Orange Bowl Stats and Highlights: Notre Dame 27, Penn State 24

HUGE win for the Irish (duh)

It was more than just a tale of two halves in the Orange Bowl for Notre Dame and the Penn State Nittany Lions — it is more nuanced than that. The Irish certainly came out of halftime down 10-3 as a changed and determined team to flip the game, but it was how the fourth quarter played out that will probably stick in the back of the heads of any college football fan who watched it unfold.

It went from a rock fight to a shootout, and the Irish didn’t blink. Notre Dame did whatever it took to stay in the game as things went badly and players went down with injuries, and they did it to ultimately take things to another level to put points on the board every time they needed them.

The Irish have won both the Sugar Bowl and the Orange Bowl in a matter of seven days, and their reward is a trip to the National Championship game against the winner of the Cotton Bowl — whether it be the Texas Longhorns or the Ohio State Buckeyes.

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