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<\/div>\n<\/div>\nPreview of the college football playoff national championship game between Indiana and Miami, featuring key players, strategies, and predictions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Indiana<\/a> is playing Miami football in the CFP national championship game. Follow live updates <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Marcus Freeman<\/a> has made it to the 2026 College Football Playoff<\/a> after all.<\/p>\n It just isn’t with Notre Dame, which opted out<\/a> of its invitation to the Pop-Tarts Bowl<\/a> following a snub from the CFP<\/a>.<\/p>\n Instead, the Fighting Irish<\/a> coach is joining the ESPN “College GameDay” desk with Rece Davis, Nick Saban, Kirk Herbstreit, Pat McAfee and Desmond Howard for Monday night’s national championship game between No. 1 Indiana and No. 10 Miami at Hard Rock Stadium.<\/p>\n National championship predictions: <\/strong>Will Indiana or Miami win CFP title?<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n The pregame show is set to start at 5 p.m. ET on Monday ahead of the Hoosiers and Hurricanes’ 7:30 p.m. ET kickoff inside Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.<\/p>\n Freeman has experience with both teams competing in the national championship. Notre Dame beat Curt Cignetti’s program<\/a> in the first round of the CFP last season, which happens to be the Hoosiers’ last loss. The Fighting Irish<\/a> fell to the Hurricanes in Week 1 of the 2025 season.<\/p>\n Here’s what to know on Freeman’s appearance on the “College GameDay” desk:<\/p>\n Freeman is serving as a guest analyst on the “College GameDay” desk for the national championship game.<\/p>\n ESPN has previously brought in college football coaches for the national championship game in past years. In fact, before becoming a full-time member of the desk following his retirement from Alabama in 2024, Saban made several guest appearances<\/a> on the pregame show.<\/p>\n No, the Fighting Irish were not selected to make the 2025-26 CFP.<\/p>\n The Fighting Irish were omitted, controversially, from the 12-team bracket\u00a0on Dec. 7 by the CFP selection committee, which chose Miami to make the field instead. The committee placed the Hurricanes one spot ahead of Notre Dame after the two Fighting Irish had ranked ahead of the Hurricanes throughout the CFP rankings.<\/p>\n At his first media availability since Notre Dame’s final game of the season earlier this week, Freeman told reporters that it was “disappointing” that his team had its spot in the postseason taken away from them at the 11th hour.<\/p>\n “I think a lot of the authentic emotions and reactions are captures on the follow documentary, ‘Here Come the Irish.’ You can see the disappointment and the confusion. But as we look at that moment, a month-plus later, it was obviously disappointing,” Freeman said.<\/p>\n “But you have to move forward, and that’s what we’ve done as a program. That’s what I’ve done as a leader. I reminded the group (at) our team meeting on Sunday, it’s our responsibility to make sure we leave no doubt. And moving forward, we can’t blame it on somebody else. … Although I may be confused about some of the criteria, the committee’s rankings and all those different things, it’s our job as we move forward to make sure we leave no doubt.”<\/p>\n “College GameDay” will air live on ESPN prior to the national championship on Monday, Jan. 19 from Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. Streaming options for the college football pregame show include the ESPN app or\u00a0Fubo,<\/a>\u00a0which offers a free trial.<\/p>\n The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news \u2014 fast<\/em>.\u00a0<\/strong>Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more<\/em><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Indiana vs. Miami: College football playoff national championship preview Preview of the college football playoff national championship game between Indiana and Miami, featuring key players, strategies, and predictions. Indiana is playing Miami football in the CFP national championship game. Follow live updates here. Marcus Freeman has made it to the 2026 College Football Playoff after … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Why-is-Marcus-Freeman-on-College-GameDay-for-national-championship.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17541"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17543,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17541\/revisions\/17543"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Why is Marcus Freeman on ‘College GameDay’?<\/h2>\n
Did Notre Dame make CFP?<\/h2>\n
When, where to watch ‘College GameDay’ today<\/h2>\n
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