Notre Dame opened up the 2024 College Football Playoffs and the new 12-team format with a strong performance to put away a Cinderella-esque season from the Indiana Hoosiers by the score of 27-17 in the frosty South Bend night. With the school’s first playoff win, the Irish will have 11 days of rest to get ready for a quarterfinal matchup in the Sugar Bowl against #2 seed Georgia on New Year’s Day evening.
Let’s recap the win over Indiana.
QUARTERBACK: B
This was one of the most deceiving games with 32 pass attempts that I can remember. Notre Dame led and controlled the game from the early stages and yet Leonard tied for his second most pass attempts of the season–it really didn’t feel like a game where the Irish were putting the ball in the air a lot for this offense’s set up.
Of course, opening up the game with an interception wasn’t ideal! With the tipped pass I won’t dock Leonard too much although I thought he was overly patient in the pocket at times on Friday night. He also only ran the ball 9 times (with sacks removed) which was among the lower amounts this season.
The offense was mostly efficient through the air and not having Leonard run the ball so often on 3rd down was a refreshing change of pace. After the opening INT and a Faison incompletion, Leonard would string together two separate completion streaks of 8 passes–quite nice! The explosiveness just isn’t there (no surprise) with the 44-yard near-touchdown throw to Faison being the only completion over 15 yards against the Hoosiers.
RUNNING BACK: C+
Possible hot take coming but this was one of the least impressive games for the ground game this season. It was a weird dynamic with Indiana’s vaunted rush defense (by traditional stats), they gave up the long 98-yard touchdown run, but I thought the Hoosiers did a pretty good job keeping the Irish ground game under wraps.
There are reports that Jeremiyah Love was fighting through some flu symptoms by the way.
Still, Love would rush for 10 yards on 7 carries outside of his monumental homerun. Price was held under 3 yards per carry and as mentioned above this wasn’t a big day for Riley Leonard on the ground, either.
Love, Price, and Williams each accounted for 1 explosive run apiece. On the team’s other 32 carries they would gain only 63 yards.
WIDE RECEIVER: B+
I’m not sure many would’ve expected 200 passing yards from Notre Dame in this cold weather so with those expectations this was a strong performance from the Irish receivers. The staff must’ve noticed something from Indiana’s defense where they wanted to get Jordan Faison going and that clearly worked.
Faison did have a bad drop but 7 receptions on his other 9 targets is the type of production Notre Dame needs out of one of their receivers. They continually seem to float around 50% catch rate with Beaux Collins (4 targets, 2 receptions, 18 yards against Indiana) but Thomas, Mitchell, and Greathouse caught all of their targets.
TIGHT END: C
I thought this was a decent game from the tight ends, nothing more. That fake field goal run by Mitchell Evans was pretty damn weird and never felt like it had a good chance of working out–had it counted! Raridon made a nifty shoestring catch which nice. Evans ended up with a couple catches, does he seem a little heavier than normal? Something about his body at this point in the season looks heftier than usual but I could be completely crazy. His early fumble could’ve been a sneaky bad momentum change, too.
OFFENSIVE LINE: B-
The pass protection looked very good early on and mix in a 98-yard touchdown run and things looked like they’d be pretty awesome all night long. Unfortunately, as the game progressed Indiana started winning a lot of snaps up front. Rocco Spindler didn’t return for the 2nd half after suffering an injury and that surely played a part. The interior of the offensive line really struggled at times.
This will be a big area of emphasis and improvement against Georgia.
DEFENSIVE LINE: A
If the Irish won this battle up front Indiana was going to need a whole lot of craziness and weirdness to happen in order to win. Notre Dame freaking crushed the Hoosiers up front and not too many weird things happened along the way.
We suspected their running game could struggle and it did in a big way. Ellison picked up nice runs of 10 and 15 yards while Lawton broke off a 22-yard run in Indiana’s brief window of success on the ground. Their other 24 carries went for a hilariously low 16 yards.
LINEBACKER: A
I really thought it was going to be difficult at times this season with some young linebackers stepping up and this being a traditionally difficult position to learn and execute. All credit to the players and coaching staff because this unit has been such a wonderful surprise to me this season. Particularly Bowen, Sneed, and Ausberry their speed and tenacity continues to pop up all over the field.
I suspect we’ll miss Jack Kiser more than we think–he’s been around for ages and plays at such a high level. Still, I bet Indiana left this game thinking it was so hard getting to the edge with Notre Dame’s front and speed at linebacker. And that’s before we talk about the secondary!
DEFENSIVE BACK: A
Xavier Watts, my goodness. We might have to do an off-season project where we rank the greatest development stories in recent Notre Dame history. I can’t imagine anyone topping that list over our All-American safety.
With 4:44 remaining in the game after Notre Dame went up 27-3, Rourke was 9 of 19 for 94 yards with no touchdowns and a red zone interception. Outside of some slants, Indiana couldn’t get anything done through the air.
NOTES:
Jaylen Sneed played 37 snaps in this game tied for the most among the linebackers with Kiser. I hope Sneed comes back for 2025.
What was Cignetti thinking during this game? His quiet anger has always been visible on the sideline and Friday night was no different. For such a brash talker it kind of felt like he gave in and knew this game was over. Their punt on 4th & 11 from the Irish 48-yard line with 10:45 remaining in the 4th quarter is wild. You have to know if Notre Dame scores it’ll highly unlikely to be quickly. And it wasn’t! The Irish drained over 5 minutes off the clock and effectively sealed the victory.
Notre Dame taking care of business was nice to see. At the end of the day I think it’s okay to note that Indiana deserved a spot in the playoffs but beating them isn’t that big of a deal. This team should want and earn more respect.
Jeter making a 49-yard field goal might be the best news from this game.
Has there been any clarification on the late game clock situation? Indiana got a free clock stoppage because someone on Notre Dame’s helmet fell off? What? And then later, the clock stopped after Indiana was ruled to have gained a 1st down (they didn’t), it was under review and got moved to 4th down, but Notre Dame took a timeout anyway? The end of the game was all very, very stupid.
Why is Beaux Collins on hands team and in that position to be the primary ball catcher on onsides kicks? He’s neither aggressive nor has good hands, that makes very little sense.
Indiana was sufficiently beaten in this game so much that if Louisville plays well enough on New Years Eve against Washington it’s possible the Cardinals will finish 2024 higher in the FEI rankings than the Hoosiers.
Biggest surprise player of 2024 has to be Jordan Clark, right?
I’m sure we won’t have a week and a half of black uniform talk. Can we at least wear green numbers against Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, though? Under Armour had plenty of time to look at this matchup with the Dawgs to get these throwbacks ready.
Do it.
Indiana got tackled three times short of the line to gain after the onside kick, burned one timeout, and only used like 18 seconds. it was infuriating.
Freeman had to call timeout to challenge that runner was hardline to gain. my understanding, at least in nfl, was indiana would be subject to 10 second runoff because the clock would have been running had they called it correctly. they could have used their last timeout to stop it. Then they started the clock on the snap not the whistle, and again it should’ve been a running clock.
Whatever cignetti coached the whole game to prove they didn’t get blown out. mIssion accomplished guy.
My favorite cowardly cignetti plays.
1. punting down 17 in the 4th from midfield
2. punting from the plus 36 yard line in first half.
3. settling for a field goal down 14-0 when they lined up to go for it
4. Every time they ran on third and long
5. calling a fair catch on every kickoff
Re the running backs:
-I could tell on the 98-yard play he wasn’t 100% (which is honestly hilarious). Two players basically caught him. He was reportedly hard to hear in the post-game interviews and acknowledged he lost steam. I would have preferred they kept him on the bench once the game was won. Also his gold and glittery “LOVE” oh his collar was hilarious.
-Price was having a tough night. It seemed every touch was sending him into a swarm of defenders. Unclear whether that’s on him, on the interior OL, or a credit to IU. You could argue it was the OL’s worst game since week 3.
-All 3 were excellent in the passing game. The check downs were killing IU in the first half.
I think IUs rush defense is pretty stout. #1 in the country? Ehhh, not so much, but still extremely strong, and we saw that. They had 2 inside LBs hyper committing to runs, and safeties that we almost as eager to come down. We finally punished it on the post to faison, but they knew our M.O. and sold the ship to stop it. Throw in the spindler injury with heavy boxes and aggressive play and there you go. Even then, damn near 200 on the ground.
Long way of saying it’s both an area of concern to improve for us, but a kudos to them.
It was infuriating that they continued to run Price between the tackles. He’s quite simply not good at it. If that was the plan, better to do it with Williams. Total waste of about 9 plays.
So hi from the Bend. Sticking around until tomorrow as like so many, had to reserve for the weekend in case we played today. But happily it was the very first CFB game ever. And was mostly lovely. Yeah, lots to work on, but HCMF has been very consistent on that. It did feel like we were in 2nd and 8 forever. Faison may be back, his run on the ko reverse flashed that speed, and his pattern and the catch on the almost TD (right in front of me) was very nice.
Bottom line agree with TLNDMA, this is a very good team to watch and root for.
Besides all of that, a brief discursion on my hobby horse, the crowd and the Stadium. Disappointed to see what, more than several thousand IU fans who scored tickets, but to Eric’s point in the title of this thread, everybody was watching and we did not disappoint. Maybe it helped it was so cold, and nobody wanted to sit down. And certainly the incredibly special historical moment and being on a unique Friday night lights venue were big assets. The band is still not integrated, my efforts with the Athletic Department this year to overcome Ken Dye’s resistance to all sane and common sense initiatives to plug them in to the “make noise” efforts have failed, I am going to try a letter to the Observer. But that is in the 5% improvement range. Bottom line, we showed the nation the ND Spirit and we should all be proud. Including the 18 Stripes community. Yeah Eric, agreeance on the green numbers 🙂
Next stop, Sugar Bowl!!
Forgot to mention this recap from Ross Dellenger:
https://x.com/RossDellenger/status/1870339265952874617
Update: they did win the game!
ND gifted that 81′ Sugar Bowl to Georgia. 4turnovers including fumbling a kickoff on the 1yd line. Georgia had 127 yds total offense. Hershel Walker had 150 yds rushing. (Do the math on that one)
Special teams continues to be a weird mix of sublime and flabbergasting own-goals.
Tottenham Hotspur fan?
First thing I said after that onside kick “Beaux Collins is on the hands team?”
The offensive gameplan seemed to keep changing just as I was agreeing with it. Conservative running since Goldens defense ain’t giving up points, wait now we’re throwing three times on 1st&5. Don’t run Leonard to keep him healthy, wait now he’s running a keeper on first down at midfield.