Riley Leonard leads the Irish past the Hoosiers in the first game of the 12-team College Football Playoff era.
Pete Sampson, Joe Rexrode and The Athletic College Football Staff
Notre Dame dominates Indiana in College Football Playoff first round: Live reaction and updates
The Athletic College Football Staff
Notre Dame rolls past Indiana. What’s next?
No. 7 Notre Dame cruised past No. 10 Indiana 27-17 in the first game of the 12-team College Football Playoff on Friday night. The Fighting Irish advance to play No. 2 Georgia in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1.
Two interceptions in the first three drives and a 98-yard touchdown run by Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love got the first on-campus Playoff game off to a dramatic start. But the fireworks fizzled from there, particularly for the Hoosiers, until they finally reached the end zone twice in the final two minutes to shrink the margin of defeat. Still, Indiana was held to its second-lowest scoring output of the season and was held to 278 yards of offense to Notre Dame’s 394. Indiana gained just 63 yards rushing to Notre Dame’s 193.
Indiana earned a Playoff spot. SEC teams that got left out did not
Curt Cignetti, once again, didn’t hold back. His team was less than two hours away from kicking off its first College Football Playoff game, and the 63-year-old Indiana head coach sat in the middle of the “College GameDay” set and went right at the skeptics.
“We don’t just beat Top 25 teams, we beat the s— out of them!” Cignetti said, referencing that his teams had beaten Nebraska earlier this year and Coastal Carolina when he was at JMU. It was a rewind-the-TV moment. As in, did he really just say that?! It also wasn’t true. The Huskers had fallen out of the poll by the time they played the Hoosiers. Ohio State was ranked, though, and beat Indiana 38-15.
The Athletic College Football Staff
There aren’t a lot of firsts at Notre Dame. This was one
Thirteen hours before the first college football game of its kind, with snow lacquering everything and bitter cold keeping it there, the cars and trucks lined Angela Boulevard. Predawn arrivals seeking prime tailgating locations when the Notre Dame Stadium lots opened at 8 a.m. Hundreds of them, according to one attendant on duty. And, well, what would a historical moment for this sport be without a little embellishment?
Notre Dame can redefine itself vs. UGA
Before Marcus Freeman could savor what Notre Dame football had just done, he was forced to look ahead to where the Irish were headed.
It was an only-in-college-football moment, where the head coach of a blue-blood program is presented a game ball by two bowl officials who had nothing to do with Notre Dame’s 27-17 victory over Indiana in the first on-campus game of the College Football Playoff era. Freeman obliged, accepting an invitation from two Sugar Bowl officials, which probably could have waited until Notre Dame had processed its performance on Friday night. It’s not like Notre Dame can head anywhere else.
Kiffin calls out CFP committee
No. 7 Notre Dame stymied No. 10 Indiana 27-17 in the first game of the expanded College Football Playoff on Friday night, much to Lane Kiffin’s dismay.
The Ole Miss coach made his discontent with Indiana’s place in the Playoff, and the largely dull matchup, known on X.
“Really exciting competitive game,” Kiffin said Friday night, tagging the College Football Playoff. “Great job!!”
Indiana deserved its bid despite loss
You know what they’ll say now. They’ll say Indiana made the first 12-team College Football Playoff on circumstance over merit, Friday’s 27-17 loss to Notre Dame proclaiming that the Hoosiers didn’t belong.
Actually, they started in the second quarter. And they’re not entirely wrong. Indiana has played two football teams out of 13 that could be called anything better than mediocre, and those teams took the Hoosiers apart by a combined score of 65-32. Two late, meaningless touchdowns in this one prevented it from being 65-18.
Jeremiyah Love on TD run: ‘He wasn’t gonna catch me’
Jeremiyah Love asked if he almost got caught on the 98-yard touchdown run.
“I was looking up on the video board. He wasn’t gonna catch me.”
Notre Dame is 12-4 against Top-25 teams under Marcus Freeman
Notre Dame is continuing to play some of its best football in recent time under head coach Marcus Freeman.
Freeman was rewarded with a new four-year contract extension earlier this week and followed that up tonight by leading the Fighting Irish to a 27-17 home College Football Playoff victory over No. 10 seed Indiana.
Notre Dame is now 12-4 against Top-25 teams under Freeman and 31-9 overall.
A Sugar Bowl showdown with No. 2 seeded Georgia is next for Notre Dame on New Year’s Day.
Notre Dame HC Marcus Freeman shares with @notthefakeSVP how he plans to stay focused on the present as the team prepares to face Georgia next week 💪 pic.twitter.com/BH7wkc4UlA
Some fun facts on Notre Dame’s win
Notre Dame had not won a postseason game of this magnitude since the 1994 Cotton Bowl (h/t @RedditCFB on X). The Fighting Irish have still yet to win a major bowl game since then, but will get their chance to do so in the Sugar Bowl against Georgia on New Year’s Day.
Notre Dame is only the second school not sponsored by Nike to win a College Football Playoff game, joining last year’s Sugar Bowl champion and National Championship runner-up Washington. Notre Dame has a deal with Under Armour while Washington partners with Adidas.
Riley Leonard, who’s now the first quarterback to lead Notre Dame to a College Football Playoff win, went 3-9 his first season as a starter at Duke, which he reminded reporters of in his postgame media session.
Latest on Rylie Mills injury
Marcus Freeman tells ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt after the game that star defensive lineman Rylie Mills’ injury is “not season-ending” and they “just need to get him right in the next 10-11 days.”
Notre Dame DC Al Golden unconcerned about end of game
Defensive coordinator Al Golden on the end of the game and Indiana scoring two touchdowns late, i.e. if he’s concerned about the final minutes.
“Nope. We had the game in control.”
Cignetti ‘didn’t want to punt’ in fourth quarter
Curt Cignetti on the punt down 20-3: “I didn’t want to punt, but we were doing nothing on offense, and our defense was fighting. That was the one positive I saw, that our defense was fighting.”
Your Views on Notre Dame-Indiana
Your Views on Notre Dame-Indiana
Zachary G: Notre dame called the dogs off there at the end. Some of it was losing Bryce young and probably not trying to add anymore knocks to their guys in garbage time by pulling back the pass rush. Onside kicks always rely on a lot of luck. The Irish won handily onto New Orleans and Georgia.
Jonathan S: So Ohio State is 13 points better than Notre Dame.
Luke B: Indiana’s late little comeback doesn’t take away from how awful this game was. If the 12-team format was supposed to fix the blowouts of the 4-team format, this was not a good start. Unfortunately, ND vs Georgia will be equally uncompetitive. Also worth considering adding more weight to strength of schedule, top 25 record/wins, and not labeling any “big ten win” as respectable.
We’d love to hear from you throughout tonight’s coverage!
If you subscribe to The Athletic, you can get involved by leaving a comment in the ‘Discuss’ tab that you can see at the top of your app or webpage, or click here.
Early Notre Dame-Georgia odds
Early Notre Dame-Georgia odds
The odds for the Notre Dame-Georgia quarterfinal say a lot and almost nothing at the same time. It’s a pick ’em game on BetMGM. Both teams have matching -110 odds to win the game. We’ll see if that lasts, but it’s opening as a dead heat. The total is a paltry 44.5, which makes sense after seeing Notre Dame suck the life out of Indiana until garbage time.
Jeremiyah Love registers fifth 100+ yard rushing performance of season
Jeremiyah Love registers fifth 100+ yard rushing performance of season
Jeremiyah Love continued his impressive sophomore season tonight in South Bend.
Love rushed for 108 yards on eight carries, which included a 98-yard touchdown run in the first quarter.
It is Love’s fifth game this season in which he totaled 100+ yards or more and his third-fewest carries in a game (8).
Notre Dame fans chanted ‘We Want Georgia’. They got Georgia
Kirby Smart noticed what Notre Dame fans were yelling while the Georgia coach appeared on ESPN’s “College GameDay” on Friday afternoon: “We want Georgia! We want Georgia!”
“They gotta win this one first,” Smart replied, smiling, amid the booing.
Notre Dame won, setting up a marquee matchup that harkens to Georgia history, and Smart’s tenure.
It’s a redux of the 1981 Sugar Bowl, when Georgia won its second-ever national title. Then in 2017, it was at Notre Dame where Smart launched his program with a one-point win, on its way to an unexpected run to the national championship game. Georgia won the rematch in Athens two years later, though it was also close.
That was when Brian Kelly was the coach. Georgia is still essentially the same talent-laden, physical SEC program, just with a more modern passing offense. The question is how far Marcus Freeman has taken a Notre Dame program that has wilted in the postseason before.
Georgia CFP scouting guide: Do the Bulldogs want to play Notre Dame or Indiana?
Indiana got exposed by Ohio State, Notre Dame
Indiana got exposed by Ohio State, Notre Dame
Curt Cignetti’s Hoosiers don’t need to apologize for making the College Football Playoff with an 11-1 record. The CFP committee doesn’t have to apologize, either. Indiana played dominant football for most of the season, against a schedule that looked much more difficult than it ended up being. But Notre Dame’s romp in tandem with the Hoosiers’ 38-15 loss at Ohio State combine to tell the story of a team that couldn’t hang up front against supremely talented defenses. Michigan exposed that offensive line a bit in its loss at Indiana as well. Kurtis Rourke had little time to throw and missed some he needed to make on the rare occasions he was able to scan the field. It was a historic, spectacular debut season for Cignetti. It ended with a reminder that a program with this history producing a true national title contender in one year simply isn’t realistic.
Notre Dame’s defense dominates
Notre Dame’s defense dominates
Getty Images
Notre Dame opened the season asking its defense to carry it, which it did just about every week through Thanksgiving. The Irish asked their defense to do the same to open the postseason. Again, it answered the bell, holding Indiana to 17 points as the Hoosiers barely threatened the goal line short of a first-quarter drive that ended with a Xavier Watts interception.
It was a near-perfect game plan from defensive coordinator Al Golden, who turned up the pressure on Kurtis Rourke early and never let the Indiana quarterback get comfortable. Notre Dame’s defensive line had a lot to do with that, as the return of Howard Cross from an ankle sprain overwhelmed Indiana’s offensive line. Even though the Irish lost defensive tackle Rylie Mills and defensive end Bryce Young during the game due to injury, it didn’t matter much.
Indiana, the nation’s No. 2 scoring offense during the regular season at 43.3 points per game, had no chance.
The performance put to bed Notre Dame’s struggles at USC three weeks ago when the Irish were picked apart through the air until ending the game with back-to-back pick sixes. The performance was enough to wonder if Notre Dame had finally been stretched too thin, relying on underclassmen in the secondary with a pass rush losing steam.
Indiana barely took shots against Notre Dame.
The Irish will be tested at a new level against Georgia in the Sugar Bowl and the growing injury list will be a concern. But in the final home game of the season, Notre Dame put another performance on tape to suggest it has a national championship-level defense.
