Ad Disclosure
Paul Finebaum tables Indiana argument, hopes Hoosiers face SEC team in Playoff
By Paul Harvey
Published:
Paul Finebaum is ready to admit it. The SEC Network host and ESPN personality is ready to predict Indiana will make the College Football Playoff, but that is also the result of some chaos from the SEC in Week 13.
Over the weekend, Indiana’s 10-0 start fell by the wayside with Ohio State dominating the Hoosiers in Columbus. Finebaum admitted he saw that game on FOX, though he felt trapped a bit while on an airplane during the broadcast.
Finebaum also called out the broadcast team of Gus Johnson and Joel Klatt for being over the top with their “politicking” for the Hoosiers. That’s likely a reference to Klatt saying Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti and Georgia head coach Kirby Smart are both hoping to land a pass from the CFP committee for a bad loss on their resumes.
“They’re going to get in,” said Finebaum about the Hoosiers during his Monday appearance on McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning. “You can’t make a sound argument against Indiana against some of the SEC teams, because the SEC teams are going to win. The only thing I really resented, and maybe it was because I was on a plane being held hostage. I couldn’t turn it off. The politicking by the (FOX) broadcast team, it was over the top, it was really disingenuous.”
Ultimately, a key group of SEC teams losing forced Finebaum to admit IU will be in the final field, though he now wishes the Hoosiers will have to travel to the SEC in the first round:
“But that’s fine. It was funny, at 3 o’clock Saturday I thought Indiana was as dead as they could be. By midnight, they found themselves back. I think all the arguing over Indiana is over,” Finebaum conceded. “They’re going to get in. Now I can’t wait, I just hope they get to go to an SEC team’s home stadium on that Friday or Saturday night, and then we can find out what we already know. That the SEC team will beat them badly.”
Indiana still has to get past Purdue to finalize its Playoff case as an 11-1 team, but the Hoosiers are heavy favorites in the rivalry game. As for a potential CFP matchup against an SEC foe, be sure to use SDS’s sports betting app to track all the game lines when Selection Sunday rolls around.
Paul Harvey lives in Atlanta and covers SEC football.
