MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – Before Mitch Jeter’s 41-yard field goal sent Notre Dame to the national championship game, before Christian Gray’s diving interception set it up or before Jeremiyah Love’s mutant performance on a braced right knee, Marcus Freeman stood before his team inside the Diplomat Hotel on Hollywood Beach on Wednesday afternoon.
Notre Dame’s head coach had just returned from a final press conference before kickoff, the kind of throwaway media meetings that are usually forgotten before the final photo of the bowl trophy can be taken. This wasn’t one of those times. Not for Freeman, the Notre Dame head coach whose youth ran counter to what it takes to succeed in this sport of old guard and old-fashioned attitudes. A head coach who complained about not winning enough big games decided to make a point about his counterpart.
Penn State head coach James Franklin playfully asked Freeman how old he was. He complimented his hairline. He might as well have patted the 38-year-old on the head and told him he was doing so well. Because that’s how Freeman heard it, gritting his teeth the whole time. And now Freeman was going to give that energy to a new source.
His players could hardly believe it.
“He was angry. He was angry about the press conference and what happened in between,” safety Xavier Watts said. “He was angry about that. All the anger went towards us and that anger went onto the field.”
In a game where Notre Dame needed everything from the backup quarterback to two backup offensive linemen, Franklin managed to give the Irish just a little bit more. There was more to this spectacular College Football Playoff semifinal than Franklin’s self-inflicted verbal wounds; the confetti-strewn Hard Rock Stadium told that story. Notre Dame didn’t win because of something said from the other sideline. It won because this program catalyzes every advantage and tackles every challenge.
Franklin just offered a bonus.
“I’m not going to talk about their head coach, but we felt like their team didn’t really respect us,” Love said. “We wanted to come into this game and make a statement. Be the aggressors. Dominate them physically. That’s the message. Be physical and play violently. The whole game.”
In the end, Notre Dame’s 27-24 victory over Penn State was all that and more. The Fighting Irish lost three offensive starters in the first half, with two offensive linemen going down for the game and quarterback Riley Leonard suffering a head injury, which Notre Dame labeled as something other than a concussion. In his absence, backup Steve Angeli saved the first half, if not the day, leading Notre Dame on a field goal after the Irish fell behind 10-0, their first double-digit deficit of the season.
There was more heat in the half, Freeman demanding that Notre Dame follow up its biggest bowl win in a generation against Georgia in the Sugar Bowl with something bigger here. The Irish had been beaten to the ground in the first half by Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton, let alone tight end Tyler Warren. They didn’t define the edges, they didn’t create their drops, they didn’t really nail the details they’d been working on all year.
And Notre Dame’s offense, a disaster in the first half, needed Love to play hero when so few others could. Left tackle Anthonie Knapp had already been lost and replaced by career backup Tosh Baker to face a top-five pick in Abdul Carter in the future. When guard Rocco Spindler went down, redshirt freshman Charles Jagusah stepped in, a tackle who hadn’t played all season, asking to make it work on the guard. And inexplicably he did, as Notre Dame scored a 17-10 early in the fourth quarter when Love’s 2-yard run through four Penn State tacklers somehow outpaced his 98-yard score against Indiana to drive the College Football Playoff open.
This view of Jeremiyah Love’s touchdown 😳 pic.twitter.com/oSdhKereqU
— ESPN College Football (@ESPNCFB) January 10, 2025
Love aggravated his MCL injury against Georgia, enough that his availability appeared to be in question before Notre Dame arrived in Florida. And even during the week, Love wasn’t sure he’d be able to do more than just take shots, which wouldn’t have been enough for Notre Dame. Not in a game like this.
“I basically just came up here and said f— it and went out there and played,” Love said. “Whatever happens, it happens, I trust God. I trust His plan for me.”
After two Singleton touchdowns put Penn State ahead 24-17, making it seem like Notre Dame might not have answers to these final questions, Leonard shook off a cheeky interception to find Jaden Greathouse for a 54 touchdown meters with 4:38 playing. It was part of Greathouse’s seven-catch, 105-yard night, the first 100-yard performance of his college career.
“This team has battled adversity, challenges and struggles all year, and we have been able to overcome them all,” Greathouse said. “That’s the feeling tonight.”
Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman turned 39 on Friday. (Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)
And then Notre Dame closed the door on Penn State the way it knows best, baiting Drew Allar into an interception that it thought was coming all night. One from Gray was wiped out by a penalty in the first half. Another in the second half, from linebacker Jack Kiser, was taken off the board by pass interference. Gray made sure the third would hold and played a report that defensive coordinator Al Golden said he hadn’t called all night.
“He’s going to throw one for us, he’s going to throw one for us,” Watts said. “We knew it would come at some point and it came at the biggest moment.”
Linebacker Jaylen Sneed got just enough pressure on Allar to give the quarterback a little less time to throw, and that was all Gray needed. Fine margins again. Partly earned in the cinema. Some taken onto the field. Some are gifted, if you know where to listen when the microphones are on.
Notre Dame turned Gray’s pick into a seven-play, 19-yard procession into field goal range. By then, Franklin had run out of timeouts, and wasn’t even able to interrupt Jeter’s game-winning attempt. And maybe it wouldn’t have mattered after all. The transfer kicker nailed his second 41-yarder of the night to send Notre Dame to Atlanta in pursuit of its first national championship since 1988.
In the Notre Dame locker room, Kiser tried to make sense of it all, his six-year journey to becoming an Irish captain under this rising head coach, hired to take on the program that some thought might not happen again. Kiser didn’t want to go into too much detail about the fire and brimstone Freeman spewed the day before kickoff as the 38-year-old head coach showed this program has a weapon leading it.
And yet, as Kiser turned back to the locker room, a red digital clock flashed: 12:17 p.m. Midnight had passed. It wasn’t game night anymore. It happened to be Marcus Freeman’s birthday, now in the early morning of January 10th.
“Let’s say Coach Freeman turned 39 17 minutes ago,” Kiser said. “So he’s not that young guy that a lot of people treat him as. Guys want to play for Coach Freeman, and if you throw gas on the fire, things can get really explosive in this locker room.
GO DEEPER
Drew Allar’s late interception in the Orange Bowl loss delivers a familiar blow to Penn State
(Photo: Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)