Indiana Beats Michigan to Go 10-0: Is a CFP Spot Now Locked In?

It’s like 1993 Wisconsin or 1995 Northwestern. It’s 2024 Indiana, and it’s one of the craziest stories of the college football season.

For the first time ever the Hoosier football program is 10-0, and now it’s time to dream really, REALLY big. There’s still work to do, but this was the home win it had to have, and now it goes from fun to serious.

Now what happens to Indiana, and Michigan, and the Big Ten, and the College Football Playoff?

Indiana 20, Michigan 15

Pete Fiutak on Threads

Indiana will be in the College Football Playoff.

At least, it’ll almost certainly make the expanded College Football Playoff.

It’ll probably lose at Ohio State, and rivalry aspect aside, it should roll past Purdue without a problem.

No way, no how, and no chance would an 11-1 Hoosier team not make the CFP - no 11-win Power Four/then-Power Five team would’ve not made an expanded 12-team playoff over the last ten years of final rankings. And that means …

Indiana might catch a fantastic break if it doesn’t play in the Big Ten Championship.

Of course the Hoosiers would like to be in the Big Ten Championship with a chance to play for the title, but they’re in great shape if they go 11-1 - maybe, even better shape.

Let’s assume IU loses to Ohio State. At 11-1, it’ll almost certainly get a seed somewhere between 5 and 8. That would mean an extra week to rest without having to play a 13th game, and that extra game would be in Bloomington, Indiana in late December. That’s not a bad deal and …

We’re talking about Indiana and the College Football Playoff. This is wild.

So what now for Michigan?

All of a sudden, the home game against Northwestern means the world.

The defending national champion is 5-5 and still has to make the trip to Columbus to deal with a slightly grouch Ohio State team. Lose to the Wildcats, and Michigan almost certainly doesn’t even get to go to a bowl game.

But it probably will beat NU and get a decent bowl somewhere, but good luck getting fired up for that after the last three seasons.

Big Ten Tie-Breakers. So what’s going to happen now?

- There’s still work to do - Oregon is playing Maryland as we speak - but realistically, let’s assume Ohio State gets by Indiana next week. If it doesn’t, Indiana is playing for the Big Ten Championship.

- If the Buckeyes win, thanks to the win over Penn State, beat Indiana, and they’re playing in the title game with a win over Michigan.

- Penn State needs Ohio State to beat Indiana and lose to Michigan, and then it gets into the tie-breaker scenarios. In that case, Penn State probably gets the nod over IU thanks to the win over Illinois - and assuming the Nittany Lions beat Minnesota and Maryland to close.

- Oregon will be in if it wins one of its last two against Wisconsin or Washington, assuming its current lead over Maryland holds up.