Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM JANUARY 2025 39 QUARTERFINAL PREVIEW: GEORGIA C O L L E G E F O O T B A L L P L A Y O F F tackles than Notre Dame through conference cham- pionship weekend. Love leads the charge in that regard with a broken plus missed tackles percentage of 33.8. Yes — according to Sports Info Solutions, Love breaks a tackle or forces a missed tackle on more than one-third of his rushing attempts. That was the fourth-best figure in that category in the country heading into the first round of the CFP. Do the Dawgs have enough to combat that? If they play like they did against Texas, absolutely. Georgia ranked 36th in rushing yards allowed per game through conference title weekend, but its most recent effort in that area was one of its best of the season. The Bulldogs limited Texas to 31 rushing yards on 28 carries. That includes 6 sacks for a loss of 27 yards. Adjusting for those, it was re- ally 22 carries for 58 yards. Still none too promising for the opposition. Texas sophomore Quintrevion Wisner had 158 yards against Kentucky and 186 yards against Texas A&M in his last two outings prior to the SEC title game. There, the Georgia defense limited him to 51 yards on 19 carries. The Bulldogs are capable of shutting down an opponent's running game, but the Irish's running game is on another level, especially considering the quarterback run is such a huge part of that. Georgia Tech QB Haynes King, for instance, ran 24 times for 110 yards and 3 touchdowns against UGA. That's impossible to ignore and easy to imag- ine what Leonard could do with that kind of vol- ume. Advantage: Notre Dame NOTRE DAME PASSING GAME VS. GEORGIA PASS DEFENSE The last two times out have not been good show- ings for the Georgia pass defense. The Bulldogs were lit up for 303 yards against rival Georgia Tech and 358 against Texas in the SEC Championship Game. Even Mississippi State, the worst team in the SEC record-wise, threw for 306 yards against Georgia Oct. 12. Two weeks before that, Alabama used 374 passing yards to hang on to beat Georgia, 41-34. This Dawgs defense can be had through the air. But this Notre Dame offense isn't one to go that route to try to win a ballgame. The Irish's passing game is merely a complement to its high-powered rushing attack. When it's not holding up its lower end of the bargain, that's when the Irish get in trouble. The good news for ND is that hasn't been the case in quite a while. Senior quarterback Riley Leonard has learned how to be just effective and efficient enough to make the Notre Dame offense threatening in both phases. Leonard completed a career-high 66.2 percent of his passes in the regular season and threw for 174.3 yards per game with 16 touchdown passes and 5 interceptions. His main target, per Pro Foot- ball Focus, was Clemson transfer Beaux Collins, and it wasn't close. He threw the ball to Collins 55 times. The next most-targeted player among Notre Dame pass catchers was senior tight end Mitchell Evans with 39 targets. Collins and Evans being Notre Dame's most tar- geted players is symbolic of the Irish passing of- fense not being prolific. Collins leads the team in drops with half a dozen, and in November he only caught 6 passes for 68 yards and 0 touchdowns in four games. Evans has not been the same player he was prior to his ACL injury, meanwhile, but he did have his best game of the year in the regular- season finale with 5 catches for 59 yards and a touchdown. Those numbers were light work for him as a junior. As a senior, it's been much tougher sledding, for him and everyone else involved in the Notre Dame passing game — the unit ranked 101st in passing yards per game (196.7) entering the CFP. Still, it's come a long way since Leonard had only 163 passing yards with 0 touchdowns and 2 interceptions in a 16-14 loss to Northern Illinois in Week 2. After three games with 0 touchdown passes in the first half of the season, Notre Dame finished the regular season with at least 2 touch- down tosses in six consecutive games. We won't go as far as to give the Irish a clear edge, but we don't see them having an over- whelming disadvantage either. Advantage: Even SPECIAL TEAMS There couldn't possibly be a wider gap between the two teams' placekicking games. Georgia's Peyton Woodring is a perfect 47 of 47 on extra points and 20 of 22 on field goal at- tempts. Notre Dame, meanwhile, has missed one of its 65 extra point tries and is 8 of 18 on field goal attempts with three players having registered at least one try. The main man, South Carolina transfer Mitch Jeter, is 6 of 12. The last time we saw him in action, he pushed a 27-yard try wide right. It didn't even smack the upright. It skimmed it and kept going farther right. Georgia, though, will be without punter Brett Thorson. He was injured in the SEC title game. He's attempted all 42 of Georgia's punts this season with a stellar average of 47.6 yards per boot. Notre Dame's James Rendell has punted 37 times with an average of 41.9 yards per punt. Each team is capable of some trickery. After Thorson went out against Texas, Georgia enacted a successful fake punt at a critical time. The Irish have set in motion several successful fakes them- selves, both on the punt and field goal units. We'll all be watching to see if a fake is of con- sequence in this matchup, but it's more likely the game could come down to a field goal. These post- season games often do. And in that instance, we've got to take Georgia going off what we know about both teams' field goal capabilities. Advantage: Georgia INTANGIBLES The postseason is Georgia's time to shine. The Bulldogs have played in six College Football Playoff games with a record of 5-1. The Irish have played in two, and not one since 2020, with a record of 0-2. Georgia head coach Kirby Smart is 10-2 in bowl games, including playoff games, and the Bulldogs have not lost one since the Sugar Bowl in the 2018 season. If you're a college football fan who needs a reminder of how long ago that was, the defeat came to Texas. Tom Herman, who was fired by Florida Atlantic in November, was the Longhorns' head coach. Sam Ehlinger was the UT quarterback. It's been a while since Georgia lost in this kind of game. Winning them is just what they do. Advantage: Georgia COACHING Kirby Smart is one of two current college football head coaches to have won a national title, and he's got two of them at Georgia, looking for a third in a span of four seasons. Marcus Freeman is in his third season at Notre Dame, meanwhile, and he's never coached in a game of this magnitude at this time of the year. No, the Fiesta Bowl versus Oklahoma State does not count. There was not a national title at stake then like there is now. Freeman's veteran coordinators will help calm things down on the Notre Dame sideline, but Smart has an equipped crew for that as well. With Nick Saban having exited the game and Dabo Swin- ney not having Clemson at the same level it was operating at a few years back, this is Smart's sport. Smart's world. We're all just living in it. Advantage: Georgia Junior nickel Malaki Starks leads the team with 73 tackles and has one of Georgia's 8 intercep- tions this season. PHOTO COURTESY GEORGIA