Latest / Podcast on the Brink / POTB 577: An IU football check-in with Zach Osterman

Transcript

POTB 577: An IU football check-in with Zach Osterman · Podcast on the Brink

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome back to a new episode of Podcast on the Brink.
0:03
Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, September 15th.
0:25
Speaker 2: Zach Osterman, our good friend from the Indy Star, also
0:28
Speaker 2: the author of an upcoming book on IU football that
0:31
Speaker 2: you're going to want to make sure you pick up
0:33
Speaker 2: later this month. Unthinkable to Unstoppable. It's going to be
0:36
Speaker 2: hitting bookshelves relatively soon. We're going to talk a little
0:39
Speaker 2: bit about that before we get to Zach. Do want
0:42
Speaker 2: to remind you, if you're listening over on Apple Podcasts
0:44
Speaker 2: or Spotify, please leave us a rating and review. If
0:46
Speaker 2: you're watching on YouTube, like the video, subscribe to the channel.
0:48
Speaker 2: We appreciate your support. A couple of quick IU basketball
0:52
Speaker 2: notes before we get to Zach. IU picked up its
0:56
Speaker 2: second commitment in the class of 2027. German big man.
1:00
Speaker 2: I'm just going to call him Big Felix because I
1:02
Speaker 2: don't want to butcher his last name. Not quite sure
1:06
Speaker 2: on the pronunciation on that. I think we're all still
1:08
Speaker 2: learning a little bit about him. Committed to the Hoosiers
1:10
Speaker 2: this afternoon. Was the starting center for Germany's U18 FIBA
1:16
Speaker 2: team over the summer. I'm talking to a couple people
1:19
Speaker 2: who are aware of him, have seen him a little bit.
1:22
Speaker 2: A lot of optimism on his upside from the IU side. Also,
1:26
Speaker 2: on Wednesday, we will get the IU men's and women's,
1:30
Speaker 2: I believe, Big Ten basketball schedule. So we'll have a
1:33
Speaker 2: complete picture on what the schedule is going to look
1:36
Speaker 2: like for the upcoming season. We'll have that covered for
1:39
Speaker 2: you Wednesday evening over on the site inside the hall.
1:43
Speaker 2: I'm sure Zach will also have some reactions over at IndyStar.com.
1:49
Speaker 2: But we're here this week to talk about IU football.
1:52
Speaker 2: The Hoosiers off to a 2-0 start, as expected. Take
1:58
Speaker 2: care of North Texas in Week 1 relatively easily, 52-16.
2:00
Speaker 2: And then this past Saturday, 55-0 against Howard in a
2:03
Speaker 2: game that was shortened. Shortened. The fourth quarter, only 10
2:13
Speaker 2: minutes long. Zach, welcome back to the show. Congratulations on
2:16
Speaker 2: the upcoming book. I know we're going to talk a
2:18
Speaker 2: little bit about that, but through two weeks of this
2:20
Speaker 2: IU football schedule, what have you learned about the Hoosiers
2:24
Speaker 2: that maybe you didn't know in the preseason?
2:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, and obviously everyone is, you know, everyone is,
2:33
Speaker 1: we're all presenting these takeaways with the usual caveats about
2:37
Speaker 1: who they've played and how early it is in the
2:40
Speaker 1: schedule and things like that. I think the biggest thing,
2:44
Speaker 1: and I don't know if it's necessarily a surprise, but
2:47
Speaker 1: I think it's an open question every year that you're
2:50
Speaker 1: in this position, is just how settled into the offense
2:56
Speaker 1: Josh Hoover already looks. And I think Kurt Cignetti has
2:58
Speaker 1: made it clear there's still some areas where he needs
3:00
Speaker 1: to improve. There's still some reads he's missing and things
3:03
Speaker 1: like that. But I think even Cignetti has been maybe
3:07
Speaker 1: quietly sort of pleasantly surprised as much as he's ever
3:14
Speaker 1: going to let that on publicly with just how sort
3:19
Speaker 1: of quickly Hoover is taken to that position. Of course,
3:22
Speaker 1: Indiana fans will remember, you know, Curtis Rourke did not
3:24
Speaker 1: necessarily have the most auspicious debut. Neither did Fernando Mendoza.
3:31
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think Indiana thinks its offense is
3:34
Speaker 1: like a complete article now or that its quarterback is
3:37
Speaker 1: a complete article within that offense. But I think Indiana
3:40
Speaker 1: feels really good or at least should feel really good
3:43
Speaker 1: about relative to his predecessors and relative to where he
3:46
Speaker 1: is in the schedule, just how comfortable Josh Hoover already
3:49
Speaker 1: looks with his offense, with his receivers. He's going to
3:53
Speaker 1: have to continue to improve. The offense is going to
3:55
Speaker 1: have to continue to evolve. There's other elements that will
3:58
Speaker 1: affect his performance and his play. But I think maybe
4:04
Speaker 1: as much as any one thing, just how kind of
4:08
Speaker 1: already in sync this transfer quarterback looks inside his new offense,
4:13
Speaker 1: I think should be encouraging for Indiana. And it certainly
4:15
Speaker 1: seems like, again, as much as he's ever going to
4:17
Speaker 1: let this on publicly, Kurt Cignetti feels encouraged.
4:21
Speaker 2: So one of the big things that I've been thinking
4:24
Speaker 2: about through these first couple weeks is just the schedule, obviously,
4:27
Speaker 2: that Indiana's played. And we obviously, the schedule is what
4:30
Speaker 2: it is. They're going to play these three opponents. We're
4:32
Speaker 2: not expecting much out of any of the three. Western
4:35
Speaker 2: Kentucky's coming off a 70-20 loss at georgia over the
4:41
Speaker 2: weekend they lost their week one game as well and
4:44
Speaker 2: if you look back at the series history with iu
4:47
Speaker 2: western kentucky i think they've played five times previously i
4:50
Speaker 2: use one all the games but i think they've been
4:52
Speaker 2: decided by a total of 43 points and kind of
4:56
Speaker 2: speaking to where iu has been in the past as
4:59
Speaker 2: a program to where they are now i use actually
5:01
Speaker 2: favored by more than that uh.
5:04
Speaker 1: On Saturday.
5:04
Speaker 2: So we're not expecting much out of the opponent. And
5:07
Speaker 2: I don't necessarily think people are all that interested in
5:09
Speaker 2: a breakdown of the opponent, but in terms of the schedule,
5:14
Speaker 2: what do you think we can expect in the future
5:16
Speaker 2: from non-conference scheduling? Not maybe just with IU football in general,
5:20
Speaker 2: but among, you know, the power four teams, because, you know,
5:25
Speaker 2: as much as we enjoy these, these conference, big conference matchups,
5:29
Speaker 2: I know a lot of people had a chance to
5:31
Speaker 2: watch Texas and Ohio state.
5:32
Speaker 1: I think that's a matchup, obviously great for the sport.
5:35
Speaker 2: And I think if you ask IU fans, I think
5:38
Speaker 2: they can understand the approach to scheduling right now, because
5:40
Speaker 2: really what it's going to come down to is what
5:43
Speaker 2: Indiana does in the big 10 portion of the schedule.
5:45
Speaker 2: If they can get to the big 10 championship game,
5:47
Speaker 2: if they can win that, they're going to be right
5:49
Speaker 2: back in the playoffs. So it doesn't really necessarily put
5:52
Speaker 2: them at a big gain if they play one of
5:54
Speaker 2: these big games. But I do think as the program
5:57
Speaker 2: continues to grow and, and, uh, has obviously probably more
6:02
Speaker 2: opportunities in the future to play these showcase type of games.
6:05
Speaker 2: It's something that I think people would be interested in
6:07
Speaker 2: seeing in the future. So how did we, I guess,
6:11
Speaker 2: get here to this point to where Indiana is playing
6:13
Speaker 2: these three games and, and what maybe do you think
6:16
Speaker 2: is the longterm outlook in terms of, uh, non-conference scheduling,
6:21
Speaker 2: not maybe specifically just the IU, but in college football
6:24
Speaker 2: in general?
6:24
Speaker 1: Do you think we get more of these showcase.
6:26
Speaker 2: Games like Ohio State Tech moving forward, or are we
6:29
Speaker 2: going to have kind of a mixed bag where some
6:31
Speaker 2: schools are playing it safe and not going out on
6:35
Speaker 2: a limb and scheduling these tougher games?
6:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, so to Indiana specifically, people who have sort of
6:46
Speaker 1: observed this program since before Kurtz again, he got to Indiana.
6:50
Speaker 1: We'll remember that this sort of philosophy of dumping all
6:54
Speaker 1: of these power for games that had been put on
6:55
Speaker 1: the schedule because of a, what is a big 10
6:59
Speaker 1: scheduling mandate that has since been, um, basically phased out
7:03
Speaker 1: that you have to play a power for team in
7:05
Speaker 1: the non-conference. Um, Indiana did that going back into the
7:09
Speaker 1: summer of 2020, starting in the summer of 2023. Um,
7:13
Speaker 1: and Scott Dolson's, you know, sort of position was clear then,
7:18
Speaker 1: and the programs, the department's position was just Indiana has to, obviously,
7:22
Speaker 1: you know, adding an extra home game here and there
7:25
Speaker 1: is going to help with revenue, but Indiana had to
7:28
Speaker 1: find a way at that point in its sort of,
7:31
Speaker 1: you know, its trajectory as a program to consistently compete
7:36
Speaker 1: for bowl eligibility. That Indiana basically had to firm the
7:39
Speaker 1: floor up under its feet at bowl eligibility. And that's
7:42
Speaker 1: why you saw Indiana, you know, duck out of the
7:44
Speaker 1: Louisville series, you know, buy out of Virginia Yukon. Um,
7:49
Speaker 1: you know, most recently, I know there was kind of a,
7:52
Speaker 1: a bit of a sort of, uh, phony war over
7:55
Speaker 1: whose idea it was to cancel the Notre Dame series.
7:58
Speaker 1: I think it's, what's probably best to say is that
8:02
Speaker 1: no one really objected to it going away on either
8:05
Speaker 1: side of that sort of conversation. Um, This was designed
8:12
Speaker 1: for a time and place where Indiana was just trying
8:14
Speaker 1: to be more competitive. And when Kurt Signetti stepped in
8:18
Speaker 1: to the job, and he said this publicly, he said
8:20
Speaker 1: that was the philosophy that was already in place. I
8:23
Speaker 1: had no problem with it. We kept doing it. Obviously,
8:27
Speaker 1: you know, Indiana's come under some criticism for that as
8:30
Speaker 1: Indiana's sort of schedule and just overall profile as a
8:33
Speaker 1: program has become more important nationally. Kurt Cignetti has also
8:38
Speaker 1: talked about, and I know he mentioned this at Big
8:41
Speaker 1: Ten Media Days a couple months ago, that he expects
8:44
Speaker 1: before too long there will be greater sort of scheduling
8:49
Speaker 1: uniformity across, I think at very least, I'm filling in
8:52
Speaker 1: some gaps here, maybe perhaps dangerously, but I think what
8:55
Speaker 1: he was saying was in particular across the Power Four
8:58
Speaker 1: and probably at least across the Big Ten, that there
9:00
Speaker 1: will be a more uniform expectation of what gets put
9:05
Speaker 1: on a non-conference schedule and why. This is not something
9:10
Speaker 1: Kersignetti has necessarily sort of said flat out, but you
9:16
Speaker 1: talk to people around college football in general, there is
9:21
Speaker 1: a belief that as and when we get to a
9:23
Speaker 1: 2014 playoff, and we can debate the merits of whether
9:26
Speaker 1: anybody actually wants that. I would argue they don't, but
9:30
Speaker 1: as and when we get a 2014 playoff and teams
9:36
Speaker 1: that have genuine playoff aspirations can see a path into
9:40
Speaker 1: that postseason at 9-3, then I think that's when you're
9:44
Speaker 1: going to see a lot of this loosen up. And,
9:47
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, there are people you talk to
9:50
Speaker 1: who firmly believe that, you know, not long after we
9:55
Speaker 1: get a 2014 playoff, just to use this as an example,
9:58
Speaker 1: the Big 10 and the sec might seriously start exploring
10:00
Speaker 1: some kind of non-conference scheduling series together. You know, none
10:05
Speaker 1: of these things are set in stone. It's not like
10:07
Speaker 1: everyone's just waiting for one button to be pressed and
10:09
Speaker 1: a whole cascade of changes will come. But the idea
10:12
Speaker 1: is essentially, you know, and Indiana's position is, within this is,
10:19
Speaker 1: is basically nine conference games is enough that, you know, you, you,
10:25
Speaker 1: you don't have to challenge yourself outside the conference because
10:29
Speaker 1: with the 12 team playoff, you'll get, if you can
10:31
Speaker 1: win 10 games against a nine game, big 10 schedule
10:35
Speaker 1: or a nine game SEC schedule, that should be enough. Um,
10:38
Speaker 1: you know, when the big 10 introduced that power for,
10:41
Speaker 1: non-conference scheduling requirement, it was at a time when the
10:44
Speaker 1: Big Ten was seeking to get two teams into a
10:46
Speaker 1: four-team playoff. So the Big Ten was essentially saying, we
10:50
Speaker 1: need to have the most challenging schedules because we need
10:53
Speaker 1: the most quality wins because we're trying to get two
10:56
Speaker 1: teams into a field that's only four teams wide. Now
11:02
Speaker 1: that you're in a position where that field is tripled
11:06
Speaker 1: from that size, teams just don't feel comfortable That really
11:12
Speaker 1: isn't a necessity in the same way. Indiana is actually
11:14
Speaker 1: a great example of this. Indiana goes 11-1 against, let's
11:17
Speaker 1: be fair, a bad schedule in 2024. That's not necessarily
11:21
Speaker 1: Indiana's doing. At the beginning of the year, we looked
11:23
Speaker 1: at it and we said, well, they've got to go
11:25
Speaker 1: to Ohio State, Michigan State. They've got to go to UCLA.
11:28
Speaker 1: They're going to play Michigan at home. They're going to
11:31
Speaker 1: play Nebraska at home. They're going to play Washington at home.
11:33
Speaker 1: That's a perfectly valid Big Ten schedule. the bottom kind
11:38
Speaker 1: of falls out from underneath it. Indiana goes 11 and
11:40
Speaker 1: one with a pretty humbling loss at Ohio state and
11:42
Speaker 1: still gets in the playoff. I think Indiana would look
11:46
Speaker 1: at that as validation basically of this scheduling philosophy. Now,
11:49
Speaker 1: you know, all I've said when anyone's asked, like what
11:52
Speaker 1: I think is that if the day comes when Indiana
11:56
Speaker 1: adopts this non-conference scheduling philosophy and gets to selection Sunday
12:01
Speaker 1: and doesn't make the playoff field. And this is, this
12:03
Speaker 1: is part of the reason why then, you know, I
12:06
Speaker 1: don't want to hear anyone blame anyone but themselves. But, basically,
12:11
Speaker 1: you know, I've also mentioned this when people have asked,
12:13
Speaker 1: a lot of these, if you look at the game
12:16
Speaker 1: contracts of a lot of these FCS opponents, Indiana State, Howard,
12:20
Speaker 1: you know, who they play, Western Illinois, and, of course,
12:22
Speaker 1: in these first seasons, I think they've got Austin Peay
12:24
Speaker 1: next year. There is essentially no financial penalty for getting
12:27
Speaker 1: out of those contracts. Now, I think Indiana would probably,
12:30
Speaker 1: you know, sort of pay kind of like a gratis
12:33
Speaker 1: fee for walking away. But, if tomorrow the playoff announced
12:40
Speaker 1: it was expanding to 24 teams, and on Monday, Tony
12:44
Speaker 1: Petitti and Greg Sankey got up at a podium together
12:46
Speaker 1: and said, starting next year, all of our teams are
12:48
Speaker 1: going to play each other, and the two Big Ten
12:49
Speaker 1: teams that don't get an SEC non-conference opponent are going
12:53
Speaker 1: to be required to go seek out a Power Four
12:56
Speaker 1: opponent or something commensurate, like a Notre Dame, maybe a
12:59
Speaker 1: Boise State here or there, you know, beginning in the
13:04
Speaker 1: 2027 season. Indiana would have no trouble walking away from
13:09
Speaker 1: those games. So there's an extent to which those games
13:11
Speaker 1: specifically are kind of placeholder games because Indiana recognizes that
13:15
Speaker 1: change may well be coming. I don't think anything's imminent
13:19
Speaker 1: on that front. We have seen some pretty significant moves
13:22
Speaker 1: in the last couple weeks toward a 2014 playoff. But
13:26
Speaker 1: that's essentially why Indiana does it. And again, I think
13:29
Speaker 1: Indiana would feel, particularly given what happened in 2024, like
13:32
Speaker 1: Indiana it is validated in taking that approach.
13:40
Speaker 2: So to kind of build off the schedule here, given
13:44
Speaker 2: what is ahead here, Western Kentucky, Rutgers, or Northwestern, sorry,
13:51
Speaker 2: then Rutgers. So it's a pretty good bet that Indiana
13:56
Speaker 2: is going to be 5-0 going to Nebraska. Is that
13:59
Speaker 2: really the first game you look at on the schedule
14:01
Speaker 2: and say, this is a chance to learn something about
14:04
Speaker 2: this team?
14:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if it's the first way to
14:07
Speaker 1: say it's a chance to learn something, but I do
14:09
Speaker 1: think it's a.
14:10
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, see how they play against a quality team.
14:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's fair. I mean, Nebraska's got North
14:16
Speaker 1: Dakota this weekend. They go to Michigan State, and then
14:19
Speaker 1: they have Maryland at home before they get Indiana at home.
14:22
Speaker 1: So I think there's a very real chance Nebraska's 5-0
14:25
Speaker 1: and maybe even ranked going into that game. And obviously,
14:28
Speaker 1: Nebraska football has been kind of in that you know,
14:32
Speaker 1: Indiana basketball place for a long time of trying to
14:35
Speaker 1: regain its, its sort of national foothold and national relevance.
14:39
Speaker 1: And I think that would be the kind of game that,
14:41
Speaker 1: you know, would, would potentially, um, get, you know, get
14:46
Speaker 1: you to a, uh, a really tough atmosphere, a really
14:51
Speaker 1: sort of, you know, highly charged opponent, all those kinds
14:55
Speaker 1: of things. And then of course you have Ohio state
14:56
Speaker 1: the next week. Um, I think there's ways in which
15:00
Speaker 1: Northwestern might give Indiana some trouble next week. I don't
15:03
Speaker 1: think Indiana should lose that game by any means, but
15:06
Speaker 1: I think Northwestern can challenge Indiana in some ways. But
15:10
Speaker 1: I certainly think Indiana, as you said, should be comfortably
15:15
Speaker 1: odds on to be 5-0 going into Nebraska. And then
15:17
Speaker 1: I think both the opponent and also the occasion might
15:21
Speaker 1: be interesting challenges for Indiana, especially one week before Ohio State.
15:27
Speaker 2: Bouncing back, one last kind of wrap on the scheduling
15:29
Speaker 2: thing and the playoff. Obviously, you mentioned the likelihood of
15:33
Speaker 2: going to 24 teams, and you also kind of mentioned
15:36
Speaker 2: you would debate as to how many people actually want that.
15:40
Speaker 2: It seems like from all the reporting that the Big
15:42
Speaker 2: Ten is the conference that's pushing so hard for the
15:45
Speaker 2: 2014 playoff, I guess a two-part question. Part one, is
15:49
Speaker 2: that accurate that the Big Ten is the driving force
15:52
Speaker 2: behind it? And two, if so, why is the Big
15:54
Speaker 2: Ten so.
15:57
Speaker 2: Adamant that that the playoff goes to 24 teams.
16:02
Speaker 1: Yeah i mean the big 10 has been pushing for
16:05
Speaker 1: a wider playoff i think the sec has you know
16:08
Speaker 1: has sort of signaled a level of comfort at maybe
16:10
Speaker 1: stopping at 16 the big 10 has been pretty adamant
16:13
Speaker 1: about 24 i think there are a few reasons for
16:15
Speaker 1: that number number one a 2014 playoff in theory makes
16:18
Speaker 1: everyone more money as long as you can get the
16:20
Speaker 1: tv networks to to you know pay up for it
16:23
Speaker 1: number two a 2014 playoff probably favors a larger conference
16:27
Speaker 1: I don't think that's unfair to say. Um, number three,
16:33
Speaker 1: you know, and, and, and obviously I say this is
16:35
Speaker 1: no inside information. It's just pretty obvious tea leaves. If
16:39
Speaker 1: you go to 24, that's a lot of extra television inventory.
16:42
Speaker 1: And maybe that means there's some room for some of
16:47
Speaker 1: your television partners and not just ESPN. Obviously right now,
16:50
Speaker 1: ESPN has the whole playoff. Um, And what is that?
16:54
Speaker 1: It's four games in the first round, four in the second,
16:57
Speaker 1: two in the third and one in the fourth. That
16:59
Speaker 1: comes out to 12 games. Am I am I right
17:01
Speaker 1: in saying that? It's 11, maybe four, four. Yeah, you're right. Eleven,
17:08
Speaker 1: eleven games. You know, if you go to a 2014 format,
17:13
Speaker 1: you probably double that number. You know, and it would
17:17
Speaker 1: depend on how you formatted that. That field and everything,
17:21
Speaker 1: but you certainly would get to a place where there
17:25
Speaker 1: would be a lot more inventory and maybe you could
17:28
Speaker 1: find a way to get your friends at Fox in
17:31
Speaker 1: on the playoff, your friends at NBC or CBS in
17:33
Speaker 1: on the playoff, and that improves your standing with them
17:37
Speaker 1: because obviously the Big Ten has a television contract to
17:43
Speaker 1: begin renegotiating here in probably the next 18 to 24 months,
17:47
Speaker 1: if not sooner. You know, there are a handful of
17:54
Speaker 1: different reasons, you know, and there would be some casualties
17:58
Speaker 1: to this. If we go to a 2014 playoff, I
18:00
Speaker 1: don't think anybody's going to play a conference championship game anymore.
18:03
Speaker 1: We may see some kind of end of season sort
18:07
Speaker 1: of conference event. You know, there's been talk, for example,
18:12
Speaker 1: about a 2014 playoff, you know, because when the Big
18:15
Speaker 1: Ten talks about 2014 playoff, the thing that always comes
18:18
Speaker 1: back to is the auto bids. And that's where I
18:20
Speaker 1: said a bigger conference is going to want those automatic births.
18:24
Speaker 1: It's going to want the guaranteed revenue, income, exposure, etc.
18:32
Speaker 1: And there's been talk about maybe the top two teams
18:35
Speaker 1: go through and then three place six and four place
18:38
Speaker 1: five in some kind of what we would now call
18:41
Speaker 1: conference championship game weekend showcase or something. But Yeah, the
18:49
Speaker 1: Big Ten has been the driving force behind 24. And
18:54
Speaker 1: it's very much, I think, because of the auto bids
18:57
Speaker 1: and sort of the competitive assurance there. And then also,
19:01
Speaker 1: I don't think it's going too far out on a
19:03
Speaker 1: limb to say the Big Ten would be happy to
19:06
Speaker 1: see some opportunities created for its television partners as well.
19:10
Speaker 2: I know we've talked about this too, though, with the
19:12
Speaker 2: NCAA tournament expansion. Do you worry that there's any long-term
19:17
Speaker 2: damage to the regular season if you all of a
19:20
Speaker 2: sudden have a 24-team playoff? I know the argument, I guess,
19:24
Speaker 2: from the side of some of these college commissioners, we
19:28
Speaker 2: look at the percentage of teams in the NFL that
19:31
Speaker 2: make the playoff compared to the number of teams in
19:33
Speaker 2: the league, and we're not really letting that many teams
19:36
Speaker 2: in based on the whole universe of teams in college football,
19:39
Speaker 2: but I think one of the things that makes that
19:41
Speaker 2: made college football great, you know, even right now in
19:44
Speaker 2: the current era of the playoff and even more so
19:47
Speaker 2: in the four-team playoff was every week mattered in the
19:51
Speaker 2: regular season. If all of a sudden teams that are
19:55
Speaker 2: losing three or four games in the regular season are
19:57
Speaker 2: routinely getting.
19:58
Speaker 1: In, how.
20:01
Speaker 2: Does that damage the long-term or how does that damage
20:05
Speaker 2: the regular season in terms of just what it means
20:07
Speaker 2: on a week-to-week basis? I think it has to take
20:09
Speaker 2: some somewhat of a hit and how, you know, how
20:12
Speaker 2: do they balance kind of getting to that line? Because
20:15
Speaker 2: obviously the regular season does need to mean something.
20:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I mean that, that is the argument against
20:23
Speaker 1: it as much as anything is basically that, um, the
20:26
Speaker 1: goal for college football should not be to try and
20:30
Speaker 1: mimic the NFL because the, because college football will never
20:32
Speaker 1: be the NFL. NFL players will always be better than
20:35
Speaker 1: college players. like it's just the nature of it, right?
20:38
Speaker 1: Like if you're funneling 130 some odd college, and that's
20:41
Speaker 1: just from FBS, nevermind FCS division two and on down,
20:44
Speaker 1: if you're funneling that entire talent pool down into 32
20:47
Speaker 1: teams of 53 plus practice squad players and all that,
20:52
Speaker 1: then your best football in theory, and I think there
20:55
Speaker 1: are people that would argue otherwise, but your best football
20:57
Speaker 1: in theory is being played at the NFL level. And
21:00
Speaker 1: to your point, college has always, one of the things
21:03
Speaker 1: that is made, one of the many things that has
21:05
Speaker 1: always made college distinct, is that it requires that excellence.
21:14
Speaker 1: And I think there's some other pieces to this. We've
21:16
Speaker 1: torn apart a bunch of, I think, incredibly communally and
21:20
Speaker 1: civically important rivalries in the name of conference expansion and scheduling.
21:25
Speaker 1: And we just talked about Indiana and Notre Dame kind
21:29
Speaker 1: of breaking that plan off. Well, that was the only
21:33
Speaker 1: thing that could bring back Notre Dame-USC, which is as
21:35
Speaker 1: recognized of a football game as any we play in
21:37
Speaker 1: this country, high school, college, or pro. It's absurd that
21:41
Speaker 1: it ever fell off the schedule. It fell off the
21:44
Speaker 1: schedule because USC flipped conferences in the Big Ten. It
21:48
Speaker 1: did not want to play Notre Dame in the midst
21:50
Speaker 1: of a Big Ten schedule. The more you try to
21:57
Speaker 1: turn this product into essentially a you know, an NFL light,
22:02
Speaker 1: the more you risk your, your consumers, your fans, your customers,
22:08
Speaker 1: whatever term you want to use, they're treating it that way. And,
22:11
Speaker 1: and essentially, you know, I mean, I think college basketball
22:14
Speaker 1: started with us a little bit against the NBA, the
22:16
Speaker 1: idea that, you know, it, we have lost, um, we
22:23
Speaker 1: have sacrificed too much of what made college basketball distinct
22:26
Speaker 1: to the NBA, whether it was culturally stylistically, um, whatever
22:31
Speaker 1: it may be. And therefore, it just doesn't feel as
22:35
Speaker 1: significant except during the NCAA tournament. And college football's appeal
22:41
Speaker 1: from a competitive perspective, even before we talk about civic
22:45
Speaker 1: importance and communal pride and rivalry and geographic importance, what
22:52
Speaker 1: has always made college football distinct is that it required excellence.
22:56
Speaker 1: That if the number one team in the country was
22:58
Speaker 1: in trouble, you turn that game on, because if they lost,
23:01
Speaker 1: that might be it. And the more we expand the playoff,
23:06
Speaker 1: the more we lose that. And the more it does
23:08
Speaker 1: start to feel like the NFL where you can go
23:10
Speaker 1: 10 and seven and win your division and, and get
23:14
Speaker 1: into the playoffs. And what does it mean? Um, if,
23:17
Speaker 1: you know, if, if obviously you don't make any noise there, um,
23:21
Speaker 1: you know, and, and it, you can very quickly start
23:25
Speaker 1: sort of sounding like you're just pining for the good
23:27
Speaker 1: old days. And listen, you know, when we went from
23:29
Speaker 1: a 14 playoff to a 12 team playoff, there were
23:30
Speaker 1: plenty of people who said, nobody wants this. Now I
23:33
Speaker 1: would argue that 12 has turned out to be kind
23:35
Speaker 1: of an ideal number. It creates a big enough table
23:41
Speaker 1: for all your contenders, plus your major conferences, plus opportunities
23:46
Speaker 1: last season for multiple G5 contenders. schools, right? And I
23:51
Speaker 1: know they didn't do well in the playoff, but the
23:52
Speaker 1: point is they still earned and got that opportunity. And
23:55
Speaker 1: you never know if it might have gone differently under
23:59
Speaker 1: other circumstances. But, you know, like, I guess about 10
24:06
Speaker 1: years ago, Indiana was playing Duke in the now-defunct ACC
24:10
Speaker 1: Big Ten Challenge, a wonderful series that itself was a
24:15
Speaker 1: casualty of a lot of what we're talking about here
24:16
Speaker 1: when ESPN and the Big Ten split. Um, and the
24:20
Speaker 1: night before, uh, I was out in Raleigh Durham, I
24:23
Speaker 1: guess the night before the game maybe, and Maryland was
24:27
Speaker 1: playing UNC at the Dean dome. And keep in mind,
24:30
Speaker 1: this is Mark Turgeon, Maryland. This is defense first, Maryland.
24:33
Speaker 1: This is, we're going to play, you know, at a
24:35
Speaker 1: sort of a deliberate pace, Maryland. And yet, despite all that,
24:39
Speaker 1: it turned into an ACC game. It turned into the basketball.
24:43
Speaker 1: I grew up watching up and down the floor. high-level
24:46
Speaker 1: shot-making everywhere. I think it ended something like North Carolina 96,
24:50
Speaker 1: Maryland 88. And, like, for one night, I think if
24:53
Speaker 1: you asked Maryland fans, they would have told you they
24:56
Speaker 1: felt like their program was back to what they wanted. Right.
25:02
Speaker 1: And the reason that game doesn't happen anymore is because
25:06
Speaker 1: Maryland could not turn down Big Ten money and the
25:09
Speaker 1: sort of financial and competitive security of the Big Ten
25:12
Speaker 1: as opposed to the ACC. And no one in their
25:15
Speaker 1: right mind would rewind to 2012, I think it was
25:18
Speaker 1: 2012 when this all happened, or 2013, and tell Maryland, no,
25:21
Speaker 1: don't take this deal. But fans don't cheer for revenue
25:27
Speaker 1: streams or television contracts. And when you ask people now,
25:33
Speaker 1: and I'm using Maryland as a placeholder here, I think
25:36
Speaker 1: we've had this conversation about a number of different college basketball,
25:39
Speaker 1: football programs, et cetera. You ask people like, what has
25:44
Speaker 1: happened to Maryland basketball, why can't it kind of get
25:46
Speaker 1: any juice? Part of it is because it's fans just
25:51
Speaker 1: want to be playing Duke and UNC because college football,
25:54
Speaker 1: college basketball isn't supposed to be about making the most
25:56
Speaker 1: money in college football in theory isn't either. And you know,
26:02
Speaker 1: I don't know if that happens just because we go
26:04
Speaker 1: to a 2014 playoff, but to your point, the further
26:07
Speaker 1: you erode the things that, that made college sports special
26:12
Speaker 1: for generations, the more you are in danger of eventually
26:17
Speaker 1: erasing them without replacing them. And then college sports start
26:22
Speaker 1: to resemble minor league sports and people don't watch minor
26:25
Speaker 1: league sports. So it's, I mean, you know, and listen,
26:29
Speaker 1: this is a little bit, you know, like talking about
26:32
Speaker 1: like climate change or something like that, where it's like,
26:34
Speaker 1: I could present you an absolute worst case scenario that
26:36
Speaker 1: seems terrifying and will probably fall into you know, some
26:40
Speaker 1: way short of it. But we still have to reckon
26:44
Speaker 1: with the damage that we do wind up doing to
26:46
Speaker 1: the product because that can be very hard to undo.
26:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's not just this specific issue. There's a
26:54
Speaker 2: lot of other issues in college sports that I think
26:56
Speaker 2: go hand in hand with not just the realignment, just,
26:59
Speaker 2: you know, the NIL and paying the players and all that.
27:02
Speaker 2: All those things, I think, contribute to just the long-term
27:06
Speaker 2: fear that the sport could be And I think obviously
27:10
Speaker 2: there's smart people, I hope, in place that are trying
27:13
Speaker 2: to figure out these issues. But, you know, kind of
27:15
Speaker 2: going back to what you were saying about the expanded playoff,
27:18
Speaker 2: I think people would still watch a 2014 playoff. And
27:22
Speaker 2: obviously the ratings would tell you that every year, you know,
27:26
Speaker 2: the playoffs in a healthy spot, the ratings are good.
27:28
Speaker 2: But at some point you also start to the quality
27:32
Speaker 2: of the matchups isn't. We even saw that last year
27:36
Speaker 2: with the 12-team playoff. You mentioned some of the non-Power
27:39
Speaker 2: 4 teams that got in. Some of those weren't compelling
27:42
Speaker 2: matchups in terms of what happened on the field and
27:45
Speaker 2: actually being a quality game. It's kind of the same
27:47
Speaker 2: thing with the NCAA tournament. It was already a big
27:52
Speaker 2: deal to expand the tournament and add this first four.
27:54
Speaker 2: Now there's a second first four. Now we have 76 teams.
27:58
Speaker 2: There's obviously been a year where a couple of those
28:01
Speaker 2: teams have made a run deep in the tournament, but
28:03
Speaker 2: for the most part, Those games happen, and a week later,
28:08
Speaker 2: nobody's thinking about them or talking about them again because
28:10
Speaker 2: then the teams that actually have a chance to win
28:12
Speaker 2: the national championship are playing. Last year, obviously, Miami getting
28:17
Speaker 2: into the playoff makes the run to the national championship game,
28:20
Speaker 2: so they showed they belonged. But I just wonder, the
28:24
Speaker 2: deeper you kind of go to build a field, if
28:28
Speaker 2: you can continue to maintain the quality of the games,
28:31
Speaker 2: and I'm just not sure if we have a firm
28:33
Speaker 2: answer on that.
28:34
Speaker 1: No, I think that's completely fair. And I think, you know, again,
28:39
Speaker 1: like I understand the argument in the other direction, which
28:43
Speaker 1: is we've expanded the FBS, we've consolidated these conferences, you know,
28:49
Speaker 1: the idea of demanding excellence in the way that, you know, we, when,
28:53
Speaker 1: when we had six major conferences that, that were like
28:58
Speaker 1: recognizably organized by G by geography, um, the idea of
29:05
Speaker 1: excellence maybe was more important because the idea was you
29:08
Speaker 1: were the best team out West, right? You were the
29:11
Speaker 1: best team in the South, or you were the best
29:13
Speaker 1: team in the Midwest. And, and you had to basically
29:17
Speaker 1: earn your way out of your part, your league, your conference,
29:20
Speaker 1: your part of the country into the national championship conversation.
29:26
Speaker 1: I understand that there's a, there's counter argument now, which
29:29
Speaker 1: is the big 10 plays games in Oregon. The SEC
29:35
Speaker 1: plays games from Norman, Oklahoma, all the way to Columbia,
29:39
Speaker 1: South Carolina. The ACC may yet add teams that are
29:44
Speaker 1: not in the continental United States. I mean, if they
29:47
Speaker 1: just keep going, then Alaska Anchorage might start a football
29:50
Speaker 1: team and jump on board. I don't know. The way
29:55
Speaker 1: we have consolidated sort of power and influence and you know,
30:02
Speaker 1: sort of competitive equity in college football, I can understand
30:05
Speaker 1: the counter argument, which is that, you know, Ohio State
30:09
Speaker 1: should get some credit for playing Texas. And it shouldn't
30:14
Speaker 1: just be about who has the most wins at the
30:17
Speaker 1: end of the year. You just have to be careful because,
30:21
Speaker 1: and we have seen this with admittedly less popular sports
30:27
Speaker 1: in the United States, but ones that overestimated if not
30:35
Speaker 1: their their appeal then certainly at least the sort of
30:44
Speaker 1: flexibility and tolerance level of their consumer base to their
30:49
Speaker 1: own detriment long term and these aren't listen these aren't
30:53
Speaker 1: you know perfect comparisons I'm thinking about things like NASCAR
30:57
Speaker 1: and pro-wrestling Um, that number one, I, we don't need
31:01
Speaker 1: to get into a debate about whether are they sports
31:03
Speaker 1: at the same way that football is a sport, but
31:04
Speaker 1: I'm talking about, it is a product you're selling to people.
31:08
Speaker 1: You know, ultimately it's, it's a, it is, it is
31:11
Speaker 1: live entertainment. You are selling to people and that's what,
31:13
Speaker 1: that's what it is. It is, it is a, it
31:15
Speaker 1: is a luxury. It is a leisure activity. It is
31:19
Speaker 1: a live leisure activity. You are selling to people, whether
31:23
Speaker 1: that is as a television product or as an in-person experience.
31:28
Speaker 1: And you have to be careful and talking about that
31:31
Speaker 1: way is not some new construct. Like it wasn't more
31:34
Speaker 1: romantic in the eighties. This has been true since we
31:36
Speaker 1: started charging money for tickets. Um, talking about it that way,
31:40
Speaker 1: it offers you a stark reminder. If you were one
31:46
Speaker 1: of these stakeholders, you know, there can come overexposure. You
31:50
Speaker 1: can dilute the product or damage the product too much.
31:53
Speaker 1: And then the, the recoil effect, um, can be jarring
32:00
Speaker 1: because typically when it happens, it's not something it's, it's
32:03
Speaker 1: not like breaking a bone and then you go to
32:05
Speaker 1: the doctor and you get it set and it starts healing.
32:08
Speaker 1: Typically it takes five, eight, 10 years to appreciate that
32:13
Speaker 1: you have made that mistake. And then it takes, if you, if,
32:17
Speaker 1: if you even get the opportunity, college football probably would
32:20
Speaker 1: culturally speaking, but then it would take another five, eight,
32:22
Speaker 1: 10 years at least to undo that. And so it's, that's,
32:28
Speaker 1: you know, it, it, again, like we could sit here
32:31
Speaker 1: and have a, you know, a deeper, the.
32:35
Speaker 2: Natural instinct is you have something that's going well.
32:37
Speaker 1: It's like create more of it. Right.
32:40
Speaker 2: But at some point people aren't going to ask for more.
32:43
Speaker 1: Right.
32:43
Speaker 2: So then you have all this, uh, like in a business,
32:46
Speaker 2: I mean, you overproduce something that all of a sudden
32:48
Speaker 2: you're stuck with all this inventory that nobody wants. There's
32:50
Speaker 2: a parallel there with, with a potential college football playoff
32:54
Speaker 2: going to 24 games, uh, you can dilute the regular
32:58
Speaker 2: season and then you can also put a playoff together
33:01
Speaker 2: that's not as compelling as what you had. So I
33:03
Speaker 2: think that's the balancing act. We'll see how it all
33:05
Speaker 2: plays out, but I think you make some great points.
33:07
Speaker 2: I don't want to waste all of our time, though,
33:09
Speaker 2: without getting to the book. You must have a good agent.
33:16
Speaker 2: You've been on a whirlwind of podcasts who are talking
33:19
Speaker 2: about the book. I'm a little disappointed we didn't get
33:22
Speaker 2: the exclusive here on Podcast on the Ring.
33:24
Speaker 1: I'm kidding. I think you got the first one. In fairness,
33:28
Speaker 1: Mike and I have been hustling most of these ourselves,
33:31
Speaker 1: but yeah. Yeah, what's been the feedback?
33:34
Speaker 2: I know the book has, and I've given you a
33:36
Speaker 2: hard time, I don't have a copy of the book yet,
33:38
Speaker 2: and you've told me that's because I haven't seen you,
33:40
Speaker 2: but what's been the feedback that you've gotten so far
33:44
Speaker 2: from those who've had a chance to read it? And
33:46
Speaker 2: I know you've told a couple of stories and, uh,
33:51
Speaker 2: you know, the, the Oregon story was sick that, that
33:54
Speaker 2: did really well. I think for you guys on social
33:56
Speaker 2: media had a ton of reaction to that. I saw
33:57
Speaker 2: a bunch of aggregation on that story. So that's good
34:01
Speaker 2: for you. Hopefully, hopefully it helps you sell some books,
34:03
Speaker 2: but kind of what's the reaction been so far. And, uh,
34:06
Speaker 2: you know, just if you, if, you know, take a
34:08
Speaker 2: couple of minutes to kind of tell people, uh, when
34:11
Speaker 2: they're going to be able to get the book and,
34:12
Speaker 2: and the best ways to, uh, to get that in
34:14
Speaker 2: their hands.
34:14
Speaker 1: And I think it's next week, right? Yeah, it's a
34:17
Speaker 1: week from today, September 22nd. I think, and I don't
34:21
Speaker 1: know if this is a function of demand or just
34:23
Speaker 1: the way things change. It's kind of flipped back and
34:27
Speaker 1: forth on Amazon between being able to get it the
34:31
Speaker 1: 22nd or the 23rd. That's where we kind of told
34:33
Speaker 1: people the best place to pre-order if you go to Amazon.com
34:37
Speaker 1: and just search unthinkable to unstoppable. You know, it's been,
34:43
Speaker 1: this has been like the fun part at least for me,
34:46
Speaker 1: and I probably speak for Mike with this, there was
34:48
Speaker 1: a long period of time where we really couldn't talk
34:50
Speaker 1: much about the book. It was still in production. We
34:51
Speaker 1: were still recording it. We were still writing it, still
34:54
Speaker 1: editing it. And then there was a period of time
34:56
Speaker 1: where we could talk about it, but it was still
34:57
Speaker 1: kind of just this conceptual thing. And then we got
34:59
Speaker 1: a hold of some copies that we were able to
35:01
Speaker 1: distribute around to various media outlets and, I don't know,
35:06
Speaker 1: book people, essentially. I'm new to this, so is Mike.
35:09
Speaker 1: So we're kind of figuring out the... It turns out
35:12
Speaker 1: that selling a book is as sort of detailed as
35:18
Speaker 1: writing it in a lot of ways. To your point
35:21
Speaker 1: about like all the places we've been, we've been talking
35:23
Speaker 1: about it these last couple of months, but this has
35:25
Speaker 1: been the fun part has been being able to tell
35:27
Speaker 1: some of these stories. You know, we had an excerpt
35:29
Speaker 1: in USA Today last week. We had one in the
35:31
Speaker 1: Herald Times this week. We'll have one just ahead of
35:33
Speaker 1: release at any start next week. The next week. So
35:37
Speaker 1: just to tease will be about a rather interesting story.
35:41
Speaker 1: Aiden Fisher's introduction to the IU Purdue rivalry. through the
35:46
Speaker 1: lens of actually an unnamed Purdue football player who may
35:50
Speaker 1: have had some select comments for Fisher before they'd ever played,
35:53
Speaker 1: before Curt Cignetti ever coached a game at Indiana. But
35:58
Speaker 1: it's been a lot of fun just to talk more
36:00
Speaker 1: and more about it and talk about, obviously, the way
36:03
Speaker 1: the book evolved in terms of our doing it, but
36:08
Speaker 1: then also talk about the essentially like the, the way
36:16
Speaker 1: the book evolved into what it evolved into as we
36:18
Speaker 1: wrote it, because we always wanted it to be more
36:21
Speaker 1: than just a simple recounting of facts, a simple recounting
36:27
Speaker 1: of sort of, you know, the games are played on
36:30
Speaker 1: these days and here are the scores and here are
36:32
Speaker 1: the stats. And maybe here are some original quotes about
36:35
Speaker 1: Iowa or Oregon or Penn state or whatever. And it
36:39
Speaker 1: did kind of evolve from, almost naturally, I would say,
36:43
Speaker 1: an exploration, obviously, of Indiana's history and how it got
36:46
Speaker 1: to where it got to, an exploration of so many
36:51
Speaker 1: of these individual characters that were involved up to and,
36:55
Speaker 1: of course, including Kurt Cignetti. And I think it really becomes,
36:59
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, like a study of leadership
37:01
Speaker 1: and culture building, frankly. I did a podcast that was
37:05
Speaker 1: a lot of fun a few weeks ago with a
37:07
Speaker 1: man named A.J. Madden, who didn't really want to talk
37:09
Speaker 1: about the football story, he wanted to talk about the
37:13
Speaker 1: leadership piece of it, you know, and, and because that's,
37:17
Speaker 1: you know, that is one of the central questions to
37:19
Speaker 1: answer here is how did Kurt Signetti do this? He
37:22
Speaker 1: didn't invent some brand new offense. You know, he didn't,
37:24
Speaker 1: he didn't sort of skip ahead on some schematic advantage
37:27
Speaker 1: that no one else had. He was, he was using
37:31
Speaker 1: a widely recognizable offense, a widely recognizable defense. He was,
37:38
Speaker 1: you know, he did not, unlock some secret in terms of,
37:42
Speaker 1: you know, player training or performance, at least that we
37:44
Speaker 1: know of. Um, he was doing a lot of the
37:47
Speaker 1: stuff everyone else was doing. Why was he doing it
37:49
Speaker 1: so well, so much better that he was able to
37:51
Speaker 1: do this and that, and, and that along the way,
37:54
Speaker 1: all these other characters were able to do it with it. Um,
37:58
Speaker 1: and so it, like, it's just been fun to talk about,
38:01
Speaker 1: like to, you know, yes, to share stories like pray
38:03
Speaker 1: for Oregon, um, you know, or, or the time that he,
38:07
Speaker 1: told Curtis Rourke, and I'm paraphrasing, but a fat quarterback
38:10
Speaker 1: can't run my offense. We had a more expanded kind
38:16
Speaker 1: of anecdote in that Harold Times piece that I think
38:20
Speaker 1: anyone who remembers Nick Marsh's gold cleats from spring practice
38:24
Speaker 1: will realize this is not a new thing with Kurt Cignetti,
38:28
Speaker 1: the idea of uniformity in your cleats and your socks
38:30
Speaker 1: and your sleeves and all these different things and why
38:33
Speaker 1: he does this stuff. But that's what's been fun to
38:36
Speaker 1: talk about, I think, is the what I suspect this
38:41
Speaker 1: teaches us about why Kurt Cignetti's process works so well
38:46
Speaker 1: as compared to so many of his peers, because it's
38:49
Speaker 1: not like he's doing something no one else can do.
38:53
Speaker 1: He's just doing it a little bit better, at least
38:57
Speaker 1: according to what works for him. And any of us
39:01
Speaker 1: who've covered this program have written about this stuff in
39:04
Speaker 1: the minutia. We wrote about the gold cleats quote. We
39:06
Speaker 1: wrote about Um, you know, the, uh, we wrote about the, um,
39:12
Speaker 1: you know, the, the way he handles practices or the
39:15
Speaker 1: fact that he doesn't use all of his spring and
39:17
Speaker 1: fall practices, you know, and, and, you know, how he takes,
39:21
Speaker 1: you know, some of the physical load off his players'
39:23
Speaker 1: bodies and things like that. But the book kind of
39:26
Speaker 1: puts it all in one place and just creates a
39:29
Speaker 1: whole picture that it's been fun to talk a lot
39:33
Speaker 1: more about. And we've been really appreciative of you, of
39:36
Speaker 1: everyone who's let us talk about this thing, sort of
39:40
Speaker 1: advertise it or promote it or whatever. Because again, we
39:43
Speaker 1: don't really know what we're doing when it comes to
39:45
Speaker 1: getting people. We have been learning... about flying this plane
39:50
Speaker 1: kind of midair. Um, but it's, it's the closer we've gotten,
39:54
Speaker 1: obviously the more exciting it's been to sort of think
39:56
Speaker 1: about getting in people's hands, but also the more fun
39:58
Speaker 1: it's been to finally kind of share this because I
40:02
Speaker 1: can't speak for Mike, but I certainly can speak for myself.
40:05
Speaker 1: I'm well aware of this. This may be the best
40:06
Speaker 1: story I ever get to tell. And, and so I
40:09
Speaker 1: wanted to do it well. And I think through first
40:11
Speaker 1: our day to day work, you know, during and around
40:15
Speaker 1: the last couple of seasons and then through the book,
40:18
Speaker 1: I think we did that.
40:19
Speaker 2: I know since you've told the story on the, the Oregon, like,
40:23
Speaker 2: how does that come about? And when you're talking, does,
40:26
Speaker 2: does that just get offered up in conversation or do
40:29
Speaker 2: you have to, you know, dig, dig who did that
40:32
Speaker 2: interview with the, to, to get the pray for Oregon thing?
40:35
Speaker 1: So what's interesting is I had heard, and maybe my
40:38
Speaker 1: cat too, I don't remember that story. Um, I had
40:44
Speaker 1: heard that story during the season. And at the time,
40:54
Speaker 1: nobody ever kind of wants to confirm that stuff. You
40:56
Speaker 1: don't want to bulletin board material anything.
40:58
Speaker 2: Right, because they could play Oregon again, and they did
41:00
Speaker 2: play Oregon again.
41:00
Speaker 1: Well, and you don't want to betray the sanctity of
41:02
Speaker 1: the locker room. And also just like coaches and athletes
41:04
Speaker 1: are such process-driven people. Like perspective is, it's a Nick Sabanism.
41:12
Speaker 1: Kurt Cignetti uses too. It's rat poison. The idea of
41:15
Speaker 1: stopping and looking back, reflecting on what it all means.
41:19
Speaker 1: they are so driven by their intense focus on what's
41:24
Speaker 1: next that nobody's ever going to confirm a story like
41:27
Speaker 1: that in real time. And there were a number of
41:30
Speaker 1: stories like that that one or both of us had
41:32
Speaker 1: heard that we went into the book trying to confirm.
41:35
Speaker 1: I had heard the Curtis Rourke story. Rourke came in.
41:38
Speaker 1: He played heavier at Ohio. He told us that was
41:41
Speaker 1: because of his knee. It was something the training staff
41:43
Speaker 1: there recommended. And when he got to Indiana, both he
41:46
Speaker 1: and Indiana's staff agreed he'd rather be playing back down
41:50
Speaker 1: at 220. This was always the plan. I'd heard, though,
41:53
Speaker 1: that Signetti walked up to him one day near the
41:56
Speaker 1: start of off-season training and said, you know, like, you
42:01
Speaker 1: can't run my office if you're a fat quarterback. Whatever,
42:03
Speaker 1: I forget the exact quote. I don't have it in
42:05
Speaker 1: front of me. Again, these are things that are not
42:08
Speaker 1: sort of confirmed in the moment. Curtis Rourke told us
42:12
Speaker 1: that story on his own. We prefaced it because you know,
42:18
Speaker 1: we'd heard from the JMU guys that Cignetti never came
42:20
Speaker 1: into the weight room ever at James Madison. And then
42:23
Speaker 1: they get to Indiana and he's coming in the weight
42:25
Speaker 1: room just with these sort of offhand comments like, you know,
42:28
Speaker 1: your grades aren't great, or don't you think you can
42:30
Speaker 1: push more weight? Or do you really think that's, you know, that's,
42:33
Speaker 1: that's going to make you better, whatever, just like just little,
42:35
Speaker 1: little bits and pieces, little sort of, you know, mental
42:38
Speaker 1: man management. Um, And so we started asking everyone we
42:42
Speaker 1: talked to that was on that 2024 team, because Signetti
42:45
Speaker 1: apparently went back to not doing it in 2025. It
42:47
Speaker 1: was just that 2024 season. You know, do you have
42:51
Speaker 1: a story? Did he do that to you at some point?
42:53
Speaker 1: And Curtis just told us that, you know, we had, I,
42:58
Speaker 1: we asked some people early on if the Pray for
43:01
Speaker 1: Oregon thing happened, but then like, I just think I
43:03
Speaker 1: remember interviewing Zen Mahalski. And one of the questions we
43:06
Speaker 1: asked basically everyone, it was, 20 years from now, you're
43:10
Speaker 1: going to tell somebody you played at Indiana. They're going
43:12
Speaker 1: to say, did you play for Kurt Cignetti? And you're
43:13
Speaker 1: going to say yes, and they're going to ask you
43:15
Speaker 1: for your best Kurt Cignetti story. What is it? Some
43:18
Speaker 1: variation of that question. And Zin-Mahalsky's like, yeah, I got
43:22
Speaker 1: a great one for you. And it was the Pray
43:24
Speaker 1: for Oregon thing. And we probably had a half dozen
43:26
Speaker 1: different people that told us that completely of their own volition.
43:30
Speaker 1: And again, I think that was reflective of, you know,
43:35
Speaker 1: once those people were freed, from the just sort of
43:38
Speaker 1: day to day of the season I think it did
43:40
Speaker 1: sink in with them how remarkable this journey was how
43:44
Speaker 1: remarkable this story was and will remain and I think
43:49
Speaker 1: that they were eager to share their memories and their
43:53
Speaker 1: you know their perspectives because I think again even just
43:59
Speaker 1: a few weeks removed from from Miami they had come
44:03
Speaker 1: to the individual and probably in some cases collective realizations
44:06
Speaker 1: that that, you know, this is one of the most
44:13
Speaker 1: remarkable things that they will ever be a part of.
44:16
Speaker 1: And so, you know, for every story we went into
44:19
Speaker 1: the book hoping to confirm, we got three more that
44:22
Speaker 1: we'd never heard before. I had no idea Scott Dolson
44:26
Speaker 1: got stuck in an elevator at the team hotel for
44:28
Speaker 1: 45 minutes with members of Pam Witten's family trying to
44:32
Speaker 1: get up to Pam Witten's suite to celebrate the national
44:35
Speaker 1: championship game. Um, and that when he walked in and
44:38
Speaker 1: explained what had happened, Chris, he said, you know, next
44:40
Speaker 1: time take the stairs. Um, you know, I, I, I
44:44
Speaker 1: had no idea about, um, you know, we, we, I mean,
44:47
Speaker 1: I don't think we'd ever really heard about like the
44:49
Speaker 1: sort of, you know, socks and cleats things. We'd never
44:51
Speaker 1: really talked to anybody about, um, or we'd never really
44:55
Speaker 1: talked to Cignetti about like, well, we, we had maybe
44:58
Speaker 1: his own background, but again, almost like just specific parts
45:03
Speaker 1: of it. Right. Like, his time, like his dad or
45:06
Speaker 1: his time at JMU or why he took the IUP job,
45:10
Speaker 1: never all of it, never like a whole, you know, never,
45:15
Speaker 1: never trying to take on the entire picture at once.
45:18
Speaker 1: And so, you know, when it came to those anecdotes,
45:21
Speaker 1: like I said, people were eager to share that stuff
45:24
Speaker 1: because I think people understood like, this is, this is
45:28
Speaker 1: different and it's going to remain different that, you know,
45:31
Speaker 1: the one thing we really didn't tackle is, in the
45:34
Speaker 1: book was the idea of Indiana's legacy, because we need
45:36
Speaker 1: hindsight to tell us more about what it is. If
45:38
Speaker 1: in the next 10 years, there are four more first-time
45:41
Speaker 1: national champions, then Indiana paved a road for someone else.
45:45
Speaker 1: If in the next 10 years, nine of the next
45:47
Speaker 1: 10 national championships are won by Ohio State, Alabama, and Georgia,
45:51
Speaker 1: then Indiana is one of one. But the legacy that
45:54
Speaker 1: will not diminish is that Indiana did it first. Indiana
45:58
Speaker 1: proved something that was supposed to be impossible wasn't. And
46:01
Speaker 1: Indiana did it before anyone else. if Northwestern wins a
46:04
Speaker 1: national championship this year, it will be remarkable, but it
46:08
Speaker 1: will be, you know, it will be, you know, the
46:12
Speaker 1: second moon landing, not the first one. And so, you know,
46:18
Speaker 1: that I think is the understanding, the recognition of that
46:21
Speaker 1: is why we got so many of those stories and
46:23
Speaker 1: so many of those sort of candid memories and emotions
46:27
Speaker 1: and perspectives, because I think people, you know, the people
46:30
Speaker 1: inside of this understood instinctively that very quickly what all
46:36
Speaker 1: this meant.
46:38
Speaker 2: Well, Zach, I'm looking forward to reading, and I know
46:42
Speaker 2: a lot of IU fans are. Reminder, if you haven't
46:45
Speaker 2: done so yet, go over to Amazon, pre-order the book.
46:47
Speaker 2: I'm sure if you're a local Bloomington, you'll be able
46:50
Speaker 2: to pick it up at local bookstores and probably throughout
46:53
Speaker 2: most of the Midwest. I don't know what the plan
46:55
Speaker 2: is there. I don't want to speak out of turn,
46:57
Speaker 2: but I would think a lot of bookstores in the
46:59
Speaker 2: state would hopefully have it, right?
47:01
Speaker 1: Certainly hope so. And that's, you know, we have learned
47:04
Speaker 1: that like the process for like independent stores picking it
47:08
Speaker 1: up versus box stores and like it's kind of across
47:11
Speaker 1: the map. And I think that's part of the reason
47:12
Speaker 1: why everyone we've talked to has said like early on,
47:16
Speaker 1: you just kind of push people to Amazon because that's
47:19
Speaker 1: the most like centralized place where a lot of that
47:21
Speaker 1: sort of energy and interest and momentum can kind of,
47:25
Speaker 1: you know, be animated. But I know a ton of
47:28
Speaker 1: people who've, you know, for example, uh, been thrilled to
47:31
Speaker 1: hear the number of people who've ordered through Morgenstern books
47:33
Speaker 1: in Bloomington. We're going to do an event with them
47:35
Speaker 1: next Wednesday, September 23rd, a little Q and a, and
47:37
Speaker 1: a signing, um, Wednesday night, I think six to seven
47:41
Speaker 1: over on, uh, South auto mall road near Bloomington, uh,
47:44
Speaker 1: near college mall. I had one guy tell me he
47:47
Speaker 1: ordered it through his local bookstore in Massachusetts. Um, because
47:51
Speaker 1: a lot of these places can, can, you know, essentially
47:54
Speaker 1: just take like a bespoke preorder, I think. Um, and then,
47:57
Speaker 1: you know, get it in for you. So like, whatever
47:59
Speaker 1: you're in. I know there's a Kindle version. Now people
48:02
Speaker 1: have asked about that. We're still working on an audio book,
48:04
Speaker 1: but hopeful to have one fairly soon.
48:06
Speaker 2: Um, we need you and Mike to voice the audio book.
48:10
Speaker 1: I mean, we do it, but again, you know, what,
48:12
Speaker 1: what we've learned is that there's, there's layers to this
48:15
Speaker 1: stuff and we're happy to, to let our publisher who's
48:18
Speaker 1: obviously more experienced with this, um, you know, kind of
48:21
Speaker 1: take the lead on, on those things. Um, but yeah, no,
48:24
Speaker 1: I mean, it's, it's, I'm just excited for people to
48:26
Speaker 1: get in their hands. The response really has been genuinely fantastic. And,
48:31
Speaker 1: you know, it, we have a chapter in there dedicated
48:33
Speaker 1: to fans where we talk about, you know, the different ways,
48:36
Speaker 1: among other things, we're talking about the different ways fans,
48:38
Speaker 1: you know, kind of reacted to the national championship and, and,
48:42
Speaker 1: you know, the way they engaged with like our friends
48:45
Speaker 1: over at home field or the way they engage with
48:47
Speaker 1: like the Indiana daily student and stuff like that. I
48:50
Speaker 1: think they're, you know, this is a different piece, right?
48:52
Speaker 1: Like this is kind of a, you know, for them, it's,
48:54
Speaker 1: it's a chance to walk back through it. It's, it's
48:56
Speaker 1: not basking in the immediate afterglow, but it's something, it's
49:00
Speaker 1: something that, you know, is, is going to maybe allow
49:03
Speaker 1: them to be more reflective long-term, not just on last season,
49:06
Speaker 1: but just the journey all the way through, um, you know,
49:09
Speaker 1: the last three years. And for some, in some ways
49:12
Speaker 1: for the last like a hundred years. Um, but I'm
49:15
Speaker 1: just excited for people to get in their hands. I
49:17
Speaker 1: really am. Terrific.
49:18
Speaker 2: Congratulations on, on I know that's a huge undertaking I
49:22
Speaker 2: know if I know anything about Zach I know the
49:25
Speaker 2: work he does is terrific so I've known him for
49:28
Speaker 2: such a long time and going back to his days
49:31
Speaker 2: as a student at IU to see just his career
49:35
Speaker 2: grow and all the things he's accomplished I'm not surprised
49:38
Speaker 2: that he's done something like this and I know it's
49:41
Speaker 2: going to be really well done. I'm looking forward to
49:42
Speaker 2: reading it. I hope you will do the same. Zach,
49:45
Speaker 2: thanks for carving out the time. Get back to your
49:48
Speaker 2: book tour. I know you've probably got some other things
49:50
Speaker 2: the rest of the week to get to there. And
49:52
Speaker 2: obviously an IU football game this Saturday to cover. So
49:54
Speaker 2: we'll be looking forward to your coverage as always. If
49:57
Speaker 2: you enjoy podcasts on the brink, please leave us a
49:59
Speaker 2: rating and review over on Apple podcasts or Spotify. If
50:02
Speaker 2: you're still watching the video, hit that like button. down
50:05
Speaker 2: below on YouTube. Subscribe to the channel. Send this to
50:07
Speaker 2: another IU or Big Ten fan who may enjoy the content.
50:11
Speaker 2: And we'll be back soon with another episode of Podcast
50:14
Speaker 2: on the Brain.