None.

Welcome back to Crimson Cast, Galen Clavier joining you once again.

It is as of recording Thursday, December 4th.

You may be watching this on the 5th or maybe even on the 6th as Indiana gets ready to take on the Ohio State Buckeyes in the Big 10 Championship Game at Lucas Oil Stadium at 8:00 PM.

We've also got Indiana basketball taking on Louisville at 2 at Gambridge Fieldhouse.

It's going to be an incredible, incredible day for IU sports and hopefully you are all either going or going to be in Indianapolis or going to be at watch parties somewhere.

We need that big red energy all over the country, all pointing in the direction of Lucas Oil Stadium.

Whether you're in there and helping to to, you know, focus that and amplify it or whether you're sending the energies from elsewhere.

Hopefully you're getting ready for the games.

We're looking forward to it.

I know as it's going to be a heck of a day.

We're going to be at the tap in on Mass Ave.

in Indianapolis from 11:30 to 1:00.

We'll do doing some live stuff there and, and mixing and mingling with folks.

We hope to see you out there.

We will also be at Brothers in downtown Indianapolis from 5:00

to 6:00 with Home Field Apparel, who is of course our presenting sponsor.

And Hope Field is going to be across the spectrum in Indianapolis, just all over the place Friday and Saturday.

If you are not aware of where they're going to be, let me enlighten you.

They will be, of course, first of all, on Friday they're going to be at the Dugout Bar in on Virginia Avenue, 621 S Virginia Ave.

and they will be there from 5:00 to 8:00 PM on Saturday.

Excuse me on Friday.

Who?

A home field.

Who's your pop up shop?

They'll let Big 10 championship gear while supplies last.

Free drink specials if you're wearing home field gear and you're 21 or older and then a limited edition home field koozie available only to folks that show up to that event.

You can also get it to some of the other events though.

So what else are they going to be doing?

Where else are they going to be?

Well, they'll be out and about on Saturday as well.

You can catch them at Brothers

from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM.

That'll be before the football game.

Excuse me, before the basketball game.

It'll also be before the football game, but it'll be before the basketball game.

The the home field house pop up shop IU gear available, Louisville gear available as well if you're that type of a person.

Again, free drink specials if you're wearing home field gear.

They'll have the watch party for the basketball game happening at Brothers.

They'll be some free Modelo giveaways and merch and then they'll be giving away that limited edition koozie.

And then at Brothers downtown again from 2:00 to 6:00 PM, they'll be doing a pop up shop this time with IU and Ohio State gear, plus free drink specials, plus free Medelo giveaways and merch.

No koozie there.

So get the get the koozie at the 1st 2 events, but go check out and support Home Field Apparel.

You'll see Home Field Apparel all over the place and you get free drink specials.

If you're wearing it.

What else could you ask for?

So again, our thanks to Home Field Apparel, our presenting sponsor here on the back Home Network.

And of course, they are at heart Indiana People.

We know all of that.

Also, we're brought to you by the Pasha Hotel, Bloomington.

Go to pashahotelbloomington.com.

Get yourself booked for the finest and luxury accommodations in Bloomington.

Located right on Kirkwood Ave.

where it crosses Washington Street.

Beautiful views of campus and downtown and of course a bunch of amenities including the Curt Sigetti room and a full service bar and a bunch of other amazing things.

You need to go in there and check it out.

It's awesome what they did with that building.

Again, poshhotelbloomington.com, go check them out.

We're appreciating their support and having them on board.

All right, if you know the Back Home Network, you know that Rhett Lewis launched the big red carpet this year.

It's been a smashing success and, and rightfully so, Red has done an amazing job with that podcast.

We haven't had him on Crimson cast that much lately because he's been doing that plus a bunch of other things.

But we have Rhett Lewis on the show to talk about this matchup, to talk about just the ambiance and everything surrounding this game.

So we're going to take a quick break and we'll come back and we will have Brett Lewis joining me here on the show as we talk about what's going down with Indiana, as they take on Ohio State, what to look for in the game and a whole lot more on the other side of this break.

Brett Lewis joins the show.

Stick with us here on the back home network.

When the final buzzer sounds in Bloomington, the conversation starts.

Here, the assembly call is IU basketball Live post game shows, smart midweek breakdowns and no empty hot takes.

Jared Morris, coach Brian Thompsoni, 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, then catch the podcast on Spotify and Apple.

Just assembly call and be part of Hoosier Nation's most trusted post game tradition.

All right, you've seen him on all of the big red carpet stuff and I hope you're checking that out.

The sub stacks been incredible.

The free stuff on the YouTube channel has been amazing.

Rhett Lewis from the back home network and big red carpet and NFL Network and Big 10 Network and whatever network it's you've got.

Whatever we got next.

He's doing football on it.

But Rhett, great to see you, buddy.

What a week, what what a build up.

I can't believe we're recording this essentially what, 50 hours before kick?

When you put it that way, it's a little jarring, but what are let me just start with your overall like feeling.

We're going to get into the game obviously here in a minute, but your overall vibe and feelings, 50 hours outgoing into the, you know, probably the most single historic game so far in IU football history.

Yeah, you know, like I think, you know, you go back to and, and I have a special fondness for it because, you know, my dad was a student trainer on the Rose Bowl team in in 67 and in the late 60s there.

And so like I is this the biggest game?

It's the biggest game of my lifetime, let's put it that way, right?

The biggest game of our life.

Yeah, I certainly understand the Rose Bowl argument.

Yes, so.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it was the pinnacle then, right?

For, you know, Big 10, PAC 12 and that whole thing.

And that was that was an epic, an epic matchup when you consider some of the parties that were involved.

But this is this is certainly the biggest game of our lifetimes.

It is arguably the biggest game in the history of Indiana football because there was not a Big 10 championship game before.

And I, I just like, I keep coming back to a couple of things.

One, I don't know how to describe the feeling.

I've been asked so many times, Galen, and I'm sure you have to, you know, covering IU the way that you have, you know, since you were a student.

And kind of same for me.

I have this feeling because I talked to Steven Daly this week for Under the Hood with IU Sports and by the way, absolute travesty that Stephen Daly was not a a an all conference performer like at least second team because it leads the country in TFLS.

We can't even blame the media here 'cause the coaches didn't float him in.

I know, I know.

Sorry, sorry to get off track here, but I was talking to Stephen Daly and I was like, hey, man, I'm just kind of curious as to like what your mindset is because I just want to let you know.

In five years of playing at IUI, won 16 games.

If you get to where you want to go and where we think this team can go, you will have won sixteen games this year.

Yeah, like let that sink in for a second.

You know, it's, it's like when they were doing the Big 10 network recruiting day wrap ups and Mike Hall, you know, said like, you know, Indiana's got more four stars in this class than they had in the last three classes combined.

It's it just, it doesn't compute.

I was talking with somebody interviewed me from Sports Illustrated and was trying to have me describe what exactly I was feeling.

And it's like the, the, the, the question was like, what would be your feelings if Indiana won the national championship?

And I was like, you might as well ask my feelings of, well, how would you feel about landing on the moon?

Right.

Right, things that compute.

But yeah, it's it's just it feels like this has been so out of the blue over these last two seasons.

And even this year, as much as last year was a thrill ride.

And as impressed as we were, I don't think that anybody really had it in the cards that Indiana would be not just as good as they were last year, but better.

That they would navigate all of these pitfalls that they've had to navigate this year and that they'd be sitting here on the precipice of winning a Big 10 championship, getting a buy in the College Football Playoff, maybe being the number one overall seed, playing in only the third number one versus #2 match up in the history of the conference.

Right, last one was what, 85?

The last one was 2006, which is that Michigan, Ohio State game.

But then but then that Iowa, Michigan game back in 85 was the first one.

And it's just like, this is not where Indiana normally belongs.

So yeah, it's it's really hard to even put into words what the feelings are.

And, and do you know what the, the next part of the feeling to me has been is, you know, I, I feel like these are the types of games where you're like, and we've had them before, right?

We've had them before with seasons that have been successful and have ended in bowl games and, and that's been awesome.

And I I think let's not forget those that they are there as well.

But there were those like, all right, yeah, yeah.

This this team is capable of winning six games.

But, you know, you go play a Michigan or and Ohio State and it's like, all right, well, it's you know, this is probably not this is probably not going to be AW.

And you kind of like got used to that.

And I'll be honest with you.

Like, I had that feeling, unfortunately, I had that feeling at times when I was playing.

You know, I was like, oh, man, this we're a little overmatched here.

But this season with wins at Iowa, at Oregon, even at Penn State, because I still think people see that record and they're like, oh, Penn State stinks.

I'm like, well, they might have more more players drafted than anybody outside of Ohio State in this in this coming NFL draft.

That was still a massive win on the road.

This team has built up a catalyst and a confidence that I don't even think it had a year ago.

I and I know it didn't have a year ago.

And I think that's what those those big game losses to Ohio State and Notre Dame taught them.

I think they have learned from those games.

And while there are some different characters this year, I think the overriding themes of we need to be better in these moments have carried and I think they've learned.

And I think that's again, a benefit and a product of the elite messaging from Kurt Zignetti.

Like he is, he is an elite evaluator, developer, game planner, if you will.

But messaging, he is a like the way he creates buy in and realistic expectation for how to implement that messaging.

It's unlike anything I've ever seen, right?

And he does it differently than than let's say like Dan Lanning, who I think is amazing and is great at messaging as well, but in his own way.

Same with Kirby Smart, right?

It's it's a little bit different.

I talked to Kadic about it and that interview available now on the on the big 10 or on the big red carpet sub stack.

I was like, what's what's sig like in team meetings?

He's like short, sweet, to the point, get in, get out, you know what is expected of you and then you go do it.

And that has that, to me has been one of the more impressive things of this whole run.

I don't know if you got a chance to read that article in the Athletic where they went back and excavated Signetti's career, talked with people that played for him, that Davidson and.

All of the Bundanucci was part of that too, yeah.

Yeah, it's, it's a really fascinating character study because it's clear this guy is, he's so prepared.

This is where a lot of the Bob Knight comparisons come in, in terms of like, that was what that was Night Secret Sauce was he was so focused on film study.

He could figure out so intrinsically what made your team tick and then figure out how to make his team beat that team.

The difference is like Signeti's approach in the in the huddles, on the sidelines.

It's supportive when it needs to be.

And it's I'm going to treat you like professionals, but you're going to do your jobs.

And that someone was trying to ask me like, what's what's the tangible difference you can see as a fan in how IU football operates now versus how it operated before?

And I was like, look, we've had great players at IU before.

We've had great individual seasons, we've had great individual wins.

But it always felt like in tight games against really good teams, they always knew what to do in those final moments, and Indiana struggled to match that.

Correct.

And it feels the exact opposite now in a lot of these games.

And that is so it's so cleansing as an IU football fan, if you've been around for long enough, or in your case, if you put the uniform on to, to watch Indiana be the team that's got the superior chess pieces on the board at the end of the game.

And, and again, I was there at the Oregon game, I was there at the Iowa game, I was there at the Penn State game and I in the Iowa game, I was terrified in the last two minutes.

I was far less so in the Oregon game and by the Penn State game, I was like, well, then I pull this out and you know, they, they managed to figure it out on all of them.

I also think the loss to Ohio State last year, the loss to Notre Dame last year, clearly the response to that from the national establishment and the way that people use that as a way to denigrate Indiana football and denigrate what Signetti and that group had done in that first year.

Seemed to really like eat at them in a in a way where they went up the entire the way they handled the transfer portal, the way they handled spring, the way they handled fall camp and then the way that they have improved the team and bits and pieces.

It's all been like we we cannot allow ourselves to look like that again and that is what they've managed to accomplish over the course of the 12 games of this season.

I think it's really remarkable stuff.

I, I would agree with you.

I mean, and, and just kind of going back, you know, to that, to that same point, I remember having those, those same feelings that I felt when I was playing at times when we were overmatched.

I remember them creeping back up watching the Iowa game, watching the interception that Fernando threw was like, oh, shoot, well, there it goes.

Watching the interception he threw against Oregon, right.

And you're like on the road in that environment, you know, intercept pick 6.

And it's like, boy, Ty, it's here comes the avalanche, right?

And this team finds a way to stand in the gap, right, and prevent that from happening.

And that is probably, to me their most impressive trait.

And they've done it at every turn, right?

Even even against Purdue, right, when there were, you know, things were not quite as, I mean, it was clear Purdue wanted to take the ball out of Fernando's hands, right?

They wanted to not allow them to not allow Indiana to win through the air, right?

They wanted to slow death the 300 yards rushing.

And that's fine 'cause this team can do that too, right?

And, and how cool is that, right?

I mean, like there were times during the Kevin Wilson era when this team was, you know, really good on offense.

It was Tevin Coleman running it for 2000 yards, right?

Or it was, you know, Nate Sudfeld, you know, was, was throwing it around or Ben Chappell was throwing for 4000 yards, whatever it was.

But if you took that one thing away, you didn't have the other.

This team has both.

And they've got a defense that is as good as any defense that Indiana has ever seen.

It's fascinating because look, Ohio State's gotten a lot of flowers in the national press this week and throughout the course of the season and, and, you know, deservedly so.

It's an excellent team.

It's arguably a better team than they had last year when they won the national title.

And one of the big talking points has been Ohio State's gone 12 games without allowing without allowing less than 17 points.

And yet you look at Indiana and.

The same thing.

They've essentially done the same thing.

They have one game where they allowed or two games.

I'm sorry.

Well, one of them was the Oregon game where seven of those points were on a pick six, and then the Penn State game where seven of the points were set up as the result of a pick 6 or not a pick 6.

But.

Yeah, near a pick 6.

Yeah, yeah.

And so, you know, when I think about the defense, that to me, I remember when I first started podcasting about IU and I was really trying to dig into like, what makes a football team tick.

It always felt like you could scrape by with putting undersized athletes in offensive positions and you could scheme your way to points in college football.

But having a strong defense and especially a strong front 7 was something that was reserved for the top recruiting teams.

And I think what's the most remarkable to me is this team, yes, you've got guys who are going to be draft picks, who are all Americans.

These are under recruited guys, guys who didn't have a lot of stars on them.

Guys like Stephen Daly, who you know, came out of relative obscurity, who got scouted really well for what they could do physically, but also what they brought to the table mentally.

And you think about the list of people on the defense that have contributed, and it's not just the JMU transfers and it's not just the transfer portal guys, but it's guys that got recruited by Tom Allen Jamari.

Sharp, Jamari, Sharp or Mari?

Farrell Jones you know, I mean, it's the, the, the alchemy that Signetti and Haines and that defensive staff have managed to figure out with this group.

This should not be possible yet.

Not only is it possible, it's numbers that are unavoidable.

If you are looking at statistics and how football games are won or lost, these are This is one of the top 2 defenses, top three defenses in the country.

And again, it's like it's not being done with a lot of four and five star guys.

It's being done with a lot of guys who, as Pat Coogan was saying in that that pregame, you know, talk, these were the misfits.

Yeah.

We all brought something to the table that was really, really necessary to make all this work.

I I.

Think that's why I've been so detached from the recruiting world over the last like year or two.

I mean, like more so when the transfer portal comes through, because those are most of those names like you can, you can find relative information on.

But I have just had such great trust in the evaluations of Kurt Signetti and of Brian Haynes and Mike Shanahan and go down the list of all the coaches.

And like, here's another thing.

It all starts with Kurt Signetti, but Matt Wilson and the the personnel staff and the recruiting staff, like those people are incredible at what they do and they work like you would not believe to get that done, to get these recruits on campus and to make those visits, you know, memorable.

And so that they stick with these guys.

And so like that stuff goes on talk like not talked about as much, but that group and they're so good.

That coach mentioned it this week like he's let the personnel side handle early signing day.

Coaches really could just work on game planning right for the arguably the biggest game in in in program history.

So I think that part of it is really cool too.

And you know what?

The other thing was that struck me when Ryan Day said it about Signeti was that he's adapted.

You know, he is an old school coach, but his approach has been modernized year over year, era over era, stop over stop on his career.

I remember him talking about the evolution of his offense and how it took on a different shape.

This was in a production meeting with Big 10 Network for last year.

And he's like, yeah, you know, like we got our butts kicked by Slippery Rock when we were at Elon.

And I was like, you know what, we got to, we got to find a way to change this thing.

So they got the GMUJMU and they hired Tino Sensari.

And Tino really helped kind of revolutionize the RPO game for them.

And now, look, Mike Shanahan has always had a big part in it, and Sig always has too.

But they've they've brought in voices that made sense to them.

They found ways to improve things that they were already good at.

And like, again, the development piece of this thing, he's hired terrific assistants and, and, and Brian Haynes and, and Mike, like and Mike Shannon, they're great game planners, but they're great coaches too.

Look at this, the growth of Omar Cooper under Mike Shanahan.

Look at the growth of Isaiah Jones and Elijah Hardy under Brian Haynes.

Like development and evaluation matter.

Even in this world where Oregon or Ohio State can say, great, Indiana's going to offer you a million, we'll offer you 2.

And it's still it matters to come to IU.

And I just note, like up until the middle of October, both Brian Haynes and Mike Shanahan were under the age of 40.

I mean, these are young guys who, and, and this is, this is a point I always try to bring up when people ask like, how has, how has Signeti done this?

How has IU done this over the course of the last two years?

This is a great win for the people, the football people who argue there are great coaches at every level and a lot of it is just about what talent do you have available and what can you do with what you've got.

The fact that Signetti hired pretty much all of these guys with the exception Chandler Whitmer significant time ago and they have been with him, they have developed with him, they've developed their own styles underneath him and that ported up to the Big 10 level.

And they really, not only did they miss a beat, they, they really, they jumped two or three beats and brought an entire program up so quickly.

It it's a testament to continuity and coaching and everybody understanding what their role is and understanding what it takes to get things done.

I think we tend to brush that aside so much because there's so much coordinator movement and and so many guys just are kind of free agents jumping from staff to staff.

This is such a unique set up, not just that they've all been together, but that they jumped up a couple of levels together now.

It's a good point.

And, you know, Coach Sig brings it up all the time.

You know, like, you know, Shanahan and Haynes have been with him for Grant Kane.

You know, like talking about Shanahan and Haynes for 10 years and now their names were mentioned many times this last offseason.

But I do think that's also one of the benefits to having a team that's in the playoff, like they're not actively necessarily looking to leave, like they are preparing for the biggest games of their coaching lives.

And I think that's really important to them, gotten to know them, you know, a little bit off the field.

They're both, you know, tremendous guys.

Grant Kane, you know, again, I think he gets left out of the coordinator mix a lot just 'cause he's a, he's a special teams coordinator.

But Indiana's special teams have been more than special this year.

I mean, we're talking about the kicker of the year, Nico Radicich Coverage units have been great.

I think Jonathan Brady is going to be an X Factor in this game, by the way, because of some of the returns and his ability to change field position.

I mean, shoot, it was a big reason why Indiana lost at Ohio State last year, right with the punt and you know, the mishandled punt and then the the the the missed kick that ended up in the punt return for a touchdown at Caleb Downs.

So again, they've done a great job developing talent there as well.

We highlighted a little bit of it kind of mid season on the bye week.

I think we did some on on some of the unsung heroes that have been running down on kickoff and running down on punt coverage and those guys are a big part of this thing too.

So they're figuring all that out.

And again, the coaches have been great and not all of them, you know, some of the especially those assistants on defense are, are new to this crew outside of Pat Koontz.

And again, the alchemy like you brought, like you brought up the chemistry of all this is really worked on a number of levels.

And it's not often that you can say that you've had, you know, 90% staff retention year over year.

And look, I think at some point we're going to we're going to, you know, coach is going to coach Sig is going to get tested with having to find a new offensive or defensive coordinator because these guys are too damn good.

Hopefully that, you know, look, we wish them the best and I hope that they get the the opportunities that they want on covet for their careers.

We hope they're here forever.

But if they're not, then we'll see, right, We'll see what, you know, again, that the genius of coach Sig at that point.

But it's been really fun to watch that cohesiveness.

So they come into, as you said, the the biggest game of their coaching careers.

And I've watched a ton of previews on this game.

I've read as much as I can on it.

No one seems to be able to isolate one particular thing that there's a like a uniform like that is the factor that's going to decide the game.

But I want to ask you, if you had to isolate one specific factor 111 phase of the game that you think is going to be the best indicator of what's going to happen in the game, what would you choose?

Well, to me, it's figuring out a way to deal with Ohio State's run game.

And I know that they've got aliens on the perimeter in Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate.

And we know that Julian Sayin can get them and and paint the ball to them anywhere he wants with his elite talent.

And we've seen that in every game.

But what we haven't seen up until the last month of the season or so is the way that Bo Jackson and the Ohio State offensive line have been running the football.

He went from not taking a single snap against Texas in the opener.

It's a freshman, right?

And then he ends up with a career best day against Michigan.

So you want to talk about arc of a season of improvement?

That's pretty damn good.

And so that's what makes Ohio State dangerous because you can play umbrella coverage on Jeremiah Smith and and Carnell Tate and do whatever is necessary to keep them in front of you and not get behind you and to not allow those plays where they can go bang their head on the goal posts and and those explosives.

And they can do that when you have to bring guys down into the box to stop the run.

And look, they can still do it because those guys are still that good even when you are protecting against it.

But you got a much better shot if you can slow down their run game.

You can get them off schedule with the run game.

You can move them out of the run game as much as possible because then you can better defend the pass and you have a better idea that's coming on 3rd and eight and third and nine and 2nd and 10 and that sort of thing.

And so to me, that is the biggest piece of the puzzle for Indiana success in this game because I know the offense is going to find a way.

One way or another, they're going to find a way to move the ball down the field enough to get points on the board.

But limiting Ohio State's offense and in particular how they move the ball on the ground will give them a better shot to prevent those explosives through the air, which can be game changing play.

That's how a game gets out of hand, right, Is what Jeremiah Smith, you know, has a 45 yard touchdown and Carnell Tate has a has a 60 yard touchdown.

Catch and run, whatever it is.

So that to me is if I had to isolate it, that's that's where I think Indiana needs to be at its best.

And the good news, that's where they've been at their best.

That's true.

That's what they do.

They stop the run and then they pressure the passer.

So you start changing up those looks on Julian, saying a little bit at the snap, you start making him second guess that a little bit like we saw Luke Altmire do in that Illinois trouncing.

And then you bring the pressure behind it and that's when you start to see the havoc plays, the sacks, the TFLS and that whole thing.

So that's and look, I have every confidence that they can do it because if I had to isolate two players that have improved the most year over year for excuse me, since the beginning of the year for Indiana, it's Devin Boykin and it's Stephen Daly.

And those two guys have been, by the way, does anybody realize that Elijah Hardy has seven sacks this year?

It.

Was it was surprising to everybody when it came up yesterday on Twitter?

Yes.

So like, yeah, those guys are, those guys are going to be huge.

Well, I think it it's dangerous to try to take a whole lot out of last year's game statistically.

But I will note if you take the last run of the game out of the equation for Ohio State, they had 28 carries for roughly 80 yards.

That's about a 2.8 yards per carry average.

Now, Indiana only had a 2.1 yards per carry average in that game.

And that was one of the issues.

That's actually where, like, to me, the biggest thing that's going to be the dictator of this game is can Indiana get its own running game going?

Because that unlocks the rest of the offense for Indiana.

Well, that's how you get the RPO going.

Yeah, yes.

And and you know, the last year the offensive line was clearly not up to the challenge and it got progressively worse once you got out of the scripted plays in the first quarter.

You know, people forget like Indiana drove down the field and scored on the 1st Dr.

of the game last year.

And then they got into some real issues.

But you know, Indiana's Indiana needs to be in that 4 yards of carry average area minimum.

And especially if they can somehow get that mark above what Ohio State is able to do.

I think that there's, you know, that's that's going to be what I'm watching for at least in the first half of the game, because I don't know that Fernando Mendoza, as good as he is, is just going to have the time to get the throws off that he needs to get off if he does not have a running game to rely on to get him into third and intermediate or second intermediate it, you know, But defensively for Indiana, yeah, it's it it really does fascinate me trying to figure out like, what is Brian Haynes scheme up to address that, because you also have to get pressure on Julian Sand.

Sure.

You have to pressure him some.

He's been the the the few times he's been pressured this season.

It's not been like it was, for instance, against Michigan when he just sat back there and had all the time in the world or against some of these other teams where he said such a high completion percentage.

You know, a lot of people have been saying they think it's going to be a low scoring game.

I don't know if I agree with that at this point, not because I don't think the defenses are good, but I think both offenses are going to throw the kitchen sink at this game.

And there's going to be stuff that maybe we haven't even seen on tape or have seen maybe once out of both teams.

Because they're going to realize they can't go about their normal way of doing things facing the defense that they're going to be facing in this one.

I, I, I kind of very much feel like this game could go the way that Oregon went.

I could see this being a 30 to 20.

I could see this being a 30 to 20.

I don't necessarily I don't consider that low scoring on either side, but I could see that working out that way.

Here's again the the things that that give you some pause preparing for a Matt Patricia defense and all the looks that they will throw at you in now you get a little bit of a benefit because you played on Friday, right?

And so the and the team's done advanced scouting on this weeks ago, right.

So there was no.

There was no question for Indiana if they were playing.

It's just who they.

Were going to be playing right, right.

And and you look, even if it wasn't like they they they had done advanced scouting on every possibility, whether it was Oregon or who they already played or Michigan, whatever it was.

But but getting the getting the players to understand that stuff, it's easier for the coaches to say like, yeah, this is how we want to attack it, but how do the players go do it?

And that's another thing about this staff that has been really impressive is their ability to put the players in position to succeed, you know, while still being complex to the opposite side of the ball and being simpler for everybody else that's running the place to understand them and to go execute them.

So I I do think that's that's the offensive line is better.

That's a big piece of this thing.

The perimeter blocking is better.

Like the tight end group, I think really gets after rival Riley Nowakowski is the second team tight end.

You know, that's an under.

That guy was like a an afterthought for most in the transfer port in the transfer portal class.

Same with Holden stays like but again, signeti saw stuff.

So there's a multitude of ways that Indiana can go about winning this game.

But to me, limiting the offense of Ohio State on the ground is is something that I'll be watching for.

It's going to be a remarkable scene.

I'm fascinated.

I still don't have a sense of what the crowd's going to be like.

It's not going to be all Ohio State fans.

They're.

Going to be well lubricated if they came over from game bridge, I'll tell you that.

I will be coming over from game Bridge, yes, but this is another factor and it's kind of the last thing I wanted to talk about before we wrap up.

Like you, you can certainly take some lessons from last year's game between these two teams, but the game's not in Ohio Stadium.

It's not going to be 100% Ohio State fans.

It's going to be might be even slightly biased threat of Indiana and you're not going to be in the elements.

And those are equalizing factors that I I don't think people quite know exactly what that's going to mean, but not having to be in an entirely hostile environment while playing Ohio State is going to be a bit of an advantage for Indiana and a way that they get to enjoy last year.

And so, yeah, elements are not a factor.

Yes, yeah, weather is not a factor.

It's more of a factor for you and me than it is for them, you know, getting over there, making that, that walk, that's.

What neighbor station?

Is for, right?

That's correct.

That's correct.

That's correct, but I think it's a good point that you make it at minimum this will not be a hostile environment.

I don't know if it'll be 100% friendly, but if it will feel more friendly than the last time they played Ohio State and that they've played.

You know, some of the the tougher teams on the schedule this year have all been in very hostile environments.

So this team's battle tested and they're ready to go and I am fired up to watch this thing then.

I I cannot wait.

I'm looking forward to seeing you, my friend in Indianapolis and we'll look forward to seeing the rest of you all as well.

Yes.

Yes, more big red carpet content coming before kickoff as well.

Full video breakdown of Ohio State's best players talking about, you know, the guy who was the defensive player of the year in the conference, the defensive lineman of the year in the conference.

It's the linebacker of the year in the conference.

Like, again, it's some heavy stuff that Indiana's going up against here.

But the fact that both teams had equal amount of first team, all big tenors on defense was pretty Dang cool to say.

So yeah, we're getting into all that and that's coming up for you a little bit later this week.

Thebigredcarpet.substack.com Go check it out, folks.

It's incredible content.

I've learned a lot just in the last week.

Stuff I didn't even realize.

Brett Lewis, can't wait to see you, buddy.

All right, go.

Talk soon.

All right, Rhett Lewis, thank you for joining us.

And folks, we're getting closer and closer to kick.

I can already feel the excitement and the anticipation.

It's it's it's getting closer.

So we'll have one more podcast coming up before we get to the game.

And I think you know which one it's going to be.

Yes, the chart will be back.

We'll talk with Taylor Layman about this match up between these two teams, get his sense of things and we'll see what we can we we can divine, I guess, in terms of how this matchup is going to go.

Hopefully you are all having a wonderful time where never and wherever you're listening to or watching this.

But we're getting ready here at Back Home Network.

Again, reminder that we will be at the tap on Mass Ave.

from 11:30 to 1:00 tomorrow or Saturday, depending on when you're watching this.

And then we'll be at Brothers from 5:00 to 6:00 with Home field between the basketball and the football game.

So hopefully we'll see you out at one of those, if not both.

Thanks for watching Crimson cast.

I'm Galen Clavio or the back home network.

Thanks to Rhett Lewis for joining us.

We'll catch you folks.

On the flip side, stay never daunted.

And I mean it this time out of all folks.

So everybody.