LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — It’s Throw a Rock at a resume season.
Anybody can play — and the most likely target in the current college football environment is Curt Cignetti’s 10-0 Indiana football team.
Indiana is the unlikely program that earned the No. 5 ranking in the second edition of the College Football Playoff rankings released Tuesday night.
Listen up. The Hoosiers are igniting a harsh backlash across the footprint of the Southeastern Conference. Read this.
The ESPN predictor formula now gives IU a 94% chance to make the 12-team field when it is announced Dec. 8.
Why?
Questioning Indiana’s credentials is reasonable. I’ve picked against the Hoosiers nearly every week. Didn't think they would beat Nebraska. Or Washington. Or Michigan.
But, why not?
Questioning Indiana’s credentials is getting out of control. The playoff committee rankings are not the only place where you can uncover evidence that IU belongs.
The Hoosiers rank as high as No. 2 in the nation in one of the six computer formulas (Colley Matrix) used in the old Bowl Championship formula and No. 5 in two other formulas (Billingsley and Wolfe). Brand name bias disappears in the numbers.
They’re No. 4, behind Oregon, Ohio State and Alabama in the 88-poll composite rankings compiled by Kenneth Massey. They've already beaten the two programs that played in the national championship game last season.
But from Athens to College Station, they’re buckling chinstraps and preparing to bury their helmets in the Hoosiers’ chests.
Somebody explain to Harvey from Dadeville why the playoff committee ranked the Hoosiers so far ahead of No. 10 Alabama or No. 12 Georgia, a pair of two-loss SEC kingpins.
Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel, the chairman of the playoff committee, fielded this question from a media member on a teleconference Tuesday night:
Questioner: "I’m looking at the rankings, and I know that it's very much a season-by-season thing, but it strikes me that none of the top six teams are from the group of SEC teams that won four of the last five national titles and had 10 of the 20 playoff teams during the four-team playoff era.
"When you do the eye test, do you ask yourself who would win head-to-head in the order of these teams?
"I understand statistics, but obviously teams play a large majority of their games against teams in their own conference. Just to dial it back, do you consider who would win head-to-head when you do the eye test and say yes, an 8-1 Penn State or a 10-win Indiana would beat all those teams below them?
Translation: Don’t you understand that any SEC collection of 5-stars would hang 60 points on these chumps? Have you forgotten what Georgia did to TCU two years ago?
Manuel’s Michigan program fielded similar barbs last season, especially from Paul Finebaum before the Wolverines beat Alabama and Washington to win the national title. He was ready for the question.
MANUEL: “No. It's hard to do. If you look at this season and who some teams have lost to, I don't think anybody on this call would say -- would have predicted some of these teams would be losing to the teams that they lost to.
“We have to evaluate based on the performance on the field that we see. We can't determine who would hypothetically win a game on paper. That's not any of the things that we do. It's not a part of our protocol to try to predict what would happen in the future. So we don't have any conversations about that as it relates to how we rank the teams.”
We’re only getting warmed up. Wait until we get into sniffing distance of the final playoff announcement.
Today the howling starts with the charge that the Hoosiers have not played a ranked opponent. Only played three road games. Haven’t beaten a team with more than five victories.
Guaranteed to be exposed at No. 2 Ohio State on Nov. 23. If that happens, look out.
That, of course, is the same Ohio State team that shares two opponents with Indiana.
Both teams played home games against Nebraska, a week apart. Ohio State won by 4. Indiana won by 49.
Both teams played road games against Michigan State, five weeks apart. Ohio State won by 31. Indiana won by 37.
Upon further review, Indiana is not the only Top 5 team that has not defeated a ranked opponent. Texas sits in that column.
The Longhorns outlasted Vanderbilt by a field goal. They have not beaten an opponent with more than six victories.
Texas, ranked third by the playoff committee, earned its standing ovation by winning at Michigan, 31-12, when the Wolverines were ranked No. 10 in the Associated Press poll. According to the Colley Matrix rankings, that remains the Longhorn’s best win.
Indiana earned shrugs by beating Michigan, 20-15, last weekend in Bloomington because the Wolverines are no longer ranked. According to Colley Matrix, that serves as Indiana’s best win.
Give the Texas resume to Texas Tech or TCU, and I’ll bet you a chicken-fried steak they wouldn’t be No. 3 in the poll.
I’ve got one more rock to toss. Let’s lob it at Penn State. The Penn State team that beat mighty Bowling Green by a touchdown. The Bowling Green team that lost to Old Dominion.
Both the Nittany Lions and the Hoosiers played UCLA, three weeks apart. Indiana won in Pasadena by 29. Penn State won in Pennsylvania by 16.
They also played home games against Washington, two weeks apart. IU beat the Huskies by 14 while Penn State won by 29.
I could go on but not until I make one thing perfectly clear:
I’m not arguing that Indiana deserves to be ranked higher than No. 5.
Five, six, seven, eight? Tough to argue with any of them. In the five BCS computer formulas that still exist, Cignetti’s team is ranked second, fifth, fifth, 10th and 12th.
Hey, Texas is second, fourth, 13th, fifth and seventh in the same five rankings. Penn State is eighth, third, seventh, sixth and fifth. Let the games be played.
You can throw a rock at any resume and find a tender spot. But for the next 25 days nobody will be dodging more rocks than Indiana.
Copyright 2024 WDRB Media. All rights reserved.
