{"id":1940,"section":"sports","section_label":"Sports","url":"https://www.brokenews.co/sports/1940","headline":"Cignetti accuses ESPN of SEC favoritism after CFP rankings drop","dek":"The Indiana coach pointed to the SEC's 10 teams in the initial College Football Playoff rankings compared to six from the Big Ten.","body":"Indiana is on a bye week, but Curt Cignetti found plenty to talk about anyway. On his weekly radio show at Yogi's in Bloomington alongside Voice of the Hoosiers Don Fischer, the coach went after ESPN over what he sees as blatant SEC bias in the first College Football Playoff rankings of the season.\n\nThe numbers he's citing are real: the initial rankings included 10 SEC teams against just six from the Big Ten, even with Indiana itself sitting at No. 4. That ranking drew its own share of criticism from college football media, but Cignetti wasn't interested in defending his team's spot. He was interested in going after the people doing the ranking.\n\n\"Come on,\" Cignetti said, laughing. \"These people, and there's a whole bunch of 'em, they march out of the tent and they're given instructions on what to say and they follow the company line, right? And I don't need to go any further.\" He added that the SEC \"gets a lot of love from ESPN\" and its writers.\n\nIndiana, the defending champion, returns from its bye looking to keep building its case regardless of who's doing the counting.","published_at":"2026-11-05T23:34:19.762266+00:00","source_count":3,"written_from":[{"outlet":"New York Post","publisher":"New York Post","title":"Curt Cignetti alleges ESPN SEC bias after controversial College Football Playoff ranking reveal","url":"https://nypost.com/2026/11/05/sports/indianas-curt-cignetti-alleges-espn-sec-bias-first-cfp-reveal/"},{"outlet":"Yahoo Sports","publisher":"Yahoo Sports","title":"Hoosiers Daily News: Curt Cignetti takes aim at the SEC, ESPN","url":"https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/hoosiers-daily-news-curt-cignetti-173000866.html"},{"outlet":"The Athletic","publisher":"The Athletic","title":"Indiana's Curt Cignetti takes aim at CFP rankings: 'SEC gets a lot of love from ESPN'","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7755177/2026/11/04/curt-cignetti-cfp-rankings-espn-sec-indiana/"}],"more_coverage":[{"outlet":"Yahoo Sports","publisher":"Yahoo Sports","title":"3 takeaways from Indiana football’s initial CFP ranking","url":"https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/3-takeaways-indiana-football-initial-200000646.html"},{"outlet":"Yahoo Sports","publisher":"Yahoo Sports","title":"Curt Cignetti takes shot at CFP rankings: 'SEC gets a lot of love from ESPN'","url":"https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/curt-cignetti-takes-shot-cfp-054209529.html"},{"outlet":"Yahoo Sports","publisher":"Yahoo Sports","title":"Curt Cignetti Issues 4-Word Response Amid Backlash Over Indiana’s CFP Ranking Position","url":"https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/curt-cignetti-issues-4-word-123434277.html"},{"outlet":"Yahoo Sports","publisher":"Yahoo Sports","title":"Curt Cignetti Torches ESPN for Apparently Giving Rival Conference ‘a Lot of Love’ After Hoosiers Land at No. 4","url":"https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/curt-cignetti-torches-espn-apparently-123546975.html"},{"outlet":"Yahoo Sports","publisher":"Yahoo Sports","title":"SEC has 5 of top 10 in initial CFP rankings. Big Ten coaches sound off","url":"https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/sec-5-top-10-initial-143121015.html"},{"outlet":"Yahoo Sports","publisher":"Yahoo Sports","title":"SEC has 5 of top 10 in initial CFP rankings. Big Ten coaches sound off","url":"https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/sec-5-top-10-initial-143121592.html"},{"outlet":"Yahoo Sports","publisher":"Yahoo Sports","title":"Big Ten coach rips CFP rankings: ‘SEC gets a lot of love from ESPN’","url":"https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/big-ten-coach-rips-cfp-120204071.html"},{"outlet":"Yahoo Sports","publisher":"Yahoo Sports","title":"Big Ten coach rips CFP rankings: ‘SEC gets a lot of love from ESPN’","url":"https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/big-ten-coach-rips-cfp-120204420.html"},{"outlet":"Yahoo Sports","publisher":"Yahoo Sports","title":"As the SEC had four more teams in the initial CFP rankings than the Big Ten, Indiana's Curt Cignetti notes that ' the SEC gets a lot of love from ESPN'","url":"https://sports.yahoo.com/college-football/article/as-the-sec-had-four-more-teams-in-the-initial-cfp-rankings-than-the-big-ten-indianas-curt-cignetti-notes-that--the-sec-gets-a-lot-of-love-from-espn-163236427.html"}],"image":null,"embed":null,"license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","attribution":"Analysis data is licensed CC BY 4.0. Credit brokenews and link to the story page you took it from. Source headlines, story titles taken from a source headline, and quoted passages remain the property of their publishers and are quoted for comparison, not licensed onward.","terms":"https://www.brokenews.co/about#reuse"}