While I’m not going to run down all my postseason picks until after bowl season ends (largely because I’m writing this before all the games from the last column were played), I do want to take just a moment because we need to talk about Indiana.

Actually, we don’t. Anyone could have seen that loss to Notre Dame coming, given the marshmallow-soft schedule the Hoosiers played. No, what we need to talk about is people talking about Indiana the morning after the game.

The Hoosiers were buried under an avalanche of recriminations, mostly from the southeastern part of the country, where many fans think that their teams, and only their teams, are good at football. Leading the charge was one Lane Kiffin, whose Ole Diddly Dadgum Doodly Miss team (with three losses) was passed over for the playoffs in favor of Indiana. If you don’t know by now that the most dangerous place on Earth is between Lane Kiffin and a microphone, you should.

SEC fans buy their own hype these days for one reason only: Nick Saban. Because he was so successful, they reason that their own teams are better just because they lost to him so much. This is sort of like someone from Omaha demanding to be treated like a VIP because they live in the same town as Warren Buffett. Saban is gone and, wonder of wonders, Alabama immediately fell off. So now they’re going to latch on to Kirby Smart.

The Worldwide Leader was, for the most part, all in on bashing Indiana and the Big Ten on the morning after. You can read a pretty good writeup about that here. I’m just going to drop some actual data on you, in the form of margin of defeat for every team that lost in the first round of the playoff.

SMU: Lost by 28 points.
Tennessee: Lost by 25 points.
Clemson: Lost by 14 points.
Indiana: Lost by 10 points.

Your eyes are not deceiving you: the team that everyone “knew” on Saturday morning didn’t belong in the playoffs lost by the fewest points of any of the losers. The only thing these results prove is that the seeding was correct. Let this be a lesson to you: Never watch the pre- and post-game shows, there is nothing to be learned from them. You may actually grow dumber from being exposed to them. I don’t know if reading my picks will make you smarter or dumber but whatever effect it has on you, I assure you it’s unintentional.

*: as is always, the case, all times in this column are Central.

While I realize I just said above that Alabama fell off, let us take a moment to note that Michigan, the defending national champion, fell off even harder and is only in this game because it beat Ohio State in Columbus. Sherrone Moore may eventually get the job done, but I have very, very little confidence in his chances against the Crimson Tide.

I don’t expect a blowout but your friendly neighborhood Michigan fan will not be in a good mood after this. Or maybe they will be, since I think a lot of them already have this penciled in as a loss.

Alabama 41, Michigan 28

Remember when the Citrus Bowl meant something because it always matched up two really good teams, even if they did just lose in the conference championship game? Now we get a matchup between two teams whose own fanbases don’t really believe in them.

This might be a sneakily good game, though, because Bret Bielema has a way of keeping a game close whether it should be or not. I don’t believe in “SEC speed” anymore because everyone is fast and everyone recruits nationally now. But I do think South Carolina should take this one because I’ve yet to be impressed with Illinois.

South Carolina 24, Illinois 17

I admit I’ve been waiting all season for the other shoe to drop on Penn State. I don’t think the Nittany Lions are the fourth-best team in the country. I’m not even sure they’re the fourth-best team in the Big Ten. But a lot of this is about luck of the draw and James Franklin, as he has all season, turned a friendly card in the form of a Boise State team that has Ashton Jeanty and … well, surely there’s something else. But if Penn State can shut him down -- which will be difficult -- the Nittany Lions can make it to the semifinals. And, much as this pains me to type, I think they will.

Penn State 34, Boise State 31

Ohio State’s pummeling of Tennessee was fun to watch if only because it infuriated that particular stripe of SEC meathead who figured that even Mississippi State could dogwalk any team that couldn’t beat Michigan in its own stadium. Buckeye confidence is very high now, after having been so very, very low over Thanksgiving weekend.

So it’s really going to hurt when Oregon Oregons all over them.

Oregon 38, Ohio State 28

Reader, sometimes when I am having trouble picking the outcome of a meaningless game, I ask myself, “What would be the funniest possible thing that could happen here?” and then predicting that it will.

Well, I can’t think of anything funnier than the thought of P.J. Fleck slathered in lukewarm mayonnaise. And pretending to enjoy it.

(The thought of him actually enjoying it is, of course, not funny.)

Minnesota 24, Virginia Tech 20

And, of course …

It feels so much like there’s nothing left to be said about the 2024 Iowa Hawkeyes. It was a season of both stasis and change. The offense was markedly improved over 2023 but it didn’t always show up on the scoreboard. I honestly believe, however, that the season’s low point was the Michigan State loss where the defense just couldn’t get the job done against a thoroughly mid team. And I remind you that complaining about who Iowa’s quarterback is is like complaining about who the Secretary of Transportation is or something: what impact does it have on your life? Or the outcome of literally anything?

And no, I don’t know why Iowa and Missouri share a long, long border but rarely if ever play each other in anything. It makes no sense. This should be a rivalry, but it isn’t.

I won’t mince words: I think this will be a bad, frustrating football game for both teams as they each struggle to get anything going against the other. If that’s the case it will come down to which team makes the fewest mistakes, or at least the last critical mistake.

Both those battles favor Iowa. Nobody does frustrating, kick-the-ottoman style football like the Hawkeyes.

Iowa 17, Missouri 13