Joel Klatt: Indiana is 'way above the bubble' in race to College Football Playoff

Based on the numbers, Joel Klatt is certain that Indiana will be a team in the College Football Playoff.

Klatt spoke on where the Hoosiers stand in the playoff race during his show on Monday. He did so by reframing where the bubble for the field actually is now and, simply put by him, Indiana isn’t anywhere near it, let alone on it.

“You start in on this conversation and this narrative. First and foremost, folks, this is not a debate between Indiana and the SEC. This is not a debate between Indiana and Georgia. This is what some on some networks might try to make it but that’s not what this is,” said Klatt. “You’ve got to follow the actual data and here’s what it will tell you. After Saturday played out, and all of those games, all of those seven teams in the Top-20 ended up losing? Here’s what you actually see. When the dust settled, Indiana is in a great spot and firmly inside of the playoff and not on the bubble. They’re not on the bubble. One, the nature of that game should not have put them on the bubble but now the data doesn’t even put them on the bubble.”

“The bubble is going to come down to like the ACC Championship loser and maybe like the winner of the South Carolina–Clemson game, maybe the winner of the Big 12 versus the AAC Championship. That’s where the bubble conversation is going to take place,” Klatt thought. “Indiana is way above that.”

Indiana is no longer undefeated after taking a 38-15 loss at Ohio State in a top-five matchup.

However, playing in that game at all may have done as much for their resumé as anything else. As Klatt noted, just by playing in that outing in Columbus, Indiana saw their strength of schedule, which had been the key critique of them, shoot up far higher than it had been. That then restarts the conversation of where they compare in that statistic to other teams trying to be in the bracket.

“The biggest knock against Indiana coming into this game last week was about their schedule. I believe it was 106th in the country,” Klatt said. “Listen, I, nor anybody, was going to be able to sit here and defend their schedule. Now, all you could say about the way that Indiana had played that schedule is that they were dominant against the 106th easiest, best, or strongest schedule in the country – however you want to put it. They had beat that schedule to the tune of 30 points per game, which was the best margin in the entire sport. So they had done what they needed to do against a schedule that was not very good.”

“Now you look up and you faced a top-five opponents in their stadium with the number one defense, total and scoring, in the Ohio State Buckeyes. You look up and you’re like, oh, wait, now Indiana’s schedule is 52nd. They went up 54 spots so now they’re the 52nd-ranked schedule,” said Klatt. “Look around them in the Top-10. You start to see that they have a tougher schedule now than Miami, SMU, and Notre Dame and, in Notre Dame’s case, it’s by a substantial amount.”

So, to stick with the Hoosiers versus the Hurricanes, Mustangs, and Fighting Irish, Klatt further compared the four. He had that as further proof that, regardless of what happens in the ACC Championship or with Notre Dame, Indiana should be ahead of all of those teams.

“You starting thinking to yourself, like, okay, all one-loss by the way. So let’s compare their losses and this is where it’s not even close. Miami lost to Georgia Tech, SMU lost to BYU, and Notre Dame lost to Northern Illinois. So, if there’s a question now, it should be about Notre Dame,” said Klatt. “Indiana already wins the loss argument. They’ve won the schedule argument now because they’re 52nd. So now you look at it, like, well, how dominant have they been against the rest of the schedule? Well, Indiana has been more dominant over the rest of their schedule than any of the other teams.”

In losing by 23 in The ‘Shoe, Indiana could have found themselves in an argument to be outside of the playoff. With what happened across the country, though, especially in the Southeastern Conference, the debate has changed and, because of that, IU deserves to be in the CFP to Klatt.

“This is why Indiana is firmly in. It’s because the data suggests that they’re in,” said Klatt. “Like, this is why I’m telling you that Indiana is absolutely in.”

“Data bears it out. I think that their play has bore that out as well. Indiana is firmly in, okay,” Klatt stated. “Everything broke their way that needed to break their way. If it didn’t go their way on Saturday, we would be having a different conversation. But, since it did, the numbers are suggesting that they are firmly a College Football Playoff team.