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New strength guy in the boat. Appears he worked for Cig as the head S&C guy at Elon for a year.

'Nando broke some records on the Tonight Show ...

Played college football at the University of Sioux Falls, for their then-Coach Kalen DeBoer!

We absolutely wipe the floor with Miami if we have one of Wyatt or Daley. Other than the Fletcher TD, every single one of the offensive plays that kept them in the game were because we couldn't get to Beck.

One more huge viewership number for the season.

Absolutely nailed it. Woodson cared way too much about those outlier fans and thus allowed it to enter the locker room through his players and staff. Absolute worst thing to do. Some of those people are awful. But why would you waste your time with that nonsense. The majority of the fanbase just reacts to results and on court efforts. The solution is easy to find. I genuinely think a top 25 level team that makes the tournament a HIGH percentage of the time will be enough for this fanbase now. Our “standards” as a fanbase are not anywhere close to where they’ve been. Despite all this, we still can’t reach these standards with a budget that indicates we should.

In an absolutely stunning development, 'Nando declares for the NFL draft! LOL Thanks Fernando, for a season nobody will ever forget. From a former 2-star recruit to a Big Ten champion, a Heisman Trophy winner, a Rose Bowl champion, a Peach Bowl champion and ... a NATIONAL CHAMPION! Great player. Great person. Continue to be great!

Oh good lord Mario...YES!! Now see what you can do to get your uniquely awesome running buddy Tyrique to come back by your side.

UConn football fans, all 5 of em, loved this guy.

I think I've read that Owings almost left last year; therefore, Cig was prepared for this possibility. And when Cig is prepared? The chances that it will be an outstanding decision are about as high as possible. So welcome Coach Brown; it's a critically imporatnt role and I'm excited that Cig has his guy identified for it.

When Coach Cig took over IUFB, the stadium would be half full at best for games. Instead of whining about how bad our fans are, he built a juggernaut that led to a 95/5 IU peach bowl crowd and then IU fans outnumbering Miami fans in the national championship in Miami’s own stadium. Instead of doing the same thing, Mike Woodson paid guys to trash the fanbase. IU fans are some of the best in the country and I’m just sick of mediocre former players who accomplished nothing at IU trashing the fanbase. Sure there are bad parts, some people go overboard on social media, but that’s in no way unique to IU or worse than what they’d get at other schools with expectations. The quickest way to shut people up is to win, but blaming other people is easier to do.

The U are the first team to announce their jersey patch sponsor for next season.

Nowakowski was quite possibly our best blocker in the run/perimeter game, OL included. He mauled people. I'm really surprised we haven't brought in another guy to try to fill that role.

Ponds pens his farewell ...

I'm mostly only concerned at TE honestly. We have zero proven production at that spot. Staff must like the young fellas though.

Good lord that defense. The returnees at DT, safety, CB, and LB are extraordinary. The additions are also extraordinary. I pity the fools trying to score against Haines' boys next season.

The world is his oyster. I'm truly excited to see what Fernando does in life. I'm sure he will continue being great at anything he tries with the head he has on his shoulders. The Raiders better get him some great OL. I'd hate to see his career cut short like Luck's

We paid up to keep Owings from going to USC. Cig doesn't strike me as a guy that'll do that more than once.

^^Too absolutist and broad for me.^^ Far more likely that there are some IU football players that are jackasses, and some current IU basketball players that have truly outstanding attitudes by any measure. Moreover, the talent pool and availabilty of talent, both physically and mentally, that fits key roles is world's different on a 103 player football roster vs a (currently healthy) 11 man basketball roster. The 11 guys we've got include significant gaps in skillsets needed for consistent winning. That, and the entirety of the situation is on the staff. But it's FAR too soon to declaratively state that the staff cannot make corrections and succeed greatly. There are so many examples of new staffs making post-first year corrections and succeeding greatly (Todd Golden, Jay Wright, among many others) and of course, many, many examples of first year underperforming coaches that never figure it out. For me? This is where I'm at: I personally think that this thread is fine for message board fodder, but it is drastically premature and kind of silly for anyone to draw a conclusion at this point.

Some guys want the status without the expectations. They want to be big man on campus without getting any pushback for stinking it up on the court. You see it in the NBA all the time. Guys who just want to get paid and get shots without having any expectation of winning. Other guys handle the expectations, block out the noise, and win. IU football and IU basketball players are at polar opposite ends of the spectrum, and they likely have very different views of IU fans.

Omar Cooper catching it at the 15 with his back to the end zone, then proceeding to break 3 tackles and score against Purdue will never not be hilarious.

I don't have a good explanation to this. I'm believe we lost out on recruits in the mist of putting together a staff. The challenges seemed to snowball in terms of recruiting both players and coaches. I'm trying to be patient in this area, but I'm struggling to understand why we are not moving without the ball during periods of picking up 5 second calls. It seems to me that the quantity and quality of crisp cuts without the ball should not be affected by the quality or size of players. It should be a freaking baseline of attitude and effort you bring when you put on the uniform.

Most watched non-NFL game since Cubs Indians Game 7, which also happened to be a pretty big deal in my house.

And while Indiana basketball may play in 40 minutes, they rarely play for 40 minutes.

We are gonna miss Nowakowski quite a bit. TE is an interesting spot. I’m rooting hard for Schott, but man, not sure that is fair to the kid for him to live up to Nowakowski. So much youth at TE. Feel good about most other spots. Backup QB might be a worry too. LB?

One more milestone -- Fernando is the highest rated player on CFB '26.

Over lunch I spoke with a friend of mine that has a company that makes sports products. Most of you have either seen or own their stuff. He was saying that IU stuff was flying off the shelves and has been the last few weeks. The only thing comparable he says is NFL stuff, which is the 800lb gorilla in the room of any American sports discussion. Whether it is Devries or the next guy, the coach that gets IU basketball back to championship status will live like a king and be paid similarly. If it isn’t obvious from my posting, I think my number 1 pet peeve with IU are the people—fellow fans, coaches, and admin—who blame the fans. I’d love to see UNC and UK fans go 3 out of 10 years making the tourney and see what their attendance looks like. I’d love to see KU and Duke go to one (fluke) Final Four in 25 years and see their NIL. UCLA has some of the most fickle fans around and they’ve fallen bass-akward into 4 final fours this century. But…what are you gonna do? Me…I’ll probably watch us at Rutgers tonight.

Homefield Apparel. It's expensive but good quality (at least the hoodies). It was started by 2 IU grads and initially was made for IU football. So If I'm going to spend $75 for a hoodie, it will be there. They have some really well designed stuff. Fanatics for variety and price. The company sucks, but they have a ton of different brands available, and usually decent prices for things.(championship gear is expensive anywhere). May not be the best quality, but usually a good bang for your buck. If you live in Indiana and there's a Rally House around you; its a great place for in person shopping. (Website is good too).

Hearing Cig is giving him a full offer for final year so he is coming out of the portal and staying. Won’t really be impactful on the field, if at all, but cool to keep him from a leadership and culture aspect.

The injury issue concerns me with him. He’s not as athletic as Luck, he’s not built like a LB the way Luck was, but he seems to relish contact in the same way. Plus, he already has a concussion under his belt. They really need to work hard with him on picking his spots. Side note: the most underappreciated awesome thing from the NC game is the fact that the LB that Mendoza trucked on the 5yd line was the same guy who gave him the concussion hit at Cal. Love that, and you know he remembers it.

An abbreviated statement from IU on tomorrow's celebration. "By keeping the celebration at the stadium rather than moving it indoors, we aim to minimize the total time attendees are exposed to the elements. If the event was moved to Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, we anticipate fans would spend multiple hours standing in lines to secure entry. In light of the cold temperatures, fans are encouraged to dress warmly and remain in their vehicles until close to the 1 p.m. start time. Should the weather forecast dramatically worsen, we will provide further updates as necessary." Rightly or wrongly, it is a valid point about people standing in line outside for access to SSAH.

So, you bought 2 shirts and a hat? :D :D :D

I hate to belly-ache, but IU needs to get off their @$$ and move this Saturday championship celebration into Assembly Hall. It's going to be 10* with a -5* windchill. Doing this outdoors is ridiculous. We need to assemble a lot of people to celebrate. We have a great big hall for that. Use it.

Come on Stu. It's not like I'm pulling out a deep cut here. Tibetan monks have seen and giggled at Dumb and Dumber.

My $220+ worth of National Championship apparel needs to get here already. I NEED people to be reminded that we are National Champions whenever they see me. Specifically those couple of losers who wear Purdue stuff at the gym.

Our fans are fine. They're a net positive. They still support the program pretty well despite all the decades of struggles. The crowds are still decent and will cheer anything positive. They're usually desperate to cheer for something. And the fans still produce revenue via gameday sales and donations that fund the program and the staff/players enormous salaries. In the real world, our coaches and players are treated like royalty around Bloomington. I've seen it for years. Even in Woody's lowest moments he could walk down Kirkwood and no one would say a bad thing to him. Midwest nice. Nothing like UK or some of the nasty pro sports markets like Philly, Boston, and NY. And our media only asks softball questions. IUBB people have a great life here. Since our fans still care, they do notice things. We've had a lot of struggles, and frustrated players and staff will sometimes lash out when IUBB supporters notice they're struggling. I've just got no sympathy for that. It's a cop out, it's a lack of accountability/ownership, and it's a lack of gratitude towards the group of people who fund and support what you do. We absolutely have some overboard fans and that stinks. But IUBB has a fanbase of something like 2M people, and a group that big will have some bad apples. Some may not even be IU fans, just trolls. At the end of the day, if someone within IUBB can't appreciate the IU fanbase and/or handle what IUBBFan42069 and RMK768187 say online, they have basically zero chance of succeeding in CBB. Anyways, hopefully CDD can get this thing turned around over the next year.

Not that this is reliable in any way, but I’m seeing Omar being projected anywhere from back of the first round (CBS) to 4th round. Would be so huge to have him back, but if he’s confident he’ll be picked by round 3 he should go for it

The most Purdue Football Tweet ever. They signed a kicker recruit yesterday. Here is the reaction from their official fansite page:

Yet, he’s been unable to scheme around it. And it started before B1G play. I’m sure he’s a talented Xs and Os guy. But getting that conveyed to the players on the floor is also a coaching skill. It’s not happening with this team. There are definitely coaches/teams/systems that can free up shooters without a big. Yet the first time Bailey slips a screen and misses the layup we abandoned it for a while and our guys look like they’re stuck in mud on the perimeter. I think the roster excuse has covered up for some bad coaching, too. There are more things that need fixed next year than just the roster.

Coming from a bunch of players and coaches who haven’t won anything. And have underperformed projected metrics for about 9 straight years. Have given us not 1 enjoyable year as fans. It’s hard on them and it’s hard on us. Nobody wants to lose. Nobody wants to be the reason to lose. Blame someone else. Woodson was the master of turning against the fans. And his players are going to follow suit because you know it’s all they talked about behind the scenes. If we get an over performing team one of these days our fanbase will again be the best ever. But the effort, attitude, and results hasn’t been there for decades. Getva coach who is confident and focused on the right things. Get players who are confident, capable, and focused on the right things and become a respectable program again.

Jeez this still doesn’t feel real to me. I’ve only gotten to see a handful of my teams win a title. But those felt natural the result of steady play that eventually the law of averages panned out and the won. Same would have ever true if Myles Turner had bothered to show up in the finals. But this is still surreal even after watching the team for month push past any obstacle. Just unbelievable

247 updated the '26 class. Vaughan Karvala 50 Prince-Alexander Moody 78 Sizeable jump for Moody who had been in the 120's.

BTW -- PSU and Wisky are playing on FS1. Color analyst just happens to be the greatest scorer in B1G men's basketball history. I've seen him in the studio before, but don't recall him calling games. Might be his debut ...

This is a very cool watch of old Cig clips.

BTN will air live coverage of Natty celebration on Saturday https://www.insidethehall.com/2026/01/22/big-ten-network-to-air-live-coverage-of-iu-footballs-national-championship-celebration/

With as much roster turnover as we're going to have heading into next season, keeping guys like this around should really help set the tone for new joiners.

Is Star Wars and Star Trek the same thing? Asking for a friend.

OK guys now that football season is over , I can start watching basketball again. What have I missed?……………….oh my