There is someone walking around my head in a wife-beater shirt, drinking a PBR and threatening to back-hand me at a moment’s notice. I am cowering in the corner, blaming myself for their behavior.
The person in my head is my yearly pre-season expectations for IU Football and I always end up being the abuse victim, in pain and blaming myself.
In our pre-game Podcast, I told Galen, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this team. I feel that I left Lucas Oil Stadium tonight with just as many questions as when I walked in. I was disappointed with the way we played and the fact that we lost. I was disgusted with the way our defense played and how we got pushed around on both lines by a low-level MAC school. Yet, I can’t say that I’m at all surprised. To paraphrase what Galen on Twitter after the game, if you were at all surprised by what you saw here tonight, then you haven’t been watching IU Football for the past few years.
Let’s just all promise ourselves this for the next few years. Until we are given a reason for high expectations on the field (ie. WINS!), we are not going to get excited about this team, just off hearing how great we are practicing and changing our culture. Like that battered spouse, I feel like I have been down that road many times before, and always end up in this place. When I start to see a real change in our play on the field during GAMES, then I will get my expectations up. Until then, no report from practice or recruiting can change my expectations. (Say that every night before you go to bed and twice on Sundays)
Walking toward my car, some IU fan passed by me and said to no one in particular, “How about that Kevin Wilson?” There was even more venom toward Kevin Wilson on Twitter during and after the game. Must say that this is way out of bounds and really smacks of people who don’t understand the situation. Football programs take years to rebuild, and even one great player, Gunner Kiel isn’t going to turn things around in a season. The jury gets to be out of Kevin Wilson for at least 2-3 years, so everyone calm down on that front. You can’t change a defense with 1-2 players in 1 year, and that side of the ball has been our problem for years and it will take years to fix. So calm down on the Wilson chatter folks!
A few other random thoughts from the game:
- Was the quarterback battle just a media creation, or something Wilson created? Looks to me like EWB is going to be our starter all season. Not saying that’s wrong, but curious after months of off-season talk of a 3 man QB battle to only see EWB take snaps
- DeMarlo Belcher needs to have the ball thrown his way more, end of story. Remember how Kellen Lewis used to just throw it in the area of James Hardy and let him go up and get it? EWB needs to watch nothing but endless loops of that this week, then get introduced to Belcher again!
- Both of our lines suck. Our OL gave Wright-Baker no time and our D-line provided NO pressure at all on Ball State. Combine that lack of pressure with our secondary playing with goose down feather level soft cushions, leads to bad thing
- I like the no-huddle, but it does have one major flaw with this team. When we go with a quick 3 & Out, it brings back our tired and inept defense way to quickly.
- Looks like we do have a commitment to the run. One quite a few of our 3rd down situations, we were running to pick up the 5 or 6 yards necessary, and quite a few times in the first half, we got it
- A bit irked that Coach Kevin Wilson was bitching a bit about the lack of IU tickets sold for this game. Expectations and ticket sales will only rise when we see improvements on the field. Just talking about changing culture is not going to increase sales
- Speaking of ticket sales, how shitty is the crowd going to be for the Virginia game? We already have a horrible time drawing for 7 pm starting time Non-Conference games
- At quick glance, don’t our new uniforms look very similar to Oklahoma?
- No need for the cliched, “Give credit to Ball State”. @DanDakich said it best tonight, “Ball State is better than IU in every way”
Enough from me. What are your thoughts?
