The 12-team College Football Playoff has come. It might go just as quickly.
But for the time it’s been here? My god, it’s been glorious (if you don’t count that first round, of course.)
If you’d have told
almost anyone at the beginning of the year that the biggest game of the college football calendar would be played between the Big 10 champion and an ACC powerhouse. Who would you have thought? Ohio State? Penn State? Florida State? Clemson? Maybe Miami?
Props to those of you who picked the Indiana Hoosiers and the Miami Hurricanes duking it out for the top prize. You may collect your winnings… somewhere.
As we’re confronted with the 2026 national championship game, we’re raised with an unorthodox but tasty matchup: The old guard blue blood, gone from the top of the heap for so long, but finally near the precipice once more. Fighting them are the Indiana Hoosiers. That’s right – Indiana is such an unlikely contender for the CFP crown that I don’t have a clever metaphor for them. I still can’t believe it when I see their logo all over ESPN these days.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see them win. While I’ll be happy to see someone (ANYONE) on top other than Alabama, Georgia or Ohio State, it would be particularly sweet to see a perennial also-ran program like the Hoosiers complete their historic ascent. And it would seem that America agrees with me.
Something about Miami winning a college football championship feels right, but that might be my inner child speaking. Something about Indiana winning feels wrong… but, like, in a naughty, fun way.
As for the money line – because that’s why you’re here, right? – Indiana is also heavily favored by fans. Though something tells me that may have more to do with their Heisman QB and ridiculous offense than those brightly colored uniforms and the Curt Cignetti’s winning charm:
That face belongs on the cover of Vogue, no?
Want to get in on the CFP action before it all goes away for the spring and summer? Head over to FanDuel, where Indiana remains more than a touchdown favorite over Mario Cristobal’s Hurricanes.
