Don't let the final score of the Notre Dame and Indiana game fool you, this game was not close at all. The 7-seed Irish beat 10-seed Indiana on Friday night 27-17, but the game was not as close as the final score indicates.
Notre Dame was up 27-3 late in the fourth quarter and had all of their backups in the game. That's when Indiana finally decided to show up and score their first touchdown of the game before getting an onside kick and scoring on Notre Dame's backups again. So don't let the final score trick you, this game was a blowout.
And it's a shame that the first 12-team College Football Playoff game was a blowout, because the expanded 12-team format was supposed to create more exciting first round games. Unfortunately for the first game in this new era of college football, that was not the case.
Social media was very active throughout this game, and the biggest talking point was how Indiana is proving that they did not deserve to be in this game. And it's hard to argue against that because everyone sees that teams like Alabama, South Carolina, Ole Miss and maybe even Miami (FL) would have put up a better fight than Indiana did. But unfortunately for the college football world, the CFP committee did not see it that way.
But the committee should be embarrassed after this game for one big reason.
Strength of schedule matters
All season long, the CFP committee told us that strength of schedule does matter, but their actions in their rankings did not back that up. Take Georgia football for example, who dropped nine spots after losing to a ranked Ole Miss team on the road earlier this season. That big of a drop made no sense, especially after Miami lost to a worse team that seem week and didn't fall nearly as far.
Strength of schedule was the main reason why people felt teams like Alabama and Ole Miss should have been in the playoff over teams like SMU and Indiana, who arguably only found their way into the playoff because their schedule was very easy. In fact, both teams don't even have a top 25 win on their resume this season, now that just makes it seem wild that they were included.
But this first CFP game shows that strength of schedule does matter. Many people thought that Indiana did not belong because of their easy schedule, and those people were proven right because Indiana didn't even look like a top 25 team, let alone a top 12 team during this game.
So hopefully the committee is taking notes for next season, because sometimes the most deserving teams should be left out for the teams that everyone knows is better.