Here's how Indiana can make the College Football Playoff after Week 1

Ed note: This is the first edition of HOOSIERS CFP WATCH, in which Butt will detail exactly what needs to happen in the coming week for Indiana to make the College Football Playoff. Is this satirical? You decide.

The Orange Bowl and the Cotton Bowl, the two semifinal games in this year's College Football Playoff, are obviously a long ways away given that the season just started. It is impossible to achieve goals without having your eyes on the prize though, so we need to be paying attention to where IU's hopes of qualifying stand on a weekly basis. Otherwise we're just planning to fail.

Let's get going.

LAST WEEK:

Indiana 48 - Southern Illinois 47

RESUME:

CFP Poll Ranking: N/A

Quality wins: Southern Illinois

Bad Losses: none

SOS: uh, probably pretty high

THE SPIN

After a week of college football games, the Hoosiers are tied for first in the country with an undefeated record. These are facts that cannot be disputed.

What also cannot be disputed is our advantage over the early favorite to win it all, Ohio State, in a pretty advanced metric you may or may not have heard of called "points." That's right, IU beat the Buckeyes 48-42 last weekend, technically, even with all that highly praised talent Urban Meyer is rolling out on the field. They can have their four or five guys on the Heisman Trophy watch list, we'll take our six-point advantage.

The last time IU finished a season undefeated was [null set], but that's where we stand right now. An undefeated season would include wins on the road at Michigan State and against an Ohio State team (the same one we beat last weekend kind of) who will presumably be ranked number one in the country when they bring their Skyline-stuffed asses into Memorial Stadium. There would be no way to keep the Hoosiers out of the Playoff at that point, so hopefully our guys can keep the unblemished season alive.