Indiana’s Curt Cignetti Put CFP Committee on Blast After Bye Week Tumble. Does He Have a Point?

The College Football Playoff selection committee’s weekly rankings have long been plagued by a lack of consistency, but the first two Top 25 releases of the 2026 season have generated an impressive amount of whiplash.

Of the 24 teams that appeared in the rankings after Weeks 9 and 10, 18 moved at least two spots—and many of those were not tied directly to their results on the field. Look no further than defending national champion Indiana, which came in at No. 4 in the initial rankings, before falling all the way down to No. 9 after a bye week, with Alabama, UCLA, Notre Dame, Texas and Tennessee jumping them.

That did not sit well with the architect of the Hoosiers program, coach Curt Cignetti, who took to social media to fire a clear barb in the selection committee’s way.

Bad losses to don't count anymore? 😂😂😂😂😂😂
Are first downs still 10 yards?🤡🤡🤡
— Curt Cignetti (@CCignettiIU) November 12, 2026

Indiana was one of the prime victims of a week-to-week correction. I argued that the Hoosiers were a bit overrated at No. 4, considering a week early-season schedule and some less-than-impressive showings in Big Ten play. Outside of a 47–15 win over Rutgers, one of the Big Ten’s worst teams, IU has won four one-score games in conference, along with a dramatic loss to Ohio State.

Even so, a five-place bye-week drop feels drastic, and may not only reflect the team’s highwire act in competitive Big Ten games. Quarterback Josh Hoover didn’t appear on the team’s most recent availability report but he has clearly been ailing since the loss to the Buckeyes, and was replaced by backup Grant Wilson in the recent win over Minnesota. The selection committee has shown that it will dock teams with uncertain quarterback situations moving forward, dating back to the infamous 2023 Jordan Travis situation with Florida State.

How Indiana compares to the teams above it in terms of bad losses

In fairness to the committee, ranking teams in a college football landscape with wildly uneven schedules, even within conferences due to realignment, is a painfully difficult task. There are so many factors at play—quality of wins and loss, strength of schedule, eye test, advanced metrics, et al—that it is impossible to please everyone. With his post, Cignetti argues that his team’s lack of a single bad loss should be a major factor, and on that count, he does have a point.

No. 2 Utah and No. 4 UCLA are untouchable with perfect records. No. 5 Notre Dame’s only folly is a tight loss at BYU in which they may have deserved one more shot at the end zone thanks to a clock issue after CJ Carr’s final pass fell incomplete. No. 7 Miami’s sole loss came on Saturday at Notre Dame and ended with a valiant comeback attempt, while the No. 8 Volunteers fell to the No. 6 Longhorns and a surging South Carolina team now ranked 17th.

The rest of the top eight looking down on the Hoosiers can’t say the same.

Georgia’s ascent to No. 1 is uncontroversial, but the Bulldogs suffered one of the worst losses of any of the one-loss teams in the mix, falling to a rebuilding Auburn program just a few weeks ago. No. 3 Alabama followed a tight loss to UGA by getting trounced by Tennessee, 26–10. And Texas lost back-to-back games to now-unranked Oklahoma and Florida programs that are a combined 2–4 in their games after beating the Longhorns.

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Quality of losses certainly isn’t everything, and aren’t the factor holding back IU. ESPN’s Football Power Index ranks the Hoosiers’ strength of schedule at No. 42 nationally, lower than six of the eight teams above them, with only conference-mate UCLA (No. 65) and Utah (No. 66) falling behind them. Alabama comes in at No. 1 in that metric.

Cignetti has been going after ESPN and the SEC since the first rankings were released

The current 12-team field would feature five SEC programs (the four outlined above plus No. 11 Kentucky), while the full Top 25 features nine teams from the league. While the selection committee is made up of athletic directors, former players and coaches and one retired media member, Cignetti believes that ESPN, the SEC’s exclusive media rights partner which also airs the CFP rankings release shows and has exclusive rights to the full playoff, is putting its thumb on the scales.

“SEC gets a lot of love from ESPN, you know, and all of their writers that they don’t technically pay, but march to their drum. So that’s why you see all these SEC teams up there, and some good two-loss teams from the Big Ten not quite as high,” Cignetti said on a radio show after the first rankings release.

“But like I said, it’s all going to be played out on the field.”

Curt Cignetti just COOKED ESPN pic.twitter.com/Yyec3rPo7G
— Kirkwood & Dunn (@KirkwoodandDunn) November 5, 2026

Coach politicking is nothing new for the college football playoff—or the BCS before it, where writers’ AP rankings had a tangible impact on the algorithm that decided its rankings, or the NCAA basketball tournaments. Cignetti is playing an old game here, and his concern is understandable.

After a surprising five-spot drop, it is pretty clear that Indiana is not floating on the reputation it burnished last season, and is not a committee darling like the Crimson Tide. And with a tough game against USC coming on Saturday, which could put IU’s Big Ten championship and CFP potential on the line, Cignetti might need the rankings help however he can get it.

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