Rick Venturi Talks Colts Football, Erik Walden Head Butt, and Rebuilding the Indiana Football Program

by Kent Sterling

UnknownWhen I have a question about football, I ask Rick Venturi, who .  I had a lot of questions this morning on “Ahead of the Curve” on 1070 the Fan.

The Colts seem incapable of playing good football in the first half, but somehow continue to win because the brief periods of excellence are overwhelming enough to vanquish less talented opponents.

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It would stand to reason that good teams like the Seahawks, 49ers, and Broncos would make the inconsistent Colts pay for their intermittency, but the Colts won games against them too.  Trying to figure out whether this will mean a short postseason is frankly beyond my pay grade, so I asked a one of the best respected guys in a very competitive business.

One of the things I assume but don’t know from the inside is that rebuilding college football programs can have success offensively before they are able to build their defense.  Prior to today’s train wreck in Madison, Indiana’s offense was far ahead of their defense, and in my passionate defense of the methodology and brick by brick erection of the Hoosiers team by third-year coach Kevin Wilson, I asserted that the capability of the defense will always lag behind offense.  Unsure of myself, I posed that question to Coach Venturi, who made three stops as a Big Ten head coach or defensive coach.

Finally, we got a question via Twitter that asked what Venturi thought of the Erik Walden head butt in Thursday night’s Colts win in Nashville.  Walden rip the helmet off a Titans offensive lineman, and win he protested, Walden cracked him in the forehead while still wearing his helmet.  Is there a place for that kind of unabashed aggression that resulted in the third consecutive play that yielded the Tennessee offense yardage via a personal foul call.

The segments with the Coach always run long because there is always one more question to ask, and there is no one better at making sense out of the inner workings of professional or college football.

As always, Venturi’s answers enlightened.

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