In Reply to: Indiana's strength of schedule? posted by lafong on December 20, 2024 at 21:22:09
The Whoosiers were dominated at the line of scrimmage. Strength of schedule is absolutely an essential measure to consider when evaluating teams.
Yes, playing in a conference that comes up weak in a certain season is unfortunate - and beyond the control of an individual team. But your non conference schedule you do control. (Even there, there's a matter of luck - a school that was expected to be really good loses a number of players to the Portal and early in the year just hasn't had time to put it all together by the time you play them.)
But Indiana was badly outmanned last night. (And SMU looks the same in the first half vs Penn State.
This is a playoff in which there's a gulf of a separation between the best six or so teams and the rest of the country. (Yes, leaving Alabama out was a mistake but if included they weren't going to win the NC this season. Just as UGA is legitimately one of the top six or seven but losing their QB kind of puts them out of the running. They could win a game but to win two? Not very likely.)