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What did Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman, Penn State players say after the Orange Bowl?

Greg Pickelby:Greg Pickel•about 10 hours•

GregPickel

NCAA Football: Orange Bowl-Notre Dame at Penn State
Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Marcus Freeman celebrates defeating the Penn State Nittany Lions in the Orange bowl at Hard Rock Stadium. (Mandatory Credit: Sam Navarro-Imagn Images)

MIAMI — Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman smiled as he stood on a raised platform on the turf at Hard Rock Stadium here following his team’s 27-24 victory over Penn State in a College Football Playoff semifinal at the Orange Bowl. He took in the moment, then moved on to the winning locker room and eventually a postgame news conference minutes after the game ended.

“Penn State was a heck of a football team,” Freemans aid. “I had a lot of respect for them coming into the game but have more after the game. It’s a really good team, well-coached, and it was a tough match-up. But these guys are resilient, and they found a way to make a play when it mattered the most. 

“That’s what, again, to me is what great teams, great organizations are able to at that moment that they need to do their job or make a play, they do it. The last play doesn’t matter. There’s unpredictable things that happen all the time, and they find a way to make it work. I’m really proud of them, excited for this next opportunity.”

What did he see on kicker Mitch Jeter’s 41-yard game-winning field goal late in the fourth quarter and the sequence that led to it?

More: James Franklin gets emotional discussing his team following heartbreaking loss in CFP semifinals

“I wanted to see are they going to call a time-out,” he said. “If they’re not going to call a time-out, then I had to have a plan, hey, when do we want to use our time-outs.  Once we figured out what they were going to do we said we want to center this ball on 3rd down, center the ball on 3rd down, and on 3rd down — I’m sorry, center the ball on 2nd; on 3rd down is when we decided to do a QB sneak because they called a time-out. 

“They executed flawlessly. Nobody panicked. It was great communication. Riley kept everybody under control, and we knew we were in range where Mitch could make that field goal. He is a confident guy, man. There is no moment too big for Mitch Jeter. I had a lot of confidence in him in that moment that he was going to do exactly what he did, and he did a great job at doing that.”

What did Penn State players say after the loss?

It goes without saying that the mood was much more somber in the Penn State locker room. Numerous players fought back tears as they thought about the end of their season. Here is some of what was said:

“I was going through my progression, got to the backside, and honestly I was just trying to throw it at his feet but I should have just thrown it away. I felt the first two progressions not open just because of the situation we were in, but I was just trying to throw it at Omari’s feet, but just didn’t execute what I was trying to do.”

–PSU QB Drew Allar on his fourth quarter interception.

“I can’t even really think about the game now. I’m just really thinking about my brothers here, just how bad we wanted, just how bad we worked for it, and unfortunately, we came up short. I’m just thankful to be with my brothers.”

–PSU DE Abdul Carter.

“This is a brotherhood from top to bottom. I’d probably say this is the tightest team we’ve had since I got here. We’ve have some six year seniors like Sal and just merging in with some of our freshmen, watching how the team is molded, and really became just one big brotherhood over the years, it’s awesome.”

–PSU OT Drew Shelton.

“Notre Dame is a great team. Coach Franklin did his best to prepare us for this game. We just didn’t execute on a couple plays and [it’s] a small margin for error at this level.”

–Penn State DE Dani Dennis-Sutton.

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