Looks to me that they will be in with a win over Purdue, but I don’t have any objections to the teams they have ranked above them.
Like it or not, the objection to IU was that the best teams they had played were 6-5 Michigan, Washington and Nebraska. They have played two teams tied for 7th, 2 teams tied for 11th, and then the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th teams in the Big Ten.
Out of conference, they had FIU (3-8), FCS Western Illinois (4-8) and Charlotte (4-7).
The game against Ohio State was their only chance to play a great team and to impress. They were able to compete very well for 20 minutes. The last 40 minutes was complete domination by Ohio State. IU simply could not block Ohio State’s pass rush when the Buckeyes would bring 5, or even 4 when they would threaten to bring 5 but drop one out at the snap.
They could have played us, a ranked team at the time, and made a big statement by beating the crap out of us on the road. But they chickened out, and as a result they are going to be sweating those final rankings.
I call that Karma….