Indiana was ranked No. 8 in the first College Football Playoff rankings released on Tuesday.
CFP Committee chair Warde Manuel took a couple questions about IU during a post release teleconference.
Here is what Manuel said about the Hoosiers:
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Q. You mentioned about Indiana on the show, how dominant they’ve been, winning games by two scores. You could possibly make the case to move them higher, but ESPN also showed that they have the 103rd ranked schedule which some would think would be a reason to drop them lower. How did they end up in the spot that they did?
WARDE MANUEL: Well, you really gave the answer to the deliberation that we had. Their strength of schedule was not very high in comparison to some others, but the way that they have played in those games and the dominance that they have shown in those games, winning by an average of 33 points a game, has been really impressive to the committee. So we couldn’t ignore that.
As it related to where they are ranked and how we saw them, even though strength of schedule is important, we also have watched those games. The only game they’ve been behind was last week against Michigan State by 10, and they came back and I believe went on a 47-point run to win that game.
Very impressive team, well-coached by Curt Cignetti. They are just a formidable opponent. That’s what we saw.
Q. You touched on in terms of Indiana, strength-of-schedule stuff, but with the one-loss teams, you have some ahead of them like Penn State and behind them like Notre Dame. What were the datapoints that separated those teams for you guys?
WARDE MANUEL: Well, I think the play and who they’ve played thus far, the performance of the teams ahead of them and how the committee evaluated them. Look, we think highly of Indiana. Again, dominant, dominant wins against the teams on their schedule, so we recognize that and also understand that they can only play who’s in front of them and who’s scheduled.
Top-10 scoring defense only allowing 14 points per game, top-20 offense. They are just an impressive team.
It does go into an evaluation of what we see but also who they play, and we look forward to seeing how they perform as the season
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