2024 Indiana Football Projections: Win Total Over/Under, SP+ Rankings And a Bowl Game?

Though the 2024 Indiana football season does not begin for over six months, projections on the Hoosiers' win total and other metrics have recently been released for year one under new head coach Curt Cignetti.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – It's never too early to look ahead to football season, right?

Though we're just over a month removed from the college football national championship and a few days past the Super Bowl, several predictions have been cast for next season.

The 2024 college football season comes with plenty of changes, like the Big Ten eliminating divisions and expanding to 18 teams with the addition of UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington. The SEC welcomes in Texas and Oklahoma, creating a 16-team conference. And they'll all be competing for a spot in the restructured College Football Playoffs, which goes from four to 12 teams.

It's a new start for the Indiana Hoosiers, too, which hired former James Madison coach Curt Cignetti to replace Tom Allen after seven seasons. Cignetti takes over for Allen – now Penn State's defensive coordinator – after a successful five-year run at James Madison, where he went 52-9.

The Hoosiers begin their season on Aug. 31 at home against Florida International, followed by a matchup against Western Illinois at home, at UCLA, home against Charlotte, home against Maryland, at Northwestern, home against Nebraska, home against Washington, at Michigan State, home against Michigan, at Ohio State, and home against Purdue. 

The FanDuel Sportsbook has set Indiana's over/under win total 5.5. Odds Indiana goes under 5.5 wins are minus-128, and odds the Hoosiers finish over 5.5 wins are plus-108. 

By that measure, Brett McMurphy's bowl projections on Action Network have Indiana going over 5.5 wins. He predicts Indiana will make a bowl game in year one under Cignetti and face Central Michigan in the Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit, Mich. That would be Indiana's first bowl game appearance since the Outback Bowl in 2020 under Tom Allen.

In ESPN's Bill Connelly SP+ rankings – which accounts for returning production, recent recruiting success, recent history, and is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking – ranks Indiana 90th in the nation with a -8.3 SP+ rating. More specifically, Indiana has a 20.8 offensive SP+ rating (102nd), a 29.1 defensive SP+ rating (66th) and a special 0.1 special teams SP+ rating (63rd).

Indiana's roster has already gone through major changes this offseason, and HoosiersNow.com has kept an updated list of all the incoming and outgoing transfers HERE.