Pagoda

Tickets were way way overpriced — $44 for top deck and lower level was $70+ (sideline was $100+ or something crazy). And surprise surprise — a tiny crowd. Not sure what IU was thinking with the prices. It’s an exhibition!

Keys told Wiltfong of Rivals that IU leads right now. He’ll be visiting Maryland next week… interesting timing!

I’m not watching but I think it’s 50*, raining, and 15-30mph winds. Your point certainly stands regardless, just saying this is a factor in the dismal offense out there.

Ask and you shall receive.

Pretty good WR3!

Baldwin got a tackle out there on special teams. Nice to see him making plays after being injured for so long after a great fall camp.

Injuries are so frustrating. Fingers crossed.

Yes. Limping. Hoping beyond hope it’s not serious. https://x.com/hoosier_huddle/status/1982123572043596202?s=46

Dave seems to have like a 10% or less approval rating in this Big Noon role. No idea what FOX was thinking. He is bad and I’m surprised they haven’t pivoted his schtick on the show — the pro-UM anti-OSU and generally crass and thoughtless about everything just doesn’t work.

It’s a small thing, but nice to see Wyatt isn’t in the out for season column. Fingers crossed we have an injury free day.

Great turnout for Big Noon. Looks fantastic on TV. We added some new red IU logos to the outside of the south endzone — a nice touch.

For anyone interested in going but didn’t like the high ticket face values, I’m seeing some $13 to $16 per ticket (includes fees) for the bottom two rows of the top deck hit the secondary market on SeatGeek. And really, the crowd for this will be so sparse I’m sure you’ll be able to move around. Not sure how long they’ll last, but that’s a better deal than the current $44 cheapest on Ticketmaster, who is primary ticket seller for this event.

FWIW IU’s athletic dept revenue was around $150M (that number excludes loans from IU). That was latest reported number, which was for the fiscal year ended June 2024, so pre-FB improvement. I think IU is around $4M rev share + $6M NIL = $10M for MBB. Just the ballpark number thrown around. So the Big East schools not focused on FB getting $6-8M+ of the rev share to MBB is getting kinda close to what a lot of P4 FB schools like us are doing. This is driving up player cost quite a bit. Edit: @HoosierDevils I see your update and what you meant with the $105M number. Makes sense.

Ha, yea. When my two most disliked programs play, which is rare, I usually prefer UK because a win means less to them given they’ve had more overall success. If PU beats them they will be extra giddy which is no good.

I’m still optimistic for several reasons: 1) He wanted this job, the process with him started months before his hire. So he’s had a vision for what he can do here for some time. Scott hired him, and I’ve been very impressed with Scott. 2) A few people who have worked with him, both in the AD and external on the NIL front (so not IU fans), told me they are very impressed. 3) I generally like his staff. Notably Bargen. 4) He seems to be bringing in high character guys. 5) I just get the sense he knows what he’s doing and is going through his process of building a team and program from wreckage Woody left him. He won’t generate much buzz from the media — he doesn’t hobnob much with them. Maybe the roster concerns are valid, maybe not, we’ve got to see what he can get from these guys. I get we didn’t land some HS recruits, but on the other hand we haven’t played a game and the recruiting cycle isn’t over. I hesitate to critique the sausage making process when it’s early and I have little insight into what is actually going on behind the scenes on that front. We’ll see. I think we’ll have ups and downs, but overall I’d guess CDD outperforms the bubble projections and makes the tourney without much drama and builds from there. That would be great. That’s my view until any red flags appear that suggest he can’t succeed here. Red flag examples are getting blown out by Indiana St. at home, being an NBA guy new to college bball, or clear losing trends on the court or recruiting. Pretty basic red flags. All we can do is hope for the best. May as well. It’s out of our control.

I like IUFB being compared to Goliath. That’s a new experience.

Feels like it’s a matter of time until college teams start trying to trot out 23-28 year old pros with “eligibility.” CBB needs to be careful. If the sport gets away from college age players I think people will lose interest in a meaningful way (much more than anything NIL or the portal did — which was not much imo). Good job by Izzo to speak out as one of the statesman of CBB (and yea I know he isn’t a saint).

Dang Coach, that's a rough prediction. I hope your predication is as good as your record at Georgia.

Great posts everyone. Enjoyable reading, thanks. I think Aaron makes some good points about our fans, even if they’re tough truths. I’ve kinda noticed it over the years. As for football support, I suspect some of that can also be attributed to the program generally getting limited attention/interest/resources from IU and the AD. I don’t know. But, we are in a new strata with football. Big university support and a great coach. Every traditional power had a stretch of years where they became a “football school” or at least one with a big fan base. These moments were many decades or even a century ago. Perhaps for IU our moment came later… starting in 2024. We’ll see how well our fans embrace what’s happening. So far it’s been good, but it has a ways to go. If we make the B1G champ game it will be interesting if we can get close to 50/50 with the OSU fans. Peyton transformed the Colts fan base in about five years and we still see the impact of that today. It can happen.

CDD probably feels fine. I doubt his resource allocation changed since he signed seven months ago. Until I hear otherwise that’s likely the case given Scott seems to stick to his word on NIL promises. He’s been given enough resources to build here — #10 to #20 in the country, something in that range. More than he had a WVU, probably quite a bit more since he left there. If he does a good job this season he’ll get more. He’s got to impress the fans to get more NIL, and that really means Cook, Simon, Ned, Andy, and maybe a few others. I think Scott is doing a good job increasing our NIL and allocating it. Biggest question for IUBB right now is if CDD can be a very good coach here and make the tourney this year without much drama. If he does that everything will start falling into place.

Small tidbit.

Should we at all be disappointed in Adidas here? Ultimately it's on CDD/IUBB, but as we know the shoe companies play a big role with the top guys via contracts and NIL. MT was an Adidas player right? It just seems like they don't do much for us, but I don't really know what's happening behind the scenes.

Word is he is coming for the UCLA game.