The first weekend of calendar year 2026 also marks the final one of the 2025 NFL regular season − and the league seems poised to ring in the new year properly.

Twelve of Week 18’s 16 games are set to have some level of impact on the largely fluid playoff field − whether they determine a divisional winner, home-field advantage and a first-round bye or simply postseason seeding. (The No. 1 pick of this year’s draft also remains unclaimed, so contests including the Las Vegas Raiders and New York Giants are hardly meaningless, either.)

As it pertains to setting up the Super Bowl 60 tournament, Saturday should be especially fun − starting in the afternoon, when the Carolina Panthers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers might decide who wins the NFC South … though an already eliminated squad might still get a say on that front. The prime-time game features the rematch of the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers − the winner to be crowned NFC West champions while earning the conference’s top seed. The vanquished will be relegated to the wild-card scrum.

Sunday afternoon won’t have as many tidy matchups, even as the Denver Broncos, New England Patriots and Jacksonville Jaguars jockey for the No. 1 seed in the AFC, while the Jags and Houston Texans continue trying to capture the AFC South throne.

However Sunday night, the 272nd and final game of the regular season, will have winner-take-all stakes as the archrival Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens vie for the AFC North title in the latest installment of their border way. The loser goes gets nothing.

How does this chaos resolve before 18 teams book their tee times? USA TODAY Sports’ crew of NFL experts break out their crystal balls:

(Odds provided by BetMGM)

Week 18 picks, predictions, odds

Panthers at Buccaneers
Seahawks at 49ers
Packers at Vikings
Browns at Bengals
Saints at Falcons
Cowboys at Giants
Colts at Texans
Titans at Jaguars
Chargers at Broncos
Chiefs at Raiders
Jets at Bills
Commanders at Eagles
Lions at Bears
Cardinals at Rams
Dolphins at Patriots
Ravens at Steelers

ATLANTA ― Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey and the No. 18-ranked Fighting Irish led by as many as 14 points against unranked Georgia Tech on Thursday to open ACC conference play.

And they and lost, 95-90, in overtime.

‘Frustrating loss for us. Didn’t feel like we came out ready to play today. It’s my job to get this team ready,’ an emotional Ivey said postgame.

‘We just never adjusted to putting more pressure defensively on them. Great team win for them. For us, it’s a big lesson. We have to come out with a sense of urgency, and we have to come out with a sense of toughness ― and that’s what we lacked today.’

As Ivey spoke about her team’s perceived complacency, she appeared frazzled. Her signature curls were tucked into a bun for the entire game. The cadence of words, usually even and confident, was choppy as she did everything she could to avoid sounding uneven. Perhaps it was the bright lights of the postgame presser, but the Notre Dame coach’s eyes looked more watery the longer she answered questions.

The Fighting Irish went on an 11-0 run at the 7:27 mark of the third quarter, pushing the lead to 14 points. Ivey said while her team ‘normally kind of [takes] off’ with that kind of offensive burst, defensive lapses doomed them. It left the door wide open for Georgia Tech and Walker, who finished with a career-high 33 points, 10 rebounds and six assists, to climb right back in.

Georgia Tech finished Thursday’s upset victory shooting 53% from the field and outscored Notre Dame’s bench 21-11. The Jackets’ bench production included four huge 3-pointers from Catherine Alben, including a buzzer-beating shot at the end of the third quarter to cut the lead to six and a dagger shot with 2:38 remaining in overtime. What’s more, the Yellow Jackets outrebounded the Fighting Irish 42-36 and earned more than half of their 95 points (52 points) in the paint. Georgia Tech just kept applying pressure and never let up, a metaphor for what could be happening to Ivey in South Bend.

Ivey may not admit it, but her seat appears to be getting hotter by the day.

Under the St. Louis native, Notre Dame has made four straight Sweet 16 appearances. But, the underwhelming performances at the worst possible time are starting to feel familiar. For example, during the 2024-25 season, just days before March Madness, Notre Dame had three ranked losses to ACC opponents over a five-game stretch, including a double-overtime 104-95 loss to NC State, where the wheels came off in the final minutes. Sound familiar?

Looking deeper and not fanning the already hot flames, Ivey deserves some grace for coaching a revamped roster. The Fighting Irish lost four players to the transfer portal, including former starting guard Olivia Miles, as well as all-around glue player Sonia Citron, to the WNBA. Junior Hannah Hidalgo is the lone returning starter. Ivey’s new-look starting lineup currently includes a rotation of grad transfers, seniors and Hidalgo, as the team battles injuries ― which isn’t exactly ideal for a roster that needs consistency and cohesion as it hits the toughest parts of its schedule.

During three of the six years of Ivey’s head coaching tenure, Notre Dame’s offense and defense have started and ended with Hildago. If she isn’t hitting, the Irish have had a tendency to falter in big moments no matter who else is on the court. Still, what happened Thursday at McCamish Pavilion shouldn’t have happened at all.

Notre Dame opened conference play with a loss to a scrappy, yet unranked team and play Duke, which is on a five-game winning streak, on Sunday, January 4. Not to sound dramatic, but the NCAA tournament conversation hasn’t begun and the Fighting Irish are potentially staring another disappointing elimination in the face.

Ivey knows it, too, even if she won’t say it now.

‘[Today’s game] kind of put a mirror to their face about things that we have to be better at,’ Ivey said. ‘I didn’t think that we were focused, ready to play today. I thought it took us a while for us to get going within our identity of what our expectation is, and our standard … We didn’t do that today.’

Whatever Notre Dame’s identity is, it needs to find it quickly, or it won’t survive the back half of the season. And, if Ivey wants to keep the heat under her seat at bay, the Fighting Irish’s upcoming slate is a good place to start chipping away with consistent defense that doesn’t sputter in crunch time. Notre Dame plays three ranked opponents over the next two and a half weeks, including No. 16 North Carolina, No. 13 Louisville and No. 1 UConn ― no pressure ― on January 19.

PASADENA, CA — It’s the mark of an overmatched team to use gimmicks to search for a seam. In that sense, old money Alabama was clearly overmatched against new money Indiana at an overcast Rose Bowl on Thursday, Jan. 1.

The two teams’ philosophies looked diametrically opposed in the first half. Where Indiana used a methodical offensive attack to move the ball north-to-south against the Crimson Tide, Alabama leaned on gadgetry to try find cracks in the last undefeated FBS team in the country. It failed miserably, with Alabama falling to Indiana 38-3 in a completely lopsided College Football Playoff matchup.

It was a browbeating so thorough, by the end would-be Alabama tacklers looked completely disinterested in bringing down Indiana ball-carriers.

Alabama’s shenanigans came to a peak with Indiana up 3-0 with 12:44 in the second quarter. On its own 34-yard line, Alabama went up to the line of scrimmage on a fourth-and-1 with Daniel Hill lining up in the wildcat.

Indiana responded with a timeout.

The Crimson Tide subsequently lined up to punt with Ty Simpson as an upback, with Simpson sprinting under center to try to spook Indiana into jumping offsides.

When that didn’t work, Alabama took a timeout.

Instead of cutting his losses, however, Kalen DeBoer again sent the offense out, again with Hill in the shotgun. Hill pitched the ball to Germie Bernard in motion on a jet sweep before Indiana swarmed him short of the line to gain, giving the Hoosiers the ball on the Alabama 34-yard line and leaving Crimson Tide fans across the country muttering, “too cute” under their collective breath.

Indiana capitalized on the opportunity, with Charlie Becker hauling in a 21-yard touchdown pass from Fernando Mendoza on the ensuing possession to procure a 10-0 lead and the first Indiana touchdown in Rose Bowl history.

“Just felt like it was going to be one of those games where you gotta take advantage of possessions,” DeBoer said of the choice to go for it after the game. He later said the choice to hard count before calling a timeout was to buy some time. “I try not to be reckless. I try to be aggressive. … Did the punt slash try to hard count, just give me a little more time to think about what my decision would be. Give some of the guys on the sideline a talk through the play-call. And so I really felt like … I was committed to going for it to try to make it happen.”

The sequence took approximately six minutes of real-life time and felt like a microcosm of how both teams approached the CFP quarterfinal matchup. Alabama desperately felt like it had to make something happen. Indiana was ready with a surgical counterstrike.

That’s the hallmark of a Curt Cignetti team. Despite his lamentations about poor practices and the challenges of traveling to Southern California, which Cignetti told media members after the game was a message to his team through the television, Indiana showed up when it mattered and never looked off kilter in any phase outside of a poor first series.

When it was 10-0 and Alabama began to put together a drive in answer to Indiana’s touchdown, it ended with a shot that left Ty Simpson shaken, causing him to fumble away what was to that point Alabama’s best scoring opportunity. Indiana held Alabama to 93 yards in the first half, including 64 passing yards, and was dominant at the line of scrimmage.

The second half opened with much of the same. A screen pass to Ryan Williams was blown up for a loss of two to put Alabama behind the sticks. Then another screen pass with more movement than substance to Josh Cuevas fell incomplete. On third-and-12, Simpson checked down and Alabama punted again, with the Tide’s pre-snap window dressing failing once again.

Entering this game, teams with a bye in the 12-team CFP were 0-6. So how did Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza and company avoid the hangover?

“Coach Cignetti did a fantastic job with the trickledown effect of really making sure there was no complacency,” Mendoza told reporters after the game. “Because you have 26 days off, it’s very, very tough, especially on the first drive as an offense — myself included — I think we got off to a slow start.

‘And then other than that, once we got our feet wet we had the ball rolling and got back to playing Indiana brand of football. And so I think it was great overcoming that challenge as a team having such a long time off, but I think we overcame that challenge and it showed on the field today.”

There is no way to twist it: Alabama didn’t lose the Rose Bowl. Indiana won it. And did so in dominant fashion.

The Hoosiers entered this game as the better team, and left it in another league. Mendoza vindicated a more disparate Heisman vote than many expected with a nearly flawless game, going 14-for-16 with 194 yards and three touchdowns. Defensive coordinator Kane Wommack tried to dial up pressure, but Mendoza broke the pocket and had multiple scrambles that kept Indiana on schedule.

In that regard, sometimes just being on time is the difference. Alabama’s inability to run the ball caught up to it on one of college football’s great stages, with the Crimson Tide finding themselves behind the sticks time and time again. Alabama was just 3-of-11 on third down, whereas Indiana was 9-of-14 thanks in large part to avoiding negative plays.

The game ended with a perfect summation of its tenor: On fourth-and-4 at the two-minute mark, with Alabama about to get the ball back down 35, the Crimson Tide jumped offsides to let Indiana take a knee to kill the clock.

There is no one stat that explains Indiana’s dismantling of the Crimson Tide. It was a beatdown, top to bottom, and the score reflected it. Now, Indiana goes into a semifinal matchup against Oregon in a highly anticipated rematch with sky-high expectations. It lived up to its No. 1 seed, shook off the curse of CFP rest, and legitimately looked like the best team in country.

So what will its follow-up performance look like?

“Well I’m not gonna assume anything like, we’ve bounced back from a number of big wins and we’ll be fine,” Cignetti said. “Because it’s process. So we’ll have a very big challenge ahead of us next week, it’s very hard to beat a really good football team twice. There’s no doubt about that.”

Coach Curt Cignetti publicly criticized his team’s practice to motivate them after a 26-day layoff.
The Hoosiers’ victory broke a trend of top-seeded teams losing after a first-round bye in the 12-team playoff format.
Indiana’s defense and disciplined play allowed them to capitalize on Alabama’s mistakes.

PASADENA, CA — Indiana coach Curt Cignetti made it known prior to the 2026 Rose Bowl he didn’t like the long layoff his team had, last playing in the Big Ten championship game 26 days ago on Dec. 6.

A day before kickoff, he told the media he didn’t like how his team had been preparing. Practice “didn’t meet the standard,” giving an inkling the No. 1 Hoosiers may be in trouble.

But you know those times when someone loudly says something to another, with the intent someone else will hear it? 

That’s exactly what Cignetti was doing. It wasn’t meant for the media, it was directed right at his team. He didn’t want his team just eavesdropping, he was “eavesthrowing,” trying to get a message through his players.

“Sometimes my messaging is intended for the players to hear to further reinforce my message to them,” Cignetti said.

They heard it loud and clear.

There was no slip up as Indiana showed no rust in their dominant 38-3 victory over No. 9 seed Alabama in the College Football Playoff quarterfinal, proving that this team has what it takes to win its first national championship.

It hasn’t been easy to come off such a long layoff in the 12-team format. All the top-four seeds last season made one-and-done appearances. This season’s playoff started the same way with Ohio State and Texas Tech falling flat in its opening games.

Six games into this new postseason system had people wondering whether there really is something wrong with how this is structured – then Indiana put that theory to bed.

Why? It sounds too simple, but Cignetti and Indiana were just prepared, showing this program that isn’t used to these moments knows exactly how to thrive in them. Cignetti made it seem like this team might be shaky, but in reality it was more than prepared the moment they learned Alabama was next.

“I thought our mindset was really good,” Cignetti said. “I liked our prep, for the most part, once we knew who the opponent was.”

Indiana doesn’t panic, stays on course

It didn’t start out smooth. Indiana went three-and-out on the opening possession that ended with Fernando Mendoza getting sacked.

Would that cause panic? That just wasn’t going to be Indiana. It stuck to what has worked all season: let the defense flex it muscle and the offense will deliver the lethal blows. Alabama was the ones that needed to get creative.

Both happened, with the Hoosiers letting the Crimson Tide make those self-inflicted mistakes and not straying away from its identity. 

“Indiana did a great job of doing, playing their game,” said Alabama defensive lineman Tim Keenan III. “They capitalized on our mistakes. Indiana had a great plan for us and they executed well.”

There aren’t many things that scare Cignetti and Indiana, but one thing they are “afraid to death” of is complacency, said Indiana center and Rose Bowl offensive MVP Pat Coogan. This team isn’t just content with making it to the big stage, instead insistent on putting on an exceptional performance the moment the stage lights turn on. 

Indiana sent a message to the country there is a right way to prepare when you don’t play a game for nearly a month and the entire season rides on it.

Maybe team that get first-round byes ought to take a page or crash course from Cignetti. Even though it seems like he continues to shatter expectations and wow the sport, how he had Indiana more than ready for Alabama may be one of his most impressive feats yet.

Now the Hoosiers have just eight days before playing Oregon in the Peach Bowl semifinal. The Ducks better be ready, because the Hoosiers absolutely will.

“Once we got our feet wet, we got the ball rolling and we got back to playing Indiana brand of football,” Mendoza said. “I think it was great overcoming that challenge as a team, having such a long time off. I think we overcame that challenge and that showed on the field today.”

No Lane, no problem.

Behind a historic second-half performance from Trinidad Chambliss and a game-winning 47-yard field goal from Lucas Carneiro, No. 6 Mississippi was able to win a shootout and pull off the come-from-behind victory over No. 3 Georgia in the CFP Sugar Bowl quarterfinal on Thursday, Jan. 1, advancing to the CFP Fiesta Bowl semifinal.

And the Rebels did it all without the coach who led them to their first-ever CFP berth in Lane Kiffin.

Chambliss set a new Sugar Bowl record by completing 13 consecutive passes, which included two ridiculous throws on the run to Kewan Lacey in the fourth quarter, before an incompletion on a batted down pass at the 6:19 mark of the fourth quarter. He finished 30-of-46 passes for 362 yards and two touchdown passes.

The Rebels’ five-point win over the Bulldogs served to be the closest game of the CFP quarterfinals, and the closest game of the 2025-26 College Football Playoff. Next up for the Rebels will be No. 10 Miami in the CFP Fiesta Bowl semifinal on Thursday, Jan. 8 at 7:30 p.m. ET at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.

Given the nature of the upset and the fact Kiffin infamously left the Rebels before their CFP berth, social media didn’t hold back when it decided to roast the current Tigers coach, who spent the day watching Kim Mulkey and the LSU women’s basketball team get upset by Kentucky.

Here’s a snippet of those reactions:

College football social media roasts Lane Kiffin after Ole Miss CFP win

Here’s a look at social media after Ole Miss’ win over Georgia in the CFP Sugar Bowl quarterfinal:

Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who is the reigning NBA Most Valuable Player and led the franchise to its first NBA championship, was named the 2025 Sports Illustrated’s Sportsperson of the Year.

Gilgeous-Alexander is the first NBA player to win the award since Warriors guard Stephen Curry in 2022, when he led Golden State to their fourth championship in eight years. He is also the first Canadian to win the award outright since 1982, when Wayne Gretzky took home the honors.

The 27-year-old Gilgeous-Alexander capped off a remarkable year by becoming the third Thunder player to win the regular-season MVP.

Led by Gilgeous-Alexander, the Thunder won 68 regular-season games. He also won his first scoring title, averaging 32.1 points per game, along with five rebounds and a career-high 6.4 assists, helping Oklahoma City finish first in defensive rating and third in offensive rating.

Gilgeous-Alexander, a three-time All-NBA First Team selection, then took the Thunder to the mountaintop with a seven-game NBA Finals victory over the Indiana Pacers. He averaged 30.3 points a game in the series and was named the Finals MVP.

The team rewarded that faith by giving him a four-year, $285 million supermax contract extension, keeping him with Oklahoma City through the 2030-31 season.

SGA told the magazine he realizes how lucky he is to win a title, considering the Thunder once had future MVPs Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and James Harden on the roster at the same time and each departed without a championship.

“That team had three MVP talents and anybody would have bet the house that they were going to eventually figure it out and win,” he said. “But you just never know with life and how things work out.” 

This season, Oklahoma City has gotten off to a 29-5 start, led by Gilgeous-Alexander, who is averaging 32.1 points, 6.4 assists, and 4.7 rebounds a game

Mississippi football closed out the College Football Playoff quarterfinals with a thrilling second-half performance from Trinidad Chambliss and Co. to pick up a shocking 39-34 upset over No. 3 Georgia in the Sugar Bowl on Thursday, Jan. 1 inside Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.

The Rebels’ biggest win in program history didn’t happen without some chaos and drama.

Following the go-ahead 47-yard field goal from Ole Miss kicker Lucas Carneiro, the Rebels were awarded a safety after the Bulldogs’ attempt to run a trick play on the ensuing kickoff resulted in a fumble that hit the pylon. The game was originally ruled over, but after an official review, a second was added back onto the clock.

The chaos didn’t end there.

Georgia then successfully converted an 11-yard onside kick from Peyton Woodring. The 11th-hour attempt should have ended the game again. However, because Ole Miss players didn’t touch the ball, and Georgia recovered the ball past the line to gain, that one second on the clock was not removed.

‘If the ball is recovered legally after it goes 10 yards by a grounded player, the clock does not run,’ ESPN rules analyst Matt Austin said on the broadcast. ‘… If you just fall on it, then there is no time off.’

That miscue by Ole Miss provided Georgia with a shot at a Hail Mary play that began with a 4-yard pass from Gunner Stockton to Colbie Young. From there, the Bulldogs threw a few backward passes and laterals in hopes of finding a hole to get down the field. It failed for numerous reasons: Adrian Maddox was eventually tackled and Georgia was called for a block in the back.

The chaotic ending to the Sugar Bowl necessitated the removal of the postgame stage from the field several times, and loud boos, presumably from Rebels fans, were audible over the ESPN broadcast.

Next up for Ole Miss will be a date with Carson Beck and No. 10 Miami in the CFP Fiesta Bowl semifinal on Thursday, Jan. 8 in Arizona.

The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.

By its own well-established standards, last season was a massive disappointment for Stanford’s women’s basketball team.

In their first campaign in the Atlantic Coast Conference and without longtime coach Tara VanDerveer patrolling the sidelines, the Cardinal missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the Reagan Administration.

Between 1988 and 2024, 36 NCAA women’s college basketball tournaments were contested and Stanford was part of every single one. The Cardinal made 15 Final Fours and won three national championships. Like UConn, Tennessee, Notre Dame and Baylor, Stanford had established itself as one of the sport’s blue bloods and a consistent contender.

So last season was seen as an aberration. In Kate Paye’s first season as head coach, Stanford went 16-15 and 8-10 in ACC action as they adjusted to the coast-to-coast league. The Cardinal were eliminated in the first round of the conference tournament by a Clemson team with a losing record. Then, they lost to Portland at home in the second-tier WBIT.

But this is still Stanford. The standard is still high.

In women’s basketball, this program is supposed to compete for championships.

And, in Paye’s second year in charge, the Cardinal seem to be well on their way to righting the ship.

They entered their first ACC road swing this week with 12 victories, including wins over rival Cal, former Pac-12 foes Washington and Oregon and at Gonzaga. Powered by talented rookies like Lara Somfai and Hailee Swain, and guided by steady-handed veterans like Nunu Agara, Chloe Clardy and Courtney Ogden, this Stanford team looks more like the standard and not the group that stumbled time and time again a year ago.

But on Thursday, they fell hard. In front of a sold-out crowd at the historic Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh, North Carolina, the Cardinal lost 74-46 to North Carolina State. Stanford was outscored 23-9 in the fourth quarter, turned the ball over 21 times, and shot a season-low 30% from the floor.

“I just felt like things kind of snowballed on us, and the wheels kind of came off the wagon. For the first time, I think our defense let us down,” Paye told USA Today. “It was a good, old-fashioned ass kicking.”

This is the hurdle for Stanford now, the one it failed to clear most of the time last season. Paye’s team has to figure out how to win conference road games time zones away from California. The Cardinal were 2-7 in such games last season.

If Stanford has aspirations of making the NCAA Tournament this March, that mark has to be better. What went down at N.C. State on Thursday can’t happen again.

“Up into this point, our defense had really been something we hang our hat on,” Paye said. “We’ve rebounded decently. I just feel like we’ve yet to really get our flow offensively, and I think because of that, it puts a lot of pressure on our defense. But our defense has really been our strength, our togetherness.”

Defense and rebounding has been crucial to Stanford’s success this season. Nationally, entering Thursday, they ranked seventh in assists allowed per game (8.6), 11th in defensive rebounding rate (76.4) and 28th in points allowed per scoring attempt (0.88). The women’s basketball analytics site HerHoopStats also gives the Cardinal a defensive rating of 81.0, which is 37th in the country. In their wins over Cal, Oregon, Washington and Gonzaga, Stanford won the rebounding margin in three of those clashes, losing the battle on the boards to only the Huskies.

Somfai has been a big help in that department this season. The 6-foot-4 freshman from Australia — tabbed as a top 12 recruit in the 2025 class by ESPN — grabbed 16 rebounds against N.C. State. With averages of 10.5 points and 10.3 rebounds per game, she and Bonnie Deas of Arkansas are the only freshmen in the country averaging double-doubles.

“Lara is an incredible rebounder. She’s physical in there. She has a great nose for the ball,” Paye said. “And, you know, it’s hard when you’re a freshman — like, we’re counting on you.”

Somfai isn’t the only rookie Stanford is leaning on. Point guard Hailee Swain was the eighth-ranked recruit in her class by ESPN and is averaging 9.6 points and 1.5 assists per game.

“They’re in the starting lineup for a reason. It is not easy being a freshman. There’s a lot coming at you, but they’ve done fantastic. And I just think as they get more experience, they’re going to get better and better, and you’re going to kind of see some of the other stuff in their game really shine,” Paye said. “… But we need more from them.”

Somfai and Swain were Stanford’s most high-profile acquisitions of the offseason. In the era of the transfer portal, NIL and revenue sharing, the Cardinal are doing some things the traditional way: bringing in freshmen with potential and developing them. 

Among all Power 4 programs, Stanford has the least number of transfers on its roster. Junior forward Mary Ashley Stevenson, who is in her second season with Stanford after leaving Purdue, is the lone player on the roster who didn’t begin her collegiate career as a member of the Cardinal. Stanford is also tied with Washington for the Power 4 programs who had the least amount of portal movement last offseason, in terms of the combined number of players coming in or going out. The Cardinal had two players transfer out from last season’s squad: Tess Heal to Kansas State and Jzaniya Harriel to SMU.

“What it means to me is loyalty,” junior Nunu Agara said at ACC Tip-Off. “It speaks to what Stanford is about as a program.”

Stanford’s continuity could give it an advantage in its second season in the ACC. Most of the players on the roster have endured the long cross-country flights. With the conference largely playing a schedule that has games on Thursdays and Sundays, Stanford typically doesn’t fly home between road games, instead making a hotel their home for a few days at a time. These players have done that.

“We have the flow and the rhythm,” Paye said. “We certainly learned things last year in terms of travel logistics and little things we can do that we feel like can help our team.”

Ahead is another opportunity for Stanford to get a signature road victory in the ACC. On Sunday, they’ll play in Chapel Hill against the North Carolina Tar Heels, who are ranked 15th in the latest USA Today Sports Coaches Poll.

The common throughline in Stanford’s three losses so far — to Florida Gulf Coast, Tennessee and N.C. State — is turnovers. They’ve had 18 or more in each defeat. And Courtney Banghart’s Tar Heels force 19.6 per game.

“We really have to improve our offensive execution,” Paye said. “We have to move the ball better.”

The expectations are clear for the Cardinal. An early ACC road win could help Stanford meet them.

Indiana’s 38-3 blowout victory against Alabama in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals on New Year’s Day was the latest step for a program that’s enjoying an unprecedented rise.

It’s a remarkable story — one that the Hoosiers’ coach thinks is worthy of something more than just on-field success.

Shortly after his team’s 35-point win in the Rose Bowl, the second-year Indiana coach Curt Cignetti said in a postgame interview with ESPN that his team’s journey to becoming the No. 1 team in the sport would “be a hell of a movie.”

Hired away from James Madison after the 2023 season, Cignetti took over what had been the losingest program in FBS history until earlier this season. After a stellar debut season, with an 11-2 finish in 2024 that ended with a berth in the inaugural 12-team playoff, Indiana has gotten even better this year, with a 14-0 mark following the throttling of Alabama. It’s a program single-season record for wins. Thursday’s bowl win was Indiana’s first since the 1991 Copper Bowl.

A Rose Bowl victory would have been unimaginable for the Hoosiers as recently as 24 months ago. Over 21 seasons, from 1994-2014, they made just one bowl and in the 27 seasons before Cignetti got there, Indiana went just 113-204. In 82 of the program’s first 126 seasons, it finished with a losing record.

It didn’t just beat Alabama, but manhandled it, outgaining it by a 407-193 margin and scoring touchdowns on five of its final six full drives.

“Why should (the moment) be too big? Because our name’s Indiana?” Cignetti said in a postgame interview with ESPN. “We’ve got a lot of veteran starters who have played a lot of successful football in their careers. They have a lot of character. We’ve got great leadership and character on this football team. We’ve come through in the clutch moments. I’m proud of the way that they responded and prepared and met this challenge.”

With their latest win, the Hoosiers will take on No. 5 Oregon in the playoff semifinals at the Peach Bowl in Atlanta on Jan. 9.

Before he and his team head back to Indiana, Cignetti may even be able to take a quick detour from Pasadena to Los Angeles to pitch his Hollywood-worthy underdog story.

The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.