I sure hope you enjoyed Indiana men’s basketball’s last-second 83-80 win over Syracuse and all the conversation it inspired last night because the Hoosiers are in for even more this evening and likely for the remainder of the week.
The next set of College Football Playoff rankings are set to come out tonight. Indiana debuted at No. 4 in the first set released last week, giving the 8-1 Hoosiers a pretty reasonable shot at earning a bye. Notably, Indiana has not played a game since those rankings were
released.
The Hoosiers were on a much-needed bye this past week as they look to get healthy while finding ways to improve on offense heading into the final three games of the regular season.
With that in mind, there’s no real reason to believe Indiana’s ranking will change too much, right? Well.
Indiana’s played nine games up to this point, winning eight with the lone loss coming against Ohio State. That’s really, really good and was what earned the Hoosiers that No. 4 ranking in the first place last week. The problem?
Ohio State has now suffered back-to-back losses and sits at 6-3 on the season. The Buckeyes fell 30-18 on the road to a ranked USC team last week before getting thumped at home 41-28 by a similarly 6-3 Oregon team. That’ll probably lead some on the committee to question why Indiana can be at No. 4 despite not beating the Buckeyes who, granted, have a rather notable injury at quarterback hampering their offense.
What about Indiana’s wins? The strongest being at home against Northwestern, on the road at Nebraska, up in Ann Arbor against Michigan and back at home against Minnesota?
Every single one of those teams lost on Saturday. The Wildcats fell 24-10 at home against Iowa, the Cornhuskers got beat 24-13 at Illinois, the Wolverines dropped to 5-4 with a 15-6 home loss to a 3-6 Michigan State and the Golden Gophers got dropped 34-20 at home against UCLA. Neither the Spartans nor the Bruins needed overtime to beat Michigan or Minnesota, as Indiana did.
In short, Indiana’s entire resume took a big hit on Saturday. Their loss got significantly worse and all their wins were devalued as well. The Hoosiers’ lack of a big signature win was buoyed by the fact they’d they’d beaten a ton of solid teams. But now, apparently, everyone’s doing that.
Indiana’s loss to Ohio State, something it didn’t have to worry about during last year’s 12-0 regular season, leaves it susceptible to the situations around it. The Hoosiers will almost certainly remain in the field this evening, but they’ll probably lose out on that No. 4 ranking.
The good news for Indiana? The only rankings that actually matter are the final ones. The Hoosiers have three more opportunities to establish their resume before the end of the season and could gain another should they qualify for the (final, sadly) Big Ten Championship Game.
USC looms large as a chance for Indiana to earn a ranked win before the season is out. Washington and Purdue loom as potential pitfalls the Hoosiers would do well to avoid.
Just be ready for the rankings and the discourse that follows this evening.
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