Indiana
Where Indiana football is in CFP rankings before Big Ten championship game
Kaelon Black on special Indiana football season, transfer from JMU
From transferring alongside Curt Cignetti and Mike Shanahan to historic success at Indiana, here’s how Kaelon Black has seen the program built.
BLOOMINGTON — The College Football Playoff committee kept the lone undefeated teams, No. 1 Ohio State and No. 2 Indiana football, in the top two slots in the penultimate rankings released on Tuesday night.
It sets up the a first of its kind No. 1 vs. No 2. in the Big Ten title game this weekend in Indianapolis.
The Hoosiers (12-0, 9-0 Big Ten) have been nipping at OSU’s heels for five straight weeks in the CFP rankings. The winner of the conference title game will lock up a spot in the Rose Bowl as the Big Ten’s highest-ranked team and top seed in the bracket.
“I had the opportunity to be a part of a couple of those at Alabama,” IU coach Curt Cignetti said Sunday. “We played Florida and (Tim) Tebow and Urban (Meyer) one verse two, two years in a row. It’s going be a great atmosphere.”
Based on the current rankings, Indiana would faced the winner of a matchup between No. 7 Notre Dame and No. 10 Texas A&M.
The good news for Ohio State and Indiana is that the changes the CFP made to their strength of schedule metrics during the offseason should prevent the team that loses this weekend from falling out of the top four, the cutoff for receiving a first-round bye.
Under the new formula, the metrics rewards teams for defeating high-quality opponents while minimizing the penalty for losing to such a team.
Week 5 CFP top 25 rankings
1. Ohio State 12-0 (-)
2. Indiana 12-0 (-)
3. Georgia 11-1 (+1)
4. Texas Tech 11-1 (+1)
5. Oregon 11-1 (+1)
6. Ole Miss 11-1 (+1)
7. Texas A&M 11-1 (-4)
8. Oklahoma 10-2 (-)
9. Alabama 10-2 (+1)
10. Notre Dame 10-2 (-1)
11. BYU 11-1 (-)
12. Miami 10-2 (-)
13. Texas 9-3 (+3)
14. Vanderbilt 10-2 (-1)
15. Utah 10-2 (-2)
16. USC 9-3 (+1)
17. Virginia 10-2 (+1)
18. Arizona 9-3 (+7)
19. Michigan 9-3 (-4)
20. Tulane 10-2 (+4)
21. Houston 9-3 (N/R)
22. Georgia Tech 9-3 (+1)
23. Iowa 8-4 (N/R)
24. North Texas 11-1 (N/R)
25. James Madison 11-1 (N/R)
How does the College Football Playoff work?
The 12-team field features the five highest-ranked conference champions, plus the next seven highest-ranked schools. The four highest-ranked schools are seeded one through four and receive a first-round bye.
The remaining schools will be seeded 5-12 based on their final ranking. If any of the five highest-ranked conference champions are outside the top 12, they will be seeded at the bottom of the bracket.
Those eight schools will play in the CFP first round with the higher seeds hosting the lower seeds on campus (or a designated site picked by the higher-seeded team). The committee doesn’t modify the bracket to avoid rematches and there is no re-seeding.
The top four seeds will be assigned to the quarterfinals hosted by the bowls, in accordance with historic bowl relationships. The Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Cotton Bowl and Orange Bowl are hosting the quarterfinals this season.
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Indiana
FBI thwarted ‘ISIS-inspired plot’ at Indiana school, but won’t say where
Dan Bongino announces he will be leaving the FBI in January
FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino announced he is leaving in January after less than a year as the law enforcement agency’s number two official.
At some point in 2025, the FBI helped a local police agency foil an “ISIS-inspired plot” that at least one minor planned to carry out at an unnamed central Indiana school, according to an annual summary released by the federal agency’s Indianapolis field office on Jan. 5, 2026.
FBI agents “disrupted an ISIS-inspired plot targeting a Central Indiana high school through rapid coordination with local partners,” according to the news release.
Beyond that, the agency provided few details, sharing neither the name of the school involved nor the city or town in which the school was located. Nor did the agency clarify why the report characterized the plot as ISIS-inspired.
Chris Bavender, an FBI spokesperson, declined to answer an IndyStar request for additional information about the foiled attack, responding in an email that “this matter is ongoing.”
“Because the student had immediate access to firearms, FBI Indianapolis worked closely with the high school and our local law enforcement partner to remove all firearms from the house, and the student was expelled from school. DOJ did not file charges as the individual is a juvenile,” Bavender wrote.
Bavender did not provide any information on whether the student is facing charges in the juvenile justice system.
Although high schools in both Mooresville and Westfield were the site of high-profile threat investigations in 2025, neither matched the details mentioned in the FBI report.
In February 2025, Trinity Shockley, 18, was arrested after sharing plans for a Valentine’s Day school shooting at Mooresville High School. Though the investigation into Shockley began after the FBI received a tip, Shockley was not a juvenile at the time of her arrest. Nor did court documents filed in her case reference any connection to ISIS.
The Mooresville Police Department did not immediately respond on Jan. 5 to a request for comment.
In September 2025, Westfield High School was placed on lockdown after a “potential threat.” Billy Adams, the assistant chief of the Westfield Police Department, said there’s no indication the lockdown “had anything to do with an ISIS-inspired plot.”
IndyStar reached out on Jan. 5 to multiple police agencies in central Indiana, including the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, the Southport Police Department, the Speedway Police Department and the Beech Grove Police Department.
Officials for IMPD, Southport, and Speedway police said their agencies handled no such threat. Beech Grove’s police department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ryan Murphy is the communities reporter for IndyStar. She can be reached at rhmurphy@indystar.com.
Indiana
Unseasonably mild temperatures for central Indiana this week | Jan. 5, 2026
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Temperatures in Central Indiana are expected to remain above normal through late this week, with highs near 60 degrees expected by Thursday and Friday. Rain showers are predicted from Thursday through Friday night, with the possibility of isolated thunderstorms.
Today:
Dry and mild, with high temperatures ranging from the mid 40s to low 50s. Just a mix of sun and clouds with light winds should make for a pleasant afternoon.
Tonight:
Lows in the mid 30s to low 40s, with patchy drizzle or fog possible late.
Tuesday:
Mostly cloudy skies and breezy conditions with wind gusts of 20 to 25 mph, elevating highs into the lower to middle 50s. A few light showers will be possible through the day as well.
Wednesday:
Should be the best day of the week, featuring more sunshine and lighter winds, with highs in the low to mid 50s.
Late week storm system:
Highs on Thursday and Friday are set to approach 60°, which will be pushing a few records across the state.
A warm front moving through Thursday evening will spark scattered showers and possibly some thunderstorms across the area starting Thursday afternoon.
A stronger storm or two can’t be ruled out.
Showers will continue into the first half of Friday, before the cold front pushes out of the state later in the day.
As the weekend approaches, the cold front will move through, leading to a significant drop in temperatures. Conditions will become cooler and breezy, with spotty flurries possible as temperatures return to seasonal norms for this time of year.
Looking ahead, the weekend is expected to bring a return to cooler temperatures and near-seasonal norms, with potential light snow flurries in the forecast as a cold front passes through Central Indiana.
Indiana
Indiana football adds explosive running back out of transfer portal
BLOOMINGTON — Curt Cignetti reinforced his running back rotation, which will need an offseason makeover due to eligibility related attrition, on Sunday with the commitment of Boston College running back Turbo Richard according to multiple media outlets.
Richard helps relieve the stress created by the departures of Kaelon Black and Roman Hemby, the Hoosiers’ leading rushers in 2025, both of whom will exhaust their eligibility at the end of the current season. Cignetti and his staff add Richard to a running back room already anchored around Lee Beebe Jr., returning from injury, and Khobie Martin, the one-time Fishers star who flashed meaningful potential this season.
Here’s what to know about IU’s newest running back:
Turbo Richard provides proven production
Indiana has, in Cignetti’s two seasons in Bloomington, shown a repeated desire to add skill players who’ve shown impact in numbers and film. Richard fits that bill.
Across two seasons in Chestnut Hill, he posted 1,027 yards and 11 touchdowns on 200 carries, with another 275 yards receiving and two more touchdowns through the air.
Last season, Richard accounted for 962 total yards and 11 scores.
He’s shown explosiveness too: Richard posted at least one carry of 10-plus yards in seven different games last season, with single-game highs of 18, 43, 46 and 71 yards.
How much eligibility does Turbo Richard have remaining?
Cignetti often refers to players with more than one year of eligibility remaining as more valuable in the portal. His program will get as many as two from Richard.
Additionally, the Charlotte native played right away at Boston College, in 2024, meaning he has a redshirt year if he needs it for any reason as well.
Fit to type
Listed at 5-8, 207 pounds, Richard looks on film a lot like the kind of back Indiana has had success with in Cignetti’s tenure.
He’s quick and nimble enough to get involved in the pass game, but powerful enough to make an impact between the tackles. He also shows excellent burst — as evidenced by those explosive numbers — potentially replacing the second- and third-level burst that made Black and Hemby so dangerous this season.
Indiana led the Big Ten in rushes of 10-plus yards in 2025. Richard profiles as the kind of back that can help sustain that production into 2026.
Back rotation settled?
It’s not clear exactly where Beebe stands in his recovery from a season-ending injury suffered in September. If IU is confident in his return to form, coupled to Martin’s development, this could wind up as Indiana’s running back rotation into next season.
The Hoosiers have reportedly hosted other portal running backs, so it’s possible IU isn’t done here. But especially given Martin’s flashes this season (74 carries, 463 yards, six TDs), if Indiana is settled here, then the Hoosiers appear to have handed position coach John Miller another healthy stable of backs to build a run game around.
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