Indiana
Ranking Indiana’s potential College Football Playoff opponents, from most exciting to most boring
BLOOMINGTON — Indiana football coach Curt Cignetti didn’t spend much time celebrating his team’s historically lopsided win over Purdue.
He was already looking ahead to a potential College Football Playoff appearance for the No. 10 Hoosiers (11-1; 8-1 Big Ten) during his brief opening statement after a 66-0 win over Purdue.
“They are not done yet,” Cignetti said, emphatically. “You know, they are not — they want more. They are going to get more.”
More is likely to be one of college football’s traditional powers in the opening round of the first ever 12-team playoff. There’s some incredibly exciting potential first-round matchups, here they are ranked from thrilling to least:
Ranking Indiana football’s most exciting potential first round CFP opponents
Georgia (10-2): Taking down a perennial title contender like Georgia in the heart of SEC country would erase any doubts about IU being the real deal. The Bulldogs have won two national titles in the last three years and have the fourth most wins in CFP history.
The trip to Athens would be a first for the Hoosiers — the programs have never played each other — and haven’t played an SEC opponent on a non-neutral field since facing Kentucky in 2004.
Indiana playing between the hedges at Sanford Stadium in the postseason was not a scenario anyone envisioned at the start of the year.
Notre Dame (11-1): Notre Dame and Indiana are in the same state, but the football programs have spent much of their existence on separate continents. The Fighting Irish almost have more national titles than IU has bowl appearances.
The Hoosiers could break out of that shadow in a big way by eliminating them in the first round of the College Football Playoff.
Indiana fans would probably take a bit of extra pleasure in getting a CFP win before Notre Dame does. The Fighting Irish have made a pair of appearances in the event (2018 and 2020), but lost those games by a combined score of 61-17.
The fact that the teams have rarely played in the modern era of college football makes the potential matchup all the more exciting. The teams haven’t played since Notre Dame beat IU, 49-27, in 1991.
It was the only game between the programs going back to 1958.
Penn State (11-1): Indiana’s past and present could collide in State College.
The Hoosiers former head coach Tom Allen landed on his feet as PSU’s defensive coordinator. The Nittany Lions finished the regular season with the fourth ranked defense in the FBS (266.8 yards allowed per game) and sixth in scoring defense (14.0).
Indiana facing its former coach would create plenty of intrigue between two longtime Big Ten rivals especially since Cignetti’s brash style is so diametrically opposed to Allen’s LEO era.
There’s an added irony to the teams playing in the first round since IU was excited about finally being free of facing Penn State on an annual basis in the Big Ten East division. The Hoosiers wouldn’t have any objections to continuing the series in the postseason.
Texas (11-1): This would be a fun matchup considering the head coaches from both teams are former Nick Saban pupils.
It would also be a meeting of great offensive minds.
Cignetti’s respect for Texas coach Steven Sarkisian actually played a role in Indiana’s success this season. That admiration is what led Cignetti to hiring IU’s current quarterbacks coach Tino Sunseri when he was at JMU.
“I spent that whole COVID fall studying Alabama when Sarkisian was there with Matt Jones and those receivers,” Cignetti said, back in December. “I really liked what they were doing. I was looking for new ideas in the pass game. Tino was Sark’s right hand man.”
On top of it being a great chess match, this isn’t a matchup that comes around very often. Indiana is winless in three games against Texas and the teams haven’t played since 1966.
Ohio State (10-2): Indiana players would welcome a rematch against Ohio State. The Hoosiers didn’t feel like they played their best game in Columbus and are frustrated by the narrative that they can’t compete with the Buckeyes.
Bouncing back with a win over OSU in the first round would be a heck of a way for IU to end a 30-game losing streak in the series, but from a fan’s perspective this lacks the same excitement over a game they didn’t see just weeks earlier in the exact same venue.
Tennessee (10-2): Indiana would get a chance to avenge a 2020 loss to Tennessee in the Gator Bowl if they headed down to Knoxville, but that would provide little motivation for the guys in IU’s locker room since there isn’t anybody still on the roster that played in that game.
This would give the Hoosiers a chance to Big Ten some bragging rights over the SEC, but there’s just not as much juice to this game compared to the rest of the list.
Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A man is dead after a shooting Thursday night on Indy’s near east side, police say.
According to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, just after 8 p.m., officers were called to the 2000 block of East Washington Street on a report of a person shot.
When officers arrived, they found an adult male inside an apartment with injuries consistent with gunshot wounds.
Indianapolis Emergency Medical Services transported the man to a hospital in critical condition, where died shortly after arriving.
Homicide detectives responded to the scene to begin the investigation.
Crime Resources
Gov. Mike Braun asked state regulators to reconsider their decision to greenlight a $71 million rate increase for AES Indiana, doubling down on his condemnation of a move that could leave Indianapolis residents with higher electrical bills for years.
Braun wrote in a June 18 news release that he had asked Indiana Utility Counselor Abby Gray, who heads the office representing ratepayers in proceedings before the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, to petition for a rehearing of the AES rate case.
Gray indicated in the release that her office would submit the petition shortly. No petition had been posted on the IURC’s online docket as of this story’s publication.
The rate increase, which was approved by the IURC on June 17, was substantially less than the $192 million increase that AES initially requested. It was also less than the amount proposed in a settlement last October between AES and major electricity consumers.
But the Office of Utility Consumer Counselor, which Gray leads, came out strongly against any increase to AES’s base rates. In September, the OUCC called for a $21 million reduction instead.
As the Republican Party grapples with rising discontent over affordability, Braun has used opposition to rising utility rates to telegraph that he’s committed to keeping costs down for Indiana residents. He signed a law in February that allows the state to make rate-setting decisions that reward or penalize utilities based on metrics including affordability.
In March, he told reporters that he would take on Indiana’s five investor-owned utilities, describing himself as the “new sheriff in town.”
And after the IURC voted 3-1 to approve the AES rate increase, he wrote in a post to X that he was “deeply disappointed.”
Braun wrote in the June 18 news release that he had appointed Gray, a longtime OUCC lawyer and judge, to her current post because he knew she “would help me fight for Hoosiers.”
According to AES’s estimates, the rate increase will cost households an additional $5 per month for every 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity they use, beginning in July. A second hike will take effect in January.
Tilly Robinson is a Pulliam fellow for the Indianapolis Star. She can be reached at tilly.robinson@indystar.com.
The Protect College Sports Act, legislation meant to introduce and codify sweeping reforms related to college athletics, passed out of the Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday morning.
It now heads to the Senate floor.
The bill passed out of committee by a 19-9 vote. Indiana Republican Sen. Todd Young voted no, his decision reflecting Big Ten concerns over the bill.
A spokesman for Sen. Young told IndyStar, “Senator Young hopes that additional changes can be made to the bill to address concerns raised by the Big Ten.”
Co-sponsored by Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Washington), the Protect College Sports Act represents Congress’ most substantial success so far in a yearslong effort to bring legislative reform to college athletics. Since before the COVID-19 pandemic, leaders in college sports — including the NCAA, member conferences and schools, and other major players — have lobbied for national solutions to what have become state and regional problems.
Several pieces of legislation have been introduced across the last several years, only to fizzle long before reaching the floor of either chamber. The SCORE Act, introduced last year in the House of Representatives, gained some traction and passed out of committee, but was never brought to the floor.
Which makes Thursday’s news meaningful. Moving the Protect College Sports Act to the Senate floor, while not a guarantee of any outcome, potentially takes the bill past a threshold no other such piece of reformative legislation has yet been able to cross.
Cruz told Yahoo! Sports’ Ross Dellenger on Thursday that Cruz believes Sen. Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is committed to introducing the bill to the Senate floor soon.
The bill provides a legal framework for a host of potential reforms and protections for college sports. It grants limited antitrust protection to the NCAA, places limits on certain things including potential conference realignment, builds safeguards meant to protect non-revenue and Olympic sports, addresses potential broadcast rights reforms, and more.
It enjoys significant backing, and not just among leaders in college sports. This week, the NFL, its players’ association, the National Basketball Players Association and Major League Baseball all voiced their support for the bill.
Two key constituencies not in lockstep on the bill voiced their own concerns Thursday.
In a joint statement issued just after 10 a.m. Thursday, the Big Ten and SEC — far and away the two most powerful conferences and arguably two greatest power centers, full stop, in college athletics — suggested they still hold significant reservations over the bill.
“From the outset, we identified a set of essential revisions to the PCSA necessary for the long-term sustainability of college athletics,” the statement read. “We have worked with both majority and minority staff to advance those revisions, which focus on better supporting student-athletes and stabilizing the college sports environment. We continue to believe revisions are needed to secure our support for the bill.
“Despite our sustained engagement and good faith efforts, these critical revisions have not been accepted.”
The statement went on to note the “several Commerce Committee members that share our concerns and support these recommendations.”
Young is one of several members of the committee representing a Big Ten state, including one of three Republicans. He is the only Republican member of the committee whose state contains multiple schools in the conference.
Allowing for those reservations, Thursday’s news is still significant. It marks the first time a bipartisan bill on the subject has reached this point in the Senate and, should it be brought to the floor, it would be the first such legislation to reach that stage, in either chamber.
The bill could be brought to the Senate floor as early as July, though that timeline remains fluid.
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