Add Curt Cignetti to the list of those unhappy with the first College Football Playoff rankings of the season.
During his weekly radio show Wednesday, the Indiana head coach took a shot at ESPN, accusing the Worldwide Leader of favoring the SEC over other conferences, including the Hoosiers’ Big Ten.
“They’re given instructions on what to say, and they follow the company line,” Cignetti said of the network’s college football personalities.
“The SEC gets a lot of love from ESPN, and all their writers that they don’t technically pay but march to their drum,” Cignetti added. “That’s why you see all these SEC teams up there, you know, some good two-loss teams from the Big Ten not quite as high. But like I said, it’s all gonna be played out on the field.”
ESPN holds the SEC’s national television rights and the media rights to the College Football Playoff.
Cignetti also defended his team’s resume on X Wednesday, sharing a graphic showing that Indiana leads the country with five victories over teams with winning records and writing “Facts are stubborn things.”
The committee put 10 SEC teams in the first top 25 rankings of the year, compared to just six from the Big Ten.
The defending national champions debuted at No. 4 with an 8-1 record.
Perhaps most controversially, two-loss Alabama landed one spot behind the Hoosiers at No. 5, ahead of 8-0 UCLA.
Ohio State, which handed Indiana its only loss this season, checked in at No. 12.
Undefeated Miami, which will take on No. 11 Notre Dame on Saturday, landed the top spot in the rankings.
After a bye week, the Hoosiers will take on No. 20 USC in Bloomington on Nov. 14.
