Notre Dame Knocks Out Indiana in the First Round of the College Football Playoff
By Nick Jenkinson/Excel H Sports
Photos by: Eric Thieszen, Excel H Sports/Thieszen Photography
The #7 Seed Notre Dame Fighting Irish beat #10 Seed Indiana Hoosiers 27-17 in the first round of the College Football Playoff Friday at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana. The Irish are 12-1 and will face the Top Seed Georgia Bulldogs in the Allstate Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, Louisiana on New Years Day in a Quarterfinal. Indiana ends their historic season at 11-2 and will look to keep the momentum going next season under First Year Coach Curt Cignetti who turned a program that won 9 games the last three seasons into the programs first ever double-digit win season in program history and their first appearance in the College Football Playoff. Notre Dame extends their winning streak to 11 games after losing the second game of the season at home to Northern Illinois.
This game was historic for many reasons. This is the first year of the 12-team format and is the first game played on a college campus. This was the first Friday Night game in Notre Dame Stadium History. This first time two teams from the same state faced each other in the playoff. This was the first meeting between the two schools since 1991 and just the second meeting since 1958. Notre Dame now leads the all-time series 24-5-1 and 14-1-1 in South Bend as the Hoosiers have not won South Bend since November 5, 1898. The Game was televised on ESPN and ABC since they own the television rights and it was the first time since 1990 that a Notre Dame home game has not been televised on NBC which the first game of that contract was the last time these two teams played on September 7, 1991, when the Irish won 49-27.
The atmosphere was electric all day as the tailgate lots opened 12 hours before kickoff and fans braved the cold temperatures all day and ESPN’s College Gameday was on site for this matchup. With the two teams separated by 194.3 miles their good representation of Cream and Crimson in stands with their White rally towels. Notre Dame countered with the gold rally towels and fans were waving their towels throughout the game. Gametime temperature was 27 degrees and felt like 19 degrees, but the fans remained throughout the game.
Indiana ran 3 plays for -3 yards and had to punt it away. Notre Dame Quarterback Riley Leonard was picked off by D’Angelo Ponds as the Irish ran two plays for -1 yards. Indiana ran for 4 plays for 24 yards, but Xavier Watts picked off Kurtis Rourke and the Irish had the ball on their own 2-yard line. Jeremiyah Love busted a through a hole and went 98 yards as the Irish scored on the first play from scrimmage after the interception as Notre Dame led 7-0 with 10:57 left in the first quarter. The Irish added a second touchdown when Riley Leonard threw a five-yard touchdown pass to Jayden Thomas capping off a 16 play 83-yard drive that chewed up 9:08 on the clock as the Irish led 14-0 12:52 left in the second quarter. Nicolas Radicic hit a 34-yard field goal with 3:26 left in the second quarter to get the Hoosiers on the board 14-3. Mitch Jeter nailed a 49-yard field goal with 7 seconds left before halftime as the Irish led 17-3 at halftime.
The Irish scored twice in the second half as Mitch Jeter hit his second field goal of the game with 4:21 left in the third quarter. Riley Leonard added a 1-yard touchdown with 4:50 left in the game to make it 27-3 Irish. Indiana punted on their first three drives of the half and on the fourth drive the Hoosiers find the endzone as Kurtis Rourke hits Myles Price on a 7-yard touchdown pass and Rourke found Elijah Sarratt on the two-point conversion to make it 27-11 with 1:27 left. The Hoosiers recovered the onside kick. The Hoosiers scored when Rourke found Omar Cooper Jr. on a 23-yard touchdown pass but miss the two-point conversion as Indiana made it 27-17 with 25 seconds left. Indiana was close to recovering a second onside kick, but Notre Dame recovered and ran out the clock as the Irish will get one more game while Indiana makes the trip back to Bloomington with the season over but a season that no one will ever forget and hope that this level of success will continue.
Riley Leonard was 23-32 for 201 yards with a touchdown pass and interception and ran 11 times for 30 yards with a touchdown. Jeremiyah Love ran 8 times for 108 yards and a touchdown. Jordan Faison caught 7 passes for 89 yards. The Irish had 394 yards of total offense, 20 first downs, 7-13 of third down conversions with 67 total plays and controlled the clock for 35 minutes and 43 seconds. The Irish had 6 penalties for 35 yards.
Kurtis Rourke finished 20-33 for 215 yards with 2 touchdown passes and an interception. Justice Ellison had 11 carries for 37 yards and Ty Son Lawton had 10 carries for 34 yards as the Hoosiers had 63 yards on 27 carries with Myles Price with 1 carry for 2 yards and Rourke 5 carries for -10 yards as he was sacked 3 times. Elijah Sarratt had 67 receiving yards on 4 catches as 8 Hoosiers caught passes. The Hoosiers had 278 total yards, 17 first downs, 4-12 on third down conversions, 1-1 on fourth downs as the Hoosiers had the ball for 24 Minutes and 17 seconds.
These two teams will meet again as they have agreed to a home and home series in 2030 and 2031. Indiana will make another trip to South Bend in 2030, and The Fighting Irish will make the trip to Bloomington in 2031 and that will the first time that Irish will visit Bloomington since 1950. Notre Dame controlled the game start to finish and dominated the game until the Hoosiers were able to put two late touchdowns together to make the score closer than indicated but Indiana did not give up until the clock hit zero and no matter the result fans of both teams and country saw history made with two in-state teams and the first college football playoff game on campus and Friday night lights in one of the most iconic College Football Stadiums in the country. The first meeting in 33 years between the two teams had an incredible atmosphere in late December and fans for both teams will remember this night forever.
Press Conferences (provided by: University of Notre Dame Athletics)
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.