College Football

Marcus Freeman, Notre Dame 'find a way' to get past Penn State, advance to title game

Updated Jan. 10, 2025 2:46 a.m. ET

FOX Sports National College Football Analyst

With seven seconds left to play, Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman sent Mitch Jeter onto the field to do what no kicker has ever done: make a go-ahead field goal in the fourth quarter of a College Football Playoff game.

That means the odds of Jeter making the kick were slim, as kickers were 0-4 in CFP history in that situation. That means that everyone would be watching Jeter. That means that the senior place kicker would either be heralded as a hero or blamed for his shortcomings.

Chances are Freeman knew exactly how Jeter felt.

Freeman, who turns 39 on Friday, is one of just 16 coaches in the sport who is Black. He is just the second Black head coach in the history of Notre Dame football, and, while Jeter attempted to be the first kicker to accomplish his own feat, Freeman was attempting to become the first Black head coach to succeed in leading his team to the national title game.

Jeter stared down the goal posts at Hard Rock Stadium, stepped up and nailed his 41-yard attempt to send the Fighting Irish to the national title game with a 27-24 win over Penn State on Thursday night in the Orange Bowl. And with it, history was made.

Freeman will now look to become the first Black head coach to win a national championship, and he will get that chance in just 11 days. But getting to this point required quite a fight from Freeman and the Fighting Irish against James Franklin's Penn State team.

Penn State's defense made its presence known from the opening kickoff. With an injured Abdul Carter on the field — lining up against right tackle Aamil Wagner — the Nittany Lion defense punished a Notre Dame offense that had yet to demonstrate it could win a CFP game on quarterback Riley Leonard's arm.

After Leonard threw for just 90 yards in a win over SEC champion Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, Penn State defensive coordinator Tom Allen put a unit on the field determined to make the Notre Dame QB complete passes downfield.

With each passing down, Penn State's defense dictated the pace Leonard played at. His footwork was a mess. His release was late. His feet didn't have a chance to set before his arm began its wind-up, and his hips lagged behind, which led to mostly errant passes. He threw two interceptions, one of which was due to the aforementioned mistakes in mechanics.

Losing starting left tackle Anthonie Knapp in the first half due to an ankle sprain didn't help matters. Knapp made 15 starts for the Irish this season and was responsible for protecting Leonard's blindside.

With just under two minutes left to play in the opening half, a hard hit left Leonard noticeably unbalanced as an official forced him to leave the field for a concussion evaluation. He completed just 6 of 11 passes for 63 yards and rushed for 7 yards on five carries when backup QB Steve Angeli entered the game.

The backup signal-caller fumbled and took two sacks, but he also completed 6 of 7 passes for 44 yards and led the only scoring drive of the first half for the Fighting Irish, who had rushed for just 15 yards on 13 carries as a team against a menacing Nittany Lions defensive line.

Across the sideline, the Penn State rushing attack matched its defense's rushing intensity. Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen could not be slowed down by Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden's normally aggressive and marauding defense. With outside zone and stretch plays off tackle, Andy Kotelnicki's offense rushed for 141 yards in the opening half, including a 5-yard touchdown run from Singleton with just over two minutes remaining before halftime. That proved to be the only touchdown in the opening half of play.

Singleton and Allen combined for 115 rushing yards in the first half, 100 more than the entire Notre Dame offense. The tandem consistently got to the second level of the Notre Dame defense and made more than one person hit them before being tackled, combining to average 5 yards per carry.

"They're rushing better than we're tackling," Freeman said at halftime of the broadcast.

Still, Franklin knew the score was just 10-3 at halftime and that the Fighting Irish would get the ball to start the second half.

"We're gonna have to finish," Franklin said. "It's going to be a four-quarter game."

And he was right.

With Leonard pronounced "asymptomatic" for a concussion, he returned in the second half and promptly led Notre Dame down the field for a score. A 36-yard pass to freshman tailback Aneyas Williams, followed by a 15-yard rush from him, set up a 3-yard TD run from Leonard to make it 10-10. It was at that point that a true battle had broken out with men daring to be brave and make a long, lasting name for themselves.

Notre Dame continued to respond, holding the Nittany Lions to just 25 yards of total offense in the third quarter. The Fighting Irish offense mounted a 10-play, 71-yard drive, which culminated with a 2-yard touchdown run from running back Jeremiyah Love, who has rushed for a score in 14 of Notre Dame's 15 games this season.

Love's touchdown run gave Notre Dame its first lead of the game. It marked 17 unanswered points for a Fighting Irish team that looked like they weren't up for the challenge laid down by the Nittany Lions early on.

But Penn State wasn't going to go away. Instead, they roared.

With just 10:20 remaining in the game, Singleton rushed into the end zone for a 7-yard score. The touchdown was set up by a 27-yard strike from QB Drew Allar to Mackey Award winner Tyler Warren, who was running free in the secondary on a crossing route. Allar completed all three of his passes for 48 yards, while also adding 9 yards rushing on the TD drive.

Penn State's Dani Dennis-Sutton picked off Leonard on the ensuing drive, giving the ball back to a Penn State offense that once again committed itself to running the rock. The Nittany Lions put together a quick five-play, 39-yard drive that ended with another 7-yard touchdown run from Singleton, giving Penn State a 27-17 lead with under eight minutes remaining in the game.

Leonard and the Irish got the ball back and immediately went to work. The senior QB completed all four of his passes on the drive, none bigger than his 54-yard TD strike to wide receiver Jaden Greathouse, who cruised into the end zone after a Penn State defender slipped, tying the game at 24-24. Greathouse put together the best performance of his career on the biggest stage, hauling in a career-high seven catches for 105 yards and that score.

After the teams traded back-to-back punts, Allar and the Nittany Lions got the ball back with a chance to win the game. But Christian Gray picked off Allar with 33 seconds left to play and handed the ball to an offense that did what it had done since the second half kicked off: find a way.

"We found a way to make a play when it mattered the most," Freeman said. "In my opinion, great teams, great programs, find a way to do that."

RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports and the host of the podcast "The Number One College Football Show." Follow him at @RJ_Young.

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