Collegiate sports are where legends are born and dreams come true.
And the new College Football Playoffs gives us a new chance for a story this season.
Twelve teams are now vying for the elusive title, with the perennial powers having to go through teams that are not often in the national championship dialogue.
We’ve never seen a non-power five conference team win the national championship since the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was instituted in 1998.
BYU was the last team voted national champion in 1984 as a non-power five conference team.
It is unlikely to happen again this year, as Boise State is the lone team not in a power-five, but there’s still plenty of intrigue throughout the underdog listing here.
In college basketball, seemingly every team has a puncher’s chance, and we love following obscure schools’ Cinderella stories to a prolonged run in the March Madness tournament.
You could argue that one team’s run to the playoff is already something out of a storybook.
That is the Indiana Hoosiers, who preseason rated outside the top 50 according to most websites, including No. 89 on CFB Select, the lowest among any team that made the bracket.
Indiana, whose only loss was at Ohio State, has all the makings of a tough out behind a stout defense and dynamic quarterback play from sixth-year senior transfer Kurtis Rourke.
The 6-foot-5, 231 pound senior from Ontario, Canada Rourke manages a solid offense with plenty of help at running back.
Running backs Justice Ellison and Ty Son Lawton are among the more dangerous duos in the country and should makes things tough on defenses, in particular against Notre Dame on Friday night.
Indiana comes into that game as fair underdogs, seven points, in South Bend, Ill.
In freezing cold conditions and one of the better defenses in college football (4.1 yards per play allowed, third best in the FBS), Indiana is a tough matchup for anyone.
The winner of Notre Dame-Indiana takes on Georgia, who is likely to be without starting quarterback Carson Beck after he suffered an elbow injury in the SEC Championship Game win over Texas.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.
Or should we? It’s always fun to dream of the little guy coming up big.
