Notre Dame was agonizingly close Monday to finally ending its long national championship drought. The Fighting Irish will have to wait at least one more long year for another potential chance at history.
Ohio State built a 31-7 lead on Notre Dame before winning 34-23 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in the College Football Playoff national title game in front of 77,660 fans. Notre Dame led 7-0 early and then had a whole pot of momentum on its side in the fourth quarter before running short on time.
“Obviously tough moment, tough outcome. There’s reasons why we didn’t get the outcome we wanted,” coach Marcus Freeman said. “We obviously didn’t play the way we needed to get the outcome we want, but as I said to the guys in the locker room, there’s not many words to say when everybody is hurting.
“I’m just proud of them and proud of what they’ve done. I’m proud of who they are, the way they represent themselves, and it’s just an honor to be on this journey with them.”
The Irish last won a national championship after the 1988 season, a season capped with a Fiesta Bowl win over West Virginia on the second day of 1989 that completed a 12-0 record. That team was coached by Lou Holtz who was in attendance for Monday’s culmination of a 12-team playoff, the first of its kind in the history of major college football.
Notre Dame (14-2) appeared poised early to take fate by the horns and bring a title back to South Bend, Indiana, after more than 3 1/2 decades of an empty spot on the trophy shelf. Instead, the Buckeyes (14-2) dominated the second quarter and much of the third en route to their first championship since 2014.
Freeman’s team hadn’t lost since Sept. 7 and had already won at Mercedes-Benz Stadium once this season, a 31-13 victory over Georgia Tech on Oct. 19. It found a second victory in the venue a bit tougher to come by the second time around.
“It’s kind of tough to say something after losing a national championship,” wide receiver Jaden Greathouse said about Freeman’s message to the locker room in the aftermath. “He just recognized everything that the team has been doing and the kind of team that we have become throughout the season.”
The Irish, to their credit, did not go down without a fight when matters looked the worst.
They scored 16 points in the second half and put themselves within 31-23 with 4:15 to go after Riley Leonard threw a 30-yard touchdown pass to Greathouse, a score which resurrected the previously dormant Notre Dame faithful in the crowd. But OSU quarterback Will Howard and wide receiver Jeremiah Smith broke Notre Dame hearts with a play that will be burned into the Irish consciousness for many moons to come.
On third down from the OSU 34, Howard launched a bomb down the right side of the field for a streaking Smith who was a step ahead of cornerback Christian Gray. Howard caught the ball at the 30 before being brought down by Gray at the 9. It was a backbreaker of all backbreakers.
Jayden Fielding’s 33-yard field goal make with 26 seconds left then sealed the result.
After the game, reporters attempted to speak with Gray about the game’s pivotal play. But a host of Gray’s teammates emotionally came to his defense and blocked Gray from commenting on what had happened in the game’s final moments.
The opening drive of the night had the ghosts of Notre Dame football past beaming and sniffing possible epic glory. Leonard led the Irish on an 18-play, 75-yard drive that exhausted 9:45 off the clock.
The drive had a 2nd-and-11, 2nd-and-10 and 2nd-and-8. It had four third downs. It had two fourth-down conversions. And it had eight runs by Leonard, including three straight to end the series. The senior, after sucking wind by bending over at the waist before the play call, scored on a 1-yard run over left guard giving Notre Dame a 7-0 lead.
Notre Dame kept that lead into the second quarter, but the Buckeyes were on the move. On the second play of the period, Howard threw an 8-yard touchdown pass to Smith to tie the game.
Notre Dame’s second offensive drive? That had those same ghosts cringing.
An overthrow by Leonard on first down was followed by a false start, hold, short run up the middle and short completion preceding a punt. Ohio State took the ensuing possession 76 yards the other direction and asserted some physical dominance along the way. Quinshon Judkins capped the drive by taking a handoff from the 9-yard line and slamming Irish linebacker Jaiden Ausberry to the turf with a stiff arm on his path to the end zone.
Notre Dame’s third drive went from bad to worse when a third-down snap hit tight end Mitchell Evans who had been motioning from right to left. Evans was fortunate to recover the loose ball, but the Irish still had to punt again.
That type of inefficiency couldn’t be afforded against the Buckeyes who went 80 yards the other way and drained 4 1/2 of the final five minutes off the clock. Howard’s 6-yard throw to an open Judkins on a scramble drill made it a 21-7 game going into the break.
The Irish managed just 18 yards of offense the rest of the first half after totaling 75 on that impressive and hopeful opening offensive series.
“I think the best thing we did on that (opening) drive was just play by the, or stay by, the chains. You see the next three drives after that, penalties and miscommunications. And all that stuff is on me,” Leonard said. “That first drive we just came out and played Notre Dame football, took advantage of our matchups when we had to. We just drove the ball down the field. We had to run the ball a little bit. Everything was just clicking.
“Then the next couple drives maybe I got relaxed a little bit, and I can’t let that happen. And I apologize to everybody for the way that I played after that drive in the second quarter because it’s unacceptable.”
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Ohio State needed just 2:14 into the second half to score again. Judkins dove in from a yard out, a score set up by his 70-yard rush earlier in the drive.
If that signaled the end, the following minute nearly cemented the inevitable.
On fourth down of Notre Dame’s next possession, the Irish called for a fake punt needing two yards on their own 33. Up-back James Rendell, the Notre Dame punter, took the snap and rolled right before throwing for wide receiver Jordan Faison — Faison dropped the ball on what would have been a first-down completion.
Fielding turned that blunder into a 46-yard field goal for Ohio State, making it 31-7 with 7:52 to go in the third quarter.
“Yeah, I mean, there was some things on both sides of the ball that we don’t normally do and some communication mistakes, self-inflicted wounds that we haven’t been doing the past few weeks,” Freeman said. “You’re always making mistakes, but those type of detrimental mistakes when you play a really, really good football team cost you points. I think that’s probably the biggest thing that has stuck out to me even in between series, the communication.
“It falls on my shoulders. And as the head coach, we have to prepare and be better prepared for this moment. These guys gave everything they got.”
The Irish, to be fair, had a sliver of comeback hope after Leonard completed a 34-yard touchdown pass to Greathouse with 3:03 left in the quarter. Leonard’s inside shovel pass to Jeremiyah Love for the two-point conversion cut the deficit to 31-15.
Ohio State then lost the game’s first turnover when Notre Dame linebacker Drayk Bowen stripped Ohio State wide receiver Emeka Egbuka at the 21 going in. The Irish drove to the Buckeyes’ 9 and attempted a 27-yard field goal with 9 1/2 minutes go play.
Mitch Jeter’s kick, however, clanged off the left upright, symbolic of the type of night it was for the green and gold.
“We continued to fight,” Notre Dame safety Xavier Watts said,” we just didn’t get it done in the end.”
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