After years of anticipation, the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff kicked off in South Bend on Friday night with a comfortable Notre Dame win over Indiana.

It was a wild first five minutes, and then Notre Dame slowly pulled away from the Hoosiers. Here are the main takeaways:

Notre Dame 27, Indiana 17

What just happened?

Jeremiyah Love erupted for an early 98-yard touchdown, Indiana blew some early scoring chances, and in front of a raucous South Bend crowd in the first ever CFP first-round home game, Notre Dame did to the Hoosiers what it’s done to just about every opponent for the last 11 games: win in the trenches and see out an easy win.

The MVP (most valuable person) of this one? Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden. He was a step ahead of IU play-caller Mike Shanahan all night. The Irish tested Kurtis Rourke‘s patience early, forcing him to read “run” on most RPOs, and after Rourke started poorly (1-for-6 with an interception), they dominated the run the rest of the way. Justice Ellison and Ty Son Lawton combined to rush 21 times for just 71 yards (they had 141 yards on 32 carries against Ohio State), and IU didn’t pass 200 yards until the last few minutes of the game. The Hoosiers still drove into Notre Dame territory on four of their first five drives but got just a field goal from it.

Meanwhile, Notre Dame’s offense mastered the art of killing time. Riley Leonard completed 23 of 32 passes for only 201 yards, 44 on a single, late completion to Jordan Faison. He otherwise averaged just 7.1 yards per completion, and Notre Dame’s rushers averaged just 2.9 yards per carry outside of Love’s big burst, but the Irish went 7-for-13 on third downs and just kept controlling the clock. Indiana scored twice to make things respectable, but at worst this one was in the bag for the last 15 minutes.

Indiana was likely one of the 12 best teams in the country, but Notre Dame is one of the eight best. The Irish advance.

Key stats

• Total yards, first three quarters: Notre Dame 302, Indiana 102

• Yards per play, first three quarters: Notre Dame 5.8, Indiana 3.6

• Third downs: Notre Dame 7-for-13, Indiana 4-for-12

• Jeremiyah Love (Notre Dame): 10 combined carries and receptions, 126 yards (12.6 per touch), one touchdown

• Jordan Faison (Notre Dame): 10 targets, seven catches, 89 yards (8.9 per target)

• James Carpenter (Indiana): seven tackles, two TFLs, one sack, one blocked field goal

• Jaiden Ausberry and Drayk Bowen (Notre Dame): five tackles, 3.5 TFLs, two QB hurries

• Xavier Watts (Notre Dame): 10 tackles, 0.5 TFL, one interception

Impact plays

In retrospect, this one was won by a 1-2 combination in the first five minutes.

1. After an early D’Angelo Ponds interception helped to create an Indiana scoring opportunity, IU’s Kurtis Rourke misfired on a tight-window throw, and it was picked off by all-world ballhawk Xavier Watts at the Notre Dame 2.

2. On the next play. Love raced for the longest touchdown in CFP history and the tied-longest play in Notre Dame history.

Per ESPN Analytics, Notre Dame’s win probability went from 60% to 83% in those two plays. It passed 90% for good in the last minute of the first half and passed 95% early in the third quarter. The second half was mostly without drama, even when Indiana scored twice late.

See you next fall, Indiana

Maybe the coolest story in college football came to an end like most Cinderella runs in March Madness do: with a dud performance. It happens. Indiana had some chances to make this interesting early on but didn’t execute well enough, and Notre Dame applied the sleeper hold.

Cignetti masterfully utilized the transfer portal to reverse Indiana’s fortunes, but the problem with loading up through the portal is that, once you’ve done it, you have to keep doing it. The Hoosiers’ quarterback (Rourke), their two leading rushers, seven of their top nine receiving targets, three of their top six linemen and seven of the 11 leading tacklers on defense are seniors. (And that says nothing of guys like junior defensive end Mikail Kamara, who could go pro.) This team made some magical memories, but next year’s Hoosier team is going to look very, very different. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but it’s obviously going to be hard for next year’s team to reach the same heights.

Make no mistake, though: This was a really good team. The debates always begin the moment an upstart falls: Did they deserve it? Did they just get there because of a weak schedule? Were they clowns and frauds all along? We don’t have to do that, though. The Hoosiers came into this game ranked 10th in both SP+ and FPI and will finish the season having beaten every team ranked below them while losing to the two teams above them. They were handed a schedule with Ohio State, both of last year’s national title game participants and three other teams that won at least eight games last season. It’s not their fault that some of those teams turned out to be duds this year. All the Hoosiers did was win 11 of 12 regular season games, 10 games by at least 14 points. It was magical, and it lit up Bloomington. That’s an awesome story.

What’s next?

Steel yourself for the rock fight of all Sugar Bowl rock fights. Notre Dame now heads to New Orleans for a Jan. 1 battle with a Georgia team that, for all of its inconsistency, is physical as hell. Those missed Indiana tackles that turned five-yard passes into nine-yard passes? Georgia won’t miss as many, and if Riley Leonard averaged 8.7 yards per completion on Friday night with the short passes he threw, he might average 5.7 against the Dawgs. Love’s burst aside, Notre Dame got away with a lot of nibbling against the Hoosiers, and that’s going to be a lot more difficult in the next game.

That said, in Rourke the Irish also just dominated a quarterback who has proven infinitely more than Gunner Stockton to date. All indications are that Georgia will have to start the unproven sophomore after Carson Beck’s SEC Championship Game injury. Stockton subbed in for Beck against Texas and began his game 4-for-5 for 43 yards. But his last 13 pass attempts gained just 15 net yards, including two sacks. Georgia will have had more than three weeks to prepare Stockton for the biggest game of his life, but he’s officially the least proven quarterback left in the CFP, and Notre Dame’s pass defense, which came into the Indiana game ranked first in passing success rate allowed, second in pressure rate and fourth in yards allowed per dropback, certainly looked the part in the first round. Even if the Irish offense isn’t doing a ton of damage, Georgia’s might not do much either. Here comes one hell of a war of attrition. Notre Dame has opened as a 1.5-point favorite, per ESPN BET.