Notre Dame football will have a shot to win its first national championship since 1988 on Jan. 20.
And it’s all thanks to a former Gamecock.
The Fighting Irish beat Penn State 27-24 Thursday night in the Orange Bowl to clinch a spot in the College Football Playoff national championship game. Former South Carolina kicker Mitch Jeter drilled a 41-yard field goal with seven seconds on the clock, giving Notre Dame a three-point lead and an eventual victory.
Jeter’s game-winning field goal officially marked a return to excellent form after he’d struggled in the back half of this season. He’d dealt with an injury in his kicking leg since October and missed four of his five attempts in Notre Dame’s final four regular season games.
He’s since found his groove in the College Football Playoff and is 7 of 8 on field goals in the last three games. That hot streak took away any nerves he might’ve had walking out with a chance to send Notre Dame to the national championship game.
“There was none,” Jeter told reporters after the game. “To go out there and do what I do thousands of times, just to be able to go out there to give our team a chance to achieve team glory, which coach (Marcus) Freeman often talks about. I’m just happy to do that for our team.”
Jeter was an excellent kicker at South Carolina from 2020 to 2023 before transferring to South Bend this season.
He handled all kickoff duties during his freshman and sophomore seasons (2020 and 2021) before taking over field goal kicking duties his junior year. Jeter had a 95.5% extra point percentage in 2022, successfully making 42 of his 44 point-after attempts. That same year he was successful on all 11 of his field-goal attempts — including a pair of 50-yarders.
In 2023, he upped his extra point percentage to 97.1% by successfully making 33 of his 34 point-after tries for the Gamecocks. He was also 12 of 14 on field goal attempts and ended the season as South Carolina’s top point scorer.
USC lost 21 to the transfer portal after the 2023 season, with Jeter among the most high-profile departures.
Jeter left South Carolina as one of only two kickers in school history to go 100% on field goals in a season (with a minimum of 10 attempts) and the only kicker in USC history with two field goals of 50-plus yards in the same game.
After his game-winning kick Thursday, several Gamecock fans and former teammates, like quarterback Dakereon Joyner, took to social media to voice their happiness for Jeter.
Jeter and the Fighting Irish will take on the winner of Friday’s Cotton Bowl between Texas and Ohio State for the national championship in Atlanta on Jan. 20.
