NCAA Football Postseason 2025 - Indiana's Quest for Glory, Or, What's an ACC Championship Worth, Anyway?

[Quintillus]

We never had a regular season thread, but as Notre Dame's athletic director would say, regular season rankings are a farce and total waste of time anyway, it's only the final ranking of the season that matters.

So, who's rooting for which teams?

My team is Ohio State, but unless they meet again, it's hard not to root for Indiana as the perennial underdog who has reached the #1 ranking for, if my understanding is correct, the first time ever dating back to the start of the AP Poll in 1936. But they're not just confident and spunky, they're really good this year.

The other team I'd like to see punch above their weight for a while is Ole Miss. Mainly because I'm of the opinion that Lane should have stayed, and his now-former team beating the Mean Green (again) and Bulldogs would serve to say that maybe they really will be better than LSU for a while. But on the whole, I think Georgia at #3 is probably about right, and they will probably make it to the semis or championship.

I'll also be rooting for Oklahoma in the first round, since IMO Alabama was both the least deserving and least likely to win Power 4 school selected. And I'm mildly curious of the JMU will be at all competitive against Oregon, or if we'll be left wondering if Duke could have played better than the Dukes. What we really needed was a 68-team March Madness style play-in for the #12 seed - 11-1 JMU against 8-5 Duke would be an interesting game to watch from a "how much do power conferences matter?" standpoint. #12 JMU against #5 Oregon probably won't be.

 

[ummmm........]

EDIT: This turned out to be kind of a lot. tl;dr: Just find the teams you care about and read that part ; p

Tbf Army/Navy is this weekend . . .

That aside, it's true that the expansion to twelve teams has drastically reduced the importance of the regular season. I didn't boycott by any means, but I didn't start to seriously tune in until towards the end of October, while in a normal year I would have been glued to the couch for twelve hours every Saturday from week one ; p

But now that we're here . . :

#1 Indiana -- Undefeated Big Ten champion, there can be no argument here. Cignetti rubs me the wrong way and refuses to schedule ooc the way that other top tier Big Ten and SEC teams do, but they have the win in Autzen and ofc the squeaker in the conference title game so they are at once the most deserving -- and there are very few truly "deserving" teams -- and likely one of the best teams in the field. Warning signs would be struggles against weaker Iowa and Penn State teams. I'll be rooting against them ; )

#2 Ohio State -- Unlike Indiana, Ohio State did schedule ooc and squeaked by Texas before conference play began. They avoided Oregon and coasted through conference play until finally getting a win v rival Michigan in the final week. I'm surprised they were not able to fare better v Indiana in the title game but they would still by my fourth team in a four-team field in the spirit of not punishing ppls for playing an extra game. They are also likely one of the best teams in the field, and they have two Alabama transfers in Julian Sayin and Caleb Downs. I'm the kind of person who roots for transfers rather than hoping they fail so while I can't say Ohio State is my favorite, I'd def pull for them again over Indiana . . .

#3 Georgia -- Notable regular season wins v Ole Miss, Texas and ooc rival Georgia Tech as well as avenging their only regular season loss at home to Alabama in the conference title game makes UGA one of the very few "deserving" teams imo. I'm not sure they're one of the very best teams -- I think those are all in the Big Ten this year -- but they are peaking and have an extra week to get healthy as well. If I were the sort of person who bet on sports I'd take the Big Ten v the field but UGA would be my pick if I had to choose a single team . . .

#4 Texas Tech -- Dominating wins over two-loss Utah and BYU (twice) make Big XII champ TT the last truly "deserving" team on the list imo. They do have the loss at four-loss ASU and didn't schedule anyone ooc so it's hard to know how good they really are, but that's what we're here to find out I suppose . . .

#5 Oregon -- Now we're really getting into the meat of a twelve-team field. Oregon lost by ten at home to Indiana, the only playoff contender they played this year, and they had the same struggles at Iowa and Penn State that Indiana had, which either points to Iowa and Penn State being better than their records suggest or Indiana and Oregon being worse ; p It's not really Oregon's fault that Oklahoma State was as bad as they were this year, but it does rob us of an ooc team to compare them with . . .

#6 Ole Miss -- The Lane Train has left the station and in a season with a lot of close wins to some fairly middling teams -- Kentucky, Arkansas, LSU and Washington State(!) were all single score games -- I'm not sure how good Ole Miss really is. But they rebounded after the loss to UGA and played much better in the second half, including a win over Oklahoma, giving Ole Miss a regular season win over another playoff team, something not everyone in the field has. I like former Alabama DC Pete Golding and I hope Ole Miss does well. I would have liked to see the committee flip Oregon and Ole Miss to avoid the Tulane rematch in round one, but both of those games should be a joke anyway . . .

#7 Texas A&M -- Beat Notre Dame in South Bend ooc, but again had some regular season struggles against some teams in the lower half of the SEC -- Auburn, Arkansas, South Carolina -- before finally losing at Texas to end the regular season. I would have liked to see A&M in the conference title game over UGA, if for no other reason than that we don't have a lot of tape of them v top-tier opponents, but like TT this is their chance to show they belong . . .

#8 Oklahoma -- Probably the worst P4 team in the field Oklahoma scheduled Michigan ooc and won, then rode a dominating defense through their regular season which included significant losses to Texas and Ole Miss but also the two-point win v Alabama in Tuscaloosa that vaulted them into the playoffs. An old school fellow like me would love to see defense win a championship again, but I don't think that's the game we're playing anymore . . .

#9 Alabama -- Started the season with what was in hindsight a baffling blowout loss to Florida State, Alabama rallied after their ooc win over Wisconsin to beat UGA in Athens and go on to beat three more ranked teams -- including two-loss Vanderbilt -- over the next three weeks, making them the first team in the history of the AP to accomplish the feat. Unfortunately that task took a toll and Alabama's offense really fell apart in the second half of the season as injuries mounted. Even the 20-9 win over LSU was closer than the score would indicate. That left Alabama with both the best win (UGA) and worst loss (FSU) of any playoff team. It would be great if the twelve days off before the revenge game v Oklahoma was enough to get Alabama healthy enough to return to early season form, but I'm not betting on it. I like our draw tho, Oklahoma and Indiana are both teams I'd like to beat : )

#10 Miami -- Ah, Miami. Spent the whole season complaining about head-to-head, only to win out in the end. They started the season with that three point win over Notre Dame, then somehow managed to avoid the ACC title game despite not really playing anyone else of note in the regular season. Despite that I think Miami has a good team talent-wise, maybe in the top half of the playoff pool? They'll have the chance to prove it v similarly untested A&M in round one with Ohio State awaiting the winner . . .

#11 & 12 -- Not saying upsets are impossible (look at FSU over Alabama) but FSU would probably beat both of these teams ; p Neither belongs here and all they really do is give their opponents an advantage in the quarters v teams that have been sitting around getting rusty for three weeks . . .

The also-rans (or, got jobbed ; p ) . . :

Notre Dame -- I love that Notre Dame got excluded. Probably one of the best four teams talent-wise, maybe the only team outside the Big Ten that could be a real threat, they spend so much energy demanding special treatment bc the normal rules shouldn't apply to them that they just specialed their way right out of a playoff spot. Sure, they could join a conference and make life easier on everyone including themselves, but they won't. Because they're special. The fact that their reaction to being left out was to take their ball and go home like the spoiled brats they are instead of playing in a bowl game like FSU did when they were unfairly excluded a couple of years ago only proves the point that they got exactly what they deserved . . .

BYU -- oof. Lost twice to the same team, tough to argue they deserved a spot with no other notable opponents on their resume. Bit of a tough break given that we don't really know exactly how good TT is yet, BYU might be better than we think . . .

Texas -- This is why Indiana schedules the way Indiana does. Texas played four(!) playoff teams in the regular season and split 2-2. They are also the only team other than Alabama to beat Vanderbilt this year. And that would have been enough to get them in if they hadn't slipped up to hapless Florida. Or if they hadn't scheduled Ohio State ooc. Either way. Looking a little deeper into the schedule you can find some more warning signs *cough*KentuckyMississippiState*cough* and I'm not going to argue that Texas "deserved" to be in an already bloated twelve team field, but I do see Sarkisian's point . . .

Vanderbilt -- No one is arguing Vanderbilt should be in, but it's worth noting that that's only bc they're Vanderbilt. They did play two playoff teams -- Alabama and Texas -- and lost to both, so there's that. And they didn't schedule anyone out of conference that could help much (Virginia Tech), while the rest of their conference schedule didn't give them much more than a couple of wins over four-loss teams. But still, 10-2 . . .

Utah -- the last 10-2 P4, no one is arguing for Utah either. Lost to both TT and BYU, the best thing they had going for them was that they beat the team that beat TT ; p

 

[Quintillus]

Yeah, I pretty much agree with all of your analysis, except perhaps that I think defense might win the championship. The Big Ten Championship ending 13-10, with two high-powered offenses with Heisman-candidate quarterbacks both struggling to score? It didn't look like last year's loss to Michigan, where Ohio State's offensive game plan was bafflingly inept and predictable. It looked like both defenses were really good. Sayin had been sacked five times all year, and IIRC, Indiana equaled that total in one game. I knew Ohio State had a very good defense, but had not appreciated how good Indiana's was, with all the talk about their offense. Only Penn State (24) and Oregon (20) scored more than 15 points in a game against them this year (and somehow the 15 was Iowa).

I also agree with the rooting for transfers. I was so happy for LSU and Burrow when they won a few years back. Local kid, backup for Ohio State, but it didn't look like he'd get the chance to start, so he went south and proved himself and got a championship. Good for him. Doesn't hurt that he wound up coming back to play for Cincinnati, taking them to a Super Bowl, and being a good person along the way.

And yeah, I haven't fully decided what to think about Notre Dame opting out. It does kind of make them look like spoiled brats. Maybe they are afraid of losing 85-6 after opt-outs like Florida State seemingly did to Georgia? (edit: The actual score was 63-3, not much better than what it felt like. And had Georgia kept their starters in and kept up their first-half scoring pace, it would have been 84-3) But I'm not sure opting out will prevent transfers, and the best way to show that the Committee got it wrong would have been to win, ideally convincingly, against BYU, Vanderbilt, or Texas.

I see why they feel aggrieved though. Miami somehow gained 9 spots relative to Notre Dame in four games (plus a week that neither played in), despite Notre Dame outperforming them during that time, including against shared opponents. To me, the results suggest that Miami may have started out slightly better in week one (or benefitted from home field advantage), but Notre Dame improved more over the course of the season. That 9-spot change in rankings, to me, suggests that the opacity of CFP rankings is a problem for the sport. No one can answer "why" beyond, "We re-watched the game from week one and were more impressed by Miami's 3-point win than we'd remembered". I'd rather just use the AP Poll to determine rankings. It's still subjective, but less opaque and contentious.

It will be interesting to see how rust comes into play. I'd be shocked if all of the Top 4 lose their first game again, but it's certainly possible that the extra week off will, barring injuries, do more harm than good.

Edit: I wouldn't be surprised if the real reason the Committee chose Miami over Notre Dame was to not leave out the ACC. Which, hey, they did that in 2023 and took heat for it. If this were 2026, the ACC Champ would be guaranteed a spot, so Duke would be in (despite being 8-5), and perhaps Miami wouldn't have been. Which wouldn't be a better field of teams, but would also be less controversial, at least from a "how did the Committee arrive at that result?" standpoint. Maybe more controversial in the ACC from a "do we have a sensible tiebreaker system?" standpoint, but that's the ACC's problem to figure out.

 

[ummmm........]

Well I think that one went about how we all expected it to, right . . ?

 

[Quintillus]

Teams with a bye have improved to 1-7 through two seasons. Way to go Indiana, being the only top-4 seed to ever win a playoff game. And in dominant fashion. They're my pick for eventual champion, but how could they not be right now?

I wasn't following it too closely, real life and Civ proved more appealing. Saw a few plays of Ohio State losing, including both Buckeyes touchdowns, for a while there it looked like a comeback was possible. But ultimately, the highs of winning a title in January and beating that team up north in November were enough that I'm okay with someone else having the glory this year, especially with Smith and Sayin returning. Followed the end of the Georgia-Ole Miss game online, that looked like the best of the four games by far, at least from an entertainment perspective. Almost as good of a game to watch as LSU vs Kentucky in basketball.

I think my order of preference for who to win would be Ole Miss (because it would be a karmic way of saying don't leave a team in the playoffs for seemingly greener pastures), Indiana (because they never win at football until last year), and then I can't really decide between Miami and Oregon. I know Oregon wasn't the start of the most recent wave of realignment, but IMO they were a linchpin and a key factor in the downfall of the Pac-12, so they're still kind of bad guys in my book. Miami is one I've been rooting against since 2002, and aside from the hilarity of losing a game to Georgia Tech when they could have taken a knee to win it, I haven't had much reason to like them more in the past 20 years. They also would have a home game in the championship, which seems like a bit of an unfair advantage, especially since they'd be the lower seed.

----

Longer term, I think some tweaks for next year should be considered. One of the coaches (Lanning?) said that the playoffs should be played on consecutive Saturdays starting in December, with the finals on New Year's Day. I think that's a good idea. Less time for the top seeds to get rusty. And unless there's an expansion to 16 teams, which I don't expect would lead to more competitive games, I think all the top seeds should have a home game.

As it is, it was 3 weeks and 5 days this year between conference championships and the first playoff game, which is a lot of time to fall out of habits and rhythms. And as a fan, I find it hard to stay motivated to follow the games that my team isn't in with such a long gap. Yeah, I'll read the articles and watch some of the highlights. But I haven't been spending Saturdays watching games in weeks by the time a team with a bye starts playing again, and unlike 20 years ago, the New Year's Day game isn't the end of the road. I forgot all about the first round games this year, thinking instead about Christmas preparations.

 

[ummmm........]

Oh it's Ole Miss by a mile at this point. Golding is the only coach I can pull for. I dislike Cignetti (tho he is obv a great coach and I agree Indiana has to be the favorite now if they weren't already), I think Lanning would be insufferable if he ever won a national title and Cristobal has just made too many boneheaded in-game decisions through the years to deserve one. So Golding it is . . .

I was shocked by Miami over Ohio State and to a lesser degree by Ole Miss over Georgia. I don't guess I was surprised to see Oregon beat TT but I was a little surprised to see the shutout. I had no idea what to expect going into Alabama/Indiana, so I can't say I would have been surprised by any result . . .

Next year's format isn't finalized, so there's still an opportunity for them to fiddle with things and make the regular season even more meaningless for us next year ; p

 

[Quintillus]

One of my friends said something to the effective of Ohio State having an easier draw than Indiana in the quarterfinals. I disagreed, noting how Miami had shut down A&M 10-3, and that the way to beat Ohio State seemed to be to have really good defense. Miami needed a few more points than against A&M, but won for much the same reason the Hoosiers had against Ohio State - being able to win on the offensive line, pressure Sayin for only the second time this season, and keep Ohio State's offense from getting into gear, at least until it was too little too late.

Indiana I expected to be a favorite and win, though I wouldn't have guessed by that much. Along with the not scheduling enough tough opponents, which I think has been a fair criticism the past two years, although that was probably already carved in stone by the time Cignetti was hired, is it mainly his "I win, Google me" brash confidence that rubs you the wrong way? I can see how it is off-putting. But it might also have been what Indiana needed to get past decades of malaise. Kind of like how Vanderbilt needed Pavia to play with swagger and confidence, and not care about the past 80 years.

 

[ummmm........]

It's not like I hate him with a passion fiery and true, I just dislike him. He's just not a likeable person, and I don't think he has any interest in being a likeable person. He's like Saban without the personality ; p

 

[Quintillus]

Quite a fourth quarter in the Fiesta Bowl. As many lead changes as there were, I wouldn't have been surprised if Chambliss had completed the last pass for one more yet. Fun game to watch, even if I didn't want the U to win.

 

[ummmm........]

Yeah, exciting game, idk about great game. Didn't feel like either was going to stop the other at the end, just a question of who ran out of time . . .

And now the guy who got hurt in the conference title game and didn't get to lead his team to the national championship game last year gets to lead a different team to the national championship this year. Good times ; p

 

[Quintillus]

But despite the craziness of being able to play for a completely different team the next year, his "just a car" being a Lambo while mine's a Honda, and that I never really liked him while he was at Georgia... it's hard not to feel happy for a guy who went through a broken arm when he did last year, came back to the NCAA instead of the NFL, and looked genuinely like running in for that last touchdown was the best feeling of his life. He had some tough breaks at Georgia, he's earned his moment in the sun.

But so did Fernando Mendoza when he won the Big Ten. And if it comes down to Indiana versus Miami in the championship, I'll be rooting for the Hoosiers. Oregon versus Miami? I might not bother to check who won till February.

 

[ummmm........]

Well I guess Oregon didn't belong in the playoffs either, huh . . ? ; p

The more I've thought about it, the more I think my dislike of Cignetti really is just about the scheduling. It's fun to watch him play good teams . . .

Go 'Canes! (they've got zero chance) . . .

The weird thing about Beck is even after coming back for another year he's still got zero NFL buzz. No one even talks about him when ranking QBs for the draft, and this is a very thin class this year. I know NFL guys are weird about their metrics, is he short or does he have small hands or something . . ?

 

[Quintillus]

One part might be does he make smart decisions in tough situations? Looking at Georgia's QB TD/Int ratios:

2021 (Bennett): 29:7
2022 (Bennett): 27:7
2023 (Beck): 24:6
2024 (Beck): 28:12
2025 (Beck, Miami): 29:11
2025 (Stockton): 24:5

By comparison, C.J. Stroud had 44:6 and 41:6; Justin Fields had 41:3 and 22:6. Shedeur Sanders had 27:3 and 37:10 playing for a Colorado team whose offensive line made Swiss cheese look like it didn't have holes. So Beck's TD/Int ratio looks fine for his sophomore year, but not elite for his junior/senior years. One of the questions I'd be asking as a scout is, if he gets in a tough spot, is he going to make the smart decision and throw it away, or try to play hero and force something? He threw one pick against Ole Miss, and I remember one other incompletion where Ole Miss got pressure on him and he threw it into traffic, the Ole Miss safety (corner? I don't know their players very well) came close to picking it off. Not a disqualifier if the rest looks good, and might be something that can be trained out of him, but potentially part of he's not getting a lot of buzz.

Another might be is he a good leader? Sanders' stock fell in large part because teams viewed him as an entitled spoiled kid who, yeah, had talent, but was not ready to be a team leader, and was a gamble around whether he'd wind up having enough maturity to have a good shot at becoming a QB1. Then he gets picked in the fifth round and rapidly racks up two 100+ mph speeding tickets before the season even gets underway, highlighting the maturity question. My guess is Deion gave him a good talking-to after that, and having Flacco around helped too, and now it looks like, well maybe this guy is going to mature into a good QB, and if any team should take a chance on him, it's Cleveland with their lack of an offensive line.

Beck doesn't have the nationally-known bling-and-rich-father question marks that Sanders had, but he does show a taste for status symbols. I haven't watched his social media escapades with Hanna Cavinder, but maybe there are some warning signs in there, too. That's a window into off-field behavior that wouldn't have been available to scouts 20 years ago, but still would be worth considering when asking, "is this someone who can be a centerpiece of our team?"

Lastly, he hasn't really had a playoff run to show how he does on the biggest stage. 63-3 against Florida State without Jordan Travis and most of the FSU starting lineup, but no one's going to say you did an amazing job when the Seminoles promptly went 2-10 the next year. Then the arm injury last year. Could Georgia have beat Notre Dame with Beck instead of Stockton? We'll never know. And at least at the first glance, deciding to come back but not to Georgia raised some questions. Is Stockton going to win out over him anyway at Georgia, so that's why he left? Are there team compatibility questions, and if so, what are they? Is his motivating factor something about Miami helping his development, or the $4 million?

If he plays a key role in a Miami upset of Indiana, that will surely help his draft stock, and I think it's already looking like moving to Miami was probably a good decision from a football standpoint. If nothing else it changes the optics from "Didn't win a natty at Georgia like Bennett" to "elevated a Miami team to its best record in years".

Admittedly I don't know much about the differences in what NFL teams look for in QBs versus college teams (as I don't watch the NFL), but that's why I'd say he might not be a slam-dunk early-round choice, or at least wouldn't have been a month ago.