Ad Disclosure
Curt Cignetti set the college football world on fire in 2024, leading Indiana to heights historically only reserved for the Hoosiers men’s basketball team. But this fall, it was Indiana football that was the darling of the sport.
The Hoosiers spent most of the season undefeated before finally falling at Ohio State in Week 13. Indiana crushed Purdue to close the regular season at 11-1, and now the Hoosiers wait breathlessly for Selection Sunday to see where they end up after all this success.
Meanwhile, Cignetti, who has won everywhere he’s been and turned Indiana into a winner in just his first season in Bloomington, is already wondering why the Hoosiers weren’t ranked higher in the College Football Playoff rankings released on Tuesday night. Indiana moved up 1 spot to No. 9 in the rankings, which means in Playoff terms the Hoosiers would be seeded 10th and visit No. 7 Georgia in a 1st-round game.
That means Indiana would make the Playoff but not get a 1st-round home game, and that had Cignetti upset.
“How are we not, right now, seeded for a home game, that’s what I want to know,” said Cignetti. “We’ve got the largest margin of victory in the country. Take out the FCS and the G5, P4 only — we’re outscoring people 40-17, second in the country. So, because our name is Indiana and not Michigan, we’re 9th.”
https://twitter.com/CBSSportsCFB/status/1865545136194683324
On Sunday, things will all shake out. Cignetti will find out if his upstart Indiana team made the Playoff at all, as most expect it will, and if so if the Hoosiers have a 1st-round home game after all or will be heading on the road, as he fears.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
