Indiana Fell Five Spots Without Playing and the Committee Blamed the Bye Week. FanDuel Had Already Moved the Hoosiers From +850 to +1000 the Week the Committee Ranked Them Fourth.

Indiana did not play last weekend. On Tuesday night the College Football Playoff committee moved the Hoosiers from No. 4 to No. 9. The Hoosier Network's Brooks White reports that it is the largest fall by an idle team in the 13 seasons of the rankings, and that the previous largest was three places.

The rest of the top of the board moved for reasons nobody disputes. Georgia, 8-1, took No. 1 after winning 42-7 at Ole Miss. Miami, last week's No. 1, lost 31-24 at Notre Dame and dropped to seventh; Notre Dame went from eleventh to fifth. Utah and UCLA, both 9-0, are second and fourth. Alabama, 7-2, is third after beating LSU 31-13 in Baton Rouge. Those four would have the first-round byes if the field were set today.

Then came the explanation. Committee chair Hunter Yurachek said Indiana was "probably the victim of having a bye week at the wrong time," in a week with seven games among ranked teams, USA TODAY's Jordan Mendoza reported. The reaction was what you would expect. "This committee cannot be taken seriously," wrote an Indiana fan account. NBC's Nicole Auerbach asked whether the committee had forgotten that it claims to start from scratch every week.

Our view is that the committee got the ranking about right and the reason wrong, and that the wrong reason matters more than it seems.

Yurachek gave three reasons. He led with the worst one.

Read past the bye-week line and the chair said two other things. First: "every team that Indiana had played to date in the Big Ten, they all lost." Six conference opponents, six losses on the same weekend, including Ohio State's 41-28 defeat to Oregon, which sent the only team to beat Indiana from 12th to 20th. Second: "the offensive play in general is a discussion point for Indiana," and "They have won games because of their defense, not because of their offense."

The second is the real one. White's column, which argues Indiana was wronged, supplies the numbers that say otherwise. The Hoosiers averaged 42 points a game early in the season and about 18 over the last four weeks. Josh Hoover has completed 46.8% of his passes over three games. Two of Indiana's wins before the bye, over Michigan and Minnesota, went to overtime, and the Minnesota game got there on a 60-yard field goal at the gun. Minnesota then lost to UCLA, which is part of how UCLA ended up in Indiana's old spot.

None of that happened during the bye. All of it had happened before the committee put Indiana fourth on November 3.

The market's version of the same week

Here the betting record is more useful than the outrage. On November 4, the morning after the committee's first rankings placed Indiana fourth with a bye, FanDuel's national title price on the Hoosiers went the other way: from +850 out to +1000, CBS Sports' Robby Kalland reported, after another overtime win. By November 8, with Indiana idle, DraftKings had them at +1050, level with a two-loss Texas and behind Georgia at +245, Notre Dame at +400, Alabama at +680 and Miami at +800, per Fox Sports. Four teams were ahead of Indiana on that board. Eight are ahead of them in the rankings now.

We wrote last week that the committee grades résumés and the market prices teams, and that neither is wrong for disagreeing. This is the other half of that point. The books looked at a team scoring 18 a game and needing a 60-yard kick to beat Minnesota, and marked it down while it was still fourth. The committee waited a week and then did the same thing with a larger number. A ranking that moves a week after the price does is following the evidence late. The honest account from the chair would have been that the committee had Indiana too high on November 3.

We did not find a post-rankings title price from a named book before publishing, so we cannot say whether Tuesday moved the number again. Our guess is that it barely did, for the reason above.

Why the wrong reason costs something

"A bye week at the wrong time" tells every athletic director that standing still is a risk and that the rankings are a weekly comparison of who looked best on Saturday. It hands critics the line that the committee punishes rest. It also invites a question the committee has no good answer to, which is the strongest argument on Indiana's side.

That argument is Alabama. The Tide are 7-2 and third. Tennessee, also 7-2, beat Alabama head to head and sits eighth; Yurachek cited Alabama's schedule, White reports. And if an opponent's later collapse counts against Indiana, White asks why Alabama keeps full credit for a win over a Mississippi State team that has since lost five straight. He has a point. The committee applied "your opponents got worse" to an 8-1 team and, as far as its public explanation goes, not to a 7-2 one.

Our answer is a partial concession. The standard was applied unevenly, and Alabama at No. 3 with two losses is the ranking we would least like to defend. It does not rescue Indiana's case for fourth. A team's résumé is its wins, and Indiana's best ones lost value in a single afternoon while its own form was already pointing down. Ninth with one loss, a top-five defence and an offence that has gone missing is a fair reading. It would have been a fair reading a week ago.

What it costs, and how Indiana gets it back

The gap between fourth and ninth is the gap between a week off and a road game. At No. 4, Indiana held a first-round bye. At No. 9, Mendoza notes, it would open at No. 8 Tennessee.

The schedule gives it back if the offence returns. Indiana hosts No. 18 USC on Saturday at 3:30 p.m., then goes to Washington, then plays Purdue. Win those and a Big Ten title game in Indianapolis follows, possibly against the UCLA team that now holds its seed. Pro Football Network's model still gives Indiana an 81.1% chance of making the field. Curt Cignetti's only public comment so far, on Monday before the rankings came out: "I'm really focused on this game."

What would prove us wrong: Indiana scores 35 on USC with Hoover or Grant Wilson looking like September, in which case the four-week slump was an injury and a blip, the market overcorrected first, and the committee overcorrected second. What would prove the committee wrong is simpler. If Alabama loses again and stays ahead of an 11-1 Indiana, "strength of schedule" will have stopped being a reason.

Odds quoted are as reported by CBS Sports (FanDuel, November 4) and Fox Sports (DraftKings, November 8) and will have moved. Betting involves risk of loss. If gambling stops being fun, the National Problem Gambling Helpline is 1-800-522-4700.