(Miami Gardens) — The famed line in the Victory March says “what ‘tho the odds be great o’er small, old Notre Dame will win over all”.

That was certainly put to the test in the Orange Bowl tonight.

Trailing by 10 early and by seven points in the fourth quarter, Notre Dame rallied to beat 6th-seed Penn State, 27-24, and advance to the College Football National Championship. The Irish will play the winner of Friday night’s Cotton Bowl between Ohio State and Texas.

The win was a testament to the guts and grit of an Irish team, who saw two offensive linemen and their starting quarterback knocked out of the game in the first half, but managed to find a way to win on Mitch Jeter’s 41-yard field goal with eight seconds remaining.

“He’s been clutch all year,” said Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman after the game. “Man, that dude is special. We knew this was gonna be a heavyweight fight, but I told our guys we’ve been in this position before. We believed and we got the job done.”

“This a bunch of competitors and they just find a way.”

Finding a way on this night didn’t appear to be possible as the Irish fell behind 10-0. Penn State put together two drives of 14 plays or more early in the first half. The first one capped with a Ryan Barker 20-yard field goal and the second one with a Nick Singleton five-yard touchdown run.

Shortly after that, Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard was knocked from the game on a big hit, but Steve Angeli came off the becnh to lead the Irish to a Jeter 41-yard field goal, narrowing the gap to 10-3 at halftime.

Leonard resumed control of the offense at the start of the second half, playing behind an offensive line that included a tackle who had only played 60 plays all season (Tosh Baker) and a guard seeing his first action of the year after coming back from a torn pec (Charles Jagusah). That didn’t phase Leonard, who scored a three-yard touchdown on the opening drive of the third quarter to tie the game at 10.

Jeremiyah Love then bulled his way into the end zone from two yards out on the third play of the 4th quarter, and the Irish grabbed their first lead of the night at 17-10.

Now it was Penn State’s turn to respond and the Nittany Lions assumed control. Singleton made a nifty cutback run from eight yards out to tie the game with 10:20 remaining. Leonard was picked off by Dani Dennis-Sutton on Notre Dame’s next offensive play, and Penn State cashed it in with Singleton’s third touchdown of the night to give the Nittany Lions a 24-17 lead.

Notre Dame answered with a haymaker, as Leonard found a lonely Jaden Greathouse on the right side. Greathouse juked a Penn State defender and raced 54 yards for the score, tying the game at 24.

The game appeared to be headed for overtime with under a minute left, but Penn State quarterback Drew Allar threw over the middle late and was picked off by Christian Gray at the Penn State 42. Leonard hit Greathouse with a pass for a first down to the 25, and the Irish tried to bleed the clock, setting the stage for Jeter’s heroics. The 41-yard attempt off the right hash, knuckled back towards the middle and gave the Irish their second major bowl win in as many weeks.

“Coach said history is written by conquerors and we’re the one with the pen,” Leonard reflected afterwards. “I’m a firm believer of whether you think you can or can’t do something, you’re right. We believed that we could do it and we went out there and did it.”

The win means Freeman becomes the first black head coach to guide his team to a national championship game. “It’s an honor, but I hope that all coaches…minorities, blacks, Asian, whites…will continue to get opportunities to lead young men like this. This isn’t about me. This is about us. We’re going to celebrate what we’ve done.”

Notre Dame has not won a college football national championship since 1988 and has not played for one since 2012.