Demo

Would certainly never argue against Fisher. Kid's bada$$. But Ponds is my boy. Love that every game is the same. Teams throw at him a couple of times early, they get nothin' and they just stop. Effectively shuts down half the field. Also love me a 175lb CB who hits people. No drag tackling with that kid, ever.

Yeah, there needs to be some kind of award for the 1st one who came name the entire team from headshots only.

Would normally put no stock in this at all, but since Tipton is kind of the go-to source for splashly announcement stuff, they may have some inkling.

Can't imagine I'll ever see a game there, but on TV Husky Stadium looks unbelievably cool. Watching the DeBoer/Penix games there felt freaking awesome.

Taliaferro A.T. Randle-El Cig 2 things: 1) Once he's left IU Ponds will be on there for me somewhere. Love that kid. 2) Among the honorable mentions that hasn't come up yet, how about Eric Moore? All Big 10. 1st round pick. All Rookie. Went to a Pro Bowl. Has a ring. That's about as good as IUFB gets, at least until now.

https://x.com/ClifMarshall/status/1978633414531027403 This does the old heart good. The kid Newton stuffed is Kareem Stagg, who’s a 6’9” athlete. Really hope Jakai can get back to some facsimile of the player he might have been.

Wow, somehow I missed that the Penn St loss to Northwestern was a home game. Yowza, that must’ve been some kind of ugly.

Under the heading of “maybe somethin’, maybe nothin’” top 100 small forward Jalyn Collingwood is announcing tomorrow with Ohio State as 1 of his 3 finalists.

So, he finished the ‘24-25 school year at Fishers but would have de facto lost the ‘25-26 season? Is it a function of proximity between the schools? If he’d transferred to, say, Center Grove would it have played out the same way?

Bittersweet music night tonight. Going to see 1 of my all time favorite garage/bar bands, Bloomington’s own Murder by Death, on their farewell tour. Love those guys. Seen them maybe 8 or 10 times. It’s a small venue, seats maybe 700, so I really hope they hang around a bit after the show. I want to buy those guys a drink. This is a favorite. Will be crazy disappointed if they don’t play it.

I don’t think I’m being a homer, but as long as he’s comfortable with the commitment of the school to the program I just don’t see a scenario where he leaves. One of the guys on the Titus podcast said something like, “Cig wants to take the IU football program and shove it up everybody’s a$$.” Inelegantly put, but yeah. He’s that bittered up old dude who’s kept every receipt and when a Penn St calls he’s gonna say something like, “Yeah, you wouldn’t have called 18 months ago, right? Just a heads up, I’m gonna come into your place here in a couple of weeks and I’m gonna beat y’all like you stole somethin’. Thanks for the call.” I just can’t see it any other way. Do not underestimate the bitterness of an old man.

100%. But, truthfully, I really, really hope he’s seen the Wisky 2010 box score. That one needs serious payback.

The Johnson family doesn’t deserve a kid like Mendoza as the face of their franchise. I don’t want him to have to take the Darnold career path.

Hanover? Like, Hanover College? Is that an exhibition of some kind or does that count towards their record?

KU just announced that they’re giving Jeremy Case the title of Associate HC. Interesting. He wasn’t Self’s lead Assistant and once Jacques Vaughn got there if they were gonna give that title to anyone you would just assume it would have been him.

Freaking knew it. Eli Drinkwitz now coming up in connection with Penn St. His agent is The Man. Got Drink’s name attached to LSU and got him a big extension when there was no chance he was a candidate there. He’s about to do it again. He’s also Marcus Freeman’s agent, so don’t be surprised when you start hearing about how Freeman is “open to Penn St overtures.”

Feeling a slight early hangover and then lights out. IU. 45 MSU 10

I think Campbell would be an excellent hire and maybe that’s sort of where they end up. But I don’t imagine they spent almost 50 mil to go get the guy from Iowa St. They’ll be taking some big swings 1st. Side note: how funny is it that a guy who’ll be 65 before he coaches a game in the ‘26 season and has coached 19 games at the high major level would be considered maybe the biggest swing of all? And yet, of course he is. What a time this is.

That’s certainly the simplest connect the dots move and given the relationships there it would make a ton of sense. But is that an actual upgrade? Wouldn’t pretend to be able to judge football coaching talent, but it doesn’t really feel like much of one unless they think the issue with Franklin is that he just got stale.

Strikes me as kind of an interesting question. My 1st blush is Buzz Williams, but he moves too much and hasn’t really had the success to be comped that way. Maybe Sean Miller? Thoughts?

Good. They absolutely should be. The worst beatdown of a top 10 team in ages and the best single win in CFB this year. Nobody has a better case than that.

This needs to happen. The staff absolutely needs to lock down the recruiting hotbed that is….Delaware. Kidding aside, there are like 10 kids on the state’s 247 list with high major commitments. Who knew?

The farthest east the guy has ever coached is Mississippi St. It certainly doesn't look like some years in the making relationship. So the dude just made it happen. Good for him.

Yeah, and it's sort of weird but the fact that the system is pretty open now doesn't make it feel better. Back in the day when you knew the Fab 5 or the Flyin' Illini were bought it still felt, I don't know, more innocent, almost quaint, than straight up free agency feels now. This is the reality now so fine, but I used to enjoy being able to rationalize the delusion that kids really wanted to play for the front of the shirt. Makes the Trent Sisley's of the world that much cooler.

He’s very good. Was it Illinois where he just kicked their a$$ all day?