INDIANAPOLIS -- I swear, you never know who you're gonna run into at this place.
Former colleagues. Actors from "Scrubs" (take a bow, John C. McGinley). Running backs from IU.
"Excuse me?" you're saying now.
You heard me. Roaming around media center today, I bumped into Bryan Payton, the former Concordia star and current Indiana star-in-waiting. He was here, believe it or not, not as a spectator, but as a member of the working press, covering the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard for the Indiana Daily Student.
It's his first big assignment, he told me, and, yes, he does know a little about it. His girlfriend got him into NASCAR some time ago; he now professes an affinity for Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson. His plan, he says, is to go into print journalism as a magazine or newspaper writer.
"It's been just a great experience," he said. "This is definitely the biggest thing I've done so far, being that I just started in May. It opens my mind about other stuff I would like to cover."
On the football side, Payton, a redshirt junior, returns to camp for IU next Sunday. Typically, he has big plans on the gridiron this year, too.
"There's no doubt in our minds that we're gonna get a bowl game this year," he said. "I don't know how many games we're gonna win; that's ultimately up to us and how we're gonna play. I definitely we're capable of winning more than seven games.The way I see it, if we win seven games again in my mind, that's a little bit of a failure.
"The Insight Bowl was great, I loved Arizona, they were awesome to us, but I don't want to go back. I want to go to Pasadena, I want to go to Orlando, I want to go somewhere different. We're more than capable of doing that."
-- Ben Smith
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