We have officially made it to the quarterfinals of the College Football Playoff! The first round didn’t yield any major upsets, though James Madison gave Oregon a run for their money, at least at times.
The quarterfinals should be a lot more exciting, as each of these teams has a legitimate chance of taking home the title if everything goes their way. We’ve got you covered with our favorite Underdog matchups from these contests, including this battle between Alabama and Indiana.
Indiana is a seven-point favorite here, but with Alabama’s history in the Playoff, it’s anyone’s best guess how this will play out in the end.
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Fernando Mendoza won the Heisman Trophy this year, and for good reason. He is one of the sole reasons for Indiana being undefeated to this point, and he’s looking to put the team on his back in the most important game of the season to date.
Mendoza hasn’t struggled when the lights are the brightest, and we think he’s going to thrive in this win-or-go-home format. Alabama does have a strong defense, but because we’re projecting this to be a shootout, look for Mendoza to do his part in making that happen.
As we just mentioned, we think this is going to be a shootout between two of the nation’s top quarterbacks, and Ty Simpson can hang with the best of them. Simpson is sixth in the country with 3,500 yards on the year, and he’s looking to upset the undefeated giant that is Indiana.
He had 232 yards in the Round 1 matchup against Oklahoma last week but didn’t need to be Superman due to his team’s large lead. That shouldn’t be the case here, so we’re projecting a performance of 250+ yards to cash the over.
While we’re taking the over on Simpson’s passing yards, we’re actually fading Germie Bernard’s receiving total. Simpson likes to spread the ball around, and while Bernard is the team’s leading receiver on the season, he simply can’t be trusted in this spot.
He was only targeted three times against Texas A&M, and it seems unlikely that he’s going to have a larger target share against Indiana, even with a lot of passing attempts from Simpson.