Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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32 FEBRUARY 2025 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED BY JACK SOBLE AND TYLER HORKA O n third-and-7 from the Notre Dame 27-yard line, Georgia needed a stop. There were just less than six minutes left in the Sugar Bowl. The Irish led by 13. A first down would all but ice the game. Senior quarterback Riley Leonard ran to the left, turned the corner and saw only one Bulldog de- fender between himself and the chains. In that situation, there's only one thing he knows how to do. He went airborne. "Everybody keeps telling me to stop doing that, and I did it," Leonard said. "It worked out today." Leonard leaped, head-first, across the first-down marker. He tumbled head over heels to the turf, got up and reveled in front of teammates and Irish fans — the ones who stayed an extra day after a horrifying terrorist attack postponed the game — who knew they were wit- nessing history. No. 7 Notre Dame shocked No. 2 Georgia 23-10 Jan. 2 in New Orleans. The Irish won their first major bowl game in 31 years and advanced to the College Football Playoff semifinals. "I've been reminding them the last 10 days as we prepared, this will be a 60-plus-minute fight," head coach Marcus Freeman said. "Our players ex- ecuted, put everything on the line for this university and this football team." For nearly 30 minutes of game time, it looked like Notre Dame was in for a redux of Week 1 at Texas A&M: A low- scoring rock fight. But with 39 seconds to go in the first half, the turning point came. Georgia redshirt sophomore quarter- back Gunner Stockton barely had time to finish his drop when Notre Dame graduate student defensive end RJ Oben barreled toward him on his blind side. Oben came screaming around the edge and ferociously strip-sacked Stock- ton, and junior vyper Junior Tuihala- maka recovered the fumble at the UGA 13-yard line. Tuihalamaka immediately turned to- HOW SWEET IT IS Notre Dame shocks Georgia in the Sugar Bowl and advances to the College Football Playoff semifinals