Explaining the Notre Dame 10 men on the field blunder vs. Ohio State

Marcus Freeman’s message to the Notre Dame defense before the final two plays of Saturday’s colossal clash against Ohio State was simple. It was a mantra he preaches every single day, multiple times a day, delivered in different ways.

This particular time, he added a choice word.

“Freaking win the interval. That’s all I said.”

Only 10 of the players who heard him were on the field for second and goal from the one-yard line with seven seconds left and third and goal from the same spot with three ticks remaining. Two snaps, two chances for Ohio State to steal a win in South Bend, one fewer golden helmet between the lines than there should have been. Hard to win the interval when that’s the case.

Unacceptable.

The Buckeyes lined up for second down, and Freeman called a timeout to bring his guys to the sideline for instructions. There were 11 defensive players out there when they walked to receive the word. And then when they went back onto the turf, there were 10. Junior defensive lineman Gabriel Rubio was the man missing from the previous collection of 11.

Was it Rubio who was supposed to be lined up to senior defensive tackle Howard Cross III’s right? Not clear. Freeman didn’t say. But he did say it was supposed to be somebody — anybody — and not just a blatantly obvious absence along the Notre Dame defensive line.

Ohio State running back Chip Trayanum found it, just barely muscling his way across the goal line before his knee hit the ground. If there was an appropriate amount of bodies on the field for Notre Dame, maybe he wouldn’t have pulled the play off. Maybe there would have been an adequate push from the d-line to have a goal-line stand for the ages, one rivaling Notre Dame’s stymieing of Stanford in 2012. Instead, Trayanum scored the most infamous one-yard touchdown in the south end zone of Notre Dame Stadium since the “Bush Push” in 2005.

Notre Dame graduate student linebacker JD Bertrand said he didn’t know the Irish only had 10 players on the field.

“In that situation, we got to do better, players and coaches,” Notre Dame defensive back Thomas Harper said.

“Notre Dame did not have enough defenders on that side of the formation,” NBC color analyst Todd Blackledge added after the score.

No; Notre Dame did not have enough defenders on the field, period. Blackledge might have been like Bertrand, not noticing Notre Dame being a body shy. It’s not commonplace. And when it does happen, there isn’t an excuse or reasonable explanation.

Freeman said there was a point he noticed it. Had he run someone out there, it would have elicited a penalty. So he kept things the way they were, insufficiently so, and hoped Ohio State would throw another incomplete pass like the Buckeyes did on second down.

Nah.

Led by a head coach who’s now 49-6 in his Ohio State career, the Buckeyes plunged the ball right where they should have. Ballgame. Ryan Day knew what he was doing.

“I’m pretty sure the coaches saw it up in the booth and relayed it to Coach Day,” Ohio State quarterback Kyle McCord said. “I’m sure he saw it on the field too.”

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