Notre Dame only had 10 players on the field when Ohio State took a last-second lead with its game-winning touchdown run Saturday — and, to some degree, it apparently was a strategic move.
Head coach Marcus Freeman said after the game he initially tried to substitute a fourth defensive lineman onto the field at Notre Dame Stadium, but instead of taking a penalty and giving the Buckeyes another chance to scheme, Freeman decided to operate with 10 players instead of 11 as Chip Trayanum gave Ohio State the lead in its 17-14 victory.
“To me, it was like, ‘Hey, don’t give them another opportunity to get settled and to try to make a different call,’ right?” Freeman said, according to ESPN, while acknowledging that taking the penalty just to insert the additional lineman could’ve been an option. “Hey, guys, stay off the field. Let’s not give them a freebie from the half-yard line and let’s try to stop them. And I thought maybe they would do the same thing they did the snap before. They didn’t. They ended up running the ball.
“So, I got to watch the play and see where the ball hit. But, yeah, that’s why I made that decision.”
But it wasn’t just the final play that included a management lapse from Freeman and the Fighting Irish.
Screengrabs on X — formerly known as Twitter — also depicted Notre Dame only having 10 players on the field on the snap prior to the game-winning plunge.
It’s a puzzling conundrum for the Fighting Irish, which compiled 14 points in the second half to take the lead on the Buckeyes after trailing 3-0 at halftime.
Gi’Bran Payne scored on a one-yard run in the third quarter.
Then, with a little more than eight minutes remaining, Rico Flores Jr. collected a two-yard pass from quarterback Sam Hartman to give Notre Dame a 14-10 lead.
The Fighting Irish’s defense initially stopped the Buckeyes on their next two possessions — forcing a punt and then a turnover on downs, with Ohio State at the Notre Dame 11-yard line — but a 15-play, 65-yard drive across the final 1:25 culminated with Trayanum’s one-yard run with one second remaining.
The play prior to that — the first with Notre Dame only having 10 defenders on the field — ended with quarterback Kyle McCord throwing an incomplete pass.
The second, though, had massive ramifications for the Fighting Irish, which had won its opening four games after a disappointing 9-4 record in 2022 during Freeman’s first campaign.
“It’s on us,” Freeman said in his press conference. “We gotta be better.”
Notre Dame will travel to face No. 18 Duke next weekend in North Carolina, while the Buckeyes will aim to keep their undefeated record — and College Football Playoff hopes — intact next weekend against Maryland.
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