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Agree on the G5. I like the idea of the G5, but unfortunately the G5 is now much weaker than they used to be because the portal/NIL results in all their top players being taken by the P4. I guess the G5 has to be included because if not there are antitrust lawsuit risks. Not sure how to get around that. Not that anyone cares but I like 12 teams. I could live with eight though, which will almost always capture the teams that can win it all. OSU was #8 ranked last year. Adding more than 12 I just don’t get because that’s just adding teams who aren’t good enough to win it all. And it starts to devalue the regular season too. Regardless, it seems like we are heading to 16…

I’ve got say it is a little annoying when they talk great defenses and they bring up OU, TTU, and OSU. Even Miami now. We were #2 in SP+ on D. Held Oregon’s offense at their place to 13 points and OSU to 10 on a neutral. I know we had an injury but we’re still darn good. Is what it is. Probably just down the our name and lack of recognizable high end recruits. Add it to the bulletin board. As usual it will be on us to prove it on the field.

It's a slow Sunday and I like thinking about what Memorial Stadium could be, so below are some more random thoughts. I'm just shooting the sh1t, not trying to argue. A) This stupidly nitpicky on my part, but I think this change is doable. Agree it's tight and the doors are there, I'd just add rows of bleachers down to about door level. It fits more people than the bar seating and gets our fans closer to the field. But, I 100% know this doesn't make a big difference either way and it probably won't happen, it just annoys me. At the least, add the bar seats to the East side so I don't have to see those green mats. C) Yes -- ribbon boards everywhere please! When our older fans complain it looks like a nightclub that will be a sign we have enough flashing ribbon boards and LED screens. Yes, seems so. I get what you're saying, games at Lucas Oil would be convenient for some (including me), but I'd hope that we can do the renovation in stages and keep games on campus. It would good for the students, Bloomington biz, and I like the gameday experience in the most lovely small town in the land. If PSU can redo their whole stadium without moving, I'd hope we can do the West side without moving. Though KU just spent a season at Arrowhead during their renovation/rebuild, so there is precedent of playing a season in an NFL stadium. The big question will probably be if the core infrastructure of the West stand can be worked with or does it need total replacing (as in knocking down the whole thing)? These stands can last a long time, I'm looking at OSU and ND who have built up over their old stands. But I don't know. It sounds like the West side is the focus, I don't know if this is true but some have said East side press box/suites would have the sun in people's eyes. Not sure if that's a real issue, I guess it is I just haven't noticed it when I sit over there. A West stand renovation with suites/press box/premie seats will likely reduce capacity of that side. Adding some rows to the East side will give us that capacity back and some nice balance, and of course we've got to get more seats in the SEZ which as we've all seen has tons of space. Last thought -- I hope Scott and IU keep atmosphere in mind too in addition to all the amenities stuff. Keeping our steep stands and getting fans close to the field helps. As does a better PA system and all the ribbon/LED stuff, there is nothing wrong with manufacturing some atmosphere, most schools do it.

How did ND not get in over these teams? :-)

This is a common take, but the on-campus environments are so much better than the neutral sites (except the Rose Bowl). I wish the quarterfinals were also on-campus and the semis and final are neutral sites.

If I were AD, so this is just what I would do, if CDD can’t make the field of 68 with $10M for players in addition to a huge staff budget, I wouldn’t give him a dime more until he proves he can use $ wisely and efficiently and get results. Until then, send the $ to football, they know how to use it.

Ha. This year our roster is ~$22M and theirs is $35M+. However, we are closing the gap. Our FB NIL fundraising is up quite a bit for the ‘26 season.

It seems the bettors didn’t see anything from Bama that changed their mind about the match-up with us. IU was -6.5 before last night, and IU is -6.5 now (Fan Duel).

These are just the TV coverage start times. Indy green flag time is the same as usual (12:45pm).

I'd say he embodies the mantra: "Every play has a life and history of its own. Not affected by success, not affected by failure."

I’ve got no intel, but IU accounts are discussing him. He was committed to IU at one point as many will remember.

Exactly. It's great. With basketball, the players can more easily be scouted and our fans are suspicious of what IUBB does. But with IUFB, I just assume with every commit we did it again and nailed it and got our guy. If they're highly rated that's awesome, and if they're not highly rated we got anther diamond in the rough. It's a blast.

BuffedInPrime is great. He's a independent thinker, which is rare in CFB media/scouting. He understands IUFB better than anyone else I've heard.

I'm not really arguing any of your points, but just some thoughts to shoot the sh1t on a Friday: Is DeBoer elite... I kinda think he is? He took over a 4-8 UW team and went 11-2 with an Alamo Bowl win and then 14-1 with the title game defeat. That's pretty good for UW. But was he a Penix merchant? Maybe. His first two Bama seasons they've been a little off and I'm not sure why, which could make a case he isn't elite. That's a fair point on defense. Interesting Bama is actually 8th in SP+ defense (OU is #3). Bama is a bit better defensively that perhaps some of us realize, me included, so we've got some risk with them too in terms of playing a very good D. I suppose one thing that can give us some optimism is Oregon's D is #5 in SP+, so while it's not easy we can put up points on a good defense if we're sharp. I prefer OU just because I worry about was DeBoer might scheme up offensively (he is good at that) and they're got more pop in the bat to score. The home playoff teams have had a pretty big edge with the mega home crowds and I tend to think OU wins. However, my sports gambling record is mid at best, so who knows. It will be a fun game to watch.

Brace yourself... It's beautiful.

For what it's worth, per Fan Duel, IU would be -9.5 vs. OU and -6.5 vs. Bama. OU is the easier game. Bama is more dangerous with their offensive upside and would be the more marquee match-up given who they are. We last played OU in 1928, a 10-7 IU win! We've never played Alabama. It's gonna be pretty interesting watching Bama at OU for the right to play us.

Yes, I'd think is most likely -- build up behind the stands. Like you noted, Wake did this, and it looks nice. If we do this with our superb north endzone architecture that matches the rest of the campus it will look excellent. Oh yea, we could really use a new sound system. And while we're at it we should add those LED screens and lights that flash, sync up to the PA, and do all sorts of stuff that helps the atmosphere. Can't hurt and it's not that expensive.

Now that the site is back up, below is what I would do if I were IU. I think there is some low hanging fruit here. There is room to put more seats closer to the field, could total maybe 500 to 1,000 total seats. The ROI to do this I think would be good: not very expensive to add seats in these areas and these seats would sell for higher prices. After that, it's bigger and more expensive projects. There is the press box that's gotta be replaced soon, suites/premium seating if there's enough corporate demand, and maybe more general seating for the plebs like me if there is enough demand. I'm sure IU wants to do all of these, but it's more fundraising dependent. I wonder if these projects could include some classrooms/labs for sports science or sports med or something like that allows funding to partially come from IU and not just the athletic dept. A little creativity can help with funding...

FWIW I think this is spot on. I think over time we'll shift to smaller and smaller portal classes as our high school classes have time to develop. Getting ~10-15 players per year through the portal seems about ideal. - Like you said, the best programs still build through high school. Cig has been the exception (he's the exception in a lot of ways). Most other schools have a much spottier portal hit rate. - One trend that's out there is the impact of rev share. When rev share started last year, the overall portal quality went down as the P4 teams now all had a lot more money to retain their good players. This year a lot more kids are on multi-year deals, which may continue to reduce the number of players who hit the portal and reduce overall portal quality. Don't get me wrong, there will still be plenty of good players, but this is just a trend that's out there that makes high school important.

So the 2025 Heisman Show drew an average of 4.3M viewers, with a peak of 5.8M. This up 70%(!) over last year and it was the highest rated Heisman show since 2012. It does help the show moved from ESPN to ABC this year, but still. This is a monster rating! Fernando's speech has 700K YouTube views, and some other snippets of the Heisman show probably push the total YouTube views close to 1M. So with IUFB involved we've got record Big Ten Championship and very high Heisman Show TV ratings. IUFB has some real juice in terms of our fans and the compelling/interesting nature of the program. This is really great stuff.

Ha, this survey seems to have turned into an avenue for Scott to do some bragging. Which is perfectly fine!

I’m in favor of paying players and while I don’t love all the transfers, we’ve had one or two years and done for a while, so players only being around for a short time isn’t new. CBB TV ratings have been pretty solid so far in the NIL and portal era. However, one thing I do require is college age players who are students at the school. Yes I know some don’t go to class, but most actually do. That’s the connection for me and I’d guess many others — the players kinda go to IU like I did. If we get too many older, non-student age pros coming into the college game, that might actually materially affect interest, because it erodes that connection with the fans. Teams will feel more like local pro franchises than the school’s team. I can’t predict what happens, probably nothing unless TV ratings and attendance decline. If that happens maybe the P5 gets together and does something. It’s too bad.

I'd give Fred a grade of D, maybe D+. He came in with no AD experience (classic IU hire) and it showed. Negatives: - Excluding media rights increases he had nothing to do with, he didn't increase our athletic dept revenue much - Didn't do well with the FB and MBB coach hires/fires/extensions Unfortunately, those two things are most of, if not almost all of, what matters when grading an AD. Positives: + Facilities: Shook down Cindy for the AH renovation, which was a pretty well done project. Got the south endzone done, which was a C- design, but still better than nothing. Other facilities were improved: Wilkerson, baseball, softball etc. Media rights $ helped him (the whole conference upgraded facilities too), but he still did a good job fundraising for these projects and getting them done. + Made some good coach hires in the non-rev sports + Added the big flag pole at Memorial Stadium. A gamechanger. Final thing I'd note is in some fairness to him, he had to deal with McRobbie, who was a nightmare for athletics. And I suppose Fred probably unknowingly taught Scott some lessons in terms of what not to do. He's a nice guy, but he didn't do very well as AD here. Another interesting and disappointing chapter in IU athletics past.

I’m confused, per his book he rebuilt Indiana Athletics! ;-)

Nice. That’s a start. Though it appears our super duper apparel partner Adidas spent $5 on production for that. I assume we’ll get one with Heisman House Nissan ads…