Indiana football finished its 2024 regular season with an 11-1 record, powering the program to its first College Football Playoff. The Hoosiers appeared as a 10-seed in the first year of the 12-team CFP but lost 27-17 to the University of Notre Dame in the first round of the playoff on Dec. 20, 2024.
In head coach Curt Cignetti’s second year at the helm, the Hoosiers have shrugged off an early playoff exit, stringing together another historic season. Indiana currently ranks No. 2 in The Associated Press’ Top 25 Poll — the highest mark in school history — and has secured consecutive 9-0 starts for the first time in program history. The Hoosiers also own a 6-0 conference record.
These marks earned Indiana No. 2 in the first 2025 CFP rankings revealed Tuesday, trailing only undefeated Ohio State, while slotting in front of another unbeaten program –– Texas A&M University.
Following the rankings reveal Tuesday night, CFP selection committee chair Mack Rhoades took questions from the media regarding the committee's decisions.
Here’s what Rhoades said about Indiana:
Defense as a separator
Rhoades keyed in on defensive performance as a difference-maker between the top three undefeated programs.
“I think you’re talking about really small margins when you think about the difference between Ohio State, Indiana and A&M, and then I think statistically when we looked at A&M defensively, they’re just lower than both Ohio State and Indiana,” Rhoades said. “We had to make a hard decision, and you’re trying to find separators, and that was a separator for us.”
Entering Week 11, Ohio State and Indiana have two of the top defenses in the Football Bowl Subdivision this season.
Ohio State’s defense gives up just 214.8 yards per game — the fewest in the country — while Indiana ranks seventh with 248.3 yards allowed per contest. The Buckeyes also lead the nation with just 6.9 points allowed per game. The Hoosiers allow just 10.8 points per contest, which ranks third in the country.
This dominance on the defensive side of the ball separated the two Big Ten programs from Texas A&M, which surrenders 321.5 yards and 23.6 points per game to opponents this season.
Scheduling
Indiana scheduled zero power-four matchups in its non-conference slate to begin the season, drawing widespread criticism. The Hoosiers dominated these first three games, outscoring their opponents 156-23.
However, the selection committee dismissed concerns regarding Indiana’s strength of schedule.
“Yeah, the schedule is the schedule,” Rhoades said. “We don’t talk about scheduling philosophy and how any team scheduled. We just looked at hey, this is who they have on the schedule. This is the outcome of those games. Then looking at all of the metrics at our disposal.”
Differing from Indiana, Ohio State scheduled the University of Texas at Austin for its season-opener — the preseason No. 1 ranked team in the country. The Buckeyes still notched a 14-7 victory over the Longhorns on Aug. 30.
“Certainly great conversation and discussion about Ohio State and Indiana, two really, really quality, quality teams, two teams with really, really good wins,” Rhoades said.
Despite Indiana’s dominant and historic start to the 2025 season, Ohio State separated itself just enough for the committee to place the Buckeyes in the top spot.
“So it was certainly close, but when we looked at film, and we’re blessed to have committee members and coaches that do a lot of film work, we just felt like Ohio State had a slight edge when we think about offensive line play and then a slight edge defensively,” Rhoades said. “That was really the outcome.”
Follow reporters Conor Banks (@Conorbanks06 and conbanks@iu.edu) and Dalton James (@DaltonMJames and jamesdm@iu.edu) and columnist Quinn Richards (@Quinn_richa and qmrichar@iu.edu) for updates throughout the Indiana football season.
