1st Round CFP – Indiana at Notre Dame
posted December 13
The Game
“And here we go.”
<The Joker>
<The Dark Knight, 2008>
It’s GAME ONE of the expanded College Football Playoff as the Indiana Hoosiers travel to South Bend to battle the Notre Dame Fighting Irish on a Friday night. Indiana (11-1) has been a darling of the college football world this season ** with their only loss coming on the road vs mighty Ohio St (L 38-15). Notre Dame (11-1) suffered an embarrassing loss at the hands of Northern Illinois (!) early in the campaign but they’ve been annihilating virtually everything in their path ever since.
** Congrats SEASON WIN TOTAL CLUB
Let’s goooo!
The Details
Notre Dame -7.5 Indiana (51.5)
MEGALOCKS LINE – Notre Dame -7
“Vegas” Implied Projected Score: Notre Dame 29.5 Indiana 22
Notre Dame offense vs Indiana defense
The Irish have been improving on offense since some struggles early in the campaign and they’ve scored 49/49/35/55/51 in their L5G. They’ve rushed for 200+ yards in each of their L5 contests and QB Riley Leonard is healthy and playing efficiently (66%, 16-5 TD to INT, 721 rush 12 TD). The Irish have an awesome 1-2 RB combo in Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price who are both averaging over 7 (!) YPC so Indiana’s defense is gonna have their hands full. The good news for the Hoosiers is that they’ve been excellent on defense (even when accounting for strength of schedule) and they’ve got the #1 run defense in the nation (71 YPG) and opponents are averaging a mere 2.5 YPC. The Irish have a tough time making big plays in the THROW GAME and they don’t have a single player on the team with more than 500 receiving yards. Leonard is averaging 7.1 YPA and the top-three pass targets are averaging 12.6, 13.3, and 9.4 YPC.
Indiana offense vs Notre Dame defense
The Hoosiers have made a habit of demolishing their opponents this season and the average score in their games this year is 43-15 (!). Indiana does a good job on the ground behind the 1-2 RB pairing of Justice Ellison and Ty Son Lawton and note that QB Kurtis Rourke ** and company have the most efficient passing attack in the nation. Rourke has a deep WR corps led by Elijah Surrat (843, 8 TD) but the one thing to remember is that Rourke has extremely limited mobility so the Irish will know where to find him at all times. Notre Dame has allowed 297 YPG (#9) and whilst their pass defense has been exceptional (#1 pass efficiency defense, 49%, 9-17 TD to INT) their run defense can be a bit soft at times (#51).
** The pride of Oakville, Ontario. Feel free to tour the MEGALOCKS homestead next time you are in the vicinity! Family passes are great value and one tour is not enough!
Trends, Intangibles, and More!
Indiana has played the #74 schedule according to the Sagarin ratings whilst Notre Dame has dealt with the #64 docket…..However, be advised that Indiana has wins over three bowl teams (CORN, Washington, Michigan) and the Irish boast wins over seven bowlers (Texas A&M, Miami Ohio, LUA-VUH, Georgia Tech, Navy, Army, and USC…..If it comes down to a late FG it’s probably bad news for Notre Dame as they’re 8/18 (!) on FG attempts this season and the current PK Mitch Jeter is just 6/12 on FG attempts.
Summary
We believe that Notre Dame will GIT R DONE in this game but don’t see any value in the spread as we approach press time. Our preferred option is the ‘under’ as both teams have legit defenses and Indiana really struggled on offense vs the three best defenses they faced. They only picked up 151 yards vs Ohio St (2.6 YPP!), 246 vs Michigan (4.4 YPP), and 312 vs Washington (Rourke dnp, 4.4 YPP). Also recall that Indiana held mighty Ohio St to just 316 yards of offense and the Buckeyes were gifted seven points and they scored on a PR TD. The long range weather forecast looks fine in terms of temperature so we don’t expect the conditions to be unmanageable. Bottom line – We trust that at least one of these stop units will stand tall.
Conclusion
Official play – Under 51.5 -110
Sent 6:15pm Dec 13
51.5 is consensus.
‘Official play’ means that this is one of our favorite plays of the week (perceived value, match-up, coaching, trends, etc.). We’re currently investing 25% more on these plays vs our ‘leans’. We’ll normally have two or three of these choices per week.
‘Lean’ means that we’re placing a standard size wager on the game. We’ll normally have about ten of these plays per week. Many members prefer to pick and choose amongst these games when finalizing their weekly investment cards so we’ll continue to refer to them as ‘leans’.
‘No leanage’ means that we won’t have any action on the game.
Team totals – We’ll list the implied number based on the point spread and total when our analysis is posted. If a team total ends up being an ‘official play’ we’ll post a widely available number at the time of pick release.