Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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16 JANUARY 2025 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED C O L L E G E F O O T B A L L P L A Y O F F BY TYLER HORKA W hen he wasn't chasing his six children around the house the evening of Dec. 7, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman was catching glimpses of the SEC Championship Game. He had no way of knowing in the moment he was getting an early scout on the Fighting Irish's Sugar Bowl opponent should they advance past the first round of the College Football Playoff, but he was. It would be Notre Dame and Georgia at the Superdome on the night of New Year's Day. But first, it's Notre Dame and Indiana the night of Friday, Dec. 20, at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend. The CFP field is set. The Irish, as we all already knew ever since their victory over rival Southern Cal in the regular- season finale Nov. 30, are in. And host- ing. Welcoming an in-state foe from down the road, too. Now's not the time to take a breather. The next month, if Notre Dame advances to the national championship game in Atlanta Jan. 20, will be a grind unlike any every Irish coach and player has ever endured. There's never been a 12-team playoff in college football. Notre Dame and Indiana are kicking it off with a Fri- day standalone game in primetime on ABC/ESPN five days before Christmas. There is no repose in that. Just reso- lution. "We've always had a goal of reach- ing our full potential, and that doesn't change," Freeman said. "Our mindset is to prepare in a way, that on Friday, when we play, we're ready to play at the high- est level we can. We're prepared to play against a really good opponent. "So, relieved isn't probably a word I've used just as much as we have direc- tion in terms of who we're playing. As we start the season, we know that mak- ing the playoff was a goal of ours. But it's here. We knew that after the USC game. I think more than anything, there's just a direction now because of an opponent that we know we have to play." That opponent is one that deserves every second of attention Notre Dame will give it between now and kickoff. The Hoosiers went through the entire regu- lar season having only played one team, Michigan (7-5), with a winning record, but in the same way skeptics criticized Notre Dame for "not playing anybody," all Indiana needs to do is point to the scores of its games to show it's done all it can to circumnavigate what is appropri- ately deemed a not-so-good schedule. The Hoosiers pummeled their oppo- nents over and over again and ended up with the nation's No. 2 scoring of- fense at 43.3 points per game and No. 6 scoring defense at 14.7 points per game. That margin of 24.6 points per game is third in the country behind Ohio State, which is the only team Indiana lost to, and … Notre Dame. It only took Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti one season, after coming over from James Madison, to put the Hoosiers in the national conversation with blue bloods of the sport like the Buckeyes and Fighting Irish. It's never been that easy at Indiana, a program that had never won 10 games in a single season before. LET THE GAMES BEGIN Notre Dame kicks off the first-ever 12-team playoff as the No. 7 seed hosting No. 10 seed Indiana Head coach Marcus Freeman and the Fighting Irish will open the postseason Dec. 20 with a first-round matchup against the in-state Indiana Hoosiers, who they last played in 1991. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME ATHLETICS