'It's On Us': Marcus Freeman Takes Blame For Having 10 Players In On Final Play
The Ohio State Buckeyes scored a touchdown on their final play of the game, as running back Chip Trayanum plunged forward — right where Notre Dame's 11th defender was supposed to be.
The Fighting Irish only had 10 men on the field for the Trayanum's 1-yard, go-ahead touchdown on third-and-goal, and head coach Marcus Freeman took the blame for the blunder.
"We were trying to get a fourth D-lineman on the field, and I told him, 'Just stay off' because we can't afford a penalty," Freeman said. "I didn't have any timeouts, so we couldn't afford a penalty there. It's on us. Got to be better."
However, the Buckeyes were already on the Notre Dame 1-yard line. A penalty — had it not been an offside — would have moved the ball up to the 1/2-yard mark, and the Fighting Irish would have been able to realign their defense.
An offside wouldn't have mattered, as the referees would have allowed them to play on. However, an encroachment penalty — where a defensive tackle, for example, would have made contact with an Ohio State offensive lineman — would have stopped play and allowed Notre Dame to get its 11th defender on the field ahead of the biggest play of the game.
Leading up to the short-yardage situation, which Ohio State was not good in until the final play, Buckeyes quarterback Kyle McCord rifled a 21-yard completion to Emeka Egbuka at the 1-yard line. After McCord spiked the ball with seven seconds left, Notre Dame called its final timeout of the game.
"'Freaking win the interval.' That's all I said," Freeman told his team during the timeout. "There's two plays really to be prepared for in that situation. So, he went and threw an incomplete pass, had three seconds left and we couldn't get a timeout. We were out of timeouts. Crowd's loud; you can't relay a message. I told them, 'We're probably going to run the same call twice.' That's what we ended up doing."
The Fighting Irish's defensive scheme worked on third down but failed on fourth down. Who knows, with the Buckeyes' short-yardage struggles, how the final play would have ended had Notre Dame had all 11 players on the field?
