8bucks

It’s a new kind of arms race in college athletics. It used to be based on getting money for facilities to stay up with or ahead of the pack. Better facilities, in theory, better recruiting and coaches. Now, it is money for NIL. But these donors seem to have a stronger voice in who the coach will be. Will the money dry up if we keep Woody and keep being basically a top 35-50 team? Or do those donors give only because of his influence and relationship? How do you keep part of the donor base happy if they want to move on while another important group wants to keep the coach. Dolson has a lot of experience working with these groups so he is probably a great guy to handle it. Hopefully he can find a way to “honor” Woody with an exit plan that keeps important donors happy and gets us back on a winning track.

The problem i have with Leal is while he can give you some valuable minutes in a game here or there he usually only does one thing helpful in those games. Yesterday he played good D but was largely neutral on the offensive end. It would sure help if he gave some scoring, had some assists or at a minimum shot FT better than 62%.

I think this can be misleading as he played in mop up minutes for a lot of the wins. It would be more beneficial to see his +/- impact in games where the final score is close.

I am not expecting it at all but it is not impossible either. The BT’s highest ranked team is Oregon at #9 and we have 3 others in the top 25. Not nearly as deep a conference as we have had in prior years. Woodson teams have also had stretches where they have played very well. Usually late in the year after underperforming for most of the year. There is enough talent on this team to end up with double digit wins in a conference without that many unbeatable teams. Will they do it, unlikely but for now there is a path. They could easily start off 4-1 in conference and perhaps that confidence leads to better performance. It could also lead to overconfidence and one of those losing streaks Woodsons team have also been known for.

I don’t really disagree but there is a path currently to the tournament should we go 12-8 or 13-7. If we start off with a home loss to one of the easier teams on this schedule it makes the path much less likely.

Weird at this point in the year but this is really a must win game for Indiana. Home game vs a “lesser” team should be a win and given the lack of big wins so far they cannot afford to lose tonight. I would not be surprised to see a shorter lineup. A win, especially a close win, does not really tell us much either. A loss though tells a lot and would likely be the precursor to the wheels falling off.

My primary point (though not well made) was that whether it is the pressure of the job, or likely a variety of things, UK did not get their top targets.

I may be wrong but I don’t think Pope was one of the top candidates when the UK job opened up. I know his name was on some lists we had for IU candidates but was down the list, if on it at all. He had success at BYU but was far from a sure thing.

This may be a down year somewhat but really should not be down too far. They still have a lot of talent on that team and Clark is gone from Iowa. They have enough talent to be top 15-20 and it looks like they are starting to play like that.

I think this season where we were genuinely in the playoff discussion the last month of the season took us as fans further than we could have imagined had we just been a top 25 team playing in a bowl. Had the latter happened I think we would have been thrilled but I don’t think many of us could have truly imagined Indiana being a playoff caliber team. Now that we have seen it, tasted it, we can legitimately consider those results. The team, staff and coaches can too. For me that is the advantage we have vs just being in a bowl. I do like the idea of getting a bowl game after the first round since there is so much time.

Seems like his production dropped this year. Any ideas why? Crowded safety room? Injury?

I think Alford is a good to very good coach. He is consistently above his peers at the mid major level and had some success at the P5 level. To excel we need a great coach though.

I was going to make a similar post. UCLA, Kentucky and l’ville come to mind. now that does not mean we can’t overcome that but those examples as well as our attempts should remind us all that it is not as easy as we would expect.

Did Fisch say if they don’t play hard Woodson is done? Fisch never seems critical of an active coach. The team at times but not whoever the current coach is.

Yikes

For those of us who prefer to eat pie vs going back to find a post can you remind us of the Tucker comments.

Good work. He definitely seems well equipped to plug and play QBs

Curious how you know how old Jerry is?

Did he have a lot of transfer QBs before IU? I know he has had all conference QBs frequently but assumed those were generally home grown for some reason.

Blame my old eyes.

Younger Mendoza is 15 also...

Tommy John surgery has a long recovery period still I believe. 9 months to a year. If that is still the case Georgia needs a QB1 next year

Makes me feel better about how good Mendoza could be.

Love that snark comment about the SEC

Wonder where Tayven will be ranked and who is yet to enter. https://247sports.com/longformarticle/college-football-transfer-portal-2025-tracker-10-best-available-quarterbacks-and-which-teams-are-in-the-mix-242297824/amp/