ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit has not been shy about sharing his feelings about Indiana making it into the College Football Playoff. After the Hoosiers lost to Notre Dame in the first round of the playoff, Herbstreit made his feelings known about who he felt should have been in and not been in the playoff.
"Indiana having 11 wins and beating nobody," Herbstreit said in an ESPN interview. "That doesn't mean they were one of the 12 best teams, remember, there is a big difference between deserving and best."
Herbstreit sat down with On3's Andy Staples and Ari Wasserman on their podcast Andy&Ari and spoke about everything surrounding the College Football Playoff, including Indiana yet again.
The longtime ESPN College Gameday analyst doubled down on his statement that Indiana should not have been in the playoff, saying that while yes, they had 11 wins, they didn't beat any worthy opponents and played a lot of the worst teams in the Big Ten. Herbstreit said if Indiana would have played a tougher schedule, but won a few of those tough games, he would have felt better about the Hoosiers in the playoff.
Herbstreit made sure to give Indiana their flowers and give them credit for their magical season, but if the playoff just wants teams to get to 11 or 12 wins in order to make it into the playoff, then teams are just going to put together the easiest schedule possible to reach that point.
Herbstreit did take responsibility for what he said and that he should have given a further explanation on what he was saying. He admitted that Indiana did what was asked of them but that there also could have been other deserving teams in the playoff.
Later in his conversation with Staples and Wasserman, though, Herbstreit was going off about SEC bias and the fact that the conference gets more than it should when it comes to the College Football Playoff.
When it came to talking about resumes, though, Wasserman made a point of saying that Indiana made it in because there really wasn't another option out of the teams behind, like Alabama or Ole Miss. Both of those teams had horrible losses at the end of the season to teams they had no business losing to.
Herbstreit did agree with Wasserman saying that because there were no other teams that really deserved to be in, then, of course, Indiana had to be in the playoff.
So, did Herbstreit just back the choice of Indiana making it in? You decide for yourself, but it seems like he just contradicted himself within the span of 10 minutes.