Where the road leads. Maybe.

Football players are jumping on Tom Allen up there in frigid Wisconsin, where the windchill  Saturday was Holy Crap It's Cold. They are slinging their arms around Allen's shoulders, here in one end zone. They are interrupting him on NATIONAL TV.

Here's what they're saying: Best coach in America right here.

And Tom Allen laughs and claps them on the back and says, golly, he just loves these guys, special group, all that. Which is not what Bear Bryant or Bo Schembechler or Woody Hayes would have done in this situation.

No, sir. Bear or Bo or Woody would have made 'em run laps until they were tripping over their tongues -- or, in Woody's case, maybe just punched someone.

But Allen laughed and loved his guys and, later, led them in a victory dance in the visitors locker room in splendid old Camp Randall Stadium. And now you get why his Hoosiers are 6-1 and beating people they haven't beaten in decades, and damn near beating other people for whom they would normally be kibble. 

Yesterday they took down Wisconsin, 14-6. It was their first win over the Badgers in 11 meetings, and their first win in Camp Randall in 19 years. Their only loss was to No. 4 Ohio State, 42-35, the Buckeyes hanging on for dear life at the end as Indiana dominated after halftime. 

Next week the Hoosiers will keep the Bucket against Purdue, and finish this Bastard Plague-shortened season 7-1.

They're a good football team, in other words. They're a good football team because his players love Allen and Allen loves them, and because of that he's built a culture that works. And in a week something could well happen to them that would be a damn shame.

What could happen is Michigan, forced to cancel its game against Maryland yesterday because of an outbreak of the Plague, could fail to get the outbreak under control. In which case the annual grudgefest against Ohio State would be off.

If that happens, the 5-0 Buckeyes would be one game shy of the agreed-upon six-game minimum required to make them eligible for the Big Ten title game.

Now, the Buckeyes are pretty clearly one of the top four teams in the nation. They're pretty clearly a College Football Playoff team. But if they're barred from playing for their conference championship, there's a chance -- a chance -- the committee that selects the CFP might be disinclined to include them.

Which means the Big Ten athletic directors would have a decision to make: Follow the agreed-upon rules, or say well, the rules aren't really rules (that's just something we said, you know). So we're gonna let Ohio State -- the conference's best shot at a national title -- play in the Big Ten title game anyway.

You know who gets screwed if that happens?

You guessed it. Indiana.

Because if Ohio State were to come up a game short of the minimum, Indiana would play for the conference title. Unless the ADs change the rules, of course. Which they likely would.

Now, admittedly, that's a lot of "ifs" to unpack. What's probably going to happen is the Michigan-Ohio State game gets played, and the Buckeyes laminate the sadsack Wolverines like they always do, and it's on to the CFP. And Indiana goes off to some high-end Chicken Sandwich/Loan Sharking Institution bowl. 

After which his players would again jump on Tom Allen.

Which would be OK, of course. More than OK.