Hoosiers tiptoe into Notre Dame, get chased home

From the beginning, Indiana seemed uncomfortable with this College Football Playoff assignment.

Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman

You always have a plan until you get hit. Indiana’s plan, apparently, was to ask for a postponement.

On the very first kickoff of the very first 12-team College Football Playoff game Friday night, Solomon Vanhorse gathered in Notre Dame’s kickoff on the six-yard-line. Instead of returning it and maybe showing the Irish crowd that the Hoosiers were there to do business, he called a fair catch. Maybe he was ordered to do so, but he immediately put the offense in field-position jail. This was not exactly the Shot Heard ‘Round The World. The Hoosiers ran three plays, lost three yards and punted.

Notre Dame and Indiana exchanged interceptions, with Kurtis Rourke of Indiana throwing a pick to Xavier Watts, who was down on Notre Dame’s one-and-a-half-yard line. Not so bad, really. The Hoosiers’ top-ranked rush defense would shut down the Irish and get the ball back around midfield or so.

So much for plans. Jeremiah Love got the handoff, barged to his left, found little resistance, kept running, still didn’t get hit, and didn’t stop until the end zone. It was the third touchdown of 98 or more yards Notre Dame had scored in its past two quarters. When Riley Leonard flipped a 5-yard touchdown to Jayden Thomas, Notre Dame led, 14-0, and nothing changed appreciably until the final scoreboard flashed 27-17. Indiana scored the last 14 points, long after the closing arguments were made.

When it mattered, Indiana was defeatist and high-strung. James Carpenter decked Leonard out of bounds just as the Hoosiers were denying Notre Dame on a third-and-14. Coach Curt Cignetti chose to punt on a fourth-and-11 near midfield, trailing 20-3 in the fourth quarter. Notre Dame was hoping to steal Indiana’s confidence. It did so without firing a shot.

The Irish romped for 193 yards against that distinguished defense, and Leonard completed 72 percent of his passes. Love didn’t do much after that transcontinental dash, but Notre Dame was able to run the ball 35 times. It was strange to see the Hoosiers ease their big toes into the water so reluctantly, because they had been such devastating starters all season. They won all the previous first quarters by a score of 108-20. But then Cignetti explained his fourth-quarter punt by saying it made more sense than trying to convert a fourth-and-11, the way things were going. After a season of chest-beating, the Hoosiers seemed uncomfortable in the weight class they insisted they deserved.

Naturally, the intelligentsia will claim that Indiana proved it wasn’t worthy of the playoff invitation in the first place, not when Alabama, South Carolina and Mississippi were among the un-chosen. This is why the expansion to a 12-team field never was meant to silence arguments. Indiana lost twice, by 38-15 to Ohio State and now this. Alabama lost to Vanderbilt and Oklahoma. Ole Miss stumbled at Florida and Kentucky. South Carolina was spanked by Ole Miss and lost close ones to LSU and Alabama. Indiana’s schedule was tapioca, to be sure, with non-conference wins over Florida International, Charlotte and Western Illinois, and the Hoosiers missed Oregon, Penn State and Illinois in Big 10 play. But they don’t have any control over the inequities of an 18-team conference and a 9-game conference schedule. Besides, these are volatile times. Notre Dame was 11-1 in its regular season, and the “1” was Northern Illinois.

“Strength of schedule” is arbitrary and capricious. If your schedule had included Utah, Florida State and North Carolina State, everyone in August would have cited your bravery. If it had included Arizona State, SMU and Colorado, everyone would have called for an MRI to locate your spine. In these days of wholesale transfers, the “foreseeable future” gets shorter and shorter. Indiana’s schedule did not change from the moment the season began, when Athlon Sports said the Hoosiers were the 17th best team in the league and the 71st team in the nation. They did beat Michigan and Washington, who played each other in last year’s CFP championship game, and they handled Nebraska, 56-7, the week after Ohio State only beat Nebraska, 21-17. Seventeen of IU’s starters were transfers, and nine of them came from James Madison with Cignetti. So history will treat this 11-win season more kindly than the Internet does, as will Hoosier fans who spent the past three seasons enjoying nine wins, total.

Notre Dame didn’t exactly face the Apocalypse either, but it was third nationally in scoring offense and defense and was the only team in the FBS to hold its opponents under 2,000 yards passing. Six of the defensive starters are in their fifth year of college football, and quarterback Riley Leonard transferred from Duke. Those who tuned out the Irish after that Week Two loss to NIU are just now realizing the talent level that coach Marcus Freeman has established. On Friday, tackle Anthonie Knapp and cornerback Leonard Moore, both first-year freshmen, bullied the Hoosiers, and Notre Dame is also springing another Bryce Young on an unsuspecting world. This one is 6-foot-7 and 258, and he pass-rushes like an osprey dive-bombing a fish. His dad is Bryant Young, the 14-year 49er defensive end who is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and also played for the Irish.

So, no, it wasn’t the rousing lid-lifter that the advocates of the Diluted Dozen had predicted. It could heat up with Saturday’s three games, and it was a brilliant idea to put the first round games on campus sites, especially storied ones like Notre Dame, Penn State, Ohio State and Texas. It’s very possible that the Buckeyes and coach Ryan Day will wish they were elsewhere if their first quarter goes haywire against Tennessee Saturday night, and the pitchfork-bearers in the Horseshoe begin lighting candles.

At times like this, you’re done if you don’t bring your own belief. Maybe, on the 200-mile trip back to Bloomington, the Hoosiers will discover where they left it.