who LED Indiana in
tackles in that game yesterday? Louis Moore.
Louis Moore LED them in tackles,7 total tackles, 4 solo, two
more than Aiden Fisher and Jose Wheeler.

(37:02):
It would be great to have Louis Moore on this roster.
He had an interception as well. Brought that back for 17 yards.
I I will say like we saw Bryson Bonds got injured.
We don't know the extent of the injury, but he went out
relatively early. The secondary played really
well. Now you're playing a pretty
deficient passing game in Old Dominion.

(37:25):
But I thought Lewis Moore lookedgood.
I thought D Angelo Pons looked good.
His interception. Was crazy.
That was a great interception. Yeah.
I mean they're, they were ball Hawking pretty effectively and
I'm excited to see how that group continues to coalesce.
It is interesting because one ofthe downsides of that game in
terms of how you evaluate thingsafterwards is I would have liked

(37:50):
to have seen Old Dominion have abetter passing attack to test
that secondary a little bit moreand it wasn't really in the
cards. They won't really get that the
next two weeks either. If you go back and look at what
happened in the game that Kennesaw State played this week,
buddy Dexter Williams was the quarterback and I think was 12
for 32 passing the ball. They almost beat Wake Forest

(38:10):
like they were in that game until the very end.
But Indiana really going to get a lot of reps practicing against
runoff fences, not a lot in terms of the passing game.
That is something that I think to keep an eye on.
Lewis more clearly is a guy thatcan make a lot of contributions
in the secondary right now. If you missed it, there was a
temporary restraining order put on to allow him to play the

(38:31):
first couple of weeks while a judge ultimately decides whether
his lawsuit to be allowed to play an additional year of
college football. The NCAA's fighting it
essentially over arguing that I think his JUCO year or one of
his JUCO years shouldn't be waived.
There's been a lot of inconsistent court rulings on
this. What the NCAA No.
Shocking, I know, but he'll get he's We have one more week of

(38:55):
Louis Moore for real, and then we'll have to see what happens.
But that would be a big blow andyou just worry about the depth
there a little bit. So something to keep an eye on.
The other thing that I that I looked at is just again, you
have a great kind of triumvirateof running backs like you.
They they're all good in different ways.
And again, you know, caveat, you're playing Old Dominion.
This isn't going to be the O line of Penn State, but you

(39:15):
know, when you run kind of such a vanilla run style offense and
there's very little, you know, concern about the passing attack
having, you know, guys in the box lined up like that's tough
to run against. And you had Roman Hemby look
awesome, you know, 23 attempts for 111 yards.
Kaylin Black, you know, 92 yardson 17 carries and Bebe actually

(39:36):
looked really good minus the fumble.
But you know, 11 attempts for 73yards averaging 6.6 a yard.
He has kind of an electric motorto him.
It's like, I think he just the fumble was like, all right,
you're sitting for a minute. You have to earn your time back.
But you know, it's it's very whereas last year that the
running backs all felt very interchangeable and they kind of

(39:57):
did the same thing. Here you have, you know, black
is kind of your big, almost likeStevie Scott type running back.
Phoebe is kind of the the quick energetic 1 and and Hemby is
like a good mix of both. Like it?
It really is nice and I'm interested to see how this plays
out in the Big 10 season when you start hopefully unveiling
more passing attack. And so now it's a little more
even now the defense can't just pack the box.

(40:20):
Like are you able to get even better running attack from these
guys if they start using them a little bit in the passing game?
As you know, dump outs it. I was just I was very impressed
with those 3 running backs yesterday.
I mean, it was a really nice looking running back room, like
any of those guys could start and you'd be perfectly happy
with that. And look, last year there was a

(40:40):
lot of back and forth and Justice Ellison eventually kind
of became the feature back and Ithink Hembi will be that.
But you've got a couple of guys now in BB and and Kaylyn Black
again who clearly can go in and contribute.
I love Black's touchdown run. You know, he kind of lost in the
line and it looked like he got tackled and he squirted through.
So the fact not just that the running backs ran so well, but

(41:02):
as you mentioned earlier, they ran between the tackles.
Indiana was getting some good push there.
And you know, as much as we complained about red zone
execution issues, they did scorea rushing touchdown, 2 of them
in the red zone, one of them that Kalon Black one, and the
other one was the Fernando Mendoza designed run, which was
a nice change of pace and something that you wouldn't have
done last year with Curtis Roark, you know.

(41:24):
And Mendoza with 33 yards, you and you and Taylor had the over
under one of the one of the overunders was his yardage for the
season was like 85 or something or it was some number that where
it's like 33 is a big chunk. No, it was, no, it was like 300
and something. I think, yeah, my, my argument
was he'll get sacked, some sacked.
Count against it, right? Now I will say, you know that

(41:47):
there was some. So I'm just kind of going
through the different position groups in general here, Mendoza.
I cannot shake the idea that they were trying certain combos
with certain receivers almost exclusively as a way, I'm not
sure, maybe get into rhythm because it's like in the first
half they threw a ton to EJ Williams.

(42:09):
That might have been the most EJWilliams targets that we've seen
in any game that he's been in anIndiana uniform for.
Ended up with five catches, which led the team 45 yards.
Like most of that was underneath.
And I know at halftime, the folks in my section were like,
is Serat still on the team? Like it was such a fundamentally
different approach from what we saw through the bulk of last

(42:32):
year in terms of there were no targets for Serat early.
He ended up getting some targetslater, ended up with three
catches over 44 yards. They had Omar Cooper junior in
the slot a ton, which was an interesting choice.
And he mostly performed in the slot, as you said, he had the
one drop. But, you know, there was a lot
of really interesting things outof that receiving group and the

(42:52):
IT was really interesting that LeBron Bond was the guy that
came in and played a you know, you know, a decent number of
snaps there at the end of the first half had a nice catch.
It's it's going to be an interesting group.
You know, Jonathan Brady caught a couple of balls.
We didn't really get anything. I think it was Mackay Jackson we

(43:13):
really didn't see. I don't even think he got he got
targeted in the game. So I feel good about the running
backs, I feel good about the receivers and I think a lot of
it is just timing and execution with the receivers.
I do think the tight ends were kind of a mixed bag.
Clearly the running blocking, the run blocking was good

(43:33):
because of the yardage that Indiana was able to pick up.
And again, the tight ends were having trouble executing in the
red zone as well. In terms of blocking from a
passing perspective, one of the threads that we were going after
in the pre season was just having Holden stays on the
roster open up the passing game and what you want to do with the
tight ends. Stays was out there a decent
amount, but really didn't get targeted much.

(43:55):
Only had one catch. They threw more to Riley Noah
Noakowski, who hadn't gotten targeted much period in his
career at Wisconsin. It was an odd way to use the
tight ends. I, I really didn't come away
from that thinking, oh, the tight end position has been.
Addressed and they've got a really nice group there maybe
that will play itself out but that's an area where I've got

(44:15):
some question marks. Yeah they they definitely looked
and I think this is where again you know having a couple of
games to work work things out are good because you're doing it
against live fire it it definitely looked for multiple
times that Mendoza was just not In Sync with his receivers or
vice versa like you know the theone play to Noakowski one of the
targets. It was just like way behind it,
like out of it. It wasn't.

(44:35):
It's just like they ran something different.
Like that was the route that it wasn't supposed to be.
Like a couple passes like that where Mendoza was just in the
wrong spot. I mean, I will say this man,
Mendoza gets the ball out. Like he gets it out quick.
There's a lot of snap on the ball and when he throws a deep
ball, it is there. I mean, that's the positive I
will take away is the 2 deep balls.

(44:56):
Unfortunately, like neither of them were were receptions.
It was Omar Cooper Junior who dropped it, but that was like
right in the bed bat bread basket.
And the other one was it was it who dropped The Who didn't run
under the one in the end, LeBronBond.
LeBron Bond like that was 1. True freshman just to know No.
It's not, well, this is where you work it out, but I'm just
saying the pass was perfect, like the pass in the perfect

(45:17):
spot. It's one where, you know, I
think Bond slowed up for a SEC and then tried to catch up, just
didn't run underneath it. Those are things that you
hopefully just work out that timing and it's something that,
you know, now that you've had it, you know, practice is
different than games. Your games are different than
practice. And I think that's what you
learn here is like, all right, we've got to figure this timing
out. We're taking real defensive fire
here. And I think it will get worked

(45:38):
out. What where I feel good is, you
know, the the short passing gamestuff, you can work that out.
That's just timing routes and precision having the deep ball.
That's something that Mendoza has where no knock, but it's
like a guy like Peyton Ramsey just didn't really have like you
can't suddenly throw a 50 yard dime that far out if you don't

(45:59):
have the arm strength, you're never going to get that.
The fact that he has that, it's like I feel very comfortable.
We can work on the timing and some of these efficiency pieces.
And you and you definitely saw there were moments like I think
Serrat's first reception was a real quick like 6 yard out.
Just like you, you, you kind of saw Signetti being like, all
right, just give him a couple passes where he gets a good feel
and like just real easy outs. And there there were these

(46:19):
moments where you had receivers just like, we'll just throw 5
yards to him. And they were able to get guys
the ball quickly and efficiently.
So I'm not concerned by that. And I will say that seeing
Mendoza's deep ball was got me excited.
Although again, he goes over 2. Nothing statistical to show for
it. Yeah.
No, look, and I think with him, it's going to be rounding into
shape and it's a younger quarterback than Curtis Rourke

(46:42):
was. A lot of little things to try to
address that. We'll just have to see them
address it. Yeah, overall, you know, the
Taylor Layman was texting me andand he noted like we didn't get
a good look at the defense because they only played 46
snaps in the entire game, which is an insanely small number of
snaps. Like that's the that's the time

(47:03):
of possession in this game. Indiana had the ball.
Let me get that. I want to make sure I get this
number right. 41 minutes and 28 seconds, which meant that FI or
Old Dominion had the ball. 18 minutes and 32 seconds.
That's an incredibly lopsided time of possession, so.
Well, and again, like I'm we're not just Omar Cooper Junior I I
keep picking like you have one catch 1 red zone and you know

(47:26):
bonds runs under it or you you don't have a fumble.
It's like I could easily add 17 points this game and it's 44 to
14 and then then for all the looky loos out there, it looks
like what the game really was because this was really A1 sided
domination. It's just a score.
Didn't didn't there? There was a couple of plays that
were not executed well which would have bought given us a 30

(47:49):
point victory. Yeah, so, so we'll see.
Obviously got to fix that stuff.And they've got, they've got,
you know, a week to do it here before they play Kennesaw State.
That'll be a noon kick on Saturday the 6th and that'll be
interesting to see to say the least.
What happens with all that? Just a reminder on that.
We'll be out at the Busker Chumley Theater on the 5th of

(48:10):
September, 7:00, the start of our live podcast, first ever
live podcast in the theater. We'd love to have you folks join
us. So head on over to the Busker
Chumley Theater. You can buy tickets at the door
or you can order a head on the Busker Chumley Theater website.
If you use the code Bison Club all one word, you can get a
small discount on some tickets. We'd love to have you folks out

(48:31):
there join us as we talk IU football.
We'll have Mitchell Page joiningus.
We'll have Griffin Gonzalez joining us and it should be a
great time. We've even got a cake.
There's a Raspberry cake that's been made that we're very
honored about. It's it's it's pretty wild when
someone's like we want to make acake in celebration of your
podcast, but it's like a wedding.

(48:53):
What's our first dance going to be?
What what song are we going to play?
A huge thanks. It's a Kirkwood sweet shop,
which is right there next to thetheater for that.
So keep an eye out for that. We'll have some information in
the sub stack. They go back and check that out.
If you're on our sub stack, you got all the information right
there. I.
Was walking around the concourseyesterday and a fan somebody
came up with Scott Love the podcast.
And now all I heard was it sounds he said, I'll see at the

(49:15):
bus stop. And I'm like, man, that's,
that's very intrusive. Like we live in a cul-de-sac.
That would be odd. And I'm like, oh, I think he
meant see at the bus Kirk, Like I think that's what he hoped to
say. So who to the fan who said that
super nice, great meeting you. I, I would love to see you at
the bus Kirk Chumley. I would be more concerned if I
saw you at my son's bus stop. I I, well, I was thinking you
and I'm thinking an erudite man like yourself.

(49:35):
When was the last time you actually ran like were on a bus
that wasn't like a tour bus? Well, we took some trains in
Europe, but I guess that doesn'tcount.
That does not count. To be fair, there's not a ton of
bus routes that work well in thein the US.
Riding in the Pullman car of thetrain does not count as being on

(49:55):
a bus, so. The monocle stayed in place
through all the bouncing, yes. Let's let's wrap up today by
talking about some of the the stadium experiences we got to
see Hoosier the Bison. Yeah, he he came back.
He brought him back. Hey, it was great, but he para
para dropped into the stadium. That was well done by the
athletic department. That was really that was a great

(50:17):
entry. And you know, it was cool that
you know, he comes out after he he lands and gets on his
motorbike and is riding around. You know that it was interesting
because again, I feel like the impact of having the Bison on
the sideline got a little muted by the way the game started.
And instead of everybody being into it, there was just this

(50:37):
nervous energy. So some of the edge got taken
off there unfortunately. Well, I can say this as having a
12 year old and a nine year old,both boys.
And I've been bringing the 12 year old.
He's been going since he was 8 month old.
So I've I've indoctrinated him hard and this is and I saw this
when I started taking my kids toPacers games because I'd be
like, man, what? Like their interest in boomer is

(50:59):
off the charts And both of my boys like we have to be in to
see Bice, you know, see Hoosier come in.
We had heard rambling rumblings and he might be parachuting in.
They were fixated on Hoosier thebike, just like, where is he?
Like that's cool. Like that's awesome.
You know, there there was a thing, you know, go see Hoosier
after the game, like the both the kids like can we go see
that? Like I want to meet him.

(51:19):
Like where's he going to be? Like it, it works.
But you can think all the stuff is hokey and silly, but like,
hey, that 12 year old and that nine year old are going to be
next. You know, in 1520 years, those
are going to be students, those are going to be donors.
Like that's how you build the connection.
And like seeing it from a kids point of view, it really works.
The only thing I will say is my my my oldest is getting more

(51:40):
into football and for a variety of reasons, he's not just the
Colts haven't grabbed him probably their own fault.
So he's kind of getting into thebills.
I was a bills fan living in New York for a while.
Like I I like those early Jim Kelly bills.
So he's like he's turning into abills fan, which is fine.
Like that's probably more miserythan I need to give my son.
But, but so what's funny is thatthey in the third quarter,

(52:02):
Hoosier the Bison comes out on on his his car with like the
T-shirt cannon and my son's like, Oh, Bison mafia.
And I'm like, that's kind of funny, Jane.
Like I didn't, I didn't see anything else.
Like that's kind of funny, man. Like you're, you're connecting
the Bills Mafia with Bison mafia.
Like that's pretty like James, well done.
And he's like looking at me weird.
Then I look at I look up at the scoreboard.
It's like Bison like they had they had just it's Bison Mafia

(52:24):
is what they called him. I'm like, Oh, he just read what
you know, good job at IU athletics.
Well done. But it works for the kids and I
think it does bring an energy. It brings something to it's I
love all of it. I think it's so good.
There was a lot of a good amountof, you know, Hoosier Bison
merch already being worn around the stadium, which is cool.
Yeah, I mean, and, and look, I know there have been complaints

(52:47):
about the logo that got produced.
There'll be more logos that willcome out.
You know, there's a lot that goes on with that behind the
scenes from a legal perspective and a business perspective that
none of us are Privy to. And I think that's worth noting.
But the actual costume, I've seen it before It I I think
it's, it's well done. He looks natural on the

(53:08):
sideline. And I I just, I kept thinking as
I was watching him on the field at various points, what was the
hang up all of these years, right.
Why was this such a problem? Yeah.
I no one's ever been going to beable to adequately explain to me
why having a mascot was a bad idea or why it was somehow going
to like be a negative. So far I think it's been all

(53:30):
positive and I feel like taking the logo stuff aside people, all
the the reviews that I was getting from people were pretty
positive. And so that's great to see.
It's hardening for me as somebody who's been advocating
for this for a while. It was great to see it actually
come to fruition. Agreed.
Agreed. As far as the rest of the
presentational stuff, though, they did have the Bison come out

(53:50):
and try a new chant that I've never seen before and neither
did anybody else in the stands. I don't think where he's like
going to one side of the stadiumand trying to get them to chant
I and then to the other one you.When the students were chanting
something, I could not hold thatlike the students were not in,
they were doing something else, which is probably funnier.
Yeah, but it was it was one of those things where I actually

(54:12):
didn't once the chant got going,it was good.
But I think it confused everybody in the stands, like
what they were supposed to be doing at first, right.
I'm curious if that gestates over the next couple of weeks
that that could be a really goodchant.
I mean there is no IU equivalentof Ohio but but an actual IU
chant that uses the entire stadium?

(54:34):
You know, maybe that's happened before Scott, but I I don't
recall it occurring. Do you?
I think it happens in basketballsometimes I think that they've
done it in basketball. But no, I'm with you.
It took some time, but when it'snot going, it was it was cool.
And this is, you know, this is, you know, the the towels again
were there. The towels are cool and it's
like the towels are now a thing and it took a year we got there.

(54:54):
Like these things take time to build.
And it's it's what's interestingfor fans coming in now.
It's like you're seeing the building of a program because as
you and I noted for years, this is just a mismatch of, of
nothing. Like there's not a lot of
history. There's weird shark songs.
Like it's just a weird mix of this is a program ripe for, you
know, a, a mascot to to, to add things to it.

(55:16):
Yeah. Well, I guess that's the one,
the one thing you know, I mean, there are some things that still
need addressed and I think theseare longer term issues.
The the sound system is not veryenveloping and it never has
been, but it really sticks out now that it's a more enclosed
bowl. And when you want it to get
really loud, it, it felt, especially in pregame, like the

(55:37):
sound system was not quite up toto snuff.
And we knew that like it's nothing new.
But I do think that that's something that needs to continue
to be addressed because if you're trying to create an
atmosphere that is intimidating but also energizing for the
fans, I just think you've got tohave something more going on
there. And then that's, look, there

(55:58):
been long standing fights with like older alums wanting it to
be quieter and like we want to hear the band.
And it's like the problem with that.
And again, every year with the band, it's like there's, there's
just not a lot there that's juicing people up.
There's there's a lot of stuff for people that have been around
for a long time. You know, you tell Hoosier

(56:19):
wipeouts still getting played and the Jaws team still pops up,
but there's, you know, but the halftime show was a great
example where it's like they're just, there needs to be more,
especially now that you've got ayounger group of fans that
respond to different things. And, and the idea that at this
point you need to have an overall game presentation that

(56:41):
really catches people's attention and holds them for the
whole game. That's, that's got to be a key
element of things. And this is I again, I think
there's some, there's elements of how all of this fits together
where you go to other, you know,I've been to many other
stadiums. There are ways to have
everything have, have its place,the sound system and the video

(57:02):
board and the band. I I still think that that needs
to get worked out a bit more as we move forward.
I, there's certain elements I really like, but I'm, I'm really
curious to see how that continues to evolve as we move
forward, because I do think thatthere's some generational
turnover that's probably going to need to happen as Indiana
continues to try to push forwardthat football game day

(57:23):
experience. Because especially in games like
this where you really need to keep that energy high, you want
to give people a reason to stickin their seats or come back
after halftime. I just, I wonder if there's
another way to go about doing some of those items.
And I'm sure that the athletic department is working on those,
but it's one of those things that you did notice, you know,
sitting there just kind of watching the whole because I was
I got in there at the 35 minute mark, I think in pregame and I

(57:47):
really didn't leave my seat except for like twice.
So I really watching the entire presentation.
It was cool how they try to integrate the Bison in certain
things. I would just love the
environment to be even more enveloping than it is right now.
And that's going to be AI think an ongoing process.
No, I, I totally agree. Those are two of my things.
I, I think the pregame was awesome.
Like, like you have the, the, the nod to the old, you know,

(58:10):
Metallica entrance and the, the bison taking over the state of
Indiana when Hoosiers came in. It was great to see.
The the old pat craft video get an update the bison like
charging down. I loved it.
That's one of my favorite introsthey've done in a long.
Time. That was awesome.
That was cool. This year's intro was really
cool. You know, honestly, during that
that in the the old Bison intro,the band used to like drum In

(58:32):
Sync with the music. That's the way you can, you
know, do the coordination it it.And this is, you know, we had
Jeremy Gray on he they're doing a great job.
But I agree with you that it does feel, you know, and again,
this was a weird game. It was hot.
People are kind of getting tiredof those nervous energy.
But you get to halftime and the band just comes out of Band-Aid,
but everyone's just kind of standing and playing.
There's not a lot of movement. And then the band leaves and

(58:53):
it's just players warming up. It's like you need something
like there needs to be somethingto kind of keep the energy
moving forward. And then again, my always my
little bugaboo is that you have that third to fourth quarter
switchover and I took notes. It's like you have Hoosiers in
the NFL playing. It's like, all right, that's,
that's nice, that's OK. Then they have a Hoosier's Wheel
of Fortune game. It's like, all right, we're
we're falling off. And then it's just they play who

(59:17):
let the dogs out. It's like, OK, it's 92,025.
And then they have like audio ofPat McAfee from game day, but no
video. It's like, and again, this is
going to take time, but like that's a prime moment to have an
event. You know, that is where we went
to UCLA. They do the California with the
light show. Like like there needs to be
something there. And that that would be my only

(59:39):
my only complaint is I'm fine you trying things.
But it felt like doing a wheel of fortune on the video board.
Like that's not a let's do something like have a song, have
a Hoosier out there doing something like try and build it.
It felt like they kind of, you know, pardon the pun, punted on
that, Like there wasn't anythingthere.
And I I look to games like Illinois where it's a close game
and the place is full. You know, you, you want

(01:00:01):
something, it's like, let's jazzpeople up.
Let's get people fired up. Let's do something where it's
like, oh, I got to be there again.
It's the under eight time out inbasketball and what what can we
do there? I don't think just doing a wheel
of fortune and then just some random audio is the answer.
I did like Paradise City. That was a night that that's
I'll, I'll take that as a as a song during that period.
The whole thing and do do something with it, but yeah.

(01:00:22):
So, but look, some of the thingsyou're talking about that we
don't have the variable lights that other stadiums have got and
that that's something and obviously you're not going to do
that at 2:30 or 4:00 in the afternoon anyway.
That would be a little bit difficult.
Those are some really powerful lights.
But look, there's there's I think there's clearly got to be
I think there'll be additional ideas that come in with this.

(01:00:45):
And again, I think all of this is a transition period that will
will continue to take hold. And part of it will also be, you
know, Indiana, the the team not having that weird set of
circumstances that seem to surround this game in terms of
there being all these expectations and then a bad

(01:01:07):
start, but a good game played afterwards, which it just it
seemed to just kill the enthusiasm of people to
participate in things from the beginning.
So I want to give the game presentation stuff some more
tries with a more engaged crowd to see what ends up happening as
we move forward here. But I think there were good
points to it. There's some points that will,
you know, still continue to be improved upon.

(01:01:28):
There's some things that will require some stadium upgrades
above and beyond what's already happened.
It is interesting, like they added a bunch of new little
nooks and crannies. There's additional luxury boxes
up in the South end zone, which that's I've been up there, you
know, outside of the game. It's a neat area.
The area where my seats are at down in the section 11.

(01:01:49):
There used to be like that astroturf cut out.
They've made that into like an events seating section on the
on. The north on the South side too,
like they have it on both sides.It's it's actually, it looks
really cool. Actually, and I was like, why
did, why did I have to move my seats over?
And I wasn't upset about it 'cause I'm essentially in the
same section, just one, one aisle over.
And as it turns out, that's where they've got recruits in

(01:02:10):
their families sitting. I was like, well, that's great,
actually good. My seats were good enough that
last year that we wanted to put recruits in their families in
it. So I'll, I'll, I'll make that
sacrifice if it ends up helping.So Scott, any final or other
things you wanted to bring up before we wrap up this show?
No, no, I mean, it's a, it's a good start.
You know, again, a win is a win.And you know, the, the whole

(01:02:33):
point of this is we're working things out.
We're trying to get to 3, you know, and, and it's, you know,
we'll, this will kind of be the refrain, but all of this is
going to lead up to Illinois. It's like if you, if you can't
beat Illinois, none of this matter not matters.
But it's like then, you know, like the season takes a
different turn. If you can beat, if you can beat
Illinois, then really none of this matters.
Like we're not going to look back and back.

(01:02:53):
Well, I don't know, we weren't great.
He gets Old Dominion like you beat Illinois, you're off for
the races. Yeah.
And, and look, the, the, the final thing I'll say on that
front is I understand the frustration of the lack of
execution. And it's hard to attribute, it's
hard to know what that to attribute that to directly,
whether that was keeping it vanilla and then not wanting to

(01:03:13):
show your passing game, which automatically makes you look a
lot less dominant. They were plenty dominant in the
running game, you know, or was it actual executional issues
that are real red flags that youneed to address?
But you want to win, you win by double digits, you don't cover.
No big deal that no one cares about the cover except for
Vegas. And even even in the post game

(01:03:35):
win expectancy, it wasn't like Indiana lost the game on paper,
but won the game and the score. They won the game dominantly on
paper, just not as dominantly onthe scoreboard.
And different realms of opponent.
But you'd rather be 1 and O thanO and 1 coming out of this game.
And again, you look across college football and there's a

(01:03:57):
bunch of teams that had similar struggles in this week because
they're trying to figure things out.
You had teams that lost to powerconference, teams like Alabama
that are probably they're they're scratching their heads
because if they're planning on getting to the playoff, their
path just got significantly morecomplicated and significantly

(01:04:18):
narrower. So all told, yes, would I prefer
to see Indiana win by like 49 to13 or 51 to 17?
Sure. But it's one of those games that
we'll only be able to go back and look at in retrospect and
say, well, gosh, that was a a speed bump or that was, you
know, that they were, they had trouble getting out of the gates

(01:04:39):
or was it actual car trouble? Yes.
I I last thing just before I forget because it it will never
bring us back up again. We've played some like funky
teams in Memorial Stadium. I remember South Carolina State
and this was the first time I could I, and I just maybe didn't
see it. Like I know where the opposing
teams fans sit. I didn't see 1 Old Dominion fan.
Like we, we played some small schools where you'll see a

(01:05:01):
couple like oh, South Carolina State, you drove all the way up
here for this. Like I, I'm sure they were
there. I just didn't see a single Old
Dominion fan. And that's like I'm, we played
Kennesaw State before in the NSA.
It's obviously close. Like I don't ever remember a
game where I've never seen an opposing teams fan.
It's possible that Old Dominion is an AI simulation, like the

(01:05:25):
whole football program. You know, if they, they, it's
possible they don't have fans that they, they maybe they
right. They rent crisis actors, but you
know, but they didn't have any, didn't escape.
Perhaps the casting call didn't go out, but they haven't
upgraded their ChatGPT. Yeah, they're still correct.
Yes, they're still using the Model 3 model.
Three version, yes. I didn't, I I did not notice the

(01:05:47):
lack of Old Dominion fans in their section.
I you do bring up a good point though.
I didn't see a single Old Dominion fan in the parking lots
at all. I like.
That's a really fascinating point, Scott.
And normally you'll see just random fans like, oh, I can't
believe you traveled here. Like obviously Big 10 teams
anyway, whatever. Yeah, Well, well.
We're pissing off nobody becauseobviously they don't be fans.

(01:06:07):
So exactly yes. Bring it on.
Amazing. All right, Well, folks, as
always, we appreciate the time and look forward to talking with
you throughout the course of therest of the football season.
Be sure to tune into the big redcarpet Monday night as Rhett
Lewis gives his take on what he saw with a little bit more time
to analyze. Obviously the polls will be
coming out later. You'll be able to see that as

(01:06:27):
well. And be sure to tune into the
rest of the back home network throughout the course of the
season as we cover IU football for Scott.
I'm Galen. This is Crimson cast.
We'll catch you folks. On the flip side, stay never
daunted. So everybody.