Pluck, luck and (maybe) ghosts: Notre Dame’s complex path to stunning Ohio State in national championship game

ATLANTA — The longest pass play of the Notre Dame season is a bit of a paradox. The Irish don’t really do long pass plays.

Notre Dame is 102nd nationally in passing offense, worst by far of this season’s 12 College Football Playoff teams. The 194 passing yards per game are also worst for Notre Dame since the 2017 Fighting Irish squad had Malik Zaire slingin’ the rock. 

But the passing game, the playoff and the season — perhaps a national championship season — may have turned on one explosive play in the Orange Bowl semifinal against Penn State.  

Irish receiver Jaden Greathouse lined up against cornerback Cam Miller. At the snap, Miller went down as if he’d been tasered. 

“I definitely take the credit for him falling on that one,” Greathouse said gleefully. 

That left the sophomore receiver wide open down the right sideline with his team trailing 24-17 with 4 ½ minutes left. Quarterback Riley Leonard perhaps has never had an easier throw, hitting Greathouse in stride for a season-long 54-yard score. 

To get to the end zone, Greathouse then threw a rec league head fake on Penn State safety Jalen Reed. Down went Reed as well, ankles and hopes broken. 

Seconds later, the game was tied in a game that would conclude in a 3-point Notre Dame victory. This Irish football fable continued. 

All of it must be addressed in proper context prior to Monday’s College Football Playoff National Championship without diving into a vat of cliches about leprechauns and echoes and Rudys. 

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” Irish coach Marcus Freeman said at Saturday’s media day. “I believe in God.”

The enduring reality? Well, it’s complicated — and inspiring. 

The underdog Irish have a shot against Ohio State, though you may not have heard much of that kind of talk this week. They have a shot despite being nearly double-digit underdogs. They have a shot, but the path is complex because the reasons aren’t easily quantified. 

These Irish have been so beat up at times that a stretcher accompanied the game plan. Two offensive line starters were lost against Purdue in the third game of the season. (One returned four weeks later). Two different o-line starters went down against Penn State. One of the replacements, Tosh Baker, has four career starts in five seasons. 

Starting corner Leonard Moore was forced into action after the Irish’s best defensive back, Benjamin Morrison, went down with the hip injury in Week 7. This week, Moore was named the Freshman Defensive Player of the Year by the Football Writers Association of America.

Christian Gray was part of a defense that gave up 557 yards at USC. A mere mortal may have needed football counseling after being picked on like that. Then, he intercepted a pass and ran back a 99-yard pick six. All-American Xavier Watts took one back 100 yards shortly after as well. 

Notre Dame won by 14, finishing off a 12-week, playoff-clinching rebound from the Northern Illinois loss. 

Who cares about 557 yards?

You might also remember Gray from knocking out Penn State with that late interception. The sophomore from St. Louis was among Marcus Freeman’s first commits.

“The first [recruiting] visit, to be totally honest with you, I thought the place was kind of boring,” Gray said. “I didn’t know where it was. I didn’t even know it was in Indiana.

It just started to change every time I kept visiting. I just felt, ‘OK, this place is different.'”

So different, at times, you couldn’t recognize the Irish this season. Notre Dame’s best defensive lineman, Howard Cross III, has missed three games. His last solo tackle was more than two months ago. Defensive tackle Riley Mills was knocked out for the season in the first-round game against Indiana.

Since running back Jeremiyah Love ripped off the longest run in CFP history — 98 yards for a score against the Hoosiers — the running game has averaged a mere 3.27 per carry. 

The Penn State comeback was sparked by a late first-half field goal drive led by backup quarterback Steve Angeli. 

This is a team a heartless biker gang could love. Leonard took no “official or unofficial” visits — his words — in recruiting. He got to Duke because his personal throwing coach, David Morris, had played for then Blue Devils coach David Cutcliffe at Ole Miss. 

“It’s crazy to think where I am today,” Leonard said.  

Is that good — or bad — enough for you?

The temptation is to invoke the influence of a wink and nod from a certain 134-foot tall mosaic deity overlooking the whole enterprise. 

The Irish contend it is something else — something more pluck than luck.  

“We really are not to be messed with,” Greathouse added. “We have playmakers. Whether everybody sees that or not we don’t care.”

A school-record 14 wins has been achieved by some level of magic in this playoff run. Notre Dame couldn’t afford a loss after being upset by Northern Illinois, so it didn’t lose. The 13-game win streak currently leads the nation. 

A program that couldn’t match up athletically in the biggest games is suddenly dictating. 

“If you get to the tournament, this is a whole different experience,” said former Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, who has reason to root for both sides. “Throw away all of your bowl preparation stuff because this is a different beast.”

In three similar BCS/CFP games, the Irish have been outscored by a combined 72 points. In the 2013 BCS Championship Game, Alabama was charitable in a 42-14 win. In a 2019 CFP semifinal, Notre Dame was run off the field by Clemson 30-3. Two years later, Alabama did the honors again in a 31-14 pounding. 

This Notre Dame plays much the same way as those teams did, dominated by defense with physical play along both lines and — sorry, Jaden — a lack of big-time playmakers. 

But there is that path carved with intangibles to victory for the Irish. Ask Tressel. He coached Ohio State for nine years before resigning in 2011. Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman played for Tressel from 2004-08. 

Mostly, this Notre Dame looks like a lot like Tressel’s 2002 Ohio State team that won half its 14 games by a touchdown or less. 

Those “Luckeyes” were also prohibitive underdogs. They were similarly outgunned in the championship game by Miami, a team loaded with NFL talent. But Tressel devised a game plan that dragged the Hurricanes down into the mud and made them value every possession. 

That was an all-time Miami team. Maybe the all-time Miami team. Of Miami’s 13 possessions in regulation, four ended by punt and three ended with a fumble. Three others ended with a missed field goal. 

The biggest play of the game — perhaps the biggest play in Ohio State history before last Friday — was Maurice Clarett’s snatching of Sean Taylor’s interception.

“We’d been up against it so many times,” Tressel told CBS Sports. “That didn’t frighten us in being in an adverse moment. The more battle tested you get, that helps. That’s why when you lift weights, you tear up muscles, they grow bigger. When your team gets worked out, it grows bigger.” 

Twenty-two years later, it remains difficult to draw a bead on the Irish. They are a gumbo of different ingredients. 

• The top-10 defense has given up more than 25 points only three games since the beginning of 2023. 
• Opponent passing efficiency and completion percentage lead the country.  
• Notre Dame is one of only four teams to be in man coverage more than half the time this season. And, as evidenced above, it has worked.  
• The Irish are kings of the “middle 8,” the last 4 minutes of the first half and first 4 minutes of the second half. They have outscored the opposition 27-0 in that span during the playoff. They are second nationally over the course of the season.
• The Irish lead the country both in turnovers (32) and points off turnovers (151). 
• Kicker Mitch Jeter went from liability (6 of 12 in the regular season) to actually being able to get in the team photo if Notre Dame wins it all. With his hip healed, the senior is 7 of 8 in the postseason, including the game-winning kick against Penn State. 
• Talk about omens. Notre Dame’s 4-0 record against the Big Ten this season is the best against the conference by one team since 1993. No team has ever won five in a season against the Big Ten in the wire-service era (since 1936). 

Leonard this week suggested it was some kind of “divine teaching.” But before applying that to just the religious underpinnings of Notre Dame, he said both teams have prospered metaphysically. 

“I truly think those kinds of things happen for a reason,” Leonard said. “Not only us, but Ohio State as well. I think we’re the two main teams to publicly display our faith the most … I truly believe that Jesus was looking over both of our shoulders throughout the whole season and put these two teams on a pedestal for a reason.”

That doesn’t answer the question why the other 10 playoff teams weren’t put on a pedestal, but that’s a separate theological question for another time. 

The teams playing for the national championship have both been booed at home. Maybe it’s a sign of the NIL times. Maybe it’s outsized expectations for two blue bloods.

“We can’t perform to make sure everybody cheers for us,” Freeman said earlier this season.

Maybe it was also a jumping off point. Freeman lost two of these championship games as an Ohio State player in 2006 and 2007. 

No wonder Freeman made a point to remind his team of its worst moment on the 100-day anniversary of the Northern Illinois loss in mid-December.

“Understanding and remembering the pain we felt in that moment and never wanting to feel that again,” Gray said.  

Ohio State has its own demons trying to achieve the ultimate comeback from the Michigan loss — difference being the Buckeyes are expected to win big. 

For Notre Dame, there is a path carved with pluck, luck and perhaps even ghosts.

We’ll find out Monday night. One of these teams really is not to be messed with.