For the first time in College Football Playoff history, 12 teams were included in the chase for the national championship this season. Kicking off the first round of playoff games in December, two teams from the Hoosier state, Indiana University and Notre Dame, faced off in South Bend on a frozen Friday.
IU reached the playoffs for the first time since the College Football Playoff format began 10 years ago, and students from IU’s Bloomington and Indianapolis campuses were in the press box to experience history.
Here’s look back at the students’ College Football Playoff experience, from IU vs. Notre Dame in December to the upcoming National Championship game on Jan. 20.
The IU vs. Notre Dame match-up was one of the most anticipated round-one games of the College Football Playoff. The in-state contest was a big stage for IU fans to celebrate the Hoosiers’ historic season.
“I was really excited,” he said. “I’ve been calling football for WIUX since my freshman year, and coming into this year I was hoping we’d get to call a bowl game. Then they turned into a top 10 team out of nowhere. So finding out that I was going to be able to go to the College Football Playoff game and call it at Notre Dame was a surreal feeling.”
Brown and the WIUX team had their own booth in the press box, right alongside national outlets and big names, and broadcast their coverage live from Notre Dame stadium.
“At halftime we walked out of our booth and Mark Cuban was just standing there with IU donors, so that was a memorable moment,” Brown said.
Four Media School students also had the opportunity to create written, video and social media content for student-run television IUSTV. Junior Joe Cronin, who leads the station’s IU football beat and anchors its “Toss Up” and “Hoosier Sports Nite” sports shows, was part of that team.
“For that game in particular, it was probably one if not the coolest atmospheres I have ever seen in sports,” Cronin said. “Simply being there was a blessing in itself, and the fact that I was able to report and cover what was happening was very special to be a part of.”
Though the game did not end in IU’s favor, the student journalists came away with a win.
Student media opportunities like this are what Galen Clavio and the National Sports Journalism Center at IU Bloomington make possible. They have also helped student sports outlets travel across the country to cover basketball, soccer and more.
“We try to get our students, especially undergraduate students, opportunities like this and I hope we’ll be able to continue to do it in the future with this sport,” said Clavio, director of the National Sports Journalism Center.
“If you’re going to work in sports media, you’re going to have that memory and those experiences with you the rest of your life.”
Graduate students with the Sports Capital Journalism Program at IU Indianapolis also took the field in South Bend and continued on to cover the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans and the Orange Bowl in Miami. Now they are preparing for the National Championship game in Atlanta.
While the extended playoff bracket is new, the championship press box is a familiar space for program director Malcolm Moran, who has covered nearly every game with national championship implications since the 1980 Rose Bowl.
Three graduate students, Cort Street, Chris Schumerth and Jeffery Green Jr., helped cover this year’s College Football Playoff games. Street and Schumerth started off early coverage at the Big 10 Championship in Indianapolis and then continued on to South Bend and then the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans.
“I knew coming into the program that we would be given opportunities to cover high-profile events, but to have the chance to cover every round of the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff was a dream come true,” Street said.
Their coverage included writing game stories, features and “postcards” about their experience for the Sports Capital Journalism Program website.
“The fact that I was there in the first place was just an enormous thrill,” Schumerth said. “This is a moment in history that three years from now, five years and 10 years from now, they’ll be looking back at. I think it has made my dreams bigger.”
Schumerth, Street and Moran also adjusted in the wake of tragedy ahead of the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. After the attack on Bourbon Street in the early hours of New Year’s Day, the game was postponed to the following day. They adapted their plans to address safety and refocus to capture the atmosphere beyond gameday.
“You wake up on New Year’s Day thinking you’re going to a football game, and you’re getting texts saying ‘Are you OK?’” Moran said. “Chris’ postcard really helped people get a sense of what it was like to be there just beyond the normal news coverage. Chris and Cort responded like veterans, and it wasn’t something any of us expected.”
Street and Green continued on the road to the Orange Bowl in Miami. Green jumped right into game coverage and said he was amazed to be sitting in the press box alongside some of the biggest pros in the business.
“I was so excited to get the chance to do this work around professionals, hear their stories and get that experience,” Green said. “It was very awe inspiring to be in the same places as people that I have read their work for years. At the same time, it showed me that I can be in their footsteps one day.”
Their work will extend to the National Championship game in Atlanta. Whether it was the historic Hoosiers game or the many memorable moments in between, covering college football at the highest level will be something all of these students say they will cherish.
“This program has given me the opportunity to be a part of this monumental piece of college football history,” Street said. “The experience I have gotten will be so helpful when I set out into the field, but more than that, it will be one that I remember for the rest of my life.”
