Penn State’s season is over after losing a 27-24 thriller against Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff (CFP) semifinal.\u00a0 On a national stage at the Orange Bowl in Miami, two of the most iconic programs in the country put on quite a show as they faced off for the chance to play for the National Championship.\u00a0 For Notre Dame, it’s an opportunity to win their first title since 1988.\u00a0 For Penn State, a long offseason of “what-ifs” begins after the Nittany Lions throw away their chance at a national title.<\/p>\n
Head coach James Franklin is now 1-15 at Penn State against top-five teams.\u00a0 Similarly, quarterback Drew Allar<\/a> had historically put together pedestrian numbers against the best competition.\u00a0 Counter to that, Allar had solid games to start this year’s playoffs against SMU in the first round<\/a> and Boise State in the quarterfinals<\/a>.\u00a0 However, the demons returned as Allar threw his first interception of the game, a bad interception at that, in Penn State territory with 33 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter.\u00a0 With that turnover, Penn State both literally and figuratively threw away their chance at the national title as Notre Dame converted that to the game-winning field goal.\u00a0 Allar did not complete a pass to a wide receiver in this game and put up his worst statistical performance of the season.<\/p>\n The game was expected to be won in the trenches<\/a>.\u00a0 That factor was supposed to give Notre Dame an advantage.\u00a0 Through the first half, it was quite the opposite as Penn State ran the ball at will, and Notre Dame lost two offensive linemen and starting quarterback Riley Leonard<\/a> to injury.\u00a0 Alluding to the importance of controlling the line of scrimmage in this game, at halftime Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman commented “We’ve got to run the ball and stop the run.”\u00a0 The game was tied at 10 entering the final quarter.\u00a0 Interestingly, the fateful fourth quarter saw conservative game plans and the defensive struggle go out the window.<\/p>\n A key storyline for both teams was the injury status of two of this game’s, and college football’s, brightest stars.\u00a0 Notre Dame’s Jeremiyah Love<\/a> came in with an injured right knee.\u00a0 He was wearing a brace on that knee.\u00a0 Penn State’s Abdul Carter<\/a> was nursing an injured left arm.<\/p>\n Before the game, Freeman spoke of Love saying “As long as he can go, we’re going to play him.”\u00a0 While Love started, he struggled to get going early on.\u00a0 Penn State’s defense was more physical, and the injuries on the offensive line did not help Love overcome his knee injury.\u00a0 In the first half, Love only had 10 yards on three carries.\u00a0 Like the game itself, the second half was a different story for Love.\u00a0 Symbolic of the fight in his team, Love would not give up and would not go down on his two-yard run in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n Before kickoff, Franklin also commented on his injured star.\u00a0 He simply said, “Looks pretty good to me.”\u00a0 Carter made his presence felt early on, impacting both the Notre Dame running attack and passing game.\u00a0 One such play forced Leonard to step up in the pocket to avoid Carter’s pressure, resulting in a Zakee Wheatley<\/a> interception on an overthrow.\u00a0 Carter played all but one snap in the first half but missed substantially more plays in the second half while significantly limited by his left arm.\u00a0 Surprisingly, Penn State’s Mackey Award-winning tight end Tyler Warren<\/a>, left for a bit after a hard sideline hit but soon returned.\u00a0 However, he did achieve yet another milestone in the last game of his Penn State career.\u00a0 Warren became the fourth tight end in history with 100 catches in a season.<\/p>\n Another key player that missed some time in the game due to injury was Leonard.\u00a0 As Notre Dame’s starting quarterback, Leonard is a threat both running the ball and throwing the ball.\u00a0 The transfer from Duke struggled early on with the physicality and pass rush of Penn State.\u00a0 Following a hard hit as halftime approached, Leonard exited after staggering while getting up.\u00a0 Backup quarterback Steve Angeli came in and drove the team for a field goal just before halftime.<\/p>\n Leonard returned for the beginning of the second half.\u00a0 Along with his return came momentum and a renewed confidence for Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish took the first drive of the second half straight down the field for a touchdown to tie the game.\u00a0 Leonard completed a 36-yard pass on the drive and finished it with a three-yard touchdown.<\/p>\n A test for leaders is performance in the face of adversity.\u00a0 Penn State defensive end Dani Dennis-Sutton<\/a> picked off Leonard in the fourth quarter, and Penn State converted the turnover to a 24-17 lead.\u00a0 Fittingly, Leonard responded with a 54-yard touchdown pass to tie the game.\u00a0 He made big plays when it mattered the most.\u00a0 After the game, speaking of Leonard, Freeman said, “He’s a competitor and competitors find a way to win.”<\/p>\n Passing:\u00a0<\/strong>Penn State threw for 135 yards, compared to 267 for Notre Dame.\u00a0 Drew Allar<\/a> completed 12 of 23 for 135 yards, with no touchdowns and one interception.\u00a0 For Notre Dame, Leonard completed 15 of 23 for 223 yards, with one touchdown and two interceptions.\u00a0 Angeli completed six of seven for 44 yards with no touchdowns or interceptions.<\/p>\n Rushing:\u00a0<\/strong>Penn State had 204 yards, compared to 116 yards for Notre Dame.\u00a0 Nick Singleton<\/a> led Penn State, and all players, with 84 rushing yards on 15 carries with three touchdowns.\u00a0 Kaytron Allen<\/a> added 82 yards on 19 carries.\u00a0 Notre Dame was led by Love, who had 45 yards on 11 carries with a touchdown.\u00a0 Leonard rushed 18 times for 35 yards and added a touchdown.<\/p>\n Receiving:\u00a0<\/strong>Warren led Penn State with 68 yards on six catches.\u00a0 For Notre Dame, Jaden Greathouse<\/a> led the team with a game-high 105 yards on seven receptions with a touchdown.\u00a0 Aneyas Williams had five catches for 66 yards.<\/p>\n Defense: <\/strong>Wheatley had a game-high 16 tackles and an interception to lead Penn State.\u00a0 Dennis-Sutton had two sacks and an interception.\u00a0 Additionally, Carter and Coziah Izzard had a sack each.\u00a0 Jack Kiser led Notre Dame with 10 tackles, while Rod Heard II and Joshua Burnham had one sack each.\u00a0 Christian Gray had Notre Dame’s interception.<\/p>\n Special Teams:\u00a0<\/strong>For Penn State,\u00a0Ryan Barker<\/a> converted his only field goal attempt.\u00a0 He converted all three of his extra-point attempts.\u00a0 Riley Thompson<\/a> punted five times, averaging 42.0 yards per punt.\u00a0 For Notre Dame, Mitch Jeter<\/a> converted both of his field goal attempts and successfully converted all three of his extra-point tries.\u00a0 James Rendell<\/a> punted four times, averaging 39.3 yards per punt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Penn State’s season is over after losing a 27-24 thriller against Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff (CFP) semifinal.\u00a0 On a national stage at the Orange Bowl in Miami, two of the most iconic programs in the country put on quite a show as they faced off for the chance to play for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5172,"featured_media":71553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,7361,11,35676,35610],"tags":[34494,32879,493,8255,837,5653,6850,259,1275,309,8489],"class_list":["post-71547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-bigten","category-bowl-games","category-independents","category-notre-dame-fighting-irish","category-penn-state-nittany-lions","tag-2024-college-football-playoff","tag-aneyas-williams","tag-awards","tag-coziah-izzard","tag-james-franklin","tag-mackey-award","tag-marcus-freeman","tag-notre-dame-fighting-irish","tag-orange-bowl","tag-penn-state-nittany-lions","tag-steve-angeli"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5172"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71547"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71554,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71547\/revisions\/71554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Key Takeaways: Penn State Throws Away Orange Bowl Against Notre Dame<\/h2>\n
Playing Through Injuries<\/h3>\n
Life of Riley<\/h3>\n
By the Numbers: Penn State Throws Away Orange Bowl Against Notre Dame<\/h3>\n
Offense<\/h3>\n
Defense\/Special Teams<\/h3>\n