Curt Cignetti entered Friday’s College Football Playoff opener with confidence and a brash attitude that his Indiana team could beat anyone.

But this attitude did not lead to a game decision, at least towards the end of the game in a 27:17 defeat.

Trailing 20-3 with 10:34 left in the fourth quarter, Indiana faced a fourth-and-11 play at the Notre Dame 48-yard line, and many, including the ESPN broadcast booth, assumed that the Hoosiers would push to try. Their season is on the line.

But that wasn’t the case.

Cignetti sent punter James Evans, who moved the ball to the Fighting Irish 22.

“I don’t understand it at all. … He really hits out,” play-by-play man Sean McDonough said. “That’s a mystery to me.”

Well, if Indiana thought it could keep Notre Dame off the scoreboard and get the ball into favorable territory, that proved wrong pretty quickly.

After a nine-play, 78-yard drive, quarterback Riley Leonard rushed for a one-yard touchdown to help Notre Dame extend its lead to 27-3.

The lackluster performance came after Cignetti joined “College GameDay” and said he wasn’t afraid of a top team.

“We don’t just beat top 25 teams, we beat them to the core,” he said.

That wasn’t the case on Friday evening.

“They brought it to us,” Cignetti said after the game. “They won, they deserved to win. We didn’t play our best game, but they played a big part in it tonight.”