College Football Playoff National Championship Predictions
The time has come for college football’s ultimate prize to be awarded on Monday night, and the Miami Hurricanes will face off against the Indiana Hoosiers—a sentence that would’ve seemed unfathomable to write just 24 months ago. But, here we are, and Curt Cignetti has done as remarkable a coaching job as anyone in the sport’s history with this Hoosiers program. Mario Cristobal and the Hurricanes, on the other hand, have built their roster more traditionally—at least as traditional as it gets in today’s portal and NIL world. Obviously, starting QB Carson Beck is a portal get, but a lot of the roster was signed via recruiting. Indiana is the modern football team, rebuilt each of the last two years via strategic portal additions, although none super splashy in the moment; they didn’t go get a bunch of five stars in the portal, they identified undervalued talent and secured it, leading it to the sport’s biggest stage. So what does my T Shoe Index make of this matchup?
Giving Miami a mere point for “home field advantage” (really, just more of a familiarity and comfort than a true raucous home field crowd, I’d expect), TSI makes Indiana 8-point favorites against the ‘Canes, with a total of 52. Some have claimed this type of projection or line is “disrespectful” to Miami, who dethroned Ohio State in convincing fashion. However, make no mistake about it, Indiana is for real. They just undressed Oregon in the semis after a similar result in the quarterfinals against a loaded Alabama roster.
Hoosier dominance incoming? I was hoping, going into this article, to be able to lay out a plan for both teams to win, based on advantages in certain predictive metrics I use; however, Indiana has the opponent-adjusted advantage in every single category. In opponent-adjusted net yards per play, Indiana projects 7.5 points better. In net points per play, Indiana is 10.5 points better (#1 in the country). In net red zone scoring, Indiana is 7 points better (#1 in the country). In net touchdown rate, Indiana is 11 points better (#1 in the country). In net success rate, Indiana is 8 points better (#1 in the country), and in net EPA, Indiana is 6.5 points better. As far as I can tell, the only path for Miami to really give themselves a chance to win this game is to A) destroy Indiana’s offense line, which is good but not great, and B) Hope Malachi Toney can pop a couple explosive plays. But down to down, the Hoosiers have big advantages across the board, statistically. But that’s why they play the game.
Championship Leans:
Indiana -8.5
Over 47.5
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