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.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – When Tayven Jackson announced his intention to transfer to Indiana from Tennessee before the 2023 season, it caused a ripple of excitement.

In the end, it didn’t work out for Jackson at Indiana. After two years with the Hoosiers, Jackson is expected to move on.

On3.com’s Pete Nakos posted on X on Saturday that Jackson entered the transfer portal.

Jackson played in 13 games for the Hoosiers during the 2023 and 2024 seasons. He threw for 1,300 yards, six touchdowns and six interceptions during his Indiana career.

Jackson compiled the majority of his production during the 2023 season when he started the first six games of the 2023 season. Brendan Sorsby started the games in the second half of the season for the Hoosiers.

Sorsby transferred to Cincinnati after the 2023 season, but Jackson stuck with the Indiana program when 2023 coach Tom Allen was replaced by Curt Cignetti.

Cignetti recruited Kurtis Rourke out of Ohio University from the transfer portal and Jackson never seemed to be seriously considered as the starting quarterback. Jackson did settle in as the No. 2 quarterback ahead of Tyler Cherry and Alberto Mendoza.

Jackson played in four games in a reserve role before he got the chance to start against Washington on Oct. 26 after Rourke injured his thumb. Jackson led Indiana to a 31-17 victory over the Huskies as he completed 11 of 19 passes for 124 yards, one touchdown and one interception.

Those proved to be the last passes Jackson threw in an Indiana uniform – though he did appear in two more games and had three rushing attempts in the regular season finale against Purdue.

Rourke is also out of eligibility so Indiana is in the market for a quarterback.

From the moment the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff bracket was revealed, a debate raged over who was and wasn’t included in the field.

Should SMU, despite a loss to Clemson in the ACC championship game, have earned the final at-large berth over Alabama? Was Indiana, even with a gaudy 11-1 record, worthy of a spot despite what ended up being a softer-than-expected schedule in the Big Ten?

The start of playoff games this week didn’t end those arguments. If anything, it only intensified them.

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The Hoosiers and Mustangs both suffered double-digit, largely lopsided road losses in the first round of the playoff. On Friday night, No. 10 seed Indiana fell to No. 7 seed Notre Dame 27-17 in a game it trailed by 24 with two minutes remaining while No. 11 seed SMU was drubbed by No. 6 Penn State 38-10 Saturday afternoon.

People from across the country who follow the sport — broadcasters, writers, analysts and even coaches — reacted to the results, with some using them as a justification for their belief that the playoff selection committee made mistakes on who it allowed in the field. Many of the loudest complaints came from the SEC, which had the second-most teams in the field, with three, but had three three-loss teams — Alabama, Ole Miss and South Carolina — among the first teams left out of the playoff.

Here’s a sampling of the reaction to Indiana and SMU’s CFP losses:

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Social media reacts to Indiana, SMU College Football Playoff losses

Indiana and SMU losing their College Football Playoff games by a combined 38 points in dominant fashion raised a variety of opinions, with some believing it to be an indictment of the playoff committee for selecting the Hoosiers and Mustangs for the final two at-large spots.

Others, though, countered with an argument that Indiana and SMU had pieced together playoff-worthy resumes and deserved to make the field, regardless of how they fared in their games this week.

Lane Kiffin trolls CFP committee

The loudest, or at least most prominent, voice piling on Indiana and SMU’s struggles was Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, whose squad was the third team left out of the playoff.

Many, however, rightfully pointed out that Kiffin’s 9-3 Rebels team could have made the playoff had it simply won at home against a 4-8 Kentucky team that managed only one victory in SEC play this season.