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BLOOMINGTON — Did Indiana football peak too soon?
The No. 10 Hoosiers (10-1; 7-1 Big Ten) dropped five spots in the latest College Football Playoff rankings following a 38-15 loss to Ohio State in Columbus.
Indiana was the lowest ranked one-loss team among the power conferences and dropped behind multiple SEC teams (No. 8 Tennessee and No. 7 Georgia) with two losses.
“There was a lot to sort out this week,” College Football Playoff committee chair Warde Manuel said, with seven top 25 teams losing last weekend.
More: IU football coach Curt Cignetti on College Football Playoff picture: ‘We’re sitting in a good spot’
The ACC has put themselves in position to potentially spoil IU’s playoff bid with SMU (9-1; 7-1 ACC) ranked at No. 9 — the Mustangs have already clinched a spot in the ACC title game — and Clemson (9-2; 7-1 ACC) ranked at No. 12 and the first team left out of the field.
On his weekly conference call, Manuel outlined some key factors in ranking SMU over Indiana.
“SMU has been playing really dominant football as of late, with the way they played against Virginia at Virginia, they’ve had some great wins, only one loss,” Manuel said. “Kevin Jennings is one of the dynamic quarterbacks in the country at the present time.
“So we just felt that SMU and their play on the field, they moved ahead of Indiana this week, and we’ll continue to monitor it as we move forward.”
SMU has won eight straight games — six of those by 10 or more points — and put up more than 400 total yards of offense in each of its last seven games. During that stretch, the Mustangs beat the likes of TCU (7-4), Louisville (7-4), Duke (8-3) and Pittsburgh (7-4).
Indiana opened the season in similar fashion, but haven’t reached those same heights in recent weeks.
The Hoosiers won their first nine games by 14 or more points…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/indiana-football-bubble-shakeup-cfp-035845029.html
Author : The Herald-Times
Publish date : 2024-11-27 03:58:00
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