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00:00Mike DiCorsi has been letting all of his neighbors know, not about voting on November 5th, he's

00:10been letting them know to clear out of Pittsburgh this weekend because Pharrell's coming in

00:15for the Steelers home opener and it is not safe to be in the neighborhood and everyone

00:22should make plans to go on a fall foliage drive out of town, maybe a short weekend down

00:28to Florida, who knows, but he's been warning his neighbors, it is truly an unbelievable

00:32development in the Steel City. Of course, Mike with the Sporting News, legendary writer

00:37and of course you can catch him during the hoop season on Fox Sports and on the Big Ten

00:42Network, he's very popular. And then he's on Coast to Coast every week, thank God for

00:47that. I want to start with the, and you and I may not agree on this, I want to get your,

00:54and I'm okay with that, Mike, at my age, not agreeing with you on something is a big

00:59step for me because I've always loved your work, but I haven't read it. I just saw your

01:04article about Luke Fickle and I already went on record saying yesterday that I think obviously

01:11Van Dyke went down and that game was over at that point for them. They weren't ready

01:15for that injury and the aftermath of it. And Alabama was just too much for them in Camp

01:22Randall. I thought Alabama would have been too much for them in Camp Randall with him.

01:27I have never been a Van Dyke fan at Miami. I'm a huge Kane fan my whole life. I never

01:32liked him, but I didn't wish that on him and ACL tear he'll play in his 35th college football

01:37season, I'm sure next year with eligibility. But my point yesterday was that I think I

01:42saw an article, I believe it was by the athletic. They rated all of the college coaches and

01:48put him in tears and they put him in the second tier, which there's only two guys

01:53in the top tier like Kirby and Davo and then everybody else. The best of the rest were

01:59in tier two and then three, four, five, six, seven, eight. They had, I think, eight tiers

02:04and they had this guy fickle in the second tier and I am not having it. I am not having

02:11it. I am not having that. He is one of the best coaches in America. I've seen no sign

02:15of that whatsoever. I am sorry. I'm not buying it. No sign at all. I mean, what they did

02:21at Cincinnati at all, whatever is no, I've seen Cincinnati win before. Not like that.

02:29And certainly not after like that. They have not been good since he left. I think the question

02:34really is, I don't know how big the tear is that you saw. But I think the question is

02:41that will have to be answered. And for me, what I wrote about is whether that question

02:45needs to be answered now in his second season or whether he's on the typical time frame

02:52that all coaches used to be before you had the transfer portal igniting everybody's

02:59beliefs that we could turn everything around in one year. I think that's the question is,

03:04can he get some grace, so to speak? And he inherited a program in Wisconsin that was

03:11obviously not in going in the right direction or they wouldn't have moved on from Paul

03:16Crist. There was no reason to move on if he if he was doing a successful job. Everybody

03:22liked Paul Crist. So it wasn't that they just weren't getting enough good players and

03:26winning enough big games. And so he takes over a program that's not in great shape.

03:31And then the chemistry of the job changed drastically, Scott, after he took it. And

03:38what I mean by that is that the entry of UCLA and USC and then subsequently Washington

03:45and Oregon led the Big Ten to abandon its East West format. And when it was East West,

03:51Wisconsin was the best job in the West. All they all Wisconsin had to do, basically, was

03:58be Wisconsin a and then not not have anybody like Iowa Northwestern or someone like that

04:04be way more than they ordinarily are. They couldn't have one of those Cincinnati type

04:08years that Cincinnati had in twenty nineteen and twenty or excuse me, twenty and twenty

04:13one. They couldn't have one of those years. And if that happened, Wisconsin was winning

04:16the West every time. Then they changed it. So now there are no divisions. And now the

04:22schedule is more balanced. So Wisconsin, which played Michigan, Ohio State and Penn

04:28State, a total of ten times in the two division in the nine years of the East West Division

04:35format, those three teams, a total of ten times in the regular season. Now they could

04:40they're going to face multiple games against programs of that level every year, whether

04:45it's Ohio State and Penn State or Ohio State and Southern Cal or whatever it might be in

04:50a given year. They're going to it's almost inescapable that they're going to face teams

04:54at that level. And can this Wisconsin, the Wisconsin that Luke Fickle invents, can they

05:00handle that? And then the second part of this is talent. The talent that was procured at

05:06Cincinnati, guys like Sauce Gardner and Brian Cook and my J. Sanders that all became

05:11significant draft picks in the NFL. Can they do the same thing with different people at

05:18Wisconsin? Because the guys who were in charge of recruiting then at Cincinnati are now

05:24working with the with the Indianapolis Colts or they're working at Notre Dame. They have

05:28different people involved now. Can they be as good? Fair enough. I'll say this. You talked

05:35about the talent he had. He also had a quarterback and he inherited, I think, a program

05:40that didn't have a quarterback. And then he made the choice, obviously, to bring in Van

05:45Dyke. And it's unfortunate that the kid got injured. And I like I said, he was never good

05:51at Miami and now he's at Wisconsin. So here's here's kind of the afterthought of this whole

05:56thing. Like and I don't deny that guy can coach, but I, you know, being one of the best

06:02in the country, I haven't seen it at certainly I haven't seen it in Madtown. And then I see

06:08Cignetti get the job in Bloomington and they have a wretched football program. And it has

06:14always been wretched and it's been terrible. The only time they ever went to the Rose Bowl

06:18was 67 until they went last Saturday and kicked UCLA's ass. Now he's got a guy in Cignetti

06:24at Indiana who in two games is scoring like the New Orleans Saints and they have a

06:29quarterback. And that guy's been there five minutes and he's doing a better job than Luke

06:34Fickle. Well, first of all, he has done a significant job of energizing the program. He

06:40used the transfer portal really well lot brought in or brought with him. I guess is a better

06:46way to phrase it. A lot of James Madison players who were very successful there brought

06:51them to the Big Ten. The schedule to this point has been advantageous. What we need to

06:56see over the course of the next month or so, they have a home game coming up against

07:01Maryland at the end of the month at the end of this month. And then early next month,

07:05they have Nebraska coming in. Those are the games that will define Indiana's football

07:10season. If they can split them, they're going to have a really nice year. If they can win

07:15them both, they're going to have a phenomenal year and might even be competitive for a for

07:20one of the last spots in the college football playoff. If they don't win either, then it's

07:26hey, it's year one. We're just getting started with this. We're going to be good in time.

07:31But those are the three designations for those three games as long as they don't stumble.

07:36Charlotte, there's no reason why they should stumble and then they have a Northwestern trip

07:41as well packed into the into the next month. But those those two games in particular, the

07:45ones that you're going to define the Hoosiers.

07:48So respectfully here, let's switch to your soccer hire for the US men's national team. Yay

07:55or nay on this deal?

07:57Oh, I'm all in on this. I think it was a great choice. Pochettino, Mauricio Pochettino. There

08:04are some people in the there's always got to be somebody that's negative, right, Scott? I

08:09mean, there has to be there are some people are trying to push back at him saying he hasn't

08:13won that much. Look, he went into a basically he took over what was a high mid major

08:19program is how we would define it. If Tottenham, Hotspur or a college, an American

08:24college, they would be a high mid major program, maybe a low major pro low high major

08:29program somewhere in there. They had not made they had made the Champions League one

08:34time in the 30 years prior to Mauricio Pochettino arriving one year into his tenure. He

08:40starts a run a four consecutive Champions League performances. And what you have to do in

08:45order to get in Champions League is you have to be one of the top four teams in the

08:48Premier League. So you have to pass up Manchester United or Chelsea or somebody to be

08:53one of the top four. And he did it four years in a row. And he made the final in 2019,

08:58beating Manchester City along the way. He is a terrific coach. They're going to do very

09:04well under him. It's just how good are the players? They're better than we've had as a

09:08group. But now they're going to have to be pushed to be really competitive. It's there's

09:13been too much cruising in that team when they get to camp. Now they have to really put

09:17the pedal down.

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