SOUTH BEND, Ind. — You know what they’ll say now. They’ll say Indiana made the first 12-team College Football Playoff on circumstance over merit, Friday’s 27-17 loss to Notre Dame proclaiming that the Hoosiers didn’t belong.
Actually, they started in the second quarter. And they’re not entirely wrong. Indiana has played two football teams out of 13 that could be called anything better than mediocre, and those teams took the Hoosiers apart by a combined score of 65-32. Two late, meaningless touchdowns in this one prevented it from being 65-18.
Given a schedule without the breaks this one provided, Curt Cignetti’s team probably wouldn’t have been here — and perhaps the quality of the first FBS postseason game at a campus site would have come close to matching the spectacular scene at Notre Dame Stadium.
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It’s OK to love the story of the 2024 Indiana Hoosiers and admit the script had a ghostwriter known as the Big Ten scheduling computer.
But that doesn’t mean Indiana (11-2) shouldn’t have been here. Indiana absolutely should have been here, based on the information that was available.
“This team earned the right to be here,” Cignetti said. “I’m not sure tonight proved (that) to a lot of people.”
The ones who made the determination, the 13 members of the CFP selection committee, got this one right. And believe me, they’ll get other ones right that will look wrong in retrospect, perhaps very soon. The era of the 12-team Playoff is, unfortunately, also the era of the Enormo-League.
Enormo-League: Too many teams, weird schedule disparities, flawed conclusions! Now there’s a slogan. “It just means more” is so 2010s.
And Indiana is getting buried in the college football discourse scene, by fans of scorned SEC teams who believe their Crimson Tide/Rebels/Gamecocks should have been here. Probably by some Big Ten fans who are used to the Hoosiers stinking instead of destroying their favorite teams. Maybe by a few randos who just wanted to watch a good game on a Friday night.
The chances for that disappeared early. A missed read, a missed throw, a missed run fit. That’s all it took, on consecutive plays from scrimmage, to turn sure Indiana points and the quieting of a ferocious crowd of 77,622 into a frenzy — and a Notre Dame lead that would stand for the final 56 minutes.
Indiana didn’t reach the end zone until the final two minutes of its first-round Playoff loss to Notre Dame. (Matt Cashore / Imagn Images)
Indiana defensive lineman James Carpenter tipped a pass from Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard into the hands of Indiana cornerback D’Angelo Ponds. Indiana quarterback Kurtis Rourke dropped a perfect 28-yard fade into the hands of Elijah Sarratt on a third-and-14, setting the Hoosiers up at the Fighting Irish 17.
The Hoosiers hurried into the next play to catch Notre Dame unprepared, but it was Rourke who was unprepared for two Irish defenders to run with a crossing Ke’Shawn Williams. It looked like a predetermined throw, and it sneaked past all three and into the hands of Notre Dame All-American safety Xavier Watts as he hit the ground at the 2-yard line.
“Just threw it a little bit too far and the defender made a nice play,” Rourke said. “Didn’t need to make that throw in that situation.”
It was a killer mistake from the senior Ohio transfer, the nation’s most efficient passer who finished ninth in Heisman Trophy voting and is the biggest reason Cignetti was able to debut with a run well beyond reasonable expectation. But at least Indiana had Notre Dame pinned. Until an immediate, killer mistake from a normally stingy run defense.
Jeremiyah Love took an inside handoff from Leonard, sneaked out, cut left and was gone, 98 yards to the other end zone. It kind of felt over early. And it kind of was.
“Guy in the wrong gap, you know what I mean?” Cignetti said. “We can’t catch (Love). Bigger, stronger, faster.”
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How much does the psychology change if it’s Indiana 7, Notre Dame 0 right away? Some, certainly. But it’s hard to digest the last 56 minutes of football and conclude this would have been anything but a rout for Marcus Freeman’s team over Cignetti’s team.
Indiana gained 278 yards, and 126 of those came in the final 4:44, with the Fighting Irish (12-1) retreating into a soft zone defense, with chunks of Fighting Irish and Hoosiers fans back in the parking lots resuming tailgates or trying to get back to Kokomo or Fort Wayne or Bloomington.
Billionaire and famed Indiana alum Mark Cuban was on hand hoping for this season’s magic to continue, but by halftime, he was in the press box taking a selfie with a reporter. The rest of the scribes were more concerned with the buffet and caffeine sources. It was that kind of night.
Indiana managed 151 yards in a 38-15 loss at Ohio State. In both cases, IU’s offensive line and receivers couldn’t win consistently against more talented players who played with corresponding aggression. Aggression has been part of Cignetti’s formula this season, but a first-half field goal felt like the wrong move down 14-0, and a second-half punt felt like blowout avoidance.
“I didn’t want to punt,” Cignetti said, “but we were doing nothing on offense.”
So you know what they’ll say, or keep saying, and they’re partially right. Indiana didn’t end up with a ranked win this season. Indiana wasn’t good enough to do anything in this Playoff. But it’s also true that Indiana beat FBS opponents by an average of 29.3 points this season. The Hoosiers buried some solid teams.
They did enough with their schedule to earn this opportunity. Cignetti’s coaching, Rourke’s quarterbacking, Sarratt’s playmaking, Mikail Kamara’s pass rushing and Aiden Fisher’s linebacking were more important than disappointing Michigan, weakened Washington, confounding Nebraska, unsuspecting UCLA and hapless Purdue.
The Hoosiers just couldn’t hang with the best. They weren’t supposed to play the best in any games of consequence, or even in games that anyone would have cared to watch. That was a good thing to remember in this forgettable start of the 12-team Playoff era.
(Top photo: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)