COLUMBUS, Ohio — Curt Cignetti’s eyebrows dipped, his lips pursed and his head cocked back in disbelief and, maybe, disgust.
Should Indiana be under consideration to make the College Football Playoff?
“Is that a serious question?” the Indiana coach launched toward an inquiring reporter after his team’s 23-point loss at No. 2 Ohio State. “I’m not even going to answer that. The answer is so obvious.”
Seconds later, Cignetti did answer, in the form of a head nod and a “well, of course, dude” expression.
It is, after all, playoff lobbying season. And though Cignetti side-stepped the original playoff question here Saturday, he couldn’t resist commenting the second time around.
But for many across the country — especially those residing in a particular part of our great nation (ahem, the South) — Indiana’s candidacy is not so obvious. And it didn’t get any more clear, for them, after the 38-15 loss to the Buckeyes.
In fact, while writing away on this column, high above Ohio Stadium, this reporter received a couple of messages from those folks down South.
They’ve beaten no one.
They shouldn’t be in the hunt.
Ah, yes — it’s that time of year.
However, the SEC’s best argument for five teams — yes, five — to get into the 12-team field likely fizzled on Saturday afternoon. Just minutes after Ohio State beat Indiana, Florida upset Ole Miss, a bubble playoff team whose loss likely paves the way for the Hoosiers — and Tennessee too — to get in the field.
Or does it?
Last week’s College Football Playoff committee rankings seemed to position any Big 12 or ACC runner-up behind those programs. But we’ll know more Tuesday night when the committee releases its rankings.
For now, let the politicking continue.
Within Ohio Stadium after Saturday’s game, Cignetti and players met reporters with the playoff cloud lingering overhead.
QB Kurtis Rourke is hoping for a “rematch” against Ohio State in the postseason, and linebacker Aiden Fisher says the Hoosiers — a team with 20 Group of Five transfers — showed their physicality against what is likely the most talented roster in college football.
“People ask can this Group of Five team hold up? Look at the film,” Fisher deadpanned.
He’s right, in a way. This wasn’t too disastrous of a performance by Cignetti’s crew. Ohio State scored in the final seconds to extend the lead from 16 to 23, and the Buckeyes got 14 points off special teams miscues from the Hoosiers. Indiana allowed a 79-yard punt return from star Caleb Downs, and it dropped a punt snap to give Ryan Day’s team seven more.
In fact, IU’s defense allowed just 316 yards.
But its offense, oh brother, its offense. The Hoosiers scored 15 points, 30 points below their average, and had 151 yards, more than 300 yards below their average.
After its game-opening 70-yard touchdown drive, Indiana gained 81 yards on 48 plays. It gave up five sacks, completed just eight passes and averaged 2.6 yards a play.
“Every time we dropped back to pass, something bad happened,” Cignetti said.
Cignetti pointed to a couple of factors for the offensive outing: the noise and Ohio State’s talent.
The Buckeyes are “loaded,” he said, and the Hoosiers needed to switch to a silent count because of the noise, something that rattled the squad and resulted in O-line miscommunication.
“I didn’t think we played our best game today,” Cignetti said.
But did it show enough to be in the playoff?
“I don’t make those decisions,” Cignetti responded. “It’s more important now that I focus on the next game. Big rival [Purdue]. That needs to be everybody’s focus.”
The focus for the masses was, is and will be Indiana’s schedule, ranked 106th among 137 FBS teams entering Saturday. Their opponents have a cumulative record of 10 games below .500. They’ve played one ranked team (Ohio State). Before Saturday, they’d beaten just one program with a winning record (Washington at 6-5).
Those are the negatives. There are positives, too. Indiana beat nine of 10 opponents by double figures, was top five in the country in both scoring offense and defense and hung around — at least for a quarter and a half! — with the Buckeyes.
Before kickoff Saturday, Cignetti, boastful and brash, let his feelings be known in an interview on ESPN.
“We’ve got the largest scoring margin in college football, right?” he said. “There’s a narrative out there that’s created another chip for us. People can stick that narrative up their you-know-what.”
Plenty of other bubble teams have their own problems, too.
Tennessee lost to five-loss Arkansas. Any ACC or Big 12 champion will likely have at least two losses. SEC teams Ole Miss and South Carolina have three defeats, and Clemson lost at home to Louisville (not to mention the season-opening slaughtering against Georgia in Atlanta).
Even two-loss Georgia, despite playing the country’s toughest-ranked schedule, struggled for three quarters with UMass (the Bulldogs allowed a whopping 226 yards rushing).
Every team has a wart or two or three or four. It’s a near-impossibility to separate the group of potential at-large squads, a thankless position for committee members and the poor sap (Michigan AD Warde Manuel) that the CFP unnecessarily trots out each week to explain the rankings.
Perhaps it’s why professional football has no committee. No at-large teams. No silly data-driven decisions and wacky metrics to separate playoff squads.
In the NFL, it’s quite literally settled on the field, with postseason berths tied to division and conference finishes.
Some want that model for this sport. One of them was here on Saturday: Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti, a man who in the spring proposed such a format to CFP leaders during meetings. The model would include three or four automatic qualifiers for each the SEC and Big Ten; two each for the ACC and Big 12; one G5 auto bid; and then three to five at-large spots in a further expanded 14- or 16-team field.
Is that the future?
Maybe.
For now, let the lobbying, the silly metrics and the impossible debates continue.
