Coach Curt Cignetti and his Indiana players made the slow walk off the field late Friday at Notre Dame Stadium, their dream season coming to an end in the first round of the College Football Playoff with a 27-17 loss to Notre Dame. The 12-team model will close the curtain on four very good teams, whose seasons won't get the traditional bowl game send-off but will end instead on campus.
Indiana and the others must begin the process of rebuilding the roster, accounting for key defections and ultimately positioning itself for future CFP runs, perhaps as early as next fall. As Cignetti noted, "Every year you've got to start over now in college football. It's not quite the NFL, but it's getting close."
The restarts will take on different forms for different teams, but there's no time to waste, especially with the transfer portal open. Here's how the teams eliminated in the first round of the CFP will attempt to reload for 2025. -- Adam Rittenberg