The Notre Dame Preventing Irish superior to the Faculty Soccer Playoff championship recreation on Thursday evening with a 27-24 win over Penn State within the Orange Bowl.
They’ll now face the winner of Friday’s Cotton Bowl recreation between Ohio State and Texas.
Mitch Jeter’s area purpose with less than 10 seconds to play was the winning play, nevertheless it was removed from the one massive second within the recreation.
Listed here are some takeaways from Notre Dame’s win.
Kneejerk response: Penn State merely didn’t have the big-time gamers within the passing recreation
There are quite a lot of layers to Notre Dame’s win, however one of many greatest was not essentially about what they did or what they’d.
It was about what Penn State didn’t have, and that was influence gamers within the passing recreation.
Sure, it had tight finish Tyler Warren, who most likely ought to have been a Heisman Trophy finalist this season. And Warren performed one other excellent recreation on Thursday. However listed here are the 2 numbers it’s good to actually deal with from Thursday.
Zero catches.
Zero yards.
That’s what Penn State’s huge receivers did on Thursday. All of them. Mixed.
They caught zero passes. It doesn’t matter how good your working recreation is, how good your tight ends are, what your quarterback does or what your protection does, it’ll be almost unattainable to win a nationwide title getting, fairly actually, nothing out of your huge receivers within the greatest recreation of the season.
Quarterback Drew Allar additionally had a depressing recreation, struggling together with his accuracy and throwing an interception on the worst attainable time. He additionally had two interceptions in the long run zone negated by Notre Dame penalties, and missed a large open landing early within the recreation leading to Penn State having to accept a area purpose.
Penn State coach James Franklin will take quite a lot of warmth for dropping one other massive recreation to a top-five staff. However this one will not be on him. He coached a robust recreation. Emphasised the working recreation. Didn’t make any obviously unhealthy choices. Typically a coach simply wants the gamers to make some performs. His passing recreation didn’t make sufficient.
Sport MVP: Christian Grey, cornerback, Notre Dame
You could possibly go along with huge receiver Jaden Greathouse for his game-tying landing within the fourth quarter, or maybe kicker Mitch Jeter for making all 5 of his kicks (three further factors and two area objectives), together with the game-winning kick within the closing seconds.
However none of that issues with out Grey making the defensive play of the 12 months for the Irish.
