Notre Dame rallies to beat Penn State in Orange Bowl to reach national championship
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish on Thursday found themselves in a position they hadn’t been in all season: Trailing by multiple scores.
And in a College Football Playoff semifinal no less.
No matter.
The No. 7 seed Fighting Irish erased a 10-point first-half deficit to rally for a 27-24 win over the No. 6 seed Penn State Nittany Lions in the Orange Bowl to advance to the national championship.
Notre Dame (14-1) won the game, which featured three ties and three lead changes in the second half, on a Mitch Jeter go-ahead 41-yard field goal with seven seconds left, which was set up by a Christian Gray interception at the Penn State 42-yard line with 33 seconds left to play.
The Fighting Irish will play the winner of Friday’s Cotton Bowl between No. 5 seed Texas and No. 8 seed Ohio State in the national championship on Jan. 20 at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
It will be Notre Dame’s first appearance in a national championship game since the 2013 BCS national championship to cap the 2012 season, when it lost 42-14 to Alabama. The Fighting Irish are looking to win their first title since 1988.
“These guys are a bunch of savages,” said Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman, who will be the first Black head coach to compete for a college football national championship. “They’re built different. ... I’m so proud of them, just what they’ve accomplished, the way they stayed together and found ways to improve.”
But Notre Dame had to fight back time and again to pull this one out.
Penn State (13-3) went up 10-0 late in the first half after a pair of methodical scoring drives — first 14 plays for 55 yards that ended in a 20-yard field goal; then 15 plays for 90 yards capped by the first of three Nick Singleton touchdown runs.
Notre Dame, playing most of its final drive of the half without starting quarterback Riley Leonard while he was in concussion protocol, responded with a 41-yard field goal to end the first half down 10-3. Backup quarterback Steve Angeli completed 6 of 7 passes for 44 yards on that drive.
“You talk about a guy who’s had my back all year and prepares like he’s going to be the starter every single week,” Leonard said of Angeli. “I have so much respect for that guy.”
The Fighting Irish then scored touchdowns on two of their first three drives of the second half — a 3-yard quarterback keeper by Leonard and a 2-yard run by Jeremiyah Love during which he broke multiple tackles to get into the end zone — to put the Fighting Irish up 17-10 with 14:07 left in the game.
Singleton then scored touchdowns on back-to-back drives, each from 7 yards out, to first tie the score and then give the Nittany Lions a 24-17 lead with 7:55 left.
Singleton’s three rushing touchdowns tied for the Orange Bowl record, done five other times, most recently by both Synjyn Days and Justin Thomas for Georgia Tech in 2014 vs. Mississippi State.
A 54-yard touchdown pass from Leonard to a wide-open Jaden Greathouse then tied the score 24-24 with 4:38 left to go.
The Notre Dame and Penn State defenses, each ranked among the top 10 in the country entering the game, exchanged stops before Gray recorded Notre Dame’s nation-leading 32nd takeaway of the season with 33 seconds left.
“Just catch the ball,” said Gray, who has three interceptions on the season. “That’s what was going through my mind. I knew I was going to make the play.”
Six plays later, Jeter hit the game-winning field goal.
“Obviously, we need to give Notre Dame and Marcus a ton of credit,” Penn State coach James Franklin said. “We figured it would be a game that would come down to the final possession. I’m proud of everyone in that locker room. We played our tails off tonight, but we made too many mistakes that were costly.”
Now, the Fighting Irish get to continue their improbable run to the national championship game.
Notre Dame’s chances of getting to this point looked bleak all the way back in Week 2, when they got upset at home by Northern Illinois of the Mid-American Conference.
“It’s a blessing that we lost to them,” Gray said. “It got us humbled and everything.”
The Fighting Irish’s response? They closed the regular season on a 10-game win streak, outscoring opponents by an average of 25.8 points.
And then they then went on to beat No. 10 seed Indiana 27-17 in their first-round matchup on Dec. 20.
And then they beat No. 2 seed Georgia 23-10 in the Sugar Bowl.
And then they fought and rallied to beat Penn State.
Now, Notre Dame is one victory from being national champions for the first time in 36 years.
“Let’s celebrate this one,” Freeman said. “Let’s get healthy. I promise you we’ll be ready for this last one.”
This story was originally published January 9, 2025 at 11:14 PM.
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