Shocker: Indiana Making the College Football Playoff Was the Biggest Joke of 2024

We all knew Indiana was a massive fraud after compiling an 11-1 record against the softest schedule a power conference team has ever played and backing into the College Football Playoff without beating a team with a pulse. But even with that knowledge, what the Hoosiers showed on Friday night was unbelievable. The final score does not do any sort of justice to what that game looked like.

Even with the mirage of a potential comeback in the last two minutes, Indiana was never in the game. It spent much of the second half looking like it was just trying to keep the game close enough to be another good loss on its résumé.

In the 12-team era, I'm positive there will be another team that gets in with a season like Indiana's, but I would implore the CFP committee to evaluate that team as strictly as possible after watching what the Hoosiers did against a Notre Dame team that didn't even play very well. There are a handful of teams in the Playoff who would have beaten IU by 50 points on Friday night.

And I hope those who spent all season banging the Curt Cignetti drum watched that loser go on College Gameday two hours before his team kicked off a Playoff game and say Indiana "beats the shit out of" Top 25 teams before getting destroyed and punting from the Notre Dame 48-yard line down 17 in the fourth quarter. I'd be ashamed to go into 2025 with that guy if I was an Indiana fan.

At the end of the day, what we watched in South Bend was not Indiana's fault. Everyone knew that team was not worthy of being in the Playoff — or I guess everyone with the exception of the committee who put it there. And the bad news is the precedent has now been set such that we will see plenty of copycats who will replicate this performance without notching a quality win all season.

I'm disappointed that the CFP committee wants teams like this competing for a national championship, but we can't put the toothpaste back in the tube now.