Curt Cignetti is wrong about this.
Indiana’s head coach might be taking a shot at Texas. He could be agitated that his team fell five sports in this week’s College Football Playoff rankings.
Perhaps. But if so, again — he’s wrong.
Cignetti took to X on Thursday afternoon, writing: “Bad losses don’t count anymore? Are first downs still 10 yards?”
There were plenty of laughing and clown emojis included as well.
Just like the CFP selection committee, I slotted Indiana at No. 9 this week in my latest set of rankings. I ranked Texas ahead of the Hoosiers at No. 7, while the committee moved the Longhorns to No. 6.
On Tuesday evening, CFP chairman Hunter Yurachek explained the committee’s reasoning for those moves.
“Indiana was probably the victim of having a bye week at the wrong time,” Yurachek said. “The committee is really impressed with what UCLA, Texas and Notre Dame did, as well as Alabama, obviously, with their big win at LSU. They had six losses that went against their record strength, as well as their strength of schedule.
“Those metrics affected the committee’s review of Indiana this week.”
I find that reasoning to be both flawed and ridiculous. However, it doesn’t make their conclusion wrong.
Every Big Ten opponent the Hoosiers have played this season lost this past Saturday — 0-6 in Week 10. And because of that, Indiana’s strength of record took a major hit.
When it comes to ranking teams, bad losses come into play when ranked wins are equal. But Indiana doesn’t have any ranked wins. Not a single one. The Hoosiers have a loss to an opponent – Ohio State – that Texas beat.
The Longhorns have four ranked wins and a pair of losses that are far from “bad.” They were to a pair of quality teams — with records of .500 or better — Oklahoma (5-4) and Florida (5-4).
Let’s keep this in mind: The Hoosiers struggled to defeat Northwestern at home, needed overtime to defeat Michigan and heroics to beat Minnesota. They also have a quarterback dilemma, and could take the field Saturday against the Trojans with their backup signal-caller under center.
This is why I believe Texas deserves to be ranked ahead of Indiana.
And, yes, there are still three regular-season games remaining. But when coaches chirp about rankings with games left to play, they become the very thing they claim to be above: fans.
It’s also what makes this sport amazing.
