Sugar Bowl bound: Notre Dame dominates Indiana in the first round of the College Football Playoff

There’s something heart-stopping about when nearly 80,000 people, regardless of what color they’re wearing, know a player is going to score before he even gets across midfield. Heck, before he even gets to his own 25. A sold-out College Football Playoff crowd at Notre Dame Stadium shared that type of moment Friday night.

Jeremiyah Love began with his feet in his own end zone. Fewer than 15 seconds later, his feet were in Indian’s end zone.

Love’s 98-yard touchdown is the longest rushing play in all of college football this season. It’s tied for the longest rushing play in Notre Dame history. It’s the longest rushing touchdown in College Football Playoff history.

And it was the early-game moment that reaffirmed what most spectators watching in person or on ABC/ESPN thought about the monumental intrastate matchup going in; Notre Dame is the better team. Notre Dame should win. That’s exactly what happened.

Notre Dame 27, Indiana 17 in a game that wasn’t as close as the final score hints.

It’s on to No. 2 Georgia in the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day night for head coach Marcus Freeman and his Fighting Irish. First things first, though.

“I want them not to look past tonight,” Freeman said. “Celebrate tonight. Celebrate this victory that they worked tremendously hard to achieve and obtain.”

Love’s touchdown might not have even been his best run of the night. He had one late in the third quarter in which he ran to the sideline with no angle whatsoever and two Hoosiers in hot pursuit. He violently stiff-armed one, knocking him to the turf, and stepped through an attempted tackle from the other. First down on a play he had no business even gaining positive yardage.

Indiana being in position to take Love down was actually indicative of how the Hoosiers’ No. 1 FBS rushing defense fared for most of the night. Love only finished with 108 yards on 8 carries, most of the yards obviously coming on the long score. Junior tailback Jadarian Price was bottled up for 32 yards on 11 carries. Senior quarterback Riley Leonard went for 30 yards on 11 attempts. As a team, Notre Dame ran for just shy of 200. Again, so much of that coming on one play.

“You had to claw and scratch for every yard you got, and they battled, and they battled, and they battled, and they battled,” Freeman said.

Leonard completed 23 of 32 pass attempts for 201 yards with 1 touchdown and 1 interception. Modest numbers carried by a 46-yard step-up dime to Jordan Faison to get the Irish to the one-yard line with just over six minutes left in the fourth quarter. Modest, though, was good enough because the Notre Dame defense was even better than that of Indiana.

Hoosiers graduate senior quarterback Kurtis Rourke didn’t look comfortable until it was too late. Welcome to the club. That’s what this Irish defense has done to opposing QBs all season. This was no different.

Rourke was 20 of 33 for 215 yards with 2 touchdown and 1 interception, over 100 of those yards coming on Indiana’s two inconsequential touchdown drives late in the fourth quarter. It was who other than graduate senior safety and back-to-back Consensus All-American Xavier Watts who picked him off.

“He just attacked, executed and finished no matter what,” Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden said.

Watts was the best football player in the game. Even better than Love. He led Notre Dame with 10 total tackles, many of which were made in situations that broke the will of the Hoosiers. When it feels like there are five No. 0s on the field at once, there isn’t much you can do.

Watts was Watts.

“At the end of the day, it’s just regular football,” Watts said. “Obviously it’s got the playoff tag with it, but it’s just a regular football game to me. I go out there with the utmost confidence in myself and my teammates that we’re going to go out there and do our jobs.”

Indiana ended up with 278 total yards and an average of 4.6 yards per play, including a meager 2.3 yards per rush. The Irish won up front. Won at every level, quite frankly. They were better. Are better. And now they get to see if they can say the same against the class of college football lately in the Bulldogs from Athens.