College Football Playoff Vibe Check, Week 4: Indiana sure looks like the next … Indiana

In late July, I had the chance to interview Indiana wide receiver Elijah Surratt during Big Ten Media Days on the Cover 3 Podcast. I asked him a question that was gnawing at my own brain, and until that point, I hadn’t heard anybody else publicly consider.

As Surratt sat next to me, I asked him if he wondered why, while everybody else was looking for “the next Indiana,” nobody seemed willing to accept the idea that Indiana was “the next Indiana.” Why was everybody so sure the Hoosiers were a one-year wonder?

I would hope far more people are considering the possibility after Saturday night.

Surratt scored two touchdowns as the Hoosiers whooped No. 9 Illinois 63-10, and in the process, let the college football world know they don’t plan to go anywhere. Sure, you can mock their nonconference scheduling habits, and you can question how they’ll handle a schedule that’s more difficult this season than last year’s (on paper, anyway), but you can’t question Saturday’s result. Though I’m sure they’ll try anyway.

It reminds me of what we saw last season. 

Indiana started the 2024 season 6-0 with conference wins over UCLA, Maryland and Northwestern, but nobody was taking them seriously yet. They were falling victim to the defense mechanism the College Football Hivemind has any time a team nobody expected to be good starts doing things that suggest they’re a good football team.

“Oh, you beat that team by four touchdowns? Well that’s only because they suck. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Then Nebraska came to town in mid-October. The Huskers were 5-1 themselves, and while they weren’t ranked, they were seen as Indiana’s first real test. Indiana spanked them 56-7, but while they moved up to No. 13 in the polls the next day, they still weren’t taken seriously. They’d beaten Nebraska by 49 because Nebraska sucked, not because Indiana was good.

Indiana would start out 10-0, beating Michigan to get there, but only because Michigan sucked too. When the Hoosiers lost to Ohio State, it was proof they weren’t good. When they lost again in the College Football Playoff to Notre Dame, it was another reflection of how Indiana wasn’t actually good; they were just beating bad teams.

Never mind that they’d only lost to the two teams who reached the national title game.

Odds are, most of the reaction to Indiana’s 53-point win over Illinois will follow the same script. It turns out Illinois sucks now, too.

I’m not buying it. I’ll accept an argument that Illinois was overrated, being in the top 10, but it’s an Illinois team that had won 13 of its last 16 games, which is not typically something teams that suck do. And Indiana beat ’em by 53 freaking points.

The Hoosiers have a quarterback in Fernando Mendoza who has climbed the odds boards to become one of the Heisman favorites and has been a favorite of NFL scouts for months now. They have depth at the skill positions and are very good along the lines of scrimmage. They’re talented and aggressive. In other words, they play like a playoff team.

With what we saw Saturday night, there’s no reason to believe they can’t be again — even with a more difficult 2025 schedule that still includes road trips to Oregon and Penn State. 

Texas Tech cruises into CFP picture

Not that I’d ever recommend thinking you know what’s going to happen in the Big 12, but the Texas Tech Red Raiders became heavy-ish favorites to win the league after going on the road to beat Utah 34-10. Now, it should be pointed out the final score was misleading. You see, the Red Raiders led only 13-10 after Utah’s Wayshawn Parker scored a touchdown with 10:22 left to play.

Then Tech poured it on. The Red Raiders scored three touchdowns in the final 8:29 minutes of action to make what had been a close, tense battle for 51 minutes look like a blowout in the end.

Regardless, the victory gives Tech the street cred to be considered the best team in a league where teams are often indistinguishable from one another. But this Tech team looks a little different. Utah has one of the best offensive lines in the country, but Tech’s defensive line, full of transfers, more than held its own in this contest. It’s the kind of line that had typically been reserved for Oklahoma and Texas when they were still in the league, and nobody else.

The other thing Tech may have is a QB controversy. Behren Morton left the game after taking a big hit and was replaced by redshirt freshman Will Hammond, who looked looked fantastic. He was the one leading those three touchdown drives at the end, as he finished 13 for 16 for 169 yards with two touchdowns while also rushing for 61 yards on eight carries. So not only does this team have a stout defensive line, but it has QB depth.

It also may not have another game against a ranked team remaining on its schedule. 

The Big 12 has an ACC problem

Relax, I don’t mean on the field. With UCF beating North Carolina 34-9 and TCU beating SMU 35-24, the Big 12 improved to 6-1 against the ACC this season. That’s a record that could matter a whole hell of a lot come selection time when comparing at-large candidates.

Or it may not matter at all.

The problem for the Big 12 is that while the ACC is only 1-6 against the Big 12, and it’s only 5-12 against Power Four competition overall, none of those losses have come from Miami or Florida State. No, those two are responsible for three of the five wins against Power Four teams (Alabama, Florida and Notre Dame), and those three wins are better than any of the Big 12’s Power Four nonconference wins.

So if you’re a fan of a Big 12 team competing for a playoff spot, you have three teams to root for the rest of the season: your team and whoever the hell is playing Florida State and Miami. Because if it comes down to the committee choosing between a 10-2 Florida State team that lost to Miami twice (in the regular season and ACC Championship) but beat Alabama, and a 10-2 TCU that lost the Big 12 Championship to Texas Tech, and claims Iowa State or Arizona State as its best win, I think we all know what direction the committee will take.

Oklahoma has the best set of wins in the country

Oklahoma beat Auburn 24-17 in a game that wasn’t exactly pretty, but was the kind of ugly wins a team needs to pick up over the course of a 12-game season if it wants to win its conference or reach the playoff. The Sooners’ defense was phenomenal, finishing with 10 sacks and 14 tackles for loss.

While I don’t know how Auburn’s season will go from here (in truth, I found this loss encouraging for the Tigers, as they showed me they can hang with anybody left on their schedule), Oklahoma picking up this win a couple of weeks after beating Michigan gives the Sooners what I consider to be the best duo of resume wins in the country.

Auburn will probably fall out of the AP Top 25 following this loss, and Michigan will only move up to roughly No. 19 or so, but from a power rating standpoint, these teams are much stronger than their opinion poll placement suggests. Coming into the weekend, I had Michigan and Auburn at 15 and 19, respectively, in my personal power ratings, while ESPN’s FPI had them at 10 and 20.

The Sooners have a lot of tough games remaining, but they’ll likely be favored in all but two of them. When you pick up wins like these, it gives you a bit more leeway should you suffer a loss or two later. Honestly, I can see Oklahoma sticking in the discussion at 9-3 right now. Don’t confuse me saying that with me being happy about the idea, but the fact of the matter is the committee could easily view a 9-3 Oklahoma as a more deserving choice than a 10-2 team from the ACC, Big Ten or Big 12.

The American is coming for the G6 spot

It may already have it. Memphis beat Arkansas 32-31 this week, and Tulsa may have ended Mike Gundy’s Oklahoma State career Friday night. Even with Tulane’s 45-10 blowout loss to Ole Miss, it was still a great weekend for the league.

The American has now picked up wins against Arkansas, Duke, Florida, Kansas State, Northwestern, and Oklahoma State. None of them are likely playoff teams, but that’s still six wins against Power Four opponents.

The Mountain West has four: Cal, Stanford and UCLA twice. And I haven’t even mentioned the Americans’ ace in the hole: South Florida beat Boise State.

Right now, it feels as though the Mountain West has two legit contenders to win the league in Boise and UNLV, but the American may have five. Perhaps that’ll prove to be its downfall, as those teams might cannibalize each other, but as things stand now, I’ll be very surprised if this year’s G6 champion doesn’t call the American home.

Week 5 vibe shifters

A look ahead to the five games on next week’s slate most likely to impact the playoff race

Oregon at Penn State
Alabama at Georgia
LSU at Ole Miss
Auburn at Texas A&M
Ohio State at Washington

This week’s CFP Projection

1. Ohio State
2. Miami
3. Georgia
4. Texas Tech
5. Oregon
6. Penn State
7. Oklahoma
8. Alabama
9. Florida State
10. LSU
11. Indiana
12. Memphis