Riley Leonard started the national championship game with an impressive drive that made it seem like the Notre Dame quarterback could win the title all by himself.
However, Leonard would need more support from his teammates. His two touchdown passes to Jaden Greathouse in the second half showed the Fighting Irish’s resilience, but their comeback effort came too late. Greathouse’s first touchdown catch came late in the third quarter of Ohio State’s 34-23 victory on Monday night.
Leonard contributed three touchdowns, passing for 255 yards with two touchdowns and running for 40 yards and another touchdown on 17 carries.
He was the star of a long, 18-play, 75-yard touchdown drive to open the game, where Leonard had nine carries for 34 yards, including a 1-yard touchdown run. This drive lasted 9 minutes and 45 seconds.
Nine carries in one drive? That was half of Leonard’s season high for carries in a full game. His previous record was 18 carries for 34 yards and a touchdown in Notre Dame’s 27-24 Orange Bowl victory over Penn State in the College Football Playoff semifinal.
Leonard had no complaints about coach Marcus Freeman’s game plan. “If coach wants to call my number and have me run the ball every single time, I’ve got no problem with it,” Leonard said.
However, Freeman knew they couldn’t keep asking Leonard to handle so many carries.
“We couldn’t run Riley every play,” Freeman said. “It’s not right for Riley and it’s not going to sustain the success we needed offensively.”
After the touchdown run to cap the opening drive, Leonard pointed to the Bible verse “Matthew 23:12” on his wristband. The verse reads: “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”
Leonard may have been signaling that it was time for Notre Dame to be praised. Instead, Ohio State quarterback Will Howard and running back Quinshon Judkins proved difficult to stop.
Without more help from his teammates, Leonard and Notre Dame couldn’t keep up with Ohio State. The Buckeyes led 21-7 at halftime, while Leonard’s teammates only managed eight yards on six carries. Leonard himself passed for just 46 yards in the first half.
When Judkins ran for 70 yards to set up a 1-yard touchdown run, Ohio State took a 28-7 lead, and Leonard realized the deficit couldn’t be overcome with more quarterback runs alone.
The three-touchdown gap put Notre Dame in a tough spot. An incomplete pass on a fake punt early in the second half gave Ohio State the ball at Notre Dame’s 33-yard line, which made things worse.
The Fighting Irish were behind 31-7 before they finally scored again on a 34-yard touchdown catch by Greathouse from Leonard with 3:03 left in the third quarter. Greathouse later added a 30-yard touchdown catch, and a successful two-point conversion brought Notre Dame within eight points. But Howard’s 57-yard pass to Jeremiah Smith with two minutes left ended Notre Dame’s comeback hopes.
Leonard took responsibility for not completing the comeback.
“Everything was just clicking,” Leonard said about the drives that led to touchdown passes to Greathouse. “The next couple of drives maybe I got relaxed a little bit and I can’t let that happen.”
Notre Dame’s 14-2 record ended with a loss, and their 13-game winning streak was snapped. The Fighting Irish are still searching for their first national championship since 1988. Coach Marcus Freeman’s attempt to make history as the first African American head coach to win a national title also fell short.
Charles Jagusah started in place of left tackle Anthonie Knapp, who was out with a high ankle sprain. Jagusah was making only his second career start, having missed the regular season due to a torn right pectoralis muscle, but returned for the postseason.
