College Football Playoff - First round takeaways, analysis - ESPN

After years of anticipation, the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff kicked off in South Bend on Friday night with a comfortable Notre Dame win over Indiana.

It was a wild first five minutes, and then Notre Dame slowly pulled away from the Hoosiers. Here are the main takeaways:

Fighting Irish running back Jeremiyah Love erupted for an early 98-yard touchdown, Indiana blew some early scoring chances and, in front of a raucous South Bend crowd in the first CFP first-round home game, Notre Dame did to the Hoosiers what it has done to just about every opponent for the past 11 games: win in the trenches and see out an easy victory.

The MVP (most valuable person) of this one? Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden. He was a step ahead of IU playcaller Mike Shanahan all night. The Irish tested Hoosiers quarterback Kurtis Rourke's patience early, forcing him to read "run" on most RPOs, and after Rourke started poorly (1-for-6 with an interception), they dominated the run the rest of the way. Justice Ellison and Ty Son Lawton combined to rush 21 times for just 71 yards (they had 141 yards on 32 carries against Ohio State), and IU didn't pass 200 yards until the last few minutes of the game. The Hoosiers still drove into Notre Dame territory on four of their first five drives but got just a field goal from it.

Meanwhile, Notre Dame's offense mastered the art of killing time. Riley Leonard completed 23 of 32 passes for only 201 yards, 44 on a single, late completion to Jordan Faison. He otherwise averaged just 7.1 yards per completion, and Notre Dame's rushers averaged just 2.9 yards per carry outside of Love's big burst, but the Irish went 7-for-13 on third downs and just kept controlling the clock. Indiana scored twice to make things respectable, but at worst this one was in the bag for the last 15 minutes.

Indiana was likely one of the 12 best teams in the country, but Notre Dame is one of the eight best. The Irish advance.

Total yards, first three quarters: Notre Dame 302, Indiana 102

Yards per play, first three quarters: Notre Dame 5.8, Indiana 3.6

Third downs: Notre Dame 7-for-13, Indiana 4-for-12

Jeremiyah Love (Notre Dame): 10 combined carries and receptions, 126 yards (12.6 per touch), one touchdown

Jordan Faison (Notre Dame): 10 targets, 7 catches, 89 yards (8.9 per target)

James Carpenter (Indiana): 7 tackles, 2 TFLs, 1 sack, 1 blocked field goal

Jaiden Ausberry and Drayk Bowen (Notre Dame): 5 tackles, 3.5 TFLs, 2 QB hurries

Xavier Watts (Notre Dame): 10 tackles, 0.5 TFL, 1 interception

In retrospect, this one was won by a 1-2 combination in the first five minutes.

1. After an early D'Angelo Ponds interception helped create an Indiana scoring opportunity, IU's Kurtis Rourke misfired on a tight-window throw, and it was picked off by all-world ballhawk Xavier Watts at the Notre Dame 2.

2. On the next play, Love raced for the longest touchdown in CFP history (which also tied for longest play in Notre Dame history).

Per ESPN Analytics, Notre Dame's win probability went from 60% to 83% in those two plays. It passed 90% for good in the last minute of the first half and passed 95% early in the third quarter. The second half was mostly without drama, even when Indiana scored twice late.

Maybe the coolest story in college football came to an end like most Cinderella runs in March Madness do: with a dud performance. It happens. Indiana had some chances to make this interesting early but didn't execute well enough, and Notre Dame applied the sleeper hold.

Cignetti masterfully used the transfer portal to reverse Indiana's fortunes, but the problem with loading up through the portal is that, once you've done it, you have to keep doing it. The Hoosiers' starting quarterback (Rourke), their two leading rushers, seven of their top nine receiving targets, three of their top six linemen and seven of the 11 leading tacklers on defense are seniors. (And that says nothing of players such as junior defensive end Mikail Kamara, who could go pro.) This team made some magical memories, but next season's Hoosier team is going to look very, very different. That doesn't have to be a bad thing, but it's obviously going to be hard for next season's team to reach the same heights.

Make no mistake, though: This was a really good team. The debates always begin the moment an upstart falls: Did they deserve it? Did they just get there because of a weak schedule? Were they frauds all along? We don't have to do that, though. The Hoosiers came into this game ranked 10th in both SP+ and the FPI and will finish the season having beaten every team ranked below them while losing to the two teams above them. They were handed a schedule with Ohio State, both of last season's national title game participants and three other teams that won at least eight games last season. It's not their fault that some of those teams turned out to be duds this season. All the Hoosiers did was win 11 of 12 regular-season games, 10 games by at least 14 points. It was magical, and it lit up Bloomington. That's an awesome story.

Steel yourself for the rock fight of all Sugar Bowl rock fights. Notre Dame now heads to New Orleans for a Jan. 1 battle with a Georgia team that, for all of its inconsistency, is physical as hell. Those missed Indiana tackles that turned 5-yard passes into 9-yard passes? Georgia won't miss as many, and if Riley Leonard averaged 8.7 yards per completion Friday night with the short passes he threw, he might average 5.7 against the Dawgs. Love's burst aside, Notre Dame got away with a lot of nibbling against the Hoosiers, and that's going to be a lot more difficult in the next game.

That said, in Rourke the Irish also just dominated a quarterback who has proven infinitely more than Gunner Stockton to date. All indications are that Georgia will have to start the unproven sophomore after Carson Beck's SEC championship game injury. Stockton subbed in for Beck against Texas and began his game 4-for-5 for 43 yards. But his last 13 pass attempts gained just 15 net yards, including two sacks. Georgia will have had more than three weeks to prepare Stockton for the biggest game of his life, but he's officially the least proven quarterback left in the CFP, and Notre Dame's pass defense -- which came into the Indiana game ranked first in passing success rate allowed, second in pressure rate and fourth in yards allowed per dropback -- certainly looked the part in the first round. Even if the Irish offense isn't doing a ton of damage, Georgia's might not do much either. Here comes one hell of a war of attrition. Notre Dame has opened as a 1.5-point favorite, per ESPN BET.