Who will Notre Dame play next in CFP Quarterfinals? Fighting Irish's opponents after Indiana win explored

The No. 5-ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish defeated the No. 8-ranked Indiana Hoosiers 27-17 in their first-round matchup in the College Football Playoff. It was a dominant win by the Fighting Irish as they jumped out to a 17-3 lead in the first half. As a result, they advanced to the quarterfinals where they will play the No. 2-ranked Georgia Bulldogs.

Who will Notre Dame play in CFP quarterfinals?

The Fighting Irish will play the Georgia Bulldogs in the second round of the College Football Playoff. They have only lost once this season and are riding an 11-game winning streak as they enter this matchup. Conversely, the Bulldogs are coming off a narrow 22-19 win in OT over No. 3-ranked Texas to win the SEC Championship Game. The Bulldogs enter the game on a four-game winning streak.

Who is favored to win Notre Dame vs Georgia?

Georgia and Notre Dame will play in the Sugar Bowl in the final CFP quarterfinal matchup. The game will start at 8:45 p.m. EST on New Year's Day. This is expected to be a close matchup between two strong teams.

According to the sportsbooks, the Bulldogs are consensus -125 favorites to win the game and advance to the semifinals. Conversely, the Fighting Irish are +105 underdogs.

Notre Dame has had an excellent season, only losing once, but it has not had a challenging schedule. Before the win over No. 8-ranked Indiana in the first round of the playoffs, the Fighting Irish had only defeated one other top 25-ranked opponent. They beat No. 22-ranked Army 49-14 on Nov. 23.

Conversely, Georgia has two losses, but both came to strong opponents. They lost to No. 14-ranked Ole Miss and No. 11-ranked Alabama. Despite those losses, they have several wins over top-ranked opponents, including No. 16-ranked Clemson, No. 3-ranked Texas (twice) and No. 7-ranked Tennessee. As a result, the Bulldogs are one of the most battle-tested teams this season and are favored to advance.

College Football Playoff schedule

CFP Quarterfinals:

Fiesta Bowl: Penn State vs Boise State: December 31, 7:30 p.m. EST
Peach Bowl: Texas vs Arizona State: January 1, 1 p.m. EST
Rose Bowl: Ohio State vs Oregon: January 1, 5 p.m. EST
Sugar Bowl: Notre Dame vs Georgia: January 1, 8:45 p.m. EST

CFP Semifinals:

Orange Bowl: January 9, 7:30 p.m. EST
Cotton Bowl: January 10, 7:30 p.m. EST

National Championship:

January 20, 7:30 p.m. EST

About the author

Alexander O'Reilly is a journalist at Sportskeeda from Kingston, Ontario with over seven years in the field at companies including SenShot, RVBlogger, Monarch Media, WordAgents, GSeC LLC, and IGC.

His favorite college team is Duke, and his favorite sporting memory was Duke winning March Madness in 2010. JJ Redick was Alex's favorite college player when he was young but more recently, Caleb Williams gets the nod. As the Chicago Bears are Alex's favorite NFL team, this was a perfect match.

Alex's proudest moment came when he was interviewed by a radio station in Ottawa on his opinion on recent moves by the Ottawa Senators, which gave him a confidence boost and the knowledge that he could succeed as a writer.

Aside from sports, Alex likes to spend his time playing games. He is also very passionate about running and strives to improve at the half and full marathon distances.

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Edited by Rajdeep Barman