Notre Dame -6.5
This based on the eye test. Indiana, when facing extremely athletic teams, struggled. Those teams being Ohio State (loss by 23) and Michigan (won by 5). Ohio State, despite Ryan Day, is a gauntlet of talent. Michigan has phenomenal athletes on defense and if they had a mediocre QB, would probably have beaten the Hoosiers in Bloomington.
Notre Dame has athleticism across the board on offense and defense and will make life extremely difficult for the IU offense. Indiana has an excellent run defense which matches up well with NDs running backs. The X-factor here will be Riley Leonard, who has steadily improved the Irish passing game as he settled into OC Mike Denrock's offense. I looked at the IU-Michigan game because I feel this is a good comparator to team styles. IU did stop Michigan's running attack but gave up more passing yards than rushing yards to their QB of the week Davis Warren. Riley Leonard is 100 times better than Warren and the Irish have fast athletic receivers he can get the ball to that will stretch IUs secondary.
This is IUs Super Bowl, and their motivation will be high. But ND just has too many athletes that will wear down the Hoosiers slowly and methodically. I expect the Irish to pull away in the 4th quarter.
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