College football is a weird, high-stakes game where a single person’s leg can determine the mood of an entire campus for a week. Or, in the case of Mitch Jeter Notre Dame, the mood of the entire South Bend community for a whole championship run. You’ve probably seen the highlights of the Orange Bowl by now. You know the one—the 41-yarder that sent Penn State home and booked the Irish a ticket to the national title game.
But honestly, that kick almost didn't happen.
If you look at the middle of the 2024 season, Mitch Jeter was basically a ghost. People were whispering about whether the South Carolina transfer was a "bust" or if the "Notre Dame kicker curse" had struck again. The truth is a lot more painful than just "missing kicks."
The Groin Injury Nobody Talked About Enough
When Jeter showed up in South Bend, he was the guy who hadn't missed a field goal under 50 yards in basically forever. He was the safe bet. Then came the Stanford game in mid-October.
Marcus Freeman mentioned "groin tightness" after the game, which is coach-speak for "this guy can barely walk, let alone kick a ball 50 yards." For the next month, Jeter was a shell of himself. He missed four out of five attempts at one point. If you were watching the Florida State or Virginia games, you saw a kicker who looked shaky, hesitant, and—frankly—injured.
He wasn't just missing; he was compensating.
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Groin and hip injuries for a kicker are like a pitcher trying to throw with a torn labrum. It ruins the entire kinetic chain. You can't rotate. You can't follow through. Jeter spent weeks practicing in what he later described on the Third & Gold podcast as "pure survival mode." He was trying to figure out how to be an elite specialist while his body was actively betraying him.
Turning the Corner: The "Mr. January" Transformation
Something clicked in December. Maybe it was the rest, or maybe the training staff finally found the magic formula for his recovery. Whatever it was, the Mitch Jeter Notre Dame story shifted from a "what if" to a legend in the span of three playoff games.
Look at the numbers because they’re actually kind of insane:
- Indiana (Quarterfinal): Drilled a 49-yarder right before half to suck the life out of the Hoosiers.
- Georgia (Semifinal): Went 3-for-3, including three different kicks from over 40 yards. No one had ever done that in a CFP game before.
- Penn State: The 41-yard game-winner with seven seconds left.
That Penn State kick was a literal "hook." It started right, looked like it was heading for the Gatorade buckets, and then just... snapped back. It was the kind of kick that makes a father—in this case, Andrew Jeter—become a viral meme for his reaction in the stands.
Why the Stats are Deceiving
If you just look at his 61.9% field goal percentage for the regular season, you’d think he had a bad year. You’d be wrong.
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Actually, if you strip away the games where he was playing through the peak of that groin injury, he was nearly perfect. He went 3-for-3 in his debut against Texas A&M and then finished the postseason 7-for-8. The "middle" of his season was a disaster because of health, not talent.
Life After South Bend: The NFL Path
Jeter didn't just hang up the cleats after the national championship game. He showed up to the Notre Dame Pro Day in March 2025 looking like the guy who dominated the SEC at South Carolina.
NFL scouts are usually wary of kickers with "lower body issues," but his performance in the clutch during the playoffs basically erased those concerns. He’s got that "soccer background" swing—he was an all-region player in North Carolina—which gives him a more natural, fluid motion than guys who just grew up "toeing" the ball.
It’s funny, he once compared kicking to golfing. You have to have a short memory. If you shank a drive, you can't let it ruin the next 17 holes. Jeter lived that. He shanked a whole month of October and still ended up being the hero in January.
What You Should Take Away
If you're a Notre Dame fan or just a college football junkie, there are a few real lessons from Jeter's 2024 season that most people miss:
- Specialists are people, not robots. A "dip in form" is almost always a physical issue that isn't being disclosed.
- The Transfer Portal works when the culture fits. Jeter chose ND because of Marty Biagi’s reputation and the biological sciences program. He wasn't just a mercenary; he was a grad student with a plan.
- Postseason legacy outweighs regular-season stats. Nobody remembers the miss against Northern Illinois when you hit the game-winner to go to the Natty.
For those tracking his professional transition, watch his kickoffs. While his field goals got the glory, his touchback rate remained elite even when he was hurt. That’s the hidden stat that gets you a paycheck in the NFL.
If you're looking to dive deeper into how the Irish are replacing him, keep an eye on how the coaching staff handles the "groin injury blueprint" they developed with Jeter. They’ve already started being more explicit about rest days for their new specialists to avoid another mid-season collapse.