It is really unfortunate that one of the best three seasons in #iufb history is going to end up with the Hoosiers likely in a lesser bowl than they deserve. And it’s due to the Big Ten conference’s mismanagement of the season from start to finish.

The conference failed to plan through the summer for a season under COVID guidelines, then prematurely and unilaterally cancelled the season, leaving the rest of college football out to dry. The moral superiority approach did not play well with the other conferences.

Then the conference had to wipe the egg off its face once they realized the rest of college football was going on without them. But the system they created had zero scheduling flexibility, didn’t allow its teams enough games to play, and didn’t allow measuring stick OOC games

The Big Ten created rules for participation in the championship game, then threw those rules out when they didn’t produce the desired political result.

The Big Ten created rules for a 21-day quarantine and is about to arbitrarily throw those out, too.

Wishy-washy.

The conference has created a situation where they undercut every team in contention for a NY6 bowl, including Ohio State. So now a 6-1 Indiana team is likely to be left out of the NY6 in favor of three(!) teams with three losses, because the Big Ten burned its political capital

The college football playoff system is a joke and a mess, and it always has been — we’re just getting our first actual taste of it.

That said, don’t expect charity from the other members of the CFP committee towards the Big Ten after the way the conference behaved.

If you’d said before the season started that IU would get a Citrus Bowl bid, everyone would’ve likely signed up for that in a heartbeat.

But it’s pretty disappointing that IU is possibly going to lose out on a generational opportunity through no real fault of their own.