Let’s be real, for the first 20 to 25 minutes of the Orange Bowl things were looking bleak. That darkness of a season-ending loss in depressing fashion–with Penn State pushing you around–was descending on Notre Dame. But this team isn’t simply called the Irish. They are the Fighting Irish and my goodness did they keep battling in numerous ways to find a way to win.

Next up, the final game of the season for real this time, either Ohio State or Texas on Monday, January 20th from the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

QUARTERBACK: B

This game was so emotional that stats, or lack thereof, won’t do things justice. So feel free to roast any of these grades! Leonard threw a pair of really bad interceptions, didn’t have a run longer than 6 yards, and generally looked as uncomfortable in the pocket as we’ve seen this season. Hence why things looked super dark in the beginning. Starting out punt-interception-punt is no way to perform on this big of a stage.

Absent that second interception (the first play right after Penn State answered with a touchdown in a big way to start the 4th quarter oh my how did we not lose???) Leonard actually put together a pretty good game.

We needed some explosive plays through the air and Leonard delivered 4 of them. He had to get a concussion check and came back in the 2nd half and never panicked. Maybe most impressively, the Irish had 7(!!) throws on 3rd down that moved the chains. Super clutch!

Of course, we HAVE to give plaudits to Steve Angeli. I just knew he was destined to play an important part in Notre Dame history. In just one series he converted a trio of 3rd downs through the air and led a late field goal drive in what turned out to be a 3-point win.

RUNNING BACK: B

In the interest of fairness, we have to admit this was not the type of performance needed from Jadarian Price. He had a 12-yard run and his other 6 carries went for a total of 1 yard. They really need to focus on getting him 5 or 6 positive plays in the National Championship. He’s so talented and can be a homerun hitter but 8 carries for 47 yards is needed if 5 or 6 are successful plays.

Anyeas Williams has been a killer all season, displaying no fear as a true freshman. His long catch (what a move!) at receiver was such a big spark for the offense. He put together 7 touches for 83 yards from scrimmage in a little MVP performance.

No, the numbers weren’t there for Jeremiyah Love. But he jumped over another guy (setting a new personal vertical record in the process, I think) and provided one of the toughest, most inspiring touchdowns in Notre Dame history. I’ve watched it 50 times. The grit, balance, and intuition to score like that is completely bonkers.

WIDE RECEIVER: B-

It’s been an off-season of Notre Dame transfers making a big impact in the limelight. Not so with the receivers against Penn State. Zero catches for Collins, Mitchell, and Harrison. According to reports, Beaux Collins might have been one of the players truly suffering from the flu because he stood on the sidelines for nearly the entire game.

All of the Greathouse hype that I, and others, have driven for the past couple years feels absolutely VINDICATED right now. We did it, Jaden! Seven targets, seven catches. A real-world 100-yard receiving game…when we needed it most! Three catches on the game-tying drive with the memorable 54-yard touchdown catch. Plus, we cannot sleep on the clutch 10-yard catch on 3rd down to set up the game-winning field goal and move it from difficult to manageable for Jeter.

TIGHT END: C+

We definitely tried to lean on Mitchell Evans early in this game (9 targets, yeah that’s a lot) and it had some mixed results. He came down with that beautiful 3rd down catch on the sidelines for 32 yards which was an early spark. But his other 8 targets netted 26 yards. Decent production.

I think we all would’ve taken the matchup with Tyler Warren only gaining 17 more receiving yards than Evans. That felt like a big win for the Irish.

With the injury to Cooper Flanagan, there was a lot of playing time for Eli Raridon. His route leading to a pass interference in the end zone did not go unnoticed.

OFFENSIVE LINE: B+

I’m going big grading curve here but I think it’s justifiable.

The line looked in big, big trouble early on in the game. They gave up 5 sacks and 3 additional tackles for loss. Looking at those numbers in isolation it was by far the worst game of the season. Abdul Carter very much played and he was eating everyone’s lunch on those early series.

However, let’s factor in injuries to Knapp and Spindler with Tosh Baker and Charles Jagusah coming in under the most intense pressure of their sporting lives, and you know what, things kind of stabilized and the offense did okay for the last 65% of this game.

After those first 3 series, the Irish finished the game averaging 6 yards per play. This has been a mind-boggling impressive coaching job by Joe Rudolph.

DEFENSIVE LINE: C+

The defensive line finally looked like it was out of gas and couldn’t cope with all the injuries they’ve suffered in 2024-25. I think that was the brutal truth for a large part of this game. It also looked like Howard Cross was more hobbled than usual, as well.

They were getting pushed around, out-leveraged, and weren’t dealing with some of the up-tempo pace from Penn State very well. In total, there was very little playmaking.

Still, like the offensive line, things did get better as the game progressed. The Penn State 75-yard touchdown drive was pretty bad in the early 4th quarter but outside of that things were actually pretty good and Penn State weren’t running the ball as effectively.

LINEBACKER: B-

It looked like Penn State’s speed at running back was really bothering the Irish linebackers early in the game but I also chalk a lot of that up to crafty play-calling from Andy Kotelnicki who was coaching circles around Al Golden for most of the 1st half.

We figured some stuff out, though. After some poor tackling the linebackers came direct and started increasing the level of physicality.

In a game loaded with big plays and helpful decisions, to see Jaylen Sneed pressure Allar on the all-important interception is great stuff.

SECONDARY: A

I’m pretty sure we left Xavier Watts to cover Warren for most of the game and that worked out pretty well. On Warren’s long catch of 27 yards he was covered by Adon Shuler (who didn’t look like himself) and Allar actually tossed a dime over Kiser in coverage, as well.

ZERO WIDE RECEIVER RECEPTIONS FOR PENN STATE.

Christian Gray’s late interception is going down in Notre Dame lore. That and his interception against USC…amazing athleticism!

You love to see it. This was an embarrassing performance from Drew Allar. No completions over 30 yards. Credit for 4 explosive plays for 92 yards, sure. His other 19 attempts went for 43 yards and he should’ve thrown at least 3 interceptions.

Allar converted a grand total of ZERO passes on third down.

NOTES:

I think Notre Dame could’ve come back from a 7-0 deficit (if it moved to 14-0 because it did get to 10-0) but that Singleton dropped touchdown was a big break late in the 1st quarter.

This was the first thing I saw on Instagram when I woke up dead tired at 5:45 AM, but happy as hell:

Watching Penn State lose is so fun.

Money Mitch Jeter. Mr. January. Did anyone else nearly poop themselves when his game-winning kick swerved to the right briefly before correcting itself through the goalposts?

The recovered fumble by Aamil Wagner (also credited to Billy Scrauth) leading up to the field goal drive on the Angeli series might have been the play of the game honestly.

Notre Dame earns $6 million for making the National Championship Game. That takes the post-season total up to $20 million for the Irish.

Here’s another picture of James Franklin:

PSU has to share money with Michigan and others in the B1G.

I’m not going to hate on the players who transfer out and leave because that’s life. I transferred colleges after my freshman year (and transferred back a semester later) and know how hard it can be to figure out life when you’re young. It has to be so tough when you’re a D-1 athlete with athletic aspirations. However, I’d like to praise the likes of Deion Colzie, Jayden Thomas, Junior Tuihalamaka, Gabriel Rubio, Steve Angeli, and especially Tosh Baker.

All of these players have been close to starting and/or played serious minutes at one point or another before being stuck with competition and transferring would’ve been the easy and understandable thing to do. But to stick around and make an impact in a game like this, and be bought in after all this time, is what makes college football special.

Did you see the sniper on Greathouse’s touchdown?

Ankles snatched: 2

What a time to save a season-high 11 conversions on 3rd down. What a wild game.

It feels good to finally take away some positive memories from a game in Miami. A reminder that we’ll open the 2025 season right back inside Hard Rock Stadium against the Hurricanes.

James Franklin moves to 1-15 vs. AP top 5 opponents at the time of kickoff. They are stuck in their own purgatory that we as Notre Dame fans know all too well.

We Are: Going Home

The pass interference call taking away the Jack Kiser interception was an all-time bad flag in post-season history. I can’t lie, I do enjoy a quick garbage-on-the-field outcry after these horrid officiating decisions. Of course we won anyway. Plus, we got to see a bunch of pouty Drew Allar face shots as the game was coming to a close.

I’ll have an opinion piece early next week as we look ahead to the National Championship. For now, I just want to say how proud and amazed I am of this team and the job Marcus Freeman is doing. This has been a dizzying last month and we have a lot to discuss.