Indiana Football: Hoosiers overlooked in way-too-early top 25

Athlon Sports came out with its way-too-early top 25 but seem to be overlooking the Indiana football program.

Despite the 2019 college football season yet to be over, with the National Championship game taking place on Monday, it’s never too early to take a look at next year’s way-too-early top 25 rankings.

Though the NFL Draft early entree deadline is still a few days away, most teams outside of LSU and Clemson know roughly what their rosters will look like come September of 2020 for the start of the season.

With that in mind, rankings will obviously change from now and then, but at the moment it is the Indiana Hoosiers who seem to be getting overlooked.

Athlon Sports released its way-too-early top 25 this weekend and Indiana is rather low on the list. Ranked outside of the top 25, the Hoosiers aren’t even placed in ‘The Next Tier’ level made up of programs that are right on the cusp of the top 25. Instead, Indiana is placed in the ‘Other Teams To Watch’ category.

Here is what they had to say about the Hoosiers.

"“The Hoosiers are coming off their best season (eight wins) since 1993. Coach Tom Allen’s squad doesn’t lose a ton of senior starters, and quarterback Michael Penix is back from injury. The opener at Wisconsin will be a huge test for this team in its quest to match the 2019 win total.”"

While Indiana has had just six winning seasons since 1990, the Hoosiers are coming off of an eight win season and one in which they even jumped into the top 25 for the first time 1994. Not only do they return both Peyton Ramsey and Michael Penix, 14 other starters are expected to return including 19 other rotational players who saw consistent action this past year.

For most of the year the defense was wildly inconsistent, but as they started to come around at year’s end, it was the offense that was nearly unstoppable for most of the season. With weapons such as Whop Philyor, Stevie Scott, Peyton Hendershot, Ty Fryfogle again expected to be major players, guys like Sampson James, David Ellis, and incoming freshman Rashawn Williams look to add to the already talented skill players on the field.

Tom Allen continues to take this program to new heights and he will look to do so again in 2020 right out of the gate with a matchup against Wisconsin to open up the season.