Brock Schott

Do they end up sticking with Tucker and Landino as the primary, or do they rotate that throughout the course of the game? And offensively, I'll say the tight ends.

You had Brock Schott come out, caught a really nice ball.

That's very encouraging.

But offensively, I think they want to see what else they can get out of a variety of people at that position.

And for all the talk about Josh Hoover not having the level of mobility that that Mendoza had.

That was such a huge talking point for everybody in the offseason, for him to be able to take the snap, immediately get pressure, roll out to his right, evade that rusher, and then still be able to sight the ball, throw it accurately in traffic to Brock Schott, who catches it for a first down.

I got a ton of excitement and confidence in Josh Hoover off of just that play, but it wasn't just that.

It was also...

That side of things... is likely to be where Indiana tries to pick up a lot of yards early on.

And I think the biggest question offensively for Indiana is, what do we see at the tight end position? Who does Indiana decide to go with to start this game off? Because as much as we've heard a lot about Brock Schott as the presumptive starter and certainly maybe the most – intriguing player from a passing game perspective, I will not be shocked at all if it's Andrew Barker out there getting a lot of repetitions, at least early on, particularly in the running game as a blocking back and as somebody who can sneak out and do things.

I'll talk about this a little bit later, but one of the key elements for Indiana is who emerges that we're not expecting as a major player.

And to go back and talk about Riley Nowakowski, when we came into last year, Very few people were looking at Riley Nowakowski and saying, that's the guy that's going to become a linchpin for Indiana's offense.

That battle's still working itself out in fall camp.

Probably a starting tight end in Brock Schott if he's able to kind of take those final steps here down the stretch.

And you've got depth at defensive line and depth at the linebacker spot.

I mean, Indiana hit the portal hard, as they always do.

You know, if he wanted a transfer...

At that time, there was a certain window you had to transfer, and that was Brock Schott, right? Former Miami tight end who was a big recruit, Fort Wayne kid, and he's going back home to Indiana.

He had...

He had – this is the interesting part, right? You look at Indiana's room, and this is why he's the projected starter there right now.

Hey, good morning, Don.

Hey, watched your interviews with all the newcomers that came in through Portal and all that and kind of wanted to kind of get your overall impression of those guys that came in because I thought it was interesting to hear like a Brock Schott, a kid that's come from Miami, while other Portal transfers that came from all over different places.

What was your overall impression of that group?

They were so much like every other player that Signetti brings in.

You could see it.

You could see Brock Schott start the first game, or you could not see Brock Schott start that first game, right? You could see Trevor Gibbs or Andrew Barker start a different game, or in the same scenario, one of them starts, struggles, and the other one comes in and shines.

Just because they look good one day in practice doesn't mean they're gonna look good on Saturday, September 5th, right? That's where those early games come in, and that is one of the positives of Indiana's lackluster schedule in non-conference play.

But I would like to see some sort of separation, right? Some sort of, of answer to that of, "Hey, this guy really took that next step this week." We've been waiting on Brock Schott would be my bet to do that, right? You go get a Miami transfer.

You expect him to be that guy.

I know he's young, but still, you expect him to be that dude, hopefully the last week of fall camp, and it might even be game week before it happens, that somebody takes that next step, really grabs this thing by the horns and says, "Nah, we're done with this competition.

He's coming down with it.

Uh, tight end Brock Schott, he'll be one of the best tight ends in the Big Ten.

Um, this fucking, this team's loaded.

I mean, obviously I am picking them to be my national champion.