Todd’s Take: Is Indiana’s FPI Ranking Too Low? Probably, But It Doesn’t Matter

ESPN came out with its Football Power Index rankings on Tuesday … on June 3. Which was precisely the point.

It’s June. Apart from baseball, softball and track and field postseasons, it’s as dead a month as there is in college athletics. There are offseason basketball workouts (the media isn’t invited) to keep basketball-minded Indiana fans interested and there’s recruiting news too, but June is a dead zone otherwise.

So enterprising outlets like ESPN (and others) pass the time with preseason rankings and the like. We consume them out of habit or just merely to pass the time until the games begin for real.  While ESPN will claim it has the definitive predictive metric, don’t all sites claim the same? Even if it was somehow definitive, how important is this ranking on June 3?

It’s not important at all  … and deep down we all know it.

Nonetheless, Indiana fans who care about such things likely raised a hue and cry when they saw that the Hoosiers were ranked No. 31 in the FPI. Depending on how you want to interpret something as silly as a projected 7.5-4.5 record, FPI predicts an 8-4 or a 7-5 record for Indiana.

If you choose, there is plenty to pick apart in how they assessed Indiana. Obviously, little credit was given for Indiana’s defensive performance in 2024, especially given that many of the key cogs return in 2025. Indiana will have a quarterback change, but they will go from a proven veteran mid-major signal-caller to a veteran major-conference passer.

I could go on about Indiana, but why bother? I could also go on about the conflict of interest that exists when a network that has a vested interest in pumping up the conferences it broadcasts creates a ranking that – voila! – happens to have three SEC teams, none of whom played in a championship game in 2024, ranked 1-2-3.

For every team listed, these rankings are pointless. An exercise in trying to turn heads that has little semblance of any basis in reality. I say that as someone who used to vote in the Associated Press basketball poll. Preseason polls are semi-educated guess work.

Indiana might make another CFP run. It might not. I personally think Indiana projects to go 9-3-ish, but I don’t have to remind Hoosiers fans that the last time Indiana came off a season that portended sustained success the Hoosiers finished 2-10.

Nothing is written. Some bluebloods will live up to their historic reputation, some won’t. That yin-and-yang is what keeps us engaged every season. It’s why surprises – good and bad – maintain our interest.

But it has little to do with how we react to manufactured “data” like the FPI, which is just empty calories to nibble on during the offseason.

The only thing worse in this department is too early bracketology. I get that college basketball bracketologists have to pay the bills during the offseason, but is there anything more ridiculous than doing a 68-team bracket when many teams don’t have their rosters filled out? Why do we read or care about such things?

In an attempt to provide substance or “data” to something that has only a preseason roster to base it on, outlets like ESPN are counting on its readers to react. Mere reaction is enough to justify the enterprise. Maybe I’m on an island to feel like my intelligence is being insulted when I try to attach any kind of meaning to a data point based on zero data.

It makes me question whether there really is an appetite for stuff like this or are we all in the media just trying to fill a void? Outlets report these rankings as if they’re “news” and in doing so, we’re just feeding the beast. I know this and here I am writing this piece, so I suppose I’m as guilty as anyone.

I am obviously jaded. I just don’t care what Indiana’s football ranking is on June 3 when there hasn’t been a single snap in anger.

Offseasons in general just don’t interest me that much anymore in any sport. In college athletics, the construction of the roster maintains my interest, but only to a point, and even that world is mired in hype and nonsense.

How many players have come to Indiana (or any other school) riding high on hype only to be exposed when it was time to produce substance? Or how many under-publicized players emerged as stars once they got their chance to play?

You’d think at some point we’d collectively learn that it’s best to wait and see what a player can prove and not set the table based on potential.

Maybe that’s why offseason narratives bug me? I’ve seen a lot of athletes be damaged – sometimes to the point of it affecting their mental health – by the table that is set for them by offseason or pre-college things like star rankings or their national recruiting ranking. Seeing that up-close-and-personal has made me averse to all manner of preseason rankings, even team ones where one player doesn’t have to bear the brunt of what is predicted.

Doth I protest too much? Probably, but my immunity to such things, my heightened sense of skepticism on non-substantial “data” makes me lash out more so than anything the ranking itself tries to predict.

And then I laugh a bit at myself at the meta ridiculousness of getting irritated by something I claim doesn’t matter.

Someone just tell me when the games begin.