In his first season at Indiana, head coach Curt Cignetti did the nearly impossible. He led the Hoosiers to the College Football Playoff.

Once in the Playoff, Indiana suffered a convincing loss on the road at Notre Dame, leading to some questions about whether or not the Hoosiers belonged in the field. However, following the game, Cignetti emphasized that his team earned their spot.

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“Well, this team earned it,” Curt Cignetti said. “The right to be here, you know. I’m not sure we proved tonight to a lot of people.”

Now, the focus for Cignetti is going to be on finding a way to rebuild the team and prepare to make another run next season. That starts, as he explained, with recruiting this offseason.

“Everything is about recruitment and development and now retention. Every year you’ve got to start over now in college football. It’s not quite the NFL but it’s getting close. So, you can change a lot of things in a year,” Cignetti said.

“Now, the one thing about the way the calendar is set right now if you do make the College Football Playoff, you’re kind of penalized in the portal recruiting area because, like, we didn’t have official visits this week because I wanted 100 percent focus in preparation for Notre Dame. So, that’s time that last year we were spending on the portal. But we’ve got a good nucleus coming back, and we’ll be okay.”

Despite Curt Cignetti’s confidence that Indiana did belong in the Playoff, there have been frustrations from some thanks to the first round blowouts this season. That includes Paul Finebaum, who believes the selection committee made several mistakes.

“Oh my goodness, I’m so in on (the committee getting the teams wrong). It’s easy to say this the day after but few people were saying it the day after they made this field,” Finebaum said.

“They made so many mistakes. Let’s start with some of the most obvious like Indiana and SMU. They looked at the gaudy record and they forgot to look at have they beaten anyone? No. Neither school beat anyone. Meanwhile, schools like Miami – yes, Miami – and Alabama and Ole Miss and South Carolina were sitting at home while we had to be subjected to unwatchable games.”

Of course, not everyone agrees that the committee made mistakes. Indiana only lost one regular season game in the Big Ten and SMU played for the ACC Championships, after all. However, in the first season of this expanded format, there is plenty of debate about how things have worked out.