Instant Reaction | Notre Dame 27 Indiana 17

40 Notre Dame players took a final exam on Thursday. On Friday they whooped Indiana and won the first ever game in the College Football Playoff.

Fueled by an electric atmosphere, the Irish won like they have in these 11 straight wins they’ve compiled. They played complimentary football and were flat out better than Indiana in every phase of the game.

The defense controlled the game and held the Hoosiers to only three points before the game was out of hand. They had a ridiculous 29.2% havoc rate before garbage time and gave up only 143 yards (3.5 yards per play) before Al Golden called the dogs off. Indiana ran only 41 plays during that time and had only nine first downs.

Mitch Jeter came through with a huge 49-yard field goal at the end of the first half and added another later on. They started off the second half with a big return on a lateral to Jordan Faison that didn’t lead to points, but flipped the field and allowed Notre Dame’s defense to get after IU backed up near their own end zone.

The Irish offense had the toughest task against a very good Indiana defense that proved to be as good as advertised when it came to stuffing the run. They produced a ton of havoc (22.3%) and made things extremely difficult all game.

But the offense turned a red zone interception from Xavier Watts into a 98-yard touchdown run from Jeremiyah Love. They were able to possess the ball for the majority of the game and get the plays from the passing game when they needed them.

Contrary to what people might think, Indiana is a good football team and deserved to make the College Football Playoff. They just aren’t in the same class as Notre Dame. Curt Cignetti learned that tonight.

- The Riley Leonard interception off a tipped ball followed by the Watts interception made the start of this game feel a lot like when the Irish faced Louisville. There was far less back and forth after that, though.

Indiana only allowed seven runs of 20+ yards all season. They gave up the long run by Love and another 20-yard run from Jadarian Price tonight. Getting those explosive runs and the explosive pass to Jordan Faison were huge. All three of those plays were on touchdown drives.

- Notre Dame dominated 3rd down in this game. IU was 8th in 3rd down/4th down success rate in the regular season. They were 3 of 10 converting on 3rd down before garbage time.

IU’s defense had only allowed one offense to convert more than 40% of their 3rd down attempts all season. Notre Dame’s offense converted 7 of 13 on 3rd down. It helped that the average distance for them was only 5.7 yards.

A lot of that was because Leonard did a fantastic job of avoiding negative plays. This was a defense that was designed to not give up a ton of yards when the quarterback scrambles, but he got enough yards there and avoided sacks or found receivers with pressure in his face.

He was helped quite a bit by his receivers with Faison in particular making some big catches. Faison more than made up for an early drop he had in the first quarter.

- Compare what Leonard did to Kurtis Rourke and there was no comparison.

He missed throws because of pressure all day and couldn’t get away from being sacked. Even when he had time, he needed to be perfect to complete the deep ball against Notre Dame’s corners.

Outside of the early Elijah Surratt catch (that might not have been a catch) on Christian Gray, IU didn’t get anything going in the passing game.

Leonard Moore was also outstanding again and has continued to surpass the hype.

- It was mentioned many times in the post-game by the coaches and players, but it can’t be said enough how much of an impact the crowd made. Last year’s Ohio State game was different than any other Notre Dame home game I can recall in terms of atmosphere and this was an even different level than that.

- Love was clearly not feeling well and isn’t 100% after his knee injury against USC. But no one is 100% at this point in the season.

Everyone is fighting through something. Some more than others. Some are also more special than others and he’s one of them.

I don’t know what the status of Rylie Mills and Bryce Young are heading into the next game, but they have 12 days to figure out if they can be back on the field against Georgia. The outlook doesn’t seem rosy for Rocco Spindler, who was in street clothes for the second half, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

It will get more difficult to win every game going forward. Georgia is better than Indiana. They are more talented than Indiana. If Notre Dame is going to be without more key contributors, then they’ll have to play ball with who they do have.

One thing is clear: they still have plenty of ballers on this roster. They have a really good coaching staff who didn’t have to show as much as they might have if this game was closer. They are a dang good football team and are on a different level than the team coached by the guy who talked a ton of smack leading up to this game.

Freeman could talk like that too. He doesn’t have to talk about it because his team just goes out and shows it.

This win is a big deal. It was a special moment that the team had been building towards. And they aren’t done yet. Freeam and his team will get another chance to do something special in the Sugar Bowl. 

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