Tag: indiana football

Ohio State football defensive coordinator prospect gets new deal with rival Big ten program

Ohio State football, given the exodus of Jim Knowles, is in the hunt for a defensive coordinator. Here’s one name they will miss on.

One name that many thought the Ohio State Buckeyes may target to replace Jim Knowles was Bryant Haines, the defensive coordinator of a well-run Indiana Hoosiers squad.

Matt Zenitz reported that he has finalized a new contract for himself with the Hoosiers. With that, he’ll officially be out of the running for the Buckeyes defensive coordinator position, at least this time around.

Haines has followed Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti for quite a while and jumped with him from James Madison to Indiana. JMU was a top-ten defense under the tutelage of Haines, and the Hoosiers were elite on that side of the ball this past season as well.

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That’s one key reason why many thought Haines would have made a good fit under head coach Ryan Day in Columbus. However, his plans seem to be made up, and he’s going to be staying put.

Expect Ohio State to look at other names like Luke Fickell, Mike Vrabel or the slew of NFL names that Day has ties to as they start their search for Knowles’ replacement.

PFF: Wisconsin transfer among top 10 offensive linemen in college football

PFF: Wisconsin transfer among top 10 linemen in college football

Former Wisconsin offensive lineman Trey Wedig finished the 2024 season among Pro Football Focus’ highest-graded players at his position.

Wedig, who is scheduled to play in the East-West Shrine Bowl on Jan. 30, received an 85.7 PFF grade. Only Utah’s Spencer Fano (92.8), Missouri’s Wyatt Milum (91.7), Missouri’s Armand Membou (90.4), Iowa’s Gennings Dunker (90.2), Texas’ Kelvin Banks Jr. (88.0) and Rutgers’ Hollin Pierce (86.4) earned higher marks than the former Badger.

Wedig and fellow Wisconsin transfer Drew Evans were big parts of an Indiana offensive line that was named a finalist for the 2024 Joe Moore Award. Bob Bostad, Wisconsin’s longtime inside linebackers and offensive line coach, coaches the position for Indiana.

Before transferring to Indiana, Wedig played in 35 career games over four seasons at Wisconsin. He was the program’s most versatile lineman, with starts at right tackle, right guard and left guard. 2022 was the best of his four seasons with the Badgers. He started eight games: five at right tackle, two at right guard and one at left guard.

The Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, native transferred to Indiana following the 2023 campaign. The returns of Wisconsin starting tackles Jack Nelson (left) and Riley Mahlman (right) likely played a big role in that decision.

Wedig enjoyed a career year in 2024, helping Indiana to rush for nearly 2,500 yards and reach the end zone 37 times. The team was one of the top stories in college football, finishing 11-2 after making a College Football Playoff appearance.

The standout tackle is projected to be a late-round selection in the NFL draft.

Former Wisconsin offensive linemen accepts invite to postseason all-star game

Former Wisconsin offensive linemen accepts invite to postseason all-star game

Former Wisconsin and current Indiana offensive tackle Trey Wedig accepted an invitation to play in the 2025 East-West Shrine Bowl on Thursday.

The UW alumnus, who last played in Indiana’s College Football Playoff loss to Notre Dame, is among nearly 100 of college football’s most prolific upperclassmen to accept an invitation to the contest. In 2024, Wedig proved to be one of PFF’s highest-graded tackles in the Big Ten and helped the Hoosiers’ offensive line earn a nod as a finalist for the 2024 Joe Moore Award.

Before his stint at Indiana, Wedig appeared in 35 career games over four seasons at Wisconsin. He showcased his versatility throughout his tenure, especially during the 2022 campaign when he started five games at right tackle, two at right guard and one at left guard.

Wedig elected to transfer following the 2023 season as the Badgers returned established starters Jack Nelson (left tackle) and Riley Mahlman (right tackle). The move paid off. Wedig had a career year in 2024 and will now play tackle in front of hundreds of scouts in one of the most prestigious All-Star games of the college football postseason, working to raise his stock before the 2025 NFL draft.

Staged in Dallas, Texas on Jan. 30, 2025, this year’s Shrine Bowl game will be the 100th installment of the event.

USC fans dream of better days as Notre Dame hosts, wins playoff game

The misery of USC football is self-evident on its own terms, but that misery was magnified when Notre Dame hosted and won a playoff game on Friday night.

Friday night was a historic one for the sport of college football. It marked the first ever game of the new 12-team College Football Playoff.

Under the new format, first round games will be played on college campuses. Throughout the sport, fans and analysts took to social media to celebrate how amazing it was having a playoff game in front of 80,000 screaming fans in a historic venue, as opposed to in a generic NFL dome.

Unfortunately for USC fans, the team that got to host the first ever on-campus playoff game was their hated for Notre Dame. After defeating USC 49-35 to finish off an 11-1 regular season, the Irish secured the No. 7 seed in the playoff and a first round home game.

In front of a raucous Notre Dame Stadium crowd, the Irish defeated No. 10 seed Indiana 27-17. Now, Notre Dame moves on to the quarterfinals, where they will face No. 2 seed Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.

Watching the game, USC fans could not help but dream of a College Football Playoff game at the Coliseum. But instead, the Trojans are related to a mid-tier bowl game, while their archrivals got to enjoy the spotlight.

Indiana absolutely deserved its College Football Playoff spot, and arguing otherwise is revisionist nonsense

Pointing to the result of the Notre Dame-Indiana game as evidence the Hoosiers shouldn’t have been in the CFP is a weak argument at best.

You could see the potential for ridiculous arguments coming before kickoff in South Bend on Friday night. You could see it really brewing when Notre Dame went up 14-0 over Indiana in the College Football Playoff first round, and it was out in full force when the Fighting Irish took a 27-3 lead in the fourth quarter.

The arguments that Indiana didn’t deserve its No. 10 seed playoff spot were abundant after the Hoosiers’ 27-17 first-round loss, subtly from folks like Lane Kiffin and more bluntly from Kirk Herbstreit on College GameDay on Saturday. They’re all preposterous.

Indiana absolutely deserved its College Football Playoff berth, and pointing to the result of the game as evidence to the opposition is a weak argument at best because what happens in the playoff isn’t necessarily an indictment on which teams earned their way in.

If you’re really anti-Hoosiers in this year’s playoff, you could yell about how they hadn’t played anybody. You could argue their strength of schedule wasn’t particularly impressive with wins over Nebraska, Maryland and Washington. You could point to their only regular-season loss being an embarrassing one to Ohio State or how Indiana wasn’t in Big Ten title contention late in the season.

But claiming the Hoosiers didn’t deserve to be there because you didn’t like the result of the Notre Dame game is a hindsight logical fallacy. Stop acting like there have never been blowouts or ugly playoff games and pretending it would be different with more SEC teams in the field.

Indiana played the schedule it had. It was dominant through the vast majority of it and put up style points where it could. It clearly caught the attention of the College Football Playoff committee, which placed the Hoosiers at No. 8 in the debut rankings when they were 9-0. Even after a 23-point loss to the Buckeyes, the committee dropped Indiana just five spots to No. 10.

As the season approached Selection Sunday, 11-1 Indiana wasn’t playing for a conference championship, but the Hoosiers’ playoff resume wasn’t even a debate. Their resume wasn’t being evaluated with the other teams’ in contention for an at-large bid. It was all about SMU and Alabama and South Carolina.

Indiana was a given in the 12-team field, like most, if not all, 11-win Power Four teams would be in the same situation.

Now, whatever version of Curt Cignetti and the Hoosiers that showed up in South Bend on Friday is a different story. This was not the same aggressive team we saw all season and instead looked like a team playing not to lose, which is the perfect recipe for losing, with or without a couple garbage-time touchdowns that make the score inaccurately reflect the game.

Let’s not forget: There’s almost always a blowout or ugly CFP game, whether we’re talking four or 12 teams, and the results don’t invalidate what a team did to get there.

Here’s what I noted three years ago while similarly defending Cincinnati, despite its 21-point loss to Alabama:

At least they scored points on Alabama, unlike Michigan State against the Crimson Tide in the 2015-16 playoff or Ohio State against Clemson in the 2016-17 season. At least they didn’t lose by 35 or more points, like Oklahoma did to LSU (63-28) in the 2019-20 semifinal, or like Florida State did against Oregon (59-20) in the inaugural 2014-15 playoff.

Indiana’s magical season is over, and it ended in particularly disappointing fashion. But you can’t present a revisionist version of history and playoff resumes to argue it was a mistake to include the Hoosiers. They earned their spot, and their game was ugly, just like many playoff-deserving teams before them.

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Kirk Herbstreit’s argument against Indiana making the College Football Playoff is so weak

It’s easy to make Kirk Herbstreit’s argument here with hindsight.

It’s no secret that Indiana got outworked against Notre Dame in the first round of the 2024 College Football Playoff on Friday evening in South Bend.

Since the Hoosiers got their butts kicked like they did, hindsight starts to creep in and the detractors start wondering why [Insert Marquee College Football Team Here] didn’t get Indiana’s spot instead in the 12-team field.

Hindsight is very easy when you have a result to make your case, as ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit did on College GameDay to decry Indiana’s playoff placement over what he feels are better teams with more losses.

“Indiana was outclassed in that game,” Herbstreit said. “It was not a team that should’ve been on that field when you consider other teams that could’ve been there.”

It’s easy to say this now with the Indiana result what it is, but what if the Hoosiers took the Irish to task on Friday? Nobody would be wanting Indiana sitting at home in that scenario.

That’s the problem with trying to play semantics after the final whistle; it gives you ammunition to make the point you put in your back pocket before the game even happened.

If Alabama, Ole Miss and the like wanted to make the College Football Playoff this year, they shouldn’t have lost as many games as they did. An 11-win team like Indiana shouldn’t be punished on subjective balancing on who the “better” team is. Let the record set it straight and go from there.

Indiana face-planting in the first round doesn’t mean it shouldn’t have been there. It just means it didn’t take advantage of what it had. That’s football for you; the ball just doesn’t bounce your way sometimes. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t have bounced in the first place.

Herbstreit is going to make this argument because it’s how that class of analysts will always view college football, but it doesn’t make him right.

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Notre Dame’s radio call of Jeremiyah Love’s 98-yard CFP touchdown run was so electric

Jeremiyah Love’s touchdown run was eye-popping, and the call from Tony Simeone on Notre Dame radio matched the energy.

After a pair of interceptions from Notre Dame’s Riley Leonard and Indiana’s Kurtis Rourke to start Friday night’s College Football Playoff first-round matchup, the Fighting Irish struck first in the opening quarter.

Pinned down to their own two-yard line, star running back Jeremiyah Love took a handoff to the left side and beat the entire Hoosiers defense to the edge. They tried in vain to chase him down, but 98 yards later, Love found paydirt to give Notre Dame the early 7-0 lead.

The play, which alone accounted for more than 10% of the rushing yards the Hoosiers have allowed on the season, was absolutely electric. And the call on The Notre Dame Radio Network from Tony Simeone was perhaps even more electric.

The first quarter of the inaugural on-campus College Football Playoff game featured some ugliness on both sides, but Love came through for his team to give it the lead with what could already be one of the best plays we see in the entire postseason.

College football fans loved Nick Saban’s Indiana Jones-esque hat on GameDay at Notre Dame

Everyone had plenty of “Alabama Jones” jokes for Nick Saban’s hat.

Since retiring from coaching college football, Nick Saban has been a delightful addition to ESPN’s College GameDay, and he’s showing off a side of his personality most people rarely got to see before.

He swears on air regularly, he roasted himself after Miss Terry beat his weekly picks, he’s honest about the College Football Playoff, he dressed up in the Nittany Lions mascot costume and he’s overall engaging to watch. And, of course, he still has plenty of critical thoughts for Alabama football.

For the first round of the College Football Playoff, GameDay is in two places: South Bend on Friday for the Indiana-Notre Dame game and then Columbus on Saturday ahead of the Tennessee-Ohio State game.

It was freezing, literally, at Notre Dame on Friday, so it’s no surprise that the GameDay crew was bundled up, which included Saban wearing an Indiana Jones-esque hat.

The GameDay crew and college football fans both at the ESPN set and online loved Saban’s look for the most part, and a few had some pretty solid jokes about what the former Alabama coach looked like, beyond Indiana Jones.

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Who does Georgia match up better with: Indiana or Notre Dame?

Which team matches up with Georgia football better? Notre Dame or Indiana

The College Football Playoff kicks off this week and the first game will determine Georgia’s opponent in their quarterfinal matchup. The Indiana Hoosiers will take a short trip to South Bend to face the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, with the winner advancing to meet Georgia in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. So, who would be the better matchup for the Bulldogs?

For starters, Kirby Smart has a 2-0 record against Notre Dame during his tenure at Georgia. The Bulldogs defeated the Fighting Irish in South Bend in 2017 and again in Athens in 2019. However, those wins came before Marcus Freeman took over as Notre Dame’s head coach, so this would be an unfamiliar territory for Smart and Georgia.

With Gunner Stockton starting at quarterback for Georgia, the key factor will be how the Bulldogs’ rushing attack matches up against the opposing defense. Notre Dame boasts a strong defense, particularly in the secondary, but their defensive line lacks interior size compared to the nation’s best. Even though Georgia might feel confident about its chances against Notre Dame, Indiana seems like the more favorable opponent.

The Hoosiers have struggled against teams of Georgia’s caliber, as shown when Ohio State won convincingly against them earlier this season. Indiana has also had difficulty running the ball against top-tier opponents, which forces them into a one-dimensional passing offense. While their passing game has had some success this year, it hasn’t been enough to carry them in tough matchups.

On paper, both Notre Dame and Indiana offer intriguing matchups for Georgia and should provide an entertaining game. However, if Bulldogs fans had to choose, Indiana seems like the better team to face in the Sugar Bowl quarterfinals.

How Notre Dame and Indiana football compare

Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images
  Notre Dame Indiana
College Football Playoff ranking 5 8
Record 11-1 11-1
Strength of schedule 59 67
Points per game 39.8 43.3
Points allowed per game 13.6 14.7
Ranked wins 1 0
FPI ranking 2 10
Total yards per game 421.3 438.8
Yards allowed per game 296.8 244.8

1 snowy Notre Dame Stadium photo shows how treacherous the playoff game could be

It could be a snowy, freezing playoff game for Notre Dame and Indiana.

The first first-round game of the 12-team College Football Playoff is set for Friday at Notre Dame Stadium, and it certainly looks like it’s going to be a chilly game — to put it lightly.

The current forecast for the Notre Dame-Indiana playoff game in South Bend at 8 p.m. ET Friday is projected to be 28 degrees Fahrenheit with the temperature set to drop as the night continues, per The Weather Channel. And the lowest temperatures could reach -5.

There’s only a 15 percent chance of snow and precipitation, but the game could still be a snowy mess — something the Fighting Irish are preparing for.

Ahead of Friday night’s game, the Notre Dame social media folks shared a beautiful but snowy photo of the stadium, which is covered in a blanket of snow with the lines on the field barely visible.

The high in South Bend on Friday is 33 degrees, and it’s possible between stadium crews could have this cleared out before kickoff. But we’re kind of hoping the first playoff game in the 12-team era is a chilly Midwestern treat.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL TURNOVER:

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