On Monday night, the Notre Dame football team's College Football Playoffs historic run ended at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium as they were defeated by the Ohio State Buckeyes in the National Championship by a score of 34-23.
The buckeyes explosive offense led to ND having to play catchup, and Riley Leonard and Marcus Freeman ran out of time after some questionable play calls on all phases of the ball. The Irish gave up 31 unanswered points, and gave up costly 14 points in the middle eight time period.
Fighting Irish couldn't get OSU offense off the field to save their life, and they missed their All-Americans in Rylie Mills and Benjamin Morrison tremendously.
While there were plenty of negatives to take away from this game, there were some positives as well. Notre Dame football will to never quit and keep fighting until clock hit zero was inspirational, and Jaden Greathouse ability to make defenders miss and make big time catches was outstanding.
When Notre Dame football throws to Greathouse, he doesn't dissappoint
Jaden Greathouse became Riley Leonard favorite deep ball target in the postseason, as he had seven catches for 105 yards against Penn State, and in the championship he had six catches for 128 receiving yards and two touchdowns.
Greathouse ended the year with 42 receptions for 592 yards, which led the Irish. Notre Dame football's narrative has always been that they are skill positions away from being National Championship contenders. Well, the Irish may have just found their best wide receiver since Chase Claypool.
The Irish wide out showed national media that he is the real deal and can create space and make 50/50 catches. Greathouse, not only made tremendous catches throughout the postseason, he also demonstrated his skill to make defenders miss and break tackles.
Against Ohio State, Greathouse ran a slant route and made the catch and immediately made All-American Caleb Downs to miss the tackle with a tremendous spin move and broke free for a 34-yard touchdown. In the fourth quarter Greathouse beat the Buckeye defender a fade route for an 30-yard one handed touchdown catch, to bring Irish within one score game. His 128 receiving yards and two touchdowns in a single game is a career high.
In the Orange Bowl the Sophomore receiver out of Austin, Texas hauled in seven catches for 105 yards, and similarly to the National Championship game, he had multiple game saving catches. He had a 54 yard game tying touchdown late in the fourth quarter in the semifinals against Penn State where he went viral for breaking two defenders ankles in one play.Greathouse's seven catches in the Orange bowl is a career high.
Other notable game he had this year was against no.15 Louisville in September, where he had four catches for 61 yards and his only regular season touchdown reception. He also had five receptions for 66 yards against Florida State, which both stat was his season high before his sensational playoff run.
Riley Leonard threw multiple 50/50 ball to 6-1 wide receiver, and he leaped up and made contested catches time and time again in these last two playoff games. Greathouse was a major spark plug on this Irish offense and helped them extend drives.
Jaden Greathouse balled out in the last two games of the season and will be a frontrunner to become Notre Dame football wide receiver 1 next year. He showed Irish faithful they have a receiver who has the skill to make jump ball catches on either key third downs or in the red zone, but also to break tackles and be a legit deep ball threat.