Indiana Ranked No. 6 in Preseason Poll: Fair Spot for the Defending Champs?
Indiana won the national championship last January, and the AP preseason voters rewarded them with a No. 6 ranking. That is the correct spot. It also feels a little disrespectful. Both things are true at the same time.
The Hoosiers are the reigning national champion. In most seasons, that gets you a top-three ranking almost automatically. Indiana got eight first-place votes and slotted in sixth behind Ohio State, Oregon, Georgia, Notre Dame, and Texas.
Why the drop? Roster turnover. Indiana lost significant pieces from the championship team, and the depth chart is thinner than it was a year ago. Voters had to weigh the champion tag against the actual talent coming back, and they landed on still a top-tier team, just not one of the very best.
That is a defensible take. It is also going to be motivation Curt Cignetti feeds his team every single day of the preseason.
Cignetti has become one of the most compelling coaches in college football. He rebuilt Indiana from a Big Ten afterthought into a national champion in a shockingly short amount of time. He recruits with an edge, coaches with confidence, and has the kind of no-nonsense demeanor that resonates with players who are tired of hearing coach-speak.
The team he is running out this year has real questions. The quarterback situation is different. The offensive line lost two starters to the NFL. The defense is younger than it was during the title run. Every one of those things is a legitimate reason to think Indiana is not exactly what they were a year ago.
What has not changed is the culture. The way Cignetti’s teams play, the way they close out games, the way they handle adversity, all of that carries over from a championship season to whatever comes next. That is why the No. 6 ranking feels low despite the roster turnover. Culture beats depth chart in September.
Indiana’s schedule is manageable. They avoid the toughest games in the Big Ten until later in the season. If they win the games they are supposed to win, they will be a top-five team by October. If they upset one of the teams ranked above them, they will be a top-three team by November. The playoff is very much on the table.
The rest of the country is not treating Indiana like a fluke. That was the story a year ago and it did not survive contact with the season. The Hoosiers are a real program now with a real coach and a real path to another deep run.
Six feels low. It will not stay six for long. Watch this team.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
