How Big Ten Championship Could Affect Indiana's College Football Playoff Seeding

With Saturday's 31-7 win over Wisconsin, No. 2 Indiana is one step away from the first undefeated regular season in program history. And with a win at Purdue (2-9, 0-8) on Nov. 28, the Hoosiers would clinch a spot in the Big Ten championship game.

Coach Curt Cignetti won't want his team to look past Boilermakers, but the Hoosiers could be favored by upwards of 30 points in the Old Oaken Bucket game after winning last year's matchup 66-0. It's okay to start planning a trip to Lucas Oil Stadium on Dec. 6.

Indiana's most likely opponent in the Big Ten championship is No. 1 Ohio State, though the Buckeyes will have to snap a four-game losing streak to Michigan in Ann Arbor on Nov. 29 after hosting Rutgers to earn a spot. An Ohio State loss would complicate things, as potentially four one-loss teams would be tied for second place in the Big ten. But we'll wait to talk tiebreakers until necessary.

Curt Cignetti Indiana Football — Indiana coach Curt Cignetti leads his team out of the tunnel against Wisconsin at Memorial Stadium. | RIch Janzaruk/Herald-Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

How does Big Ten title game affect Indiana's playoff seeding?

The bigger question for Indiana is the impact of the Big Ten championship on College Football Playoff seeding. To state the obvious, a win over Purdue and a Big Ten title victory would give the Hoosiers the No. 1 overall seed. But what if Indiana takes its first loss?

Using ESPN's Playoff Predictor tool, selecting a win over Purdue and a loss in the Big Ten championship gives Indiana greater than a 99% chance to make the playoff, along with a 93% chance to receive a first-round bye as a top-four seed.

In this scenario, Indiana would only have a 7% chance of falling between a No. 5 and a No. 8 seed, which would mean hosting a first-round game at Memorial Stadium. There's less than a 1% chance that a loss in the Big Ten title game would send the Hoosiers on the road in the first round as somewhere between a No. 9 and No. 12 seed.

So assuming Indiana receives a first-round bye, it would begin the CFP in one of these four quarterfinal games:

Wednesday, Dec. 31 at 7:30 p.m. ET in the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Thursday, Jan. 1 at Noon ET in the Capital One Orange Bowl at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla.

Thursday, Jan. 1 at 4 p.m. ET in the Rose Bowl Game presented by Prudential in Pasadena, Calif.

Thursday, Jan. 1 at 8 p.m. ET in the Allstate Sugar Bowl at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, La.

These odds reflect an impactful change to the College Football Playoff seeding format this season. Last year, the top four seeds and first-round byes were given to the top four conference champions: No. 1 Oregon, No. 2 Georgia, No. 3 Boise State and No. 4 Arizona State.

Automatic bids are still given to the five highest-ranked conference champions this season, but the top four are no longer given byes. That means all four first-round byes could theoretically only go to the Big Ten and SEC, which makes a massive difference for Indiana.

ESPN's Playoff Predictor says losing in the Big Ten championship would not severely hurt Indiana or Ohio State, as both have greater than a 93% chance at a first-round bye if they go 12-1 with a loss in the conference championship. That means Indiana would most likely be the No. 3 or No. 4 seed with a loss to Ohio State, because an undefeated SEC champion like Texas A&M would jump the Hoosiers.

Last year, a conference championship loss knocked teams out of contention for a first-round bye, but that's only because of the seeding rules. From a ranking perspective, the College Football Playoff committee did not greatly punish losers of last year's conference championship games, and that should benefit Indiana in 2025.

The best comparison is last year's SEC title game. Texas went into the game ranked No. 2, and the Longhorns only dropped to No. 3 in the CFP rankings after a 22-19 loss to Georgia, which jumped from No. 5 to No. 2. Had this year's seeding rules been in place, Texas still would have received a first-round bye, but it instead fell to the No. 5 seed and hosted No. 12 Clemson in the first round because of the seeding rules.

In other conference championships, Penn State was ranked No. 3 before losing to No. 1 Oregon in the 2024 Big Ten title game, and the Nittany Lions still hosted a playoff game as the No. 6 seed. SMU lost the ACC title game when it was ranked No. 8, but the Mustangs still made the playoff as the No. 11 seed.

All of that is to say Indiana should not worry about losing its first-round bye if it loses in the Big Ten championship game based on both predictive metrics and historical precedent. A loss to Purdue may change things, but there's little reason to worry about that.

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