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I post this stuff a lot, but I think it's underappreciated. So we're 8th in the AP, and looking at the top 13 teams, I'm quite sure they all have 50-100% more player payroll (rev share and NIL) that we do. And in the top-20, only ISU, Vandy, Ga Tech, and Mizzou are in our realm of resources, everyone else is much more. The season is young and who knows how it ends, I know we may fall from the top-10 (or not!), but the way Cig has got us in the mix with the big boys continues to amaze me.

Yea. I saw IU open up at +10.5. I thought it may be a little more, but we'll see how the line evolves over the next two weeks. Last year our losses were one the road at #1 and #2 and we didn't play well. Almost no teams do well on the road against the top few teams, but we unfairly get extra sh1t for it. Now we're on the road at #2 again and have a big chance to prove we can hang with them. Honestly, it doesn't get any harder than this. Oregon has the great coaching and culture we have, along with elite talent/size/speed (their roster cost about 2x our roster -- as in they spend $15-20M more than we do). That's not an excuse, it's just the reality, Oregon has built a great program. But, I can only hope we've learned from our past struggles and can find a way to better compete in this sort of game. It's a very tall order, but if we want to make the playoff and be competitive when we get there, we've got to hang with the best and find a way to give ourselves a punchers chance in the second half. I'd say most of our issues in these sort of games have been on the offensive side (OL, getting WRs open/scheme). A lot of us being competitive will fall on Fernando -- he needs to have a great game. To be clear, I'm not being critical of IUFB. IUFB is the best and most exciting thing in IU sports in 25 years. These are just random thoughts about the huge challenge we've got coming up. At the end of the day it's awesome we're in a top-10 match-up again.

Back in the saddle as [interim] head coach at Arkansas.

You called it. Darn! Also Herbie should still send UVA a gift basket.

We are now +132 to make the playoff, which equates to a 43% chance. Started the season +610, a 14% chance. Good progress.

For the past nine months we've been eyeing the Illinois and Iowa games. Well, week five is in the books, we won both games, and IUFB is 5-0. Not bad! We also had a little more red in Kinnick than usual. And when the game ended and our President and AD are the first to greet our coach. I just love seeing the top to bottom commitment at IU that it takes to be competitive in football. And of course, as we all saw we can be better. This team has upside. Onwards and upwards. I'm sure we'll have ups and downs from here on out, our next game is one of the two hardest in all of CFB, but this is pretty exciting stuff.

Buyout is $48M or so at the end of this season. Good luck with that PSU.

Of course we need to play better going forward, but it's not abnormal in CFB to have a bad day on the road. It happens to almost every team. And we won! 5-0 record. Ranked #11. Got a bye now to get healthy and prepared. You can't ask for much more than that. Don't forget where we were two years ago.

Outgained them by 100 and won by 5. What’s the problem? :-) We got to figure something out for Oregon, but we have a bye week to figure it out and we are 5 and 0!!!!

One more chance. Cmon Shanahan and Fernando — figure it out!!!

Frustrating. I know we can be better than this.

Find a way Fernando..

Just find a way to win this half. Every game can’t be juggernaut blowouts. Sometimes it’s gonna be ugly.

We’re down 3 points guys. Long way to go.

Word. At this point I barely care if the US wins. If things get really lopsided I could see the crowd turning on the home team to some extent. For about 25 years the US side has been mostly guys who can’t play for anyone but themselves, and it shows. Now they have the problem that Europe has more raw talent. Not good! At least this weekend has some great CFB games.

Thanks. I’d love to see whatever you can put together. I’m really curious how much improved football helps us in the coming years. As I’m sure you noticed, it can be a pain to get good data, because sometimes there are unique events (like the loan the IU AD got from IU) that get counted as revenue and need to be adjusted out for comparisons sake.

Agree, no issue, just funny to see the this list put together to do a sponsorship with Venmo. As far as I am concerned, they can call anyone our rival if they send a check…

Quality article on Coogan picking IU. Lots to feel good about: https://x.com/michaelniziolek/status/1971576743787114897?s=46 https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/story/sports/college/iu/2025/09/26/indiana-football-pat-coogan-notre-dame-transfer-lasting-legacy-cfp-contender/86284502007/

Some thoughts for what it's worth. This is an interesting topic. Our FB revenue has not skyrocketed yet, and probably will never "skyrocket," though it has increased and should continue to increase pretty nicely and that will make a big difference. Our athletic dept is still one of the smaller ones in the the B1G/SEC, and closer to midsize if you include the B12 and ACC. I'd guess our athletic dept revenue is around #25 in the country, and a lot of the big football schools generate $50M, $100M, even $125M+ more per year than we do. As go iu bb said, the rev share is capped at $20.5M. All the P4 schools fund the $20.5M, but as you can see, it's a larger percent of athletic dept revenue for IU than the bigger football schools. That generally means bigger football schools donors don't have to fund as much of the basic athletic dept operations and they can focus more on NIL. As for basketball, a few things: - On the rev share, most P4 football schools focus 70%+ of it on football, except apparently Kentucky, who is pumping more into bball. In addition, schools without serious football programs (think the Big East) don't reach the $20.5M rev share cap, but they are able to pay some rev share (like $6M to $10M for example), and they pump most of it into basketball since they don't really have football. This has made the Big East and some other bball-only schools much more competitive in bball this year. Not good for us. - NIL is paid on top of rev share, and NIL mostly depends on what rich donors are willing to do. Having sugar daddies helps. We have a few. I'm not sure how true the rumors are of them pulling back. I'm also not sure how much the clearinghouse will limit NIL deals (my guess is very little). Bottom line is I think IUBB is #10-15 in the country in basketball roster payroll. I am quite confident that would increase if CDD shows he can coach here -- our donors would flip out with excitement. IU as an athletic dept is not big, and we don't have unlimited money for football, bball, etc. We've got to make allocation decisions. As far as I can tell, IUBB has enough to succeed, and right now in my opinion pretty much our whole bball program is riding on how good CDD is at his job. Fingers crossed we hired the right guy, from what I can tell I think there is a decent chance we did. We'll know in a few months...

??????? The conference is trying too hard here lol.

Louis wins!!!! He is eligible the rest of the season. Very helpful for our secondary. The NCAA:

We’ve got to wait a bit longer: ”Hearing ends without a ruling, Judge Dale Tillery told the attorneys he's going to read over testimony and he will get a ruling out today.” - Niziolek

Well then they should jump of the +3000 odds they have to make it, which is a 3.2% chance. I think this will be a hard game but they’re not in great shape to make the playoff lol.

Louis’ hearing underway. Niz from the H-T covering it. https://x.com/michaelniziolek/status/1970881098730352942?s=46