College Football Playoff: Joel Klatt's CFP predictions

The first round of the 2024-25 College Football Playoff takes place this weekend. Before the games begin, I wanted to pick each of the first-round matchups and share my bracket for the inaugural edition of the expanded 12-team playoff.

You might want to take my advice as well, as I went 4-1 in my picks against the spread during conference championship weekend on "The Joel Klatt Show," bringing my record to 49-30 (62%) for the season. I also gave out that Colorado two-way star Travis Hunter's 60-1 Heisman pick before the season, so it's been a good year.

That said, let's take a more in-depth look at the first-round tilts before picking the rest of the bracket!

No. 10 Indiana (+7.5) vs. No. 7 Notre Dame (Friday, 8 p.m. ET)

Indiana failed its first tough road test at Columbus, losing 38-15 to Ohio State. It basically gave up two touchdowns on special teams, one on a return and the other on a blocked punt that gave the Buckeyes a short field. Indiana made a lot of mistakes and struggled to deal with Ohio State's defensive pressure.

But after I called that game, I said that Indiana would be better the next chance it got. This group of players and coaches hadn't faced anything close to a road game at Ohio State. What we've seen over the course of the season are teams failing to play well in a road environment against a top-five team the first go-around. Both Georgia and Ohio State lost their first top-five road matchup earlier this season before winning their second road top-five tilt.

The opportunity has now arrived for Indiana to potentially do the same. I firmly believe that Indiana will play a much better game against Notre Dame than it did against Ohio State. The issues the Hoosiers had against the Buckeyes are