BLOOMINGTON — Indiana football’s five-spot drop in the latest set of CFP rankings rivaled Miami’s fall out of the top spot and Kentucky’s slide out of the top 10.
The difference?
The No. 9 Hoosiers (8-1, 5-1 Big Ten) sat idle last weekend while the other teams played and lost.
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After ESPN’s weekly CFP rankings show, Hunter Yurachek, the chair of the selection committee, offered a window into the group’s thinking.
“When the teams around you lose in the rankings and win big games, it affects where you land,” Yurachek said on a conference call with reporters. “Even in the week you didn’t lose or in some cases like Indiana didn’t play, those are some of the toughest conversations in the room and why we saw such significant movement.”
Indiana football’s CFP resume takes a beating during off week
During the CFP committee’s weekly meetings, they don’t use their previous rankings as a jumping-off point. The group starts from scratch and re-evaluates the entire field to take a “snapshot” of where things stand, as Yurachek described it on Tuesday night.
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When the committee started deliberations at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center this week, Indiana’s resume didn’t hold up as well against like competition.
“Indiana was probably the victim of having a bye week at the wrong time,” Yurachek said.
Yurachek pointed to a slate of games last weekend that featured seven matchups among teams ranked in the top 25.
“Some of those big wins occurred right around where they were, starting with Notre Dame’s big win over Miami,” Yurachek said.
Notre Dame leapfrogged the Hoosiers in the latest rankings along with Alabama, Tennessee, Texas and UCLA. The Bruins were the only team that didn’t play a ranked opponent, but their 34-20 win over Minnesota gave the committee a direct point of comparison to Indiana.
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“UCLA went on the road and beat a Minnesota team, a Minnesota team that had gone to Indiana the week prior,” Yurachek said. “Indiana needed a 60-yard field goal as time expired to send that game into overtime and win that game.”
The other results in the Big Ten didn’t help the Hoosiers either.
“Every team that Indiana played, had played to date in the Big Ten, they all lost,” Yurachek said. “They had six losses that went against their record strength as well as their strength of schedule.”
Indiana football’s offensive struggles becoming CFP discussion point
Indiana’s uncertainty at quarterback didn’t have a direct impact on its ranking — IU coach Curt Cignetti declined to name a starter for Saturday’s game against USC — but the team’s overall offensive struggles did.
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Through the first five weeks of the season, the Hoosiers averaged 44.2 points and 489.6 total yards per game. Those numbers plummeted in recent weeks with the offense averaging 17.8 points and 332 total yards over the last four games.
During that stretch, Indiana has also struggled in the red zone (.363 touchdown percentage) and with turnovers (five).
“The quarterback play in general, the offensive play in general,” Yurachek said, “is a discussion point there for Indiana.”
While IU’s offensive metrics aren’t standing out the same way they did in 2024 and 2025, the defense hasn’t given up its crown and helped balance out some of the negatives on the team’s resume.
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“They’re a dominant defensive team,” Yurachek said. “One of the best, if not the best, defensive teams statistically in the country. They have won games because of their defense, not because of their offense. That is a point of discussion in the room when we are comparing them to other teams.”
Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana football was a ‘victim’ of its bye week. Why IU tumbled in CFP rankings
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
