Blue and Gold Illustrated

January 2025

Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football

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GAME PREVIEW: INDIANA 18 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 O nly two states put two teams in the 12-team College Football Playoff field. Texas and … In- diana, just as we all expected. And it's the Hoosier State that will be the epicenter of the college football uni- verse when the games get going. Not the Lone Star State. That's right. No. 7 seed Notre Dame (11-1). No. 10 seed Indiana (11-1). Fri- day night. Dec. 20. Primetime. ESPN/ ABC. At South Bend in The House That Rockne Built. A game that will have close to 80,000 in attendance but could prompt 800,000 to claim to have been there decades from now. This has potential to be one of the most talked about college football games ever played in Indiana, and con- sidering Notre Dame's status as one of the premier programs of all time, that sure is saying something. "It's going to be crazy," Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman said. "I can't wait for it. The weather obviously isn't going to give us a huge advantage with them not being too far south from here, but what a great storyline. What a great opportunity it's going to be to have two in-state teams playing each other in the first playoff game on a campus. It's going to be an exciting time and a great game." "I think it's a great game for the state in general for Indiana and Notre Dame to be playing in the College Football Playoff," Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti added. The Fighting Irish and Hoosiers don't have much history between them for two intrastate programs separated by just over three hours down Highway 31 and Interstate 69. This will only be the 30th matchup ever in a series that started with an 11-5 Indiana victory in South Bend in 1898. The Hoosiers have played there 14 times since then. They're 0-14. Notre Dame is like the New York Yan- kees. You either love them or you hate them. There will be plenty of people hate-watching the Irish Dec. 20. Could you imagine the social media backlash Freeman's team would get for being the first Irish team to lose to Indiana in South Bend in 126 years? That's what's at stake. Of course, this isn't about Indiana for Notre Dame, and it isn't about Notre Dame for Indiana. It's about a pair of teams with a combined record of 22-2 that both believe their first-round matchup is simply the start of some- thing special that will transpire over the next month. "We understand that this team has an HOOSIER HURDLE The first-round College Football Playoff matchup between Notre Dame and Indiana is ripe to be an all-time classic Curt Cignetti (right) is the first head coach to ever lead Indiana to double-digit wins in a single season. PHOTO COURTESY INDIANA

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