The 10-0 Indiana Hoosiers will enter Ohio Stadium on Saturday with little support from the south. SEC country has earmarked the matchup as a point of argument as to why they need a ridiculous number of slots in the college football playoff.
Their current argument has no merit as it is based on an Indiana loss in a game yet to be played. Let's not pretend Indiana hasn't been lights-out efficient on the road this season. When you pair that with Ryan Day's propensity to lose the big game, the SEC argument loses weight.
The SEC is undoubtedly the most difficult conference to compete in, but outside of Alabama and Georgia, the conference isn't that powerful. Since the start of the college football playoffs, only Alabama, Georgia, and LSU have represented the conference.
Winning is the only thing that matters and if the strength of schedule is an argument, it's an argument to force underachieving teams into the big dance. Ole Miss, Tennessee, and South Carolina have done nothing to leapfrog Indiana. Sure they have good wins but they also have glaring losses. For every victory over Georgia or Alabama, there are losses to Kentucky, Arkansas, and an overrated LSU.
Both Ole Miss and South Carolina have lost to an LSU team that has four losses on the season including defeats to USC, Florida, and a 31-point loss to Alabama. USC and Florida's combined record in 2024 is 10-10.
The truth about the SEC is that their top teams, Alabama and Georgia have created a narrative that the conference is superior due to their individual success. Those two teams are in a tier of their own but everyone else feeds off the teat of their victories. to boost up their questionable resumes.
Ole Miss, Tennessee, and South Carolina since 2000 have zero SEC championships, zero national championship appearances, zero appearances in the college football playoff and zero reasons to consider themselves superior to Indiana.
Football is played on the field, not in board rooms. A fantasy metric means nothing, records do. Indiana deserves a place in the playoffs. Should they beat Ohio State, people will find zero peeps about the Buckeyes' inclusion despite them having two losses. Once again confirming the idiocy of such an argument.