BLOOMINGTON — Indiana football will be keeping a close eye on the conference championship games this weekend.
The No. 10 Hoosiers (11-1; 8-1 Big Ten) will be looking to see if the results help clear up the College Football Playoff picture.
Indiana is likely destined to be the road in the first round, but the four potential host sites are very much in flux. Oregon and Penn State would likely swap spots in the rankings depending on which team wins the Big Ten title game.
Georgia losing a third time in the SEC title might lead to a bigger shakeup, but it’s hard to imagine the committee significantly punishing a team for playing in its conference championship game especially since it has a win over one of the teams that’s right behind it (Tennessee).
Going into the weekend, IU’s likelist opponents are Penn State, Notre Dame, Georgia and Tennessee with Ohio State being a wild card. The committee will address the Buckeyes loss to Michigan in the rankings set to be released on Tuesday night.
Those rankings should also show whether it’s possible for the ACC to get three teams in if Clemson stills an at-large bid.
Will Miami (10-2) drop out of the rankings after a loss to Syracuse? Is SMU ranked high enough to avoid falling out of the rankings if it loses to Clemson?
Here are three possible paths for IU to win a national title:
College Football Playoff: Indiana football’s potential path to a national title
Oregon, Texas and SMU win: The three favorites all win conference titles to preserve the top of the bracket and get first round byes. Notre Dame moves up to the No. 5 seed followed by No. 6 Penn State, No. 7 Georgia and No. 8 Tennessee.
Indiana gets the No. 10 seed and faces the Bulldogs in Athens with the winner playing Texas in the Sugar Bowl.
In this scenario, IU would be on the same side of the bracket as Penn State and SMU. The Hoosiers facing PSU and former coach Tom Allen, who is now the Nittany Lions defensive coordinator, in the semifinals would make for a fitting capper to a wild year.
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Penn State, Georgia and Clemson win: The underdogs upend all the committee’s hard work.
Notre Dame would be the biggest loser in this scenario getting dropped down to the No. 7 seed behind No. 5 Oregon and No. 6 Texas, but ahead of No. 8 Tennessee.
This would set up a matchup many fans would like to see between the Fighting Irish and the Hoosiers in South Bend. The winner would face Georgia in the Sugar Bowl and probably be on the same side of the bracket as Boise State — they would get the No. 3 seed if Clemson got one of the auto bids — along with Texas.
The Longhorns would make for an exciting opponent in the semifinals. The programs have only met three times with the most recent of those matchups coming in 1966.
Oregon, Georgia and SMU win: This might be the hardest scenario for the committee to parse.
The debate between an 11-2 Penn State team and 11-2 Texas would be an interesting one — they have a nearly identical strength of schedule with all their losses coming at the expense of fellow playoff teams.
Is that enough to keep both teams ahead of Notre Dame? Probably? This would set up for Indiana to be a near-identical path to the title game as the scenario above with a first-round matchup in South Bend and a game against Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.
Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: indiana-cfp-college-football-playoff-opponent-predictions
