Hawkeyes enter CFB rankings at No. 9

IOWA CITY — In last weekend's postgame, Iowa quarterback C.J. Beathard was asked if he planned to watch the first College Football Playoff rankings for this season. The answer sort of neatly summed up the No. 11 Hawkeyes' attitude toward all of this.

'I don't really care much about that,' Beathard said. 'We still have four games left.'

On Tuesday, he admitted that, yes, he might watch it. And, sure enough, after 6 p.m. on ESPN, the Hawkeyes (8-0, 4-0 Big Ten) were listed 9th in the CFP rankings, Iowa's first appearance in the rankings for the now two-year-old playoff system. Clemson checked in at No. 1, followed by LSU, Ohio State and Alabama.

Beathard also threw out one observation that, again, neatly summed up what Iowa's outlook should be in all of this.

'I can almost guarantee you, the four teams selected tonight aren't going to be the four teams that are in it at the end,' Beathard said. 'People have been trying to predict stuff since the beginning of the season and most of it's been wrong. We control what we do. We're focused on Indiana and beating them.'

The Hoosiers (4-4, 0-4 Big Ten) and their spread offense, offensive-minded head coach Kevin Wilson and laser-armed quarterback Nate Sudfeld have been minted as perhaps Iowa's biggest roadblock in the last month of the season. The Hawkeyes (8-0, 4-0) don't seem like a group that's suddenly going to drift off task.

'I did hear the other day that Ohio State was ranked 16th at this time last year,' center Austin Blythe said. 'So, things are going to change. Things will shake out how they will and we control how they shake out. We have to go out and play.'

Wait, for a team that doesn't care about the CFP, it sure does seem to know a lot about last year's initial rankings.

Hmmm. It's almost like someone showed them those rankings to kick off Indiana week, the week that the outside world has circled as the end of Iowa's dream season.

'Funny you should bring that up,' Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz said. 'I have given it thought. Everybody's been talking about it for a while. I didn't do this, but somebody helped me out a little bit. I went back and researched, someone did for me, but if my numbers are correct, of the top four teams last year at this time, three of them didn't make it to the dance. Then the team that won the national championship was 16th.'

The research is a pretty simple Google search, but all of this is accurate. The top four in last year's initial CFP rankings were 1) Mississippi State, 2) Florida State, 3) Auburn and 4) Ole Miss. The final four ended up 1) Ohio State, the defending national champions, 2) Alabama, 3) Oregon and 4) Florida State.

Ohio State did start at No. 16, one spot behind Nebraska.

'I throw it kind of in the category of August polls,' Ferentz said. 'It doesn't mean a lot right now, but it's been great for the game. It's been really good for a lot of people to talk about. College football is at an all-time high. That's all positive.

'My only two observations are that, a), they don't mean a lot right now. Then b), people who get sucked into conversation that I've witnessed not only with these polls, but the BCS stuff, they tend to get nailed pretty quick soon thereafter.

'We're going to try to avoid both of those plights.'

Seriously, Iowa is well-grounded in its thoughts.

The bottom line is that the Hawkeyes control their destiny. If Iowa keeps winning, it will end up in the Big Ten championship game at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on Dec. 5 and it will have a chance to make its play for a CFP bid. Kind of like an 'Elite Eight' game in the NCAA basketball tournament.

Iowa wins and it has a clear path to the B1G title game, where it will have to stand and deliver, probably against Ohio State. Alabama, ranked No. 4 in Tuesday night's rankings, doesn't control its future. It lost to Ole Miss and needs the Rebels to stumble in the SEC West to earn a spot in the SEC title game. Can Alabama make it to the CFP playoff without making the SEC title game? That'd be a tough argument for even Alabama to make.

If nothing else, the Hawkeyes broke the seal on the CFB playoff rankings. Under the previous BCS system, Iowa appeared in the rankings on 38 occasions between 2002-2010. Iowa's highest ranking came during the 2009 season, when the Hawkeyes were ranked fourth on Oct. 26 and Nov. 2. Iowa ended the season with a win over Georgia Tech in the 2010 Orange Bowl.

The Hawkeyes are in the middle of the national conversation. Let's call it the 'national narrative.' As you can imagine, not all of it is flattering for the Hawkeyes. Fox radio guy Colin Cowherd went to town on Iowa's schedule Tuesday. This ignites social media furor and, thus, only turns on the spigot of incessant click bait.

Then again, there's this from CFP committee chairman Jeff Long, who's day job is Arkansas athletics director. The question was why Baylor and TCU ended up ahead of Iowa, which does have wins over four teams with .500 records or better: 'It's not just that they've beaten someone with a .500 or better record. We look a little deeper and see who those teams are that have better than .500 records. Yes, true, Iowa has three of those, and then two no-loss teams, or three, I guess: Baylor, Michigan State and TCU ranked right above them with maybe less, with Baylor and TCU.

'Again, that's one of the criteria. We looked at a number of different things, and the committee members thought that Baylor's — particularly their explosive offense and then TCU's offense, as well, so I think those are the things that gave the edge over Iowa.'

Again, Long's day job is AD at Arkansas. Arkansas is basically the Iowa of the SEC, with former Iowa player and Razorbacks head coach Bret Bielema playing a run-first, dominate-defensively philosophy.

You just kind of have to shrug that off. If you don't, you'll be chasing your tail. Click bait doesn't tend to answer your tweets.

Remember in August when the local talk about Ferentz and the Hawkeyes was 'hot seat,' coming off a disappointing 7-6 in 2014? This is house money.

'If you do well enough, enough people are going to say, 'Hey, these guys are OK,'' Ferentz said. 'We'll let you guys tell us how good we are or how OK we are. The more you win, the better it is. I learned that real fast.'

It's better to be in the conversation where people tell you how OK you are or how stinky they believe your schedule is than not in that conversation.

Everyone knows that.

'You'd rather be mentioned in it than not mentioned in it,' Beathard said. 'That shows you're doing good stuff and you're being successful as a team. Right now, we've won eight games. We're happy with what we've done so far, but we have to continue. Right now, we're focused on Indiana.'

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