MartintheMopMan

Disagree. Well, half disagree so, disa. I'm a big fan of being so inside Boilers' heads that they're actually cheering for us. Even giving them a spanking inside their own giant freezer just left them hungry for more. But, any Hoosier who roots for Duey to win a championship in anything is dead to me.

Eh, if there are six seconds left and we have the ball at the 50 then you might as well. But also, this is Curt Cignetti we are talking about. He won't even consider letting Franke try to kick a field goal if he doesn't fully believe he can do it.

Every single thing I saw or heard until the post here less than an hour ago also said 4:30.

The nervous energy of a day like today is the worst because it's so hard to manage. This weekend, I managed by forcing my daughter to endure a Mighty Ducks marathon (though only like 1/3 into D3). Despite the Ducks using Oregon's name and the colors and mascot being much much closer to Miami's (until D3 ironically), all season it has felt like we are living in a 90s sports movie and never more than now. It's honestly glaring. The team of misfits who are perennial losers until they get a new coach who unlocks their potential. A successful first season followed by a second-season where, with the help of a few transfers (including a kid from Miami named Mendoza) they become world-beaters. A final game against a team who is bigger, faster, stronger, has more facial hair. A team aiming to use their size to physically hurt players to weaken our heroes. A team made up of ******* ***** *** **** **** who ****************************** **** and are proud of it. Like, how well does Miami slot into the position of a villain? It's uncanny. That also makes me anxious because it raises a whole question of whether these storybook cinematic endings are pure fantasy or can really happen. With the world what the world is, it's hard to believe in any ending where the good guys win. Reality always seems to crush them in the end. I feel like that's part of why so many people have united behind us and in support of us too. Everyone wants the Little Giants to beat the Little Cowboys. Will they? Or does that only happen in movies?

I don't think it will be enough to swing the game or anything, but I think there is more of an advantage than that. It's worth maybe .5-.75 points. There is a psychological impact to knowing it's "yours" and you're defending it. Nothing new to see or get used to or get distracted by. Like using someone else's computer, even when it's otherwise identical to yours. Moreover, there is a physical advantage to knowing how the grass feels, how your cleats grip to it, how balls move through the air, what it looks like for a ball to go through the uprights or to throw into the end zone, how sound travels and bounces around. Tons of tiny little factors. I mean, even if both were completely empty, you know the bball team would shoot better in an empty Assembly Hall than an empty Bankers Life even if they're both fundamentally a court with bleachers around it. Studies showed the advantage of being the home team in the NFL persisted even during COVID when the stands were empty, for instance.

Nothing too surprising. Canes hoped Lofton would be back, but I guess not, that's a break for us for sure. I haven't seen this noted here - People are saying it will be a Big 12 ref crew headed by Michael Vandervelde who did some CFP games last year but nothing notable this year.

I mean, that's who Miami is. They've talked about wanting to hurt Mendoza on podcasts I've listened to. Their fans encourage each other to **** with other teams' fans while they tailgate. They reflect the personality of Miami itself, rowdy, cocky, and flashy. Proudly declaring this a game of hicks v. convicts. It's why I didn't want them as opponents, it puts more pressure on for a win because I can't stand to see them take the victory. I mean, other teams say they want to play with physicality, Miami says they want to play with violence. That says a lot of it right there.

He was a big recruit for Miami back in 2020-21, barely saw the field with them, went to Akron in 2023, redshirted then played half of the next season, spent the last year as a starter at WKU where he got a ton of recognition. He definitely checks the proven production box and would be a huge pickup if he met CCC's standards otherwise. No clue if we're involved.

Did you catch last night's? It's fantastic. It actually doesn't talk about the Miami O-line basically at all (though some of the shorts do), but it's a great explanation of how the Indiana D operates, creates simulated pressures, and manages to be so effective. Also, he touches on how great we are at tackling! Finally someone recognizes. Watching some of the OSU-Miami game again, my wife and I were talking about how the last game Sayin played, a month earlier, was against us. I wonder if that impacted how he handled Miami's pressure. I think it's well-established that our defense leaves QBs seeing ghosts and I find it hard to believe those ghosts are exorcised by not playing football for a month. But maybe I'm just glazing us. He was also on a Miami podcast and did some breakdown there; really negative about our o-line in that one. He's not really wrong about all of it, but I do think he's playing to his audience a bit too. He doesn't give a reason to think the o-line will be materially worse against Miami than it was against anyone else.

Yeah, I never was able to find the radio call broadcasts either. The best experience, I think, is skycam or high skycam then syncing up Fisch yourself on a separate sound system (if you're not already syncing Fisch for games, I don't know what you're doing). It gives a great view of the field and development of plays like an all-22 feed, you get the crowd noise (on surround sound? ooo baby), and then you get Fisch narrating and giving you important information like why there is a stoppage of play or whatever other info is occasionally convenient to have. The additional casts have always been my favorite part of the playoffs, it's such a shame they're really difficult to find for replays later.

I believe it's a 10% fee for sellers plus a 20% fee for buyers, based on my experience selling tickets on Seat Geek. But, also, at the risk of sounding flippant, so what? It would technically be more accurate for someone to say they are waiting for sellers to be willing to sell for $1650, I suppose, I'm just not sure where the perception that $2000 is the bottom-floor for sellers would come from.

I would 100% agree with you if we were playing Ole Miss or Oregon for the championship, but Miami fans are awful. I don't need us to win as much as I need them to lose.

I would actually prefer if we played with slightly higher tempo than usual in some series. Bull and Matador's high energy attack needs time to recharge. Keep them moving and they'll run out of ~~mana~~ gas right quick. Don't need to do it the whole game or with a specific tendency, just enough so they slow themselves down a few degrees to keep their reserves up. I haven't had time to sit down and watch the whole game at once, but I'd say that's an accurate description of the OSU game. Their defense is not built to handle uncertainty. That does mean establishing the run will be critical and they're very good at limiting rushing yardage which I would identify as one of the things our D doesn't do quite as well. Either team averaging 4 ypa on a decent number of attempts would be a good sign for that team. It would be hard to lose at 5 ypa. OSU struggled to run the ball outside of the RPO and Just Sayin is too inexperienced and too little of a run threat for them to rely on it with any consistency. Even so, it was fairly successful which I would consider a big positive for us. I have watched a good amount of film and analysis for this game* (I'm definitely going to get chewed out over the drop in my billables this month) and the one x-factor I still have not seen anyone talking about is our ability to tackle. It's surprising because it's one of the things that jumps out at me in every single game. My wife would probably be very happy if I stopped mentioning it so often, honestly. I can't help it! It's textbook. Keep low, shoulder down, head up, hands around the waist. It just doesn't seem to be tracked very well in the metrics. Miami's run game is similar to ours in that a ton of yards come after contact. I suspect they will struggle to fall forward as frequently as they're used to. *including rewatching the season in the off-hours for reasons completely unrelated to cutting together a video consisting solely of clips of Cignetti

Those are actually my favorite analyses to listen to; I find them reassuring. I mean, think about it, it's always total homers for the Canes who know the team inside and out. Plus, they're playing up the Canes' strengths to steelman them as much as possible. Yet, despite all of that, they can't pick against Indiana. Maybe being a lawyer has made me way too sensitive about believing anyone (on either side) based on their ability to put together an argument for why the team they root for is going to win. But when they can put together the argument, but still concede they're not going to win? I'll bask in that all day.

What service is that on? I haven't seen under $2,900 on SeatGeek or VividSeats. I would just about pull the trigger at the price you got (even if it's irresponsible because I don't have travel or accommodations arranged yet).

He did say he was going to talk about it live on his patreon stream then delete it, so that minimizes the risk of a leak, at least.

Just great, more Miami fans.

Do we find out before game day?

He should just move out to the West Coast so the game ends at a reasonable hour. As long as your work hours are a little flexible, it's a nice perk.

This guy posted his film study on a Miami forum, but I don't think he is a homer. It's a nice look at Bain and Mesidor in particular. I continue to have faith in our coaches and players to see these same things and be ready to counter them.

The theory from Canes is that Vegas is trying to psyche bettors into betting on Indiana by making it look like Indiana is so much better than the Canes because they know the Canes are the better team and Vegas has to recoup the money lost from doubting the Canes in the first three CFP games. Of course, the same people think Canes coaching staff are utterly destroying the team's chances next year by not prioritizing a QB in the portal but also the Canes coaching staff has put together a game plan that Indiana has no chance of overcoming, so I'm not sure they've got a real brain trust going over there.

A first drive interception would be very on brand for us. Plus, it would really fuel those cheating allegations (in the funniest way).

Director Daniels legit looks like Supreme Leader Snoke in this video. For comparison:

I have seen a lot of Canes discounting us because of our history and a simple comparison of size or talent by position. Also, more than a few who have only seen us play in the Peach Bowl and maybe the Rose. It's funny because you can tell people really struggle with how far above our talent-on-paper level we play. "All we have to do is stop the run and force Mendoza to pass 30+ times." As if no one has thought of that before. "They don't have a chance of stopping our size on the D-line." Oh, right, I forgot no other teams have big players. Maybe it says more about me than them, but how does anyone think like that? How do you casually say Miami will easily win by double-digits even if you haven't seen a minute of Indiana football? Do you really think no other team has tried or that you have a completely unique blueprint they have never seen before? You can watch the OSU, Penn State, and Iowa tape and find things we have struggled with, but you can't call any of them a blueprint for beating us because no one has cracked that nut yet. I think it's totally possible for Miami to beat Indiana. I've thought the same thing about Oregon twice, OSU, Penn State, and Iowa, but the team and coaching staff have proved themselves up to the challenge every time. Anyone who approaches a championship game like it's already in the bag has never seen a championship game before.