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KIRK Herbsreit didn’t hold back on ESPN’s College GameDay when discussing the Indiana Hoosiers’s loss to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in Friday night’s first round of the College Football Playoff.
Herbstreit sounded off on the decision to include the Hoosiers in the first round of the inaugural 12-team Playoff.
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Indiana kept the game close, but the 27-17 final wasn’t as competitive as it may seem on the box score.
Notre Dame controlled the game as they were up 20-3 after three quarters and the Hoosiers put together two touchdown drives late in the fourth quarter.
On Saturday’s edition of College GameDay, Herbstreit didn’t mince words suggesting Indiana shouldn’t have been included in the tournament.
“The atmosphere was historic. The game was not,” Herbstreit explained.
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“I am not going to sit here and say, ‘Why was Indiana in?’ Indiana, with what you guys like to talk about, they got 11 wins, they got to be one of the best teams.
“Indiana was outclassed in that game.
“They should not, physically, they were not a team that should have been on that field when you consider other teams that could have been there.
“That’s not a knock on Indiana, they had a great year.”
Herbsreit continued, saying that the CFP committee has to do “a better job of weighing who the best 12 [teams] are vs. who is the most deserving because, by golly, [a team] got 11 wins.”
The 55-year-old referenced the fact that the No. 10 seed Hoosiers won 11 games and made a second-to-last-at-large bid to make the tourney ahead of only the SMU Mustangs.
Indiana and SMU made the bracket over the 10-2 Miami Hurricanes, 9-3 Ole Miss Rebels, and 9-3 South Carolina Gamecocks.
The Hoosiers trailed fewer minutes than any other FBS team this season entering the playoffs and had the highest-scoring squad in the playoffs.
The Fighting Irish gave Indiana their second straight loss to a top-five opponent this season.
“They took it to us. I thought their quarterback played really well, I thought their defense suffocated our offense till the last 1:50 or whatever,” said first-year Indiana coach Curt Cignetti, per ESPN.
“They won, they deserved to win. We didn’t play our best game, but they had a lot to do with that tonight.”
The Fighting Irish will now take on the 11-2 SEC champion Georgia Bulldogs in the Suger Bowl.
Notre Dame has a chance to reach the semifinals as they eye their first national title since 1988.
The playoff continues on Saturday with SMU visiting the Penn State Nittany Lions at noon Eastern.
The No. 5 Texas Longhorns will host the No. 12 Clemson Tigers in Austin and then a final game with the No. 8 Ohio State Buckeyes taking on the No. 9 Tennessee Volunteers in Columbus at 8:00 pm Eastern.
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