Pagoda

One more, the Green Dot.

Overall, with respect to ND, I don't get why the P2, who control the playoff, are so accommodating to them. Especially with the recent agreed to provision ND is in the playoff if they're in the top-12 starting in 2026. ND is a big program, but looking at their TV ratings they're #10-15 in the country. CFB and the playoff doesn't need them. Why not make the CFP qualification tougher for ND and therefore easier for the P2 conference teams? I don't really get it. And yea, I guess the committee kinda jammed them in 2025, but still. As for our home/home coming up with them, I hope we keep it. A win is great and a loss wouldn't kill our season. But also there is some brewing bad blood with them due to their butthurtness over our recent improvement. The games would be massive and that would be fun.

Rutger was added to conference to boost carriage TV fees in the NY area markets. That worked. But I’ve got to wonder if they survive whatever happens in 2030’s with the media and grant of rights deal negotiations. The B1G will be in the NY area markets regardless of their inclusion in the conference. This is harsh, but they have added almost nothing to the conference since they joined. Hard to see a good reason to send them $100M+/yr in conference media money. I don’t know any Rutger people — do they even like being in the B1G? A lot of this applies to Maryland too, though it’s not as bad with them.

I like where we stack up here.

Farewell post from Waffle House. Mr. Backshoulder. He had so many huge catches for us. My favorite was probably the go-ahead score vs OSU.

And one of the funniest TDs vs. Purdue. Just ran through their whole secondary.

It hurts, but it's an overall good thing when we develop guys and send 'em to the league. We've got Nick and Charlie, plus several other WRs who will step up and become the next Coop or Waffle House.

I’m pretty optimistic looking at his stats, plus he is getting plugged into the system that consistently produces improvement.

The other rumor floating around was Will Stein at Kensucky was trying to throw a bag at Charlie B.

Not to be pedantic, but IUFB is technically the 2025 National Champion, if anyone wants to update the thread title for accuracy. https://www.ncaa.com/news/football/article/college-football-national-championship-history

What a move it was to transfer to IU! Thanks Pat.

Here is a stats comparison of Mendoza and Hoover coming into IU (credit Jamie Jordan).

Hoosier Huddle guys say they were told Coop was going to tell IU soon on his decision (NFL or not). Someone made an interesting point the Friday draft entry deadline we were looking at was only for underclassman and that therefore doesn’t apply to Coop. AI agrees with this. I guess he’s probably just trying to decide what to do.

Bray said nay. Up yours Sark! Two straight years of superb retention at IU.

Building out stadium capacity is a tricky question. - We didn't really get close to selling out our cupcake non-con games last season. Even next year I'm not sure we will sell out all these games, maybe just the opener. The AD probably overpriced these tickets a bit, but resellers were selling them from $20 or less. - Conference play was more in demand, last season Illinois was pricey, but the rest of the home slate was ~$80-100 to get in. But, fans also had the option to buy season tickets at pretty reasonable prices (as cheap as $40/ticket), and I think that will still be true after whatever the 2026 price increase is. - There will be more demand in 2026, but capacity will only be an issue for the conference slate, notably OSU, USC, and PU. NW and Minny will still probably be somewhat reasonable to get in to. Can IU justify adding much capacity for the two or three marquee games per year at home? I tend to think not. Bloomington is still a smaller college town an hour from Indy. I tend to think 58-60K is about right for Memorial Stadium's final form. I apologize for any self-imposed limitations in this thinking. Also, I agree with @rcbowla and @Magnanimous that the stadium renovations will probably be done in stages such that games stay on campus. We've got the window with Cig and I don't think we mess with it by going to Indy. But, I'm guessing.

I'm looking forward to some stats about IU merch sales. It's got to be incredible.

On January 27 (Tues) at 5:30PM ET on BTN the B1G conference will release the 2026 conference game dates. For anyone new to this, we know who we play, just not what dates we play them. The one exception is for promo purposes it was announced early that the OSU game is Oct. 17th.

Due to his role changing he wasn't in the spotlight as much this season. I was glad he made such a huge play in the championship game that got him some credit he deserved. Great player.

I'm sure many of your are familiar with the Wikipedia list of team seasons pages. Hard to argue sports and not reference Wiki all the time. I think I check Tom Crean's UGA record every few years for debate purposes. Anyways, cool to see our gold-shaded season... out of nowhere.

Who knows but it’s a positive tweet.

Hmm…

He’s asking NFL Draft.

Correct it was yesterday. I guess the question is if a player could have declared via paperwork and not announced it yet.

GIDDY UP!!!

Giddy up!