Indiana’s Blowout Loss to Ohio State Ends Unbeaten Season, But Will It End CFP Bid?

Hoosiers coach Curt Cignetti made his case to the selection committee, but a logjam of SEC teams, Notre Dame and the ACC runner-up make the path to the playoff murky.

Ohio State Buckeyes defensive end JT Tuimoloau sacks Indiana Hoosiers quarterback Kurtis Rourke in the second half of their game. / Samantha Madar/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Curt Cignetti, owner of the most entertainingly unrestrained mouth in football, was largely diplomatic in defeat. But he reverted to form at the end of his news conference Saturday afternoon. 

Asked if he believes his Indiana Hoosiers are a College Football Playoff team with one week remaining in the regular season, his response was a cross between incredulity and indignation:

“Is that a serious question? I’m not even going to answer that, the answer is so obvious.”

Eh, it’s not really that obvious after a 23-point loss to the Ohio State Buckeyes in what was a massive referendum game for upstart Indiana. The Hoosiers came in 10–0 for the first time in school history, a glorious surprise story, but had beaten nobody of note. (Ask the fans of half the Southeastern Conference and the Penn State Nittany Lions for their opinions on that, and you’ll get a chorus of schedule-bashing.)

This was the big test. Thanks to a disastrous punt unit and an overwhelmed offensive line, they earned nothing better than a “C” on said test.

Indiana was not as good as Ohio State. That’s not a crime. Ultimately, nobody might be as good as the Buckeyes, who are 10–1 with a one-point road loss to the undefeated Oregon Ducks. The bigger question is how far the No. 5 Hoosiers plummet in the CFP rankings Tuesday night, particularly in relation to a logjam of SEC teams, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the No. 2 team from the Atlantic Coast Conference, and so on.

The best thing that happened to Indiana on Saturday was the Mississippi Rebels coughing up an elimination-sized hairball against the Florida Gators. That might provide a landing spot for the Hoosiers within the 12-team bracket. The dumb weekly CFP top 25 rankings show will actually be of use this week—it will tell us what the committee thinks of Indiana with the Hoosier hay almost completely in the barn.

Indiana only has a game left against the Purdue Boilermakers—a rivalry game, but let’s be serious. The Boilers are 1–10, and beating them will provide no schedule bump. Unless some massive upsets put the Hoosiers in the Big Ten championship game, they’ll be judged on a schedule in which their best victory is over Michigan or Washington, both of which are 6–5.

It’s slippery.

Deep in lobbying season, Cignetti took the predictable route of essentially asserting that his team is in, no questions asked and no debate warranted. But there was some cosmetic game play going on at the end that hinted at two things: 

• Indiana’s tenuous position. 

• How the rest of the Big Ten (or at least Buckeyes coach Ryan Day) might feel about Cignetti.

Down 31–7, Indiana mounted a methodical drive to score its second touchdown and tack on a two-point conversion. A 31–15 loss as an 11½-point underdog might not look too bad to the committee, right?

Buckeyes running back TreVeyon Henderson runs with the ball through the Hoosiers defense. / Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The problem with a cosmetic touchdown there is twofold: Everyone who matters was watching this game; they saw it get away from Indiana early in the second half. And there was still time on the clock for Ohio State to do something in return.

Indiana’s subsequent onside kick was unsuccessful, and Ohio State took over. Running back TreVeyon Henderson broke a run up the middle and could have scored, but slid to the turf at the 2-yard line, whereupon the Buckeyes could have run out the clock.

They didn’t. Ohio State went for the run-it-up score, with quarterback Will Howard pushing the pile into the end zone with 35 seconds left to make it 38–15.

“TreVeyon did the right thing,” Day said afterward, but clearly the coach overruled his back’s decision.

“We wanted to finish this the right way and make sure everyone knows,” he paused, “it’s the Ohio State Buckeyes.”

It’s just as likely that Day wanted Cignetti to know his offseason yapping had been heard. His first day on the job last December, Cignetti said in a live interview on the Big Ten Network from the league championship game in Indianapolis that he wanted to drop by, “since we’ll be playing in this game next year.”

Later, Cignetti made this declaration to an Indiana home basketball crowd in Assembly Hall: “Purdue sucks. But so does Michigan and Ohio State. Go IU.”

And there was his famous pronouncement on national signing day: “I win. Google me.”

The latest Google search results will reveal a 23-point loss. But damned if Cignetti did not back up his outrageous boasts far longer than expected. Before the season, nobody dreamed that the Indiana-Ohio State game would matter in the slightest, and yet it became the focal point of this crucial, late-November Saturday.

“In life, all good things come to an end, eventually,” Cignetti said. “I give Ohio State a lot of credit. They dominated the football game.”

After an ideal start—forcing a three-and-out defensively, driving 70 yards for a touchdown, getting a red-zone stop, taking a 7–0 lead—everything fell apart. The Hoosiers’ impressive early composure dissolved. 

Most damaging of all, their punting unit turned the game irrevocably in Ohio State’s favor. Punter James Evans fumbled a snap and gave the Buckeyes the ball inside the Indiana 10-yard line, leading to a score and a 14–7 deficit at halftime. Then the third quarter began with a 79-yard punt return by Buckeyes safety Caleb Downs—a high-profile, high-dollar transfer from Alabama—for a touchdown.

Meanwhile, Indiana was overwhelmed along the offensive line—the only area of its starting lineup that was mostly populated with holdovers from Tom Allen’s tenure. Quarterback Kurtis Rourke did not anticipate blitzes pre-snap, and didn’t feel pressure after the snap. He wound up being sacked five times, losing a fumble on one of them.

“They were just teeing off on us,” Cignetti said.

This is the brutal part of a dream season hitting the rocks of reality. Most Indiana fans would have been tickled with a winning record, and absolutely giddy about nine wins. But when you get to 10–0 and within reach of a playoff berth, losing the school’s biggest game since the 1960s—at least—hits hard.

How hard will be determined when the CFP rankings come out. Indiana’s best friend might be chaos elsewhere, as the final weeks become laden with pressure and motivated underdogs are lurking, ready to spring upsets.

Cignetti’s no-doubt-about-it postgame stance regarding Indiana’s playoff viability was not a surprise. In fact, it was his job. But truth be told, there will be some anxious TV watching in Bloomington, Ind., on Tuesday night. To borrow a line attached to Indiana’s basketball program in the 1980s, the season is on the brink.