IU Bloomington Hoosiers vs Notre Dame Fighting Irish Prediction & Picks - NCAA

Prediction published on 12/18/24, 8:00 PM  by Travis Pulver in NCAA Picks

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish get to host the first college football playoff game in the CFP’s new 12-team bracket. Another team from the Hoosier State is their opponent for this historic game, a school just a couple hundred miles away in Indiana. The action gets underway on Friday, Dec. 20, at 8 p.m. ET. ABC will broadcast the game. It will be just the 29th meeting between these two institutions since they first played in 1898 and the first since 1991. Not surprisingly, Notre Dame has dominated the traditional basketball school (Indiana) 23-5-1. But with the arrival of new head coach Curt Cignetti this season, something crazy has happened—Indiana has morphed into a football school.

While the strength of their schedule is questionable, the Hoosiers have been dominant on both sides of the ball this season (No. 2 scoring offense in the country—40.3 ppg; No. 6 defense—15.7 ppg allowed). However, Notre Dame posted similar stats this season, ranking just behind Indiana in scoring offense (No. 3- 39.8) and slightly better on defense (No. 3—13.6 ppg allowed). Notre Dame will likely lean hard on their run game (No. 11—224.8 ypg) to keep the IU offense and quarterback Kurtis Rourke off the field. Indiana may try to lean on Rourke and the passing game to get out to an early lead on the Fighting Irish and hopefully force them to abandon the run.

But that will not be easy against Notre Dame’s No. 3 pass defense.