Upton Sinclair wrote that “it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
One-by-one they’ve lined up on the national airwaves and on social media, and took turns wasting your time with absurd takes.
Captive to their masters at Disney, parent company of ESPN and ABC, (Read: Networks not part of the Big Ten’s media rights deal), we’ve heard one nauseating claim after another how an 11-1 team from the Big Ten wasn’t supposed to be in the 12-team College Football Playoff.
Say what?
It started during the live broadcast, even before the game clock expired at Notre Dame Stadium.
“I think most of us thought it would be a more competitive game,” ABC announcer Sean McDonough said Friday evening in the final minutes of Notre Dame’s win over Indiana, not realizing he was about to contradict himself in his very next sentence. “[I] know there will be a lot of analysis going forward about whether Indiana was worthy of this.”
So which was it — did you expect a competitive game, or were they not worthy of being there?
Next up was seemingly level-headed Kirk Herbstreit of ESPN’s College Gameday, who was nothing of the sort after Indiana’s 27-17 loss in South Bend.
“I’m not gonna sit here and say, ‘Why was Indiana in?,'” said Herbstreit, just before questioning why they were in.
“But Indiana, with what you guys like to talk about, they have 11 wins; they’ve got to be one of the best teams. Indiana was outclassed in that game. It was not a team that should’ve been on that field when you consider other teams that could’ve been there.
“It’s no knock on Indiana — they had a great year — but we’ve got to move forward with the Playoff and hope that the committee does a better job of weighing who the best 12 versus who’s the most deserving.”
Of course the hot-take artists jumped in as well. People like radio host Colin Cowherd aren’t serious sports analysts. They don’t actually believe much of anything they say or type. Instead, they get their oxygen from the viral nature of their intentionally outrageous claims. Cowherd did his thing following the Notre Dame game as well.
“This entire playoff is experimental,” he wrote on X. “Things will change. Potential reseeding after round one. It may expand to 14 games. Change is inevitable. But let’s make one non negotiable rule — Indiana can never be invited again.”
Enter eye roll emoji here.
And yes, ESPN’s resident SEC shill Paul Finebaum got in on the act as well, taking a shot at the CFP Committee for the first two games of the CFP’s first round.
“So far, the CFP selection committee has given us some blockbusters,” Finebaum said on X. “Notre Dame led late over Indiana 27-3, and Penn State just went up on the committee’s final team 28-0 at the half. Take a bow.”
And wouldn’t you know it, all of these same voices were silent Saturday evening as SEC darling Tennessee fell behind 42-10 at Big Ten fourth-place finisher Ohio State.
Were their phones dead? Their internet service down? Was there a national blackout I somehow dodged? Where was the outcry after Tennessee suffered the worst loss of the first round? A loss, by the way, decidedly more convincing than what Indiana suffered in Columbus a month earlier.
Let’s just be real clear here.
As long as there are 12 teams (or more) playing in the College Football Playoff, every team from the Big Ten and SEC with one loss is getting in. Every single one of them.
And they are certainly getting in over an Alabama team that lost three games, including a blowout at six-loss Oklahoma, a loss at six-loss Vanderbilt, and a loss at that now very suspect Tennessee squad. I mean that’s how we have to look at a team that loses big at Ohio State, right?
They’re certainly getting in over an Ole Miss team that also lost three games, including a home defeat to eight-loss Kentucky (shame on you Lane Kiffin), at five-loss Florida, and at four-loss LSU.
And of course they’re certainly getting in over a Miami team that lost two of their last three games to unranked teams.
All of this seems obvious, even as Indiana showed it had flaws late in the season. That became apparent in the second half of a win over Michigan, a team you are supposed to forget went to Columbus a week later and won.
Indiana was far from a perfect team, but 11-1 in the Big Ten is getting in this thing every time, and especially, ESPECIALLY over three loss teams. And unequivocally when that single loss came on the road to another CFP team.
Indiana was not even on the margin in the eyes of an impartial Committee that placed them at No. 8 in their final rankings. It’s just not a serious debate, unless you are plugging for a league that has a contract to show its regular season games on your network.
And it’s not even a serious debate with the hindsight benefit McDonough, Herbstreit, Cowherd, Finebaum and others like them all tried to capitalize on. After all, seven of the eight aforementioned losses by Alabama, Ole Miss and Miami came on the road. All of them, that is, except for that turd Kiffin laid at home against Kentucky.
And the only thing this first round of the first 12-team College Football Playoff truly proved is that it is really hard to go on the road and beat a top-10 team.
Color me stunned.
For complete coverage of IU football, GO HERE.
The Daily Hoosier –“Where Indiana fans assemble when they’re not at Assembly”
- You can follow us on Twitter: @daily_hoosier
- Find us on Facebook and Instagram
- Seven ways to support completely free IU coverage at no cost to you.
