As part of its preparation for next Friday’s matchup with Notre Dame, the Indiana football program revealed the new patch that teams will wear in the first round of the College Football Playoff.
The predominantly black patch includes the College Football Playoff logo and the silhouette of the championship trophy above “Playoff First Round, Presented By Allstate,” as well as a thin white border around it.
This is a new feature of the 12-team College Football Playoff, which expanded from four teams this season and includes first-round games at campus locations. Playoff games were previously all held at bowl sites and teams only wore that bowl’s logo on their jerseys and the playoff logo on their helmets.
With that said, sources have indicated the first-round patch will be replaced by the traditional Fiesta, Peach, Rose and Sugar Bowl patches in the quarterfinals, as well as the Orange and Cotton Bowl patches in for the semifinal matchups, rather than introduce another new patch in those rounds.
The College Football Playoff National Championship, meanwhile, will continue to feature teams wearing a patch that combines the year and the playoff logo in the No. 0, just like it has since the four-team playoff was introduced in 2014. If either of the finalists are a Nike school, they’ll also have the “Diamond Quest” Swoosh on their jerseys and pants.
Header photo courtesy of @IndianaFootball on X/Twitter.
