It was not hard to judge IU's schedule. They had a bit of bad luck that a few Big 10 teams had off years on the schedule, but the fact is IU was not worthy of being a playoff team. The won loss record looks worthy, but not the schedule.
Also, the Hoosiers didn't play better against OSU. They didn't even break 200 yards of offense, from a team that won all those games due to great offense. Tennessee played OSU in the coldest environment in their history and had no chance.
Now as for Louisville, something like that could happen if their ACC schedule was loaded with average teams. It could happen to almost every team that's not a perennial top dog program. Of course I wouldn't like it as a Cards fan, but it would unfortunately be the reality of it.
If you play just one top level team and get dominated, all the other easy wins against unranked or average teams shouldn't get you in the playoff.
