Speaker 1: Good defense inside your own territory. We'll see if the
Speaker 1: Indiana can crack the code. Here, third and seven at
Speaker 1: the Bama twenty one yard line, Mendoza in the shotgun,
Speaker 1: all out blitz. Mendoza drops back to.
Speaker 2: The end zone.
Speaker 1: Becker puts down Indiana.
Speaker 2: The Hoosier strike first.
Speaker 1: In Hollywood, a twenty two yard Charlie Becker touchdown reception.
Speaker 3: Six twenty seven hundred WLW. The college football playoffs kickoff
Speaker 3: tonight Miami versus Old Miss. Tomorrow night, the Indiana Hoosiers
Speaker 3: take on the Oregon Ducks. My first guest has taken
Speaker 3: this journey with the Hoosiers, calling their games on radio
Speaker 3: in Bloomington. He was at the Rose Bowl. He's in
Speaker 3: Atlanta right now preparing for the call of the Peach Bowl.
Speaker 3: He is part of the first family of broadcasting in Cincinnati.
Speaker 3: His grandfather of the Hall of Fame reds announcer, his
Speaker 3: father You here mornings here on seven hundred WLW. What
Speaker 3: a treat to welcome in, Luke Brenneman, Luke, how we doing.
Speaker 2: I'm doing great. I'm thrilled to be on your show. Lance.
Speaker 4: I really appreciate you having me on and down here
Speaker 4: in Atlanta. Got in early this morning, and I'm really
Speaker 4: excited about the opportunity for yet another It's hard to
Speaker 4: believe even say it, Indiana College football playoff game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, Louke, how how cool has this ride
Speaker 3: been for you? Can you believe you've been riding the
Speaker 3: wave and experiencing all this?
Speaker 2: I truly cannot lance. I remember when I was a
Speaker 2: freshman at Indiana.
Speaker 4: You know, it gets cold and the fall in the winter,
Speaker 4: and Indiana was in an overtime thriller in football with Akron.
Speaker 4: My buddies and I were watching in our dorm room.
Speaker 4: You could in one hand, with one finger, you could
Speaker 4: point out and count how many people were in the stands.
Speaker 4: There was truly no emotion, there was no pride in it.
Speaker 4: And to get there at the time I did and
Speaker 4: experience that for a full season, and then I covered
Speaker 4: the team as a beat reporter last year. So the
Speaker 4: emergence of Signetti and then that was kind of parlayed
Speaker 4: with everyone saying this Indiana team, they had a light schedule,
Speaker 4: they got by, but they lost when they played a
Speaker 4: big team. And now I'll be sitting here fourteen to
Speaker 4: oher as the favorite to win the national title now
Speaker 4: in the semifinal round.
Speaker 3: This is pretty surreal. Luke, give a listeners some background
Speaker 3: who aren't aware. What year are you and I you
Speaker 3: and how did all of this come about that you're
Speaker 3: doing these games.
Speaker 4: So I'm a junior now at Indiana, and Indiana has
Speaker 4: a extremely dynamic sports media program.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of really talented students.
Speaker 4: So early on freshman sophomore year, you're calling a lot
Speaker 4: of you know, wrestling events. I did field hockey, track
Speaker 4: and field swimming. And then once you kind of do
Speaker 4: your time and you continue to put in the work,
Speaker 4: you help others out. I'm the co director of our
Speaker 4: student radio station that's ninety nine point one FM in Bloomington,
Speaker 4: and these playoff games it's kind of a return for
Speaker 4: the work we do throughout the year setting up events,
Speaker 4: getting credentialed. We broadcast all the women's basketball, men's basketball,
Speaker 4: obviously football, men's and women's soccer are on the radio.
Speaker 4: So there's a lot of people that deserve credit for
Speaker 4: making this happen for me, but the student radio station
Speaker 4: has definitely been my spot when it comes to Indiana
Speaker 4: sports media, and I'm just so thankful for it.
Speaker 3: Luke, are you I assume you're not out there as
Speaker 3: a one man band. You've got a crew out there, correct.
Speaker 4: We have a couple guys, so really appreciate mister Dave
Speaker 4: Abbott from seven hundred WLW. He actually reached out and
Speaker 4: gave us sideline equipment for this game so that we
Speaker 4: could even include more people. So it'll be myself. The
Speaker 4: co director of the station is Ben Holler. He's a
Speaker 4: senior from Mason, Ohio. He had their high school really
Speaker 4: get going. When it comes to high school broadcasting, that's
Speaker 4: an extremely rare thing all over the country. So Ben
Speaker 4: and I will be on the call. And then we
Speaker 4: have a third member of our crew who's on site,
Speaker 4: Andrew Hillsman. He'll be our spotter but also filling in
Speaker 4: on the pregame shows halftime with our studio host Jack Schneider.
Speaker 4: He's in Sane EXE kid from Cincinnati. And then Graham
Speaker 4: Nasho's from Los Angeles, will be on the sideline for
Speaker 4: the game.
Speaker 3: Unbelievable, What an unbelievable experience. Luke Brennaman checking in tonight
Speaker 3: in advance of the tomorrow night's call the Indiana Hoosiers,
Speaker 3: take me back to the Rose Bowl experience what it
Speaker 3: was like, and it felt like an army of IU
Speaker 3: fans had invaded Pasadena.
Speaker 2: For that thing. It truly did.
Speaker 4: I got out there, i'd say two and a half
Speaker 4: three days early, and you felt it immediately because all
Speaker 4: you hear about, especially growing up in the Midwest and Cincinnati,
Speaker 4: is you know, the Alabama Faithful, the Crimson Tide, and
Speaker 4: it was all Indiana fans. And you know, I don't
Speaker 4: have any bias when I'm calling these games, obviously, but
Speaker 4: at the end of the day, I'm a student at Indiana,
Speaker 4: so I was excited to see how many Hoosiers have
Speaker 4: shown up. And I think a lot of people with
Speaker 4: this football success are finally realizing Indiana, out of all
Speaker 4: public universities, has the largest alumni base in the United
Speaker 4: States of America. So these people have kind of been
Speaker 4: a sleeping giant. And we know how the Big ten
Speaker 4: in the Midwest loves their football, and there's finally something
Speaker 4: to celebrate. And in a season like this, it's hard
Speaker 4: not to say this is like the most once in
Speaker 4: a lifetime thing ever. But then you dive into the numbers,
Speaker 4: it's like, well, Kurt Signetti is going to be at
Speaker 4: Indiana through twenty thirty, so is it. But right now
Speaker 4: it's as surreal as it gets.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's really no other way to put it.
Speaker 3: You've you mentioned all the different sports, you've called, you
Speaker 3: called the Cape Cod League last summer. You've been around
Speaker 3: a lot of coaches, managers. Ever been around anybody like
Speaker 3: Kurt Signetti?
Speaker 4: Truly nobody who can dominate a room like that. And Lance,
Speaker 4: I'm so lucky growing up being in you know, NFL
Speaker 4: production meetings with quarterbacks, but when it comes to a coach,
Speaker 4: and especially these college football coaches, whether it's the portal
Speaker 4: or just recruiting in general, I always thought that they
Speaker 4: carried themselves like politicians because if you say one wrong thing,
Speaker 4: you know, there goes the five star quarterback, because he's
Speaker 4: got five other options that have two hundred million dollar
Speaker 4: facilities and that are now paying him just as much money.
Speaker 4: And with coach Signetti, I covered the team last year,
Speaker 4: so I went to the Big Ten media days in
Speaker 4: the summer and he went up there and kind of
Speaker 4: had another one of his famous press conference moments where
Speaker 4: he said, every time they've been picked in the bottom
Speaker 4: of the league, we end up winning the league the
Speaker 4: next season. Well, he came close last year, and they
Speaker 4: won the league this year. So to see that unfold
Speaker 4: and just kind of being the only media in the
Speaker 4: Monday availability, the Tuesday coaches press conference, he was just
Speaker 4: the student media, the sports information directors, obviously, the local
Speaker 4: writers and those guys do great work. But now it's
Speaker 4: every single time he's talking, there's a Molly McGrath in there,
Speaker 4: there's ESPN Radio in there. And it's unbelievable because he
Speaker 4: still has that same swagger and he's not doing it
Speaker 4: all for clicks, because a lot of the stuff that
Speaker 4: he says that generates these clicks. You actually turn on
Speaker 4: the TV and you see it. His team plays sixty minutes,
Speaker 4: whether they're up by thirty or up by three, and
Speaker 4: I think in large part it's led to the success.
Speaker 3: All right, let me get to the important stuff. How
Speaker 3: does your dad appear to be handling his the Ohio
Speaker 3: State Buckeyes suffering back to back losses to end their season.
Speaker 4: Oh man, this is the sensitive topic in the household.
Speaker 4: I mean, who would have thought. I give my dad credit.
Speaker 4: He's a heck of a fan, but you know, some
Speaker 4: of my buddies are looking at me. They're like, your
Speaker 4: dad's a Buck Guy fan, but he's got to be
Speaker 4: rooting for Indiana. You know, his son goes to Indiana,
Speaker 4: and I wouldn't want my dad to change his fandom
Speaker 4: just because of where I go to school and to
Speaker 4: join my team. My dad is so supportive of everything
Speaker 4: I want to do. I mean everything. If you listen
Speaker 4: to the broadcast tomorrow and anything good. At least I've
Speaker 4: learned from him when it comes to calling these games,
Speaker 4: so he helps me where I want the help. When
Speaker 4: it comes to fandom and Indiana football. I'll leave him
Speaker 4: to the second place Buck guys in the big game. Ah,
Speaker 4: very well done, Very well done.
Speaker 3: So give me a thought look ahead into your crystal
Speaker 3: ball for tomorrow night. Just give me a thought on
Speaker 3: the matchup that you rematch between the two tomorrow night.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's going to be a battle.
Speaker 4: I think a lot of people are looking back to
Speaker 4: the first matchup in Eugene back in October. Indiana won
Speaker 4: that game by ten, so I think it's a little
Speaker 4: bit off putting. Oregon missed a sub forty yard field
Speaker 4: goal in that game. Indiana had a backup kicker, drill
Speaker 4: a fifty nine yard field goal. Dante More ended the
Speaker 4: game with back to back interceptions. This Orgon team's better
Speaker 4: than that, and it starts at the line of scrimmage.
Speaker 4: When it comes to keys to the game, Organ's gonna
Speaker 4: have to run the ball well. They're one of those
Speaker 4: teams like Indiana that runs it extremely well but has
Speaker 4: a top five pick caliber quarterback where once they start
Speaker 4: getting four or five six yards of carry on first
Speaker 4: and second down, it opens up the explosives. And that's
Speaker 4: where these defenses. I gotta give the edge to Indiana.
Speaker 4: They're obviously the best defense in the country in just
Speaker 4: about every single important metric, but I think it starts
Speaker 4: up front and then who's gonna hit the big ones?
Speaker 4: Because third down has been so key when it comes
Speaker 4: to this time of year. Indiana is the number one
Speaker 4: team at converting on third down offensively, and they're number
Speaker 4: two in the country when it comes to getting off
Speaker 4: the field on third down. So those third and fourth down,
Speaker 4: those critical situations. Both coaches throughout the press conferences this
Speaker 4: week have really said that's when we need to be
Speaker 4: our best.
Speaker 3: Luke, are my listeners able to check in and catch
Speaker 3: your game tomorrow night?
Speaker 2: Online they can so.
Speaker 4: Our student radio has a website it's wiux and then
Speaker 4: in the upper left hand corner there's a little button
Speaker 4: on our website that says listen. We have a couple
Speaker 4: of different stations, but our FM station is ninety nine
Speaker 4: point one, and if you click that right there, it'd
Speaker 4: be it's a twenty four hour or twenty four to
Speaker 4: seven live stream of our radio station. It's just like
Speaker 4: ten to fifteen seconds behind the actual station because of
Speaker 4: the internet delay, but it matches up pretty well.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: Last question, another important question, as you're aware your grandfather
Speaker 3: and Amanda they're like globe trotters.
Speaker 2: They're everywhere.
Speaker 3: Do you know at this very moment, it's six twenty nine,
Speaker 3: do you know what city, state, country, continent, Providence, Providence
Speaker 3: they might be at at this very moment.
Speaker 2: I got asked this question a lot.
Speaker 4: Well, thankfully I can be a primary source because I
Speaker 4: had dinner last night in Cincinnati, Ohio with Marty. He
Speaker 4: was willing enough to send me out and give me
Speaker 4: a couple kind words. I know that they're in town
Speaker 4: right now, but hey, if Marty was here for dinner
Speaker 4: last night, he might be in the US.
Speaker 3: Virgin Islands by mid afternoon tomorrow, very Well said, Hey,
Speaker 3: this was a blast. I am so glad I was
Speaker 3: able to hook up with you and you were able
Speaker 3: to make time. I'm so happy for all you're doing.
Speaker 3: Just soak all this in and have a great broadcast
Speaker 3: tomorrow night.
Speaker 2: I am thank you so much for having me Lance.
Speaker 2: He was a blast. Take care, Luke, see up all right,
Speaker 2: there you go.
Speaker 3: Luke Brenneman on the call tomorrow night for the Indiana
Speaker 3: Hoosiers and Oregon Ducks.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I'm so excited for him.
Speaker 3: Let's take the time, I get a check on news.
Speaker 3: Let's talk Bengals with Richard Skinner Skinny around the Corner,
Speaker 3: RNL Carrier Sports Talk presented by Kelsey Chevelet, seven hundred
Speaker 3: WW