CFP Round 1 Data Review: Notre Dame VS Indiana Hoosiers

The data story coming out of Notre Dame’s 27-17 Round 1 win over Indiana.

Step 1 Complete.

Notre Dame pulled out a good looking win over Indiana to clinch the first CFP victory in the 12-team format. The Irish increase their 2024 record to 12-1 but most importantly have punched a ticket to my hometown for the Sugar Bowl. They’ll face off against Georgia then but let’s dig through the data crates from the Round 1 game in the meantime.

Scoring Summary

The game’s final score was 27-17 in favor of the Irish. Notre Dame was the only team to score in the 1^st quarter and then went 10-3 in the 2^nd quarter. Things slowed down in the second half with ND outpointing IU 3-0 in the 3^rd quarter but finishing off the game with a 7-14 scoring deficit.

Drive Summary

The Notre Dame defense gave Indiana’s offense hell from the first chance they got but the college football fates were a bit kinder to the Hoosiers in the 2^nd half. The Xavier Watts’ interception on their first drive was a gut punch that they didn’t recover from until way too late. They knocked in a field goal late in the 2^nd quarter but didn’t find the end zone until the game’s last two drives. I acknowledge it’s a thing but at this point in the game I was so hyped up that I can’t even tell you the circumstances surrounding those two scores.

It wasn’t the best stats day for the Irish offense. The interception on the 1^st drive just about gave me a conniption on my couch and I admittedly was playing through nightmare scenarios. But this season’s unanimous team MVP Watts did what he does and put the Irish in position to string together back-to-back touchdown drives.

The first can’t even really be considered a drive because Jeremiyah Love took a first play hand-off around the 10:57 mark and ran for 98 yards to the end zone. On that second one the Irish got off 16 plays for 83 yards. Mitch Jeter ended up going two for three in the game and that’s something to thumb up, considering the recent history and brick temperature out there. Later on in the fourth quarter Notre Dame officially sealed the deal with a 9-play 78-yard touchdown drive.

Third Down Summary

Both teams ended up with about the same number of third downs but ND made better use of their conversion opportunities. They converted 7/13, compared with 4/12 for IU.

Offensive Summary

Notre Dame accounted for close to 57% of the game’s total offensive production. They finished with 394 yards of total offense, compared with 278 for Indiana.

The Hoosiers had the slight edge in passing and recorded 215 yards through the air while the Irish had 201 yards. But on the rushing side it was all Notre Dame. The home team tallied up 75% of the games total production on the ground, and out rushed Indiana 193 to 63.

Passing Details

Although it didn’t feel like it in the moment and it wasn’t what I was expecting going into this thing, Notre Dame and Indiana finished with basically the same number of passing attempts. IU hade 34 and ND had 32. Riley Leonard completed 55% of his attempts while Kurtis Rourke finished with a 45% completion rate. Both teams recorded 6.3 yards per passing completion.

Rushing Details

Notre Dame’s final time of possession was 35:43 and they had 35 rushing attempts, compared with 27 for Indiana. The Irish’s overall rushing efficiency was 5.5 yards per carry but the Hoosiers only averaged 2.3 yards per carry.

Notre Dame Roster: Receiving

One of Jordan Faison’s big legacies in South Bend will be showing up in the postseason. His best statistical perfomance up to this point was last year’s bowl game against Oregon State and he outdid himself in this Round 1 game. Faison finished with seven catches and 44%, 89, of the Irish’s total receiving yards. Jayden Thomas pulled in the sole touchdown through the air. The receiving game was mostly about spreading the wealth and folks getting in where they fit in.

Notre Dame Roster: Rushing

It was a dominating performance by Jeremiyah Love, and he proved it without taking up too much time. Love had 56% of Notre Dame’s total rushing yards and finished with 108 on eight carries.

The 98-yard TD run needs to be called out again here but all of the non quant stuff is what makes a lot of the data, especially the rushing stats, coming out of this win kind of weird.

Sure, the production could’ve been distributed better but it doesn’t really matter, especially now that were in the 4-game playoff scenario.

Notre Dame Roster: Defense

The Irish safeties were the backbone of an extremely solid defense unit against Indiana. The group accounted for 45% of the team’s total tackles and Xavier Watts pulled in the clutch interception. Senior linebacker Jack Kaiser finished with five total tackles.

Jordan Clark had one tackle for loss and Watts had 0.5. Jaiden Ausberry led the linebacker group with 2 tackles for loss while Drayk Bowen had 1.5 and Jaylen Sneed had one. Of the defensive linemen, Rylie Mills, Loghan Thomas, Joshua Burnham and Bryce Young each had one tackle for loss. Mills, Thomas and Young also held equal shares of the team’s three sack pie.

Final Thoughts

We’re in completely uncharted waters.

On January 1^st, Notre Dame will be walking into their fifth Sugar Bowl appearance but there’s not much about the circumstances surrounding this game that’ll be similar to past editions. I honestly don’t even know how applicable the big data insights from this game will be. The Irish have played teams all across the spectrum since Week 2, with ridiculously different strength-weakness combos, and still found their way to wins.

Let’s keep it going and I’ll see y’all in New Orleans for New Years.

Cheers and Go Irish!!