Icing on the Cake?
No. 5 Indiana football has what’s probably its most consequential regular season game of all time approaching this weekend in a matchup with the No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes in Columbus.
Before getting into why it’s such an important matchup, it’s worth stating the obvious: no matter what happens these next two weeks, this season will have been a massive success for Curt Cignetti’s Indiana Hoosiers.
Indiana is 10-0 for the first time in history and has had the five spot in the AP Poll for consecutive weeks. Not even the most optimistic fan or commentator could have predicted this in year one.
That said, Cignetti has given himself the chance to make a lot more history this season, like the program’s first Big Ten title since 1967 or its first College Football Playoff berth.
Which brings us to this weekend. After losing to no. 1 Oregon on the road, the Buckeyes find themselves behind both the Hoosiers and the Ducks in the Big Ten standings (just let that sentence sit with you for a second).
With a win in Madison last week, Oregon clinched a spot in the Big Ten Championship game, leaving one spot left. The winner of Saturday’s contest in Columbus will be the presumed favorite for that second spot.
If Indiana loses, it would take a win against Purdue and Michigan beating Ohio State on the road for the Hoosiers to make the conference championship. A win against Ohio State but a loss to Purdue could put Indiana back on uncertain ground, but that seems less likely.
Should Indiana miss out on the conference title game, we are going to be subjected to weeks of unbearable discourse about strength of schedule surrounding Indiana’s shot at the College Football Playoff.
It should come as no surprise that, as things stand, SEC fans, coaches and media are already building the case for the inclusion of two and three loss teams over a one-loss Indiana in the twelve team playoff.
Without devolving into an argument about the strength of the Big Ten versus the SEC, it is objectively true that Indiana does not have a win against a ranked opponent. It’s beaten teams that were ranked at various points, but not when they played the Hoosiers.
On the other hand, Cignetti and company have been able to beat the brakes off teams and run up the score in ways that even the Buckeyes haven’t.
While Ohio State trailed at home to Nebraska in the first quarter, Indiana’s backups played most of the second half against the Huskers in a 56-7 route just seven days earlier. Of the three opponents Indiana and Ohio State have in common, Indiana beat two out of three by a higher margin of victory.
As a writer who has only ever covered Indiana football, I’ve never had the occasion to pay much attention to the College Football Playoff Committee’s criteria, but the consensus seems to be that nobody knows how this will play out.
The simplest thing to do would be to go into Columbus and win, but that’s no easy task. However skeptical you may be of Ryan Day, it’s a hard place to play and Ohio State has elite talent all over the field.
Things could be up to the football gods a bit if Indiana fails to do so, but if I’ve learned anything this year, it’s that good things can happen to Indiana football, especially with Cignetti at the helm.