INDIANA BECOMES OUR NATIONAL HOPE AS GOOGLE SPITS OUT TOMMY TUBERVILLE

The 12-team College Football Playoff is a crazy hoot, with no better story than Curt Cignetti and the Hoosiers, and once the tournament figures out two bizarre bye teams, Boise State won’t be there

     Cream and crimson, please. Little pink houses, sings John Mellencamp. Behold the elegance of the first College Football Playoff. Indiana is the sport’s all-time losingest program and somehow ranks fifth in the rankings, the aftereffect of Curt Cignetti’s profound words — “I win. Google me,” he trumpeted — and portal-recruiting kids from James Madison and Ohio University.

     Where? His quarterback, Kurtis Rourke, is more famous than another OU guy: me. He looked splendid last weekend on CBS when the broadcast showed a scene behind him, Assembly Hall, which used to be the one reason to visit Bloomington. In passing, Bob Knight must wonder about the weird transition. The Hoosiers aren’t favored to win at second-ranked Ohio State. If we check later Saturday and see they’re 11-0?

     He will break Google.

     Or the entire Internet.

     “The fact of the matter is, we're the emerging superpower of college football. Why would I leave?” said Cignetti, who last week signed a fully guaranteed deal of $72 million. Why not keep contractual options open for a megaprogram? He happened to find it where he is, in the Big Ten, and doesn’t need $100 million such as Lincoln Riley, Brian Kelly and Dabo Swinney — coaches who won’t make the 12-team postseason bracket. Last year, he made $677,000 at James Madison. Do the math in the top-ranked business school.

     “I think any (Power Four) school with the proper commitment is capable of being successful and being ultimately successful because really the difference between victory and defeat in most of these games is very slight, slim,” Cignetti said. “It’s all attainable.”

     Not that a cynic hasn’t surfaced. Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, after coaching at Auburn, Texas Tech and Cincinnati, thinks Cignetti has finagled in not rebuilding Indiana “the right way.” The Republican is the only American soul who thinks recruiting from James Madison and OU isn’t legal, telling AL.com: “Players can make money. We can just disperse, you know, the revenue a little bit better to all athletes, not just a few. And then we can try to give the opportunity for schools to build programs like we used to. Not just haphazardly every year going out and buying a new player, new football team every year.”

     Google this: Sourpuss. Thirteen players came from JMU. Rourke played five years in the Mid-American Conference. Not sizzling items, right? “It takes a different mentality coaching because you just don’t build a team. You pretty much buy a team now,” Tuberville said. “And that was a little bit forbidden when I was in coaching, but now it’s legal. Look at Indiana. They went out and bought them a football team, and look where they’re at.”

     He wants national NIL regulation. Just enjoy a cheerful story, Tommy, which beats Alabama and Kalen DeBoer. Remember: Indiana was picked to finish 17th in the league. “What he’s done is utterly amazing,” said Jimbo Fisher, who received a $76.8 million buyout at Texas A&M and hosts a show on SiriusXM Radio. “I think it’s the best job in college football right now. I think he’s national coach of the year.”

     Said Cignetti: “The only limitations on this football team would be the ones we put on ourselves, between our ears. But this group of guys does not think that way. … This is where I wanted to be. I played the what-if game with my wife and my agent weeks ago. It all pointed to where I’m at right now.”

     “Since arriving on campus, coach Cignetti has been the architect of one of college football’s greatest turnarounds, and has shown the world that IU is also a football school,” school president Pamela Whitten said. “Coach Cignetti exemplifies IU’s goal to win in all that we do. The success he has brought to Indiana football is shining a light on all that is amazing about Indiana University. We are excited that coach Cignetti and his wonderful family will be a part of Hoosier Nation for many years to come.”

     Hoosier Nation should be headed to the playoff, win or lose. The season has been a riot  with more wild arguments ahead. The Big Ten and Southeastern Conference should have four teams each but also have monstrous complaints about two of the four programs earning first-round byes. How bizarre if the Oregon-Ohio State/Indiana loser in the Big Ten title game must play in the opening round? Both could enter the conference championship game as first and second in the land while byes go to the Atlantic Coast Conference champion and … the Group of 5?

     Miami.

     And Boise State, where the playing field is still blue.

     There is time for a revision or two, such as Colorado attaining a spot. Still, Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and SEC boss Greg Sankey will shout about preexisting conditions giving unsuitable teams an important week off. Their best teams also will receive byes — Oregon and Texas at the moment — while others cry foul. Boise State? Georgia’s Kirby Smart, coach of the recent two-time national champions, could have missed the tournament without a win at Tennessee. Who wouldn’t like the Bulldogs’ chances against Miami or Blue Field? As it is, they’re at Penn State in the first round.

     “I don’t know what they’re looking for. I really don’t,” Smart said. “I wish they could really define the criteria. I wish they could do the eyeball test where they come down here and look at the people we’re playing against and look at them. You can’t see that stuff on TV, and so I don’t know what they look for.”

     The playoff is a crazy hoot, without the usual five or six teams challenging for the final four. It’s fair that the top two conferences each have a quartet … and that the Big 12 and ACC have one apiece … and that Boise State represents small fries … and independent Notre Dame survived an early home loss to Northern Illinois. But the two byes do need a serious reconsideration.

     That said, Indiana qualifies for the brackets. Ole Miss at home, first round?

     One should know Tuberville supports Matt Gaetz as Donald Trump’s attorney general, though he allegedly had sex with underage women at drug parties. “I’ve known Matt for a long time,” the senator commented. “He said, ‘I am not guilty.’ ’’

     Sure, let’s root for Gaetz and tear down Curt Cignetti.

     Google wouldn’t accept the input.

     ###

     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.