MAILBAG: How good is Indiana really, Notre Dame playoff resume, what’s going on with Mike Gundy, Oklahoma State

The Week 10 Mailbag has a lot of Indiana flare, a question about Notre Dame’s playoff resume against other one-loss teams and what is going on with Mike Gundy and Oklahoma State?

As always, you can hit me up on X with a DM or tweet @JesseReSimonton or you can email me at [email protected] for all future questions.

Ed asks: Are the Indiana Hoosiers for real? What’s your thoughts on them?

They’re certainly not fraudulent. I don’t care what schedule you play (Indiana’s is bad at 104th nationally) if you go 9-0 and beat every team by at least two touchdowns. 

The Hoosiers are not smoke-and-mirroring their way to wins. They’re housing teams. They trailed for the first time all season Saturday at Michigan State, but they erased a 10-point deficit with 47 unanswered points! 

Indiana is now a 14.5-point favorite at home against Michigan — a spread that’s bonkers if you told someone in August that would be the case. 

With Kurtis Rourke leading the offense (19 touchdowns, just three picks and 73% completion at 10.5 per attempt!) and a host of former JMU transfers headlining a rebuilt defense, the Hoosiers aren’t just waxing teams on the field — they’re advanced metrics darlings, too. 

They rank No. 1 nationally in offensive success rate (and No. 1 in pass, pass/EPA and total EPA), and Top 20 in defensive success rate. 

Their biggest problem right now (which fairly prompted this question and others) is perception. 

And I totally get that!

Indiana has been THE WORST team in the Power Conferences for the last century. The Hoosiers have nine wins for just the third time since the late 1800s. Their two wins over winning teams are against a 5-4 Washington and Nebraska, who is 5-4 and might not make a bowl game come season’s end. 

But if they had a Maize & Blue helmet with this same resume — basically what Michigan had at this time last season — then no one would be questioning their bonafides. 

From CFBdownSouth: Neutral field, who are you taking? Indiana vs. South Carolina 

Neutral field? I’m taking Coach Cig — unfiltered. Again, Indiana is smoking teams — home or away. They also have the better quarterback and better coaching staff. 

The Gamecocks are a feisty bird at home (see: the voodoo powers at night at Williams-Brice Stadium), and their defensive line is awesome, but this is still a team that struggles to score without turnovers or special teams plays. They’re averaging just 5.3 yards per play — 101st nationally. 

I’m not sure they can match points with Indiana. 

Also, after I wrote the initial answer to CFB’s question, I used one of the college football random simulators for added insight and it spit out the following results: In 20 simulations, the Hoosiers won 15 times to South Carolina’s five. The average score was Indiana 27.7-South Carolina 16.9. The model predicted the Hoosiers would win by 20+ six times (30% of the results). 

So the model agrees with me, too. 

From Austin: Explain 1 loss Notre Dame ahead of Tennessee, Penn State and Indiana when their one loss was to … wait for it .. NIU. 

Austin is referring to my first College Football Playoff Rankings Predictions piece, where I had Notre Dame at No. 7, Indiana at No. 8, Penn State at No. 9 and Tennessee at No. 10. 

I was wrong! 

The committee actually flipped the Irish and Vols, with Penn State going even higher at No. 6. 

I though the committee, which has valued quality wins more than bad losses in recent seasons, would like the Irish’s resume over Penn State or Tennessee as a one-loss team. 

Notre Dame is one of just five teams (Oregon, Georgia, BYU and SMU being the others) in the first rankings with multiple wins against other teams in the Top 25 CFP rankings. 

The Irish won at Texas A&M and beat Louisville, and they also waxed a then-undefeated Navy team.  But chairman Warde Manuel called the loss to Northern Illinois “troubling,” and the committee clearly punished Notre Dame harshly for it.

Wilson asks: What is going on with Oklahoma State? Has Mike Gundy lost it? The Cowboys keep losing. Gundy keeps picking battles with reporters. Could he get fired?

The 2024 season has been a tire-fire for the Cowboys. 

One of the preseason favorites to win the Big 12, Oklahoma State is 0-6 in conference play — with four of the losses coming by double-digits. If not for a fortunate, overtime comeback win over Arkansas, we’re looking at a 2-7 team with a win over Tulsa being its lone FBS victory. 

They were ranked No. 17 in preseason polls, and were considered a near-lock to make a bowl game for the 19th-straight season. 

Preseason Heisman Trophy contender Ollie Gordon got a DUI in the offseason and has been running in mud all year, and the Pokes’ defense is the worst among all Power Conference teams. 

Again, it’s been an unmitigated disaster in Stillwater.

So what does it all mean for Mike Gundy?

Hard to say.

Cleary, the longtime Oklahoma State coach (who if folks need a reminder also played quarterback for the Cowboys and was an assistant before taking over the program 20 years ago!) is feeling the heat with such a letdown season — delivering his latest rant that basically told angry fans and critics to STFU and point those fingers at the mirror. 

“Unfortunately in life, most people are weak and as soon as things start to not go as good as they thought, they fall apart and they panic. Then they want to point the finger and blame other people,” Gundy said. 

“You see it happen in everyday life. That’s why I refuse to watch the TV and watch the news because I get tired of people complaining and b*&$%ing about this and that versus just doing something about it and trying to figure out a way to make it better. That’s what happens in college athletics.

“In most cases when people are negative and voice their opinion, they’re the same ones that can’t pay their own bills. They’re not taking care of themselves. They’re not taking care of their own family. They’re not taking care of their own job that they have an obligation to speak out and complain about others because it makes them feel better. Then in the end when they go to bed at night, they’re the same failure they were before they said anything negative about anybody else.”

In the middle of election coverage, Gundy did his own version of a news dump apology, posting on X that his “intent was not to offend” OK State fans. 

pic.twitter.com/54gbKIaTF9

— Mike Gundy (@CoachGundy) November 6, 2024

But we all know how he truly feels. 

Gundy won’t be fired by Oklahoma State. Not unless he does something for cause off-the-field. He’s too entrenched within the program, and they’ve given him raises and extensions for years even after he’s openly flirted with jobs at Tennessee (multiple times), Florida (multiple times) and elsewhere. He’s also the highest-paid coach in the Big 12 (around $7.75-$8 million) and has a buyout around $25 million. 

To me, there are two avenues here: Gundy stays, but cleans house with a total new-look staff, and he adjusts more aggressively to the changes with NIL and the transfer portal. 

Or, he and Oklahoma State agree a fresh start would behoove all parties and he walks away and takes a job elsewhere. 

For now, the former is more on Gundy’s mind, publicly anyway. He finished his rant by saying, “I think what’s important for all the Oklahoma State fans to know is that we’re very aware of what’s going on, and at some point in life, we all have to put trust in somebody.

“And I think they need to trust that we have a good plan for what’s going on here in the big picture, and we have answers. Sometimes they’re not short-term. Sometimes they might be long-term answers. In the end, the very best thing that can do, as I tell our players, is 100 percent be in. Buy in. You got to be on somebody’s team. Can’t go through life yourself.”