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BLOOMINGTON – In the summer of 2023, hoping to smooth the road for then-coach Tom Allen to reach bowl eligibility, Indiana’s athletic department paid a $1 million buyout to remove itself from the last two years of a three-year series with Louisville.
In its place, the department planned to add more winnable nonconference home games, its intentions easy to read: Facing a future defined by a school’s status in football, IU meant to make it easier to win enough games annually to raise its own program’s floor.
No one could have known how quickly that program’s needs would shift.
What do first CFP rankings mean for IU? Choose your own adventure.
‘We think highly of Indiana.’ Playoff committee explains IU ranking.
Now, the Hoosiers are 9-0 in Curt Cignetti’s first season as head coach. They debuted at No. 8 in the first College Football Playoff rankings Tuesday night, and No. 9 in the seeding on account of No. 9 BYU earning a bye as a top-four conference champion.
The Hoosiers present a fascinating case — they have been winning like no one else in the country, with the largest average margin of victory in all of college football, but they’ve done it against far and away the easiest schedule of any of the 12 teams in Tuesday’s reveal. Indiana is the only team in that dozen with a triple-digit strength of schedule, according to ESPN’s Football Power Index, and only one other, Notre Dame, even has a SOS outside the top 70.
It makes the ground underneath IU’s feet more perilous than some direct competitors, but how much more perilous remains to be seen. Which is why the committee should take care in how it treats the Hoosiers, and recognize the precedent it will be setting in the way it deals with Indiana. Because it is going to get another Indiana.
Two years ago, this sort of thing wouldn’t have been a…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/indiana-football-presents-fascinating-cfp-000351993.html
Author : Indianapolis Star
Publish date : 2024-11-08 00:03:51
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