“We still felt their body of work was strong enough,” the college football chairperson Warde Manuel said about Indiana Hoosiers post-Week 13 ranking updates. The No. 5 Hoosiers traveled to No. 2 Buckeyes and didn’t play a ranked team. Ryan Day’s players had a field with Curt Cignetti’s team, and if not for a late touchdown, the scorecard would have shown annihilation. The result? Indiana is now No. 10 in CFP rankings. However, was their defeat against Ohio State so bad that SMU is ranked above them?

Well, all of us know that the committee has not been fair to Indiana. Joel Klatt, the voice of college football at FOX, thinks the same, and in his latest podcast, posted on November 27, he has slammed SMU’s higher rankings and raised significant questions. 

Klatt highlighted that putting SMU above the Hoosiers is a big disrespect for Indiana and the new head coach, Curt Cignetti. “[If] I’m the Indiana Hoosiers, and I’m a Hoosiers’ fan, how do I feel right now after seeing these rankings? Well, I think I feel two things. I feel a good bit of disrespect from the committee, and I also am going to feel cautiously optimistic about my standings in this playoff seating, if you want to call it that in these rankings.”

Indiana and SMU both stand with the same record of 10-1. But why is SMU ranked above Hoosiers? Klaltt has the same question, and he discussed the situation in depth and added, “They’ve got comparable records at 10-1. Their best wins are: For SMU, Louisville and Duke. And for Indiana, it would be Washington and Michigan. By the way, those two teams played for a national championship last year. The strength of the schedule is actually not close in favor of Indiana. At this point, 51st ranked strength of schedule for the Hoosiers. 77th-ranked strength of schedule for SMU and both of them are owed one against the top 25. So you don’t have a top-25 win. You tell me how SMU’s resume suggests that they’re better than Indiana? You can’t. You can’t.” He ended with, ”SMU should not be ranked higher than Indiana right here. Not even close.”

SMU’s first defeat of the season came against BYU, and BYU is not struggling. On the other hand, Indiana lost to Ohio State, who have owned the No. 2 position for the past few weeks. Is their position even comparable? Well, SMU has won back-to-back eight games, and out of them, six have had a huge margin of more than 10 points.

On the other hand, Indiana won the first 10 games they played, and no one expected that because of their bad history. Their defense has outperformed all their opponents and helped the Hoosiers to a favorable spot. Although Indiana has a high chance of entering the playoffs, rankings are going to play a big role as we get closer to the playoffs. Let’s see why SMU is ranked above Indiana and hear it straight from Manuel.

Why is SMU ranked above Indiana?

This is not the first week when Indiana’s rankings are the talk of the town. Two weeks ago, Ohio State was ranked above them, even with 8-2 standings, and now, after a week, SMU is favored, but why?

“SMU has been playing really dominant football as of late; with the way they played against Virginia at Virginia, they’ve had some great wins, only one loss,” Manuel said. He further appreciated SMU’s quarterback and mentioned, “Kevin Jennings is one of the dynamic quarterbacks in the country at the present time.”

“So we just felt that SMU and their play on the field moved ahead of Indiana this week, and we’ll continue to monitor it as we move forward,” he added. Well, Kurtis Rourke is equally popular this season, and last week, he was in the spotlight for all seven days, and experts were fighting that Curt should save him for the big games as there are high chances that he would get injured. However, it will be interesting to see Jennings vs. Rourke.

Manuel concluded with, “At this time, I would just say the strength of schedule for Indiana improved greatly when they played Ohio State, but SMU just has been consistent in the last few weeks in terms of their performance, and the committee as we looked at it ranked SMU ahead of Indiana.” 

In the initial weeks, the rankings really did not matter to many head coaches, but when the playoffs are around the corner, the rankings play a crucial role for all the teams. Will the committee be fair to Indiana and Curt in the last few weeks?

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