Notre Dame’s crazy home win proves what college football brass doesn’t want to hear: The postseason belongs on campus

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — There is a lot wrong with college football.

You’ve heard the complaints, the complaints and the grumbles. The transfer portal and NIL. Unreasonable resource shortages and an unregulated compensation system.

There are many things to complain about, annoying problems to investigate, problems to solve.

But Friday night was not one of them.

From snowy northern Indiana, amid frigid temperatures in a capacity 94-year-old stadium, college football — the entity whose off-field engine sputters — delivered spectacular history to millions across the country: an on-campus playoff game.

Lovely. Fantastic. Amazing.

Roaring crowds. Marching bands. College kids.

The Golden Dome. Touchdown Jesus. The Linebacker Lounge.

Let the record show that in the first ever game of the 12-team College Football Playoff, seventh-seeded Notre Dame beat 10th-seeded Indiana, 27-17, in front of a rabid home crowd in the middle of a packed campus.

This is where the college football postseason belongs. This is where college football lives, where it thrives. It was born in this place on a sprawling campus as an after-school activity (it’s true) for athletic students. And just because the sport’s popularity turned it into a billion-dollar business, just because federal judges and state legislatures are turning it into a more professional entity, doesn’t mean college football should lose the greatest gift it gives: college.

It’s in the name, for crying out loud. College football on college campuses in College Football Playoff games. What an innovative thought!

Notre Dame even moved up final exams a day so students could spend their Thursday night and Friday afternoon cramming before the big game. They obliged. This writer witnessed many of them downing $7, 32-ounce Bud Lights at the city’s famed Linebacker Lounge.

This place was teeming even though it was frozen.

At 7 a.m. Friday, 13 hours before kickoff, dozens of vehicles formed a line to gain access to the campus. At noon the tailgaters pitched tents. They smoked marinated meat and chugged Miller High Lifes. They high-fived, bear-hugged and petted for warmth.

In the school’s basketball arena, athletic director Pete Bevacqua gestured out his office window as fans paraded through the snow. Maybe, he half-jokingly suggested, it’s not so bad that Notre Dame — in this playoff format — isn’t eligible as an independent for a first-round bye.

“We’ll take the home game,” he smiled.

This is it. That’s what it’s all about. This is glorious.

We have never seen this before – a true college football postseason clash on a college campus. How many years were wasted? How many seasons have now passed? We could have had it so much sooner.

The NFL, their big stadiums, their big cities, their subways, have nothing on this. Sure, the Irish and Hoosiers got a dud on the field — the highlight being running back Jeremiah Love’s first-quarter, 98-yard touchdown run. But the atmosphere, the wintry weather, the whole thing – it’s there, it’s there.

And we get three more on Saturday! First in State College, where the wind chill is expected to dip into the low teens for Penn State vs. SMU. And then Austin, where the SEC’s newbie Longhorns meet ACC power Clemson under sunny skies. And then finally in Columbus, where the Big Ten and SEC juggernauts square off in 20-degree temperatures for Ohio State vs. Tennessee.

Maybe they’ll make more of a nail-biting show.

The Irish did to Indiana what Ohio State did last month — suffocating the Hoosiers’ high-powered offense with a mix of coverages and pressure. They rattled quarterback Kurtis Rourke and held him to less than 180 yards passing. They made IU look like a bunch of five-guy groups winding through one of the easiest roads for any playoff team.

Their coach also seemed out of his element. It was a somewhat mystifying game plan from Curt Cignetti, the smooth-talking man who has coached all season as he speaks: bold and brash. Not Friday. Running on third-and-long? Fair catch kickoffs? Pointing near midfield down 17 points in the fourth quarter?

Notre Dame emphatically crushed the Hoosiers’ magical run, not surrendering a touchdown until 87 seconds remained on the clock. The Irish capped off Cignetti’s stellar first season, winning an 11th straight since the baffling home loss to Northern Illinois. They crushed and beat their in-state rival in a most unexpected meeting – two schools three hours apart that haven’t played since 1991.

They did it all in front of a roaring crowd, most of whom stayed until the bitter, cool end despite a boring blowout (Notre Dame had leads of 20-3 and 27-3 in the second half).

“I’ve never been a part of an environment like that,” Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman said.

The Jumbotron flashed its typical home game antics. A singing gerbil in a leprechaun hat wooed the audience at one point. A priest with a microphone—yes, a priest—turned up “Mo Bamba.” And Jerome Bettis – the bus! — fired up the fans in a speech on the field at halftime.

It all came down to an athletic director publicly wondering why his own playoff team doesn’t get the opportunity to host a game.

“Watching this Notre Dame game at home …” Boise State athletic director Jeramiah Dickey tweeted. “A game on BLUE would be elite.”

Indeed, it would.

But the quarterfinals are not played at on-campus venues, but at bowling alleys in major cities and three of them at indoor stadiums. This also applies to the semi-finals.

In a world of so many opt-outs and coaching changes, the future of the bowl structure remains an unclear and uncertain subject. But the future locations of playoff games? This weekend can show us that they belong on campus.

However, it is not that simple. The college leaders are faced with a delicate balance. There is history and tradition to preserve, rightly so. Bowl games are one of the hallmarks of the industry, the stuff of college football’s tightly knit sweater.

When college football struggled financially (there was a time), it was bowl games that provided a platform and finances. They should not be pushed aside.

The 10 FBS conferences have entered into agreements with the six bowl games for the future of the CFP, which runs through the 2031 playoffs. However, these deals have yet to be executed and signed after the 2025 playoffs. Change is on the horizon for the playoff formatbut should changes also be on the horizon for playoff spots?

Shirtless student shivering in the cold? A snowy campus? Those $7 beers? This is where it is.

“It’s crazy,” Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard said as he looked out over the stadium. “Special place.”

History was made here. We will always remember it.

It was the unlikely culmination of a nearly 50-year effort to host a multi-round College Football Playoff — an industry where the postseason has been monopolized by the bowl structure and limited by the academic calendar.

At least five times since 1976, college football executives and the NCAA have not approved such an expanded playoff. Since this particular format was introduced, it took more than three years to manifest it in this glorious performance on campus with one of the format’s leading architects present. Former Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, who retired last spring, attended his first Irish game this season and saw a dream realized before him.

He was part of one four-member committee that created the format in 2021 and was decisive for a central compromise in the proposal. He agreed to a deal that made Notre Dame ineligible for a first-round bye — a trade-off for the school, as an independent, not having to compete in a conference championship game.

The price this year? A home game expected to generate $40 million in economic impact to the South Bend area. And it also came with snow. Storms began falling on the night of the game Thursday night, blanketing the school’s campus in a blanket of white.

Bundled in their overcoats, ski hoods and woolen mittens, fans poured into Notre Dame Stadium as the gates opened 90 minutes before kickoff. Almost every seat was filled in time for venue announcer Chris Ackles to beam to the chilly crowd: “Welcome to Notre Dame Stadium,” he said before pausing. “And welcome to the College Football Playoff!”

By the time kickoff came, temperatures dropped below freezing. It was 27 degrees at the start with a wind chill of 19.

It didn’t matter to the Golden Domers. More than 77,000 arrived here despite ticket prices soaring into the four figures when the field was announced two weeks ago.

It is heading for a much warmer climate now. The Irish (12-1) get SEC champion Georgia (11-2) — likely to be without its starting quarterback — in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. The quarter-final game starts on New Year’s Eve – in a closed, temperature-controlled environment in a big city kilometers from the participants’ own campuses.