My original, naive thought was that the expanded CFP would bring all college football fans together. That we could rejoice and embrace avoiding a four team playoff in which every year the same two or three teams are in.
I have never been more wrong about anything in my life.
To preface, as a Hoosiers fan, I LOVE this expanded playoff. It favored me and appealed to me in every sense after 28 years of bitter disappointment with Indiana's football program. Sure, definitely didn't look great when competing against Notre Dame, a team that collectively decided "Eff this" after losing to a powerhouse NIU team, but I digress.
Winning more than three games, becoming bowl eligible, ranked, double-digit win column, playoffs? Everything about this season exceeded every expectation I had, or any Hoosier fan had, and the bar was already set so astronomically low. Coach Cig was a great hire, and yeah I was ecstatic, but I hope you can understand why 'cautiously optimistic' was my mindset based on the entirety of Indiana's football history.
Yes, I've seen all the narratives. I am acutely aware. 'Name one top 25 team they beat' Like okay, guy. I can't? Okay? You happy? One spark of something good, something positive, something to hang my hat on, FINALLY, and you want to tear me down? Nice try, nothing you say can hurt me as a Hoosier fan. I've been in the deepest, darkest, most depressing corners of NCAA football. I have lived in a perpetual state of immense and bitter disappointment since inception.
But I will argue, as is my, nay, OUR duty as belligerent and blind fanatics.
"Indiana didn't play anyone"
They can't control who they play? Michigan and Washington were the two teams in the CFP Championship last year? The so called "experts" had them finishing second to last in the Big Ten. With the transfer portal, coach movement, etc. there's no telling how your schedule will actually play out. But Indiana played these teams, and beat all but one of them. And beat them convincingly, aside from a Michigan team that turned in on at the end of the year. That's what good teams do, right? They PUMMEL the bad teams, the teams that don't match up to them? That's what the Ohio State's and the Georgia's do?
Beating Nebraska (congrats on your bowl win) 56-7, whereas Ohio State beat them 21-17 at home? There are so many variables now that showing up and winning your games is all you can do as a program. Yes, the Ohio State loss was bad. Yes, the Notre Dame loss was bad. Yes, Cig runs his mouth a little much and I agree it's not even "good" trash talk. He wins, Google says so, but that can only hold so much merit until you knock these established programs off their pigskin thrones. But Indiana showed up and beat the teams they played, even when Nebraska was a "let down" spot.
"They didn't deserve to be in the Playoff"
Hindsight is 20/20. A little unfair of me to write this after the quarterfinals. But Oregon sucked. Boise State didn't do a whole lot. SMU fell off. Clemson should be getting the heat! Losing 34-3 to Georgia and 33-21 to unranked Louisville? They are the most "They got in the because they met the most basic of criteria" for CFP eligible teams. Finishing your season as a four loss team? Insane! Indiana was competitive for one drive against Ohio State, and that alone for me is enough to crown them champions in my miserable, tear-soaked book. But to say Bama was more deserving (three losses, one to unranked Oklahoma), without even throwing in Clemson, Boise (best win was #20 UNLV in their conference championship game) is asinine.
"They had one good year"
Maybe. But I enjoyed the hell out of it. I have never experienced a more euphoric experience than seeing a scoreboard say 56-7, and Indiana is the winning side of that score. That GameDay stopped in Bloomington. That IU Football had the most impressions/interactions or whatever on X "It's all happening on X, the everything app" out of all NCAA Football programs in 2024. I have never been this confident going into next year as an IU fan, even after the Tom Allen COVID year. And as previously stated, nothing anyone can do or say will hurt me anymore than I already have been by this team previously.
All in all, college football rocks. Shout out ASU for an amazing year. We got to see things this year that 5-10 years ago seemed improbable. The return of a NCAA Football video game. I am embracing the chaos. I get to tell Bama fans they lost three games and that IU is "technically" better than them. The contention, the upsets, the transfer portal, the expanded playoff. I support it all. And it's easy to when it all has favored my team more than others.
Getting into hypotheticals on X, being utterly biased towards your team and conference and so blind to sound and logical reason, saying SEC teams can't handle cold weather (when most of their players are from other states. A Tennessee player being from Tennessee isn't just a given fact you morons), that teams like Ohio State "paid" for their team and transfers (when we saw against Oregon only two of their players were first or second year players).
That is the backbone in which this divine-given sport is built upon.
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