Georgia Set to Play Notre Dame in Sugar Bowl After Fighting Irish Handled Indiana
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ATHENS - No. 7 Notre Dame defeated No.10 Indiana 27-17 in the first ever College Football Playoff game on a college campus in the 12-team format.
No. 2 Georgia will face off with Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1 with a spot in the semifinals on the line. This is the third time that the UGA Football program will face off against the Fighting Irish under Kirby Smart and the first time in the postseason since the Sugar Bowl matchup for a title on New Year’s Day 1981.
Georgia earned the automatic bye and berth into the Sugar Bowl with a win over Texas in the SEC Championship. As the No. 2 seed in the playoff, Georgia was awaiting the result of the 7-10 matchup, and that happened to be the first ever 12-team matchup in South Bend.
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In frigid temperatures, Notre Dame took control of the game very early after interceptions were thrown on back-to-back drives by Riley Leonard and Kurtis Rourke. The first few minutes of the game is where all of the entertainment value was.
Leonard had a pass batted at the line of scrimmage and picked off on the Irish’s second play on offense. Indiana then gave up an opportunity to silence the Notre Dame crowd early. The top Hoosier wide receiver Elijah Sarratt secured an outstanding grab to put Indiana in striking distance in the red zone. Indiana, trying to avoid a stoppage of play and an official review on whether or not Sarratt caught the ball, hurried up to the line of scrimmage and rushed a pass play. Rourke threw the ball right back to Notre Dame.
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With the ball on the two-yard line, Leonard handed it off to running back Jeremiah Love who burst through the line of scrimmage and ran right by the Hoosier defense for a 98-yard touchdown 0 the longest touchdown run of the 2024 season. The Fighting Irish never looked back.
Notre Dame controlled this game. The final score is not indicative of how this played out. Notre Dame was up 27-3 with 1:35 left in this game. Indiana scored two touchdowns quickly in the last two minutes, and converted on an onside kick.
Indiana entered the game with the best run defense in the nation statistically. Notre Dame ran for 193 yards, with Love’s big run accounting for over 50% of that production.
This game came down to Rourke’s inaccurate passing in the first half, and Notre Dame dominating in the trenches. Notre Dame boasted the better run defense by a long shot.
Leonard played a pretty clean game outside of the interception on the first drive. He took easy looks and Notre Dame controlled the clock by moving the sticks. Notre Dame really didn’t run the ball all that well, which is the focal point of the offensive attack. The short passing game is what was killer for Indiana’s defense. The Hoosiers did not have an answer and Notre Dame won the time of possession by over 10 minutes.
Notre Dame’s defense dominated Indiana’s offense for the first 57 minutes of the game. It took Indiana that long to find the endzone. This will be a game that the committees of the future may look at and use to reevaluate how they look at strength of schedule. Indiana was no match in either of its games against the playoff caliber teams it played.
Georgia can now hone in on preparing specifically for Notre Dame who certainly could give Georgia some matchup problems with a rushing offense led by Leonard and Love. Georgia’s defense has struggled stopping the run specifically in games against teams with mobile quarterbacks that are a part of the rushing attack. Games against Alabama and Georgia Tech stand out.
Leonard will look to build off of his performance against a Georgia defense with momentum after a standout performance against Texas in the conference title game.
Notre Dame will have very little to go off of in preparing for what Georgia’s offense will look like with Gunner Stockton. The Dawgs likely have an advantage in the scouting department.
Georgia is using the extra time the bye week gave it to prepare for a postseason with a first time starter under center, and it will open the playoff run with a nostalgic college football matchup in the Sugar Bowl.