'Bye' is a hurtful word, except for the Hoosiers

Indiana survives the Layoff Problem the way it solves everything else.

Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer

Fifty years ago Indiana had a basketball team that went 32-0. Nobody has gone undefeated since, and the late Bob Knight had a twinkle in his eye, in the manner of the ‘72 Dolphins, whenever a challenger stumbled.

Those Hoosiers were impervious to everything, including their coach. They beat UCLA by 24 and again by 14. They beat Michigan in the NCAA championship game by 18. “Take a look at this team, because you’ll never see another one like it,” Knight said.

We are seeing another one like it. Unaccountably, incomprehensibly, it is Indiana’s football team.

Those who say the Hoosiers haven’t played good teams are simultaneously mistaken and correct. More precisely, teams aren’t good when they play Indiana. This 38-3 win in the Rose Bowl Thursday was the most decisive beating Alabama has ever suffered in postseason, and its worst nonconference loss since 1910. At one point the ESPN announcers debated whether the Hoosiers were running up the score. That would have amused members of the three Indiana football teams from 2021-23. They won nine games, total. They lost to Michigan, 52-7, and Ohio State, 56-14. Now Curt Cignetti’s first two Hoosier teams are 25-2, and Cignetti eventually pulled his Heisman quarterback, Fernando Mendoza, who had three touchdown passes and two incompletions. ESPN’s Desmond Howard said it best: “Indiana doesn’t come to win. It comes to beat you.”

This one is 13-0. It plays Oregon, a team it beat in Eugene, in the semifinals. That’s no gimme, certainly, but maybe it’s time to open the mind to the possibility that this team has found greatness. For one thing, Indiana is the only team in this field to get a first-round bye and then win a second-round game. Ohio State, Texas Tech and Georgia all fell short. Last year Georgia, Boise State, Arizona State and Oregon met the same fate. That’s 1-7, and even though Boise and ASU had no business getting those 2024 byes, you’ve seen the same pattern in the expanded baseball playoffs. Hockey coaches will tell you it’s a mixed blessing to sweep a playoff series if it means waiting a week for the next matchup.

All sports rely on timing, and football puts a rare premium on coordination, especially within an offensive line. Texas Tech was shut out by Oregon Saturday, had 10 first downs and four turnovers, and had the ball for 22 minutes. The Red Raiders and the Big 12 got the usual online trashing for that, but they were a Potemkin version of the team that went 12-1 and beat BYU twice by a total score of 63-14, and won those 12 games by a total of three touchdowns. But Oregon had a first-round game with James Madison while Tech was idling, and when it turned into a 500-yard, 34-yard performance by JMU, the Ducks’ defense had a reference point and a mission.

Ohio State looked just as disoriented against Miami, at least in the first half. The Buckeyes were jolted by Miami’s sure, authoritative tackling, fell behind 14-0 and lost 24-14. They had 1.9 yards per rush, and Justin Sayin was sacked five times in two interceptions. Miami can do that to anybody, and would surprise nobody if it wins the tournament, but Ohio State found out what happens when you try to ease a toe into the playoff water. Last year the Buckeyes treated Oregon the same way in the second round.

Georgia did look ready to play. The Bulldogs and Ole Miss saved us from a tepid tripleheader, as the Rebels won the Sugar Bowl 39-34. Georgia was down 34-24 with nine minutes to go and tied it with :57 left. Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, probably the best player in the country on Thursday, drilled a 30-yard, third-and-5 pass to De’Zhaun Stribling, setting up the thunderous foot of Lucas Carneiro for the winning 47-yard kick.

Ole Miss had led Georgia by nine points and lost 43-34 in October. That provided motive, as did Lane Kiffin’s departure for LSU and the assumption that he took the Rebels’ legitimacy with him. The Rebels pushed the limit in proving they weren’t connected to Kiffin’s brain, but Kiffin was their biggest supporter. He gets $500,000 for their advancement because that’s what was in his Ole Miss contract, and LSU somehow agreed to pay it.

You may have wondered how Alabama got into the SEC Championship game and Mississippi didn’t. The CFP selection committee decided not to punish teams that lost their league championship games, even when they were suplexed like Alabama was by Georgia. Hence, Alabama got into the CFP field and Notre Dame did not.

This may be why people call it the Silly Entitled Conference. Mississippi, Texas A&M, Georgia and Alabama lost one conference game. The first tiebreaker is their record in games against each other, but because the SEC is so bloated, A&M played none of the other three, and Ole Miss only played one, losing to Georgia. Alabama won at Georgia, going 1-0, and Georgia beat Ole Miss and lost to Alabama, going 1-1. Hence, the Alabama-Georgia matchup. The fact that Ole Miss was 11-1 overall and Alabama 10-2 had no bearing.

Indiana relished its role in exposing the SEC’s flawed administration by running the ball 50 times, 33 more than Alabama did. It knocked out Ty Simpson, the third man in the Heisman balloting. It gained 407 yards. Alabama gained 193. In the end, Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer used the rear-view mirror theory, that things were closer than they seemed. “There’s a fine line,” he said. Actually there were two, and Indiana had both.

The theme of the semifinals will be the spreading of the Saban Tree, which looks more like a forest because all four coaches served on Nick Saban’s staff at one time or another. Cignetti was Saban’s recruiting coordinator and receivers coach at Alabama. But his time at Indiana (Pa.), Elon and James Madison was at least as formative. Saban was on the ESPN pregame crew but wasn’t around postgame to analyze the corpse.

The fact that Alabama, Ohio State and Georgia are sidelined is an example of college football’s shifting terrain, and it will shift again after the repopulation of transfer portal season. The CFP committee has more to ponder than anybody. Oregon’s Dan Lanning has said that the season should end on New Year’s Day, not on a Monday night in mid-January, and that the playoff should begin immediately. That makes sense, and would return college football to its traditional boundaries.

But the bigger problem is the uneven field and the byes. It really wouldn’t be hard to fix if the CFP wanted to go to eight teams (or even four). Unfortunately life and money don’t work that way, and we’re inexorably headed for a 16-team tournament, and a torrent of whining from whatever 8-4 team got left out. That’s another thing Indiana basketball ‘76 and Indiana football ‘25 have in common. They like it when everyone else is unhappy.