How Notre Dame football showed it still struggles in big games

Notre Dame fans shouldn’t rush the field when the Fighting Irish beat the No. 6 team in the country. This is the proudest program of them all.

Knute Rockne would roll over in his grave if he knew thousands of shirtless students were pouring onto the (artificial, wait, what’s that?) turf at the house he built just because they beat a quarterback making his second career road start for a team that, by the eye test and based on results early this season, isn’t as good as the ones they’ve had in years past in Columbus.

And yet, as time ticked closer to triple zeros and a considerable share of police forces popped up around the perimeter of the playing surface, which is generally the universal sign for a field storming, it felt like that was exactly what was going to happen at Notre Dame Stadium on Saturday night.

The No. 9 Irish would beat the No. 6 Buckeyes and anyone and everyone brave enough to hop the stone fencing in the face of South Bend’s finest were going to celebrate with their favorite players where 60 minutes of action took place over the course of three-plus nerve-wracking hours.

Yeah, well, about that. Notre Dame needed to win the dang game first. It didn’t.

The Buckeyes beat the Irish, 17-14, on a touchdown scored with one lonely second sitting on the clocks in the stadium. Each one of those 0:01s stared every single Notre Dame fan in the face as an insult, a reminder that once they turned into 0:00s all in attendance would have no choice but to go home and sulk in another loss to a top-10 team. There have been a lot of those in the last three decades. Since 1994, Notre Dame is 4-20 against top-10 teams while also playing as a top-10 team itself.

New head coach in Marcus Freeman, same old Notre Dame.

“It hurts because we didn’t play our best,” Freeman said. “I keep saying it. It’s not about [Ohio State] as much as it is about us and playing at our full potential. That’s what we’re chasing, and that’s why I’m disappointed.

“If we would have made a couple more plays, the result would have been different. But we didn’t. It’s not that we gave the game away, it’s just that we didn’t reach our full potential. That’s the disappointing part.”’

If Ohio State truly is one of the best teams in the country as the Buckeyes have been for about a decade now, Notre Dame was just one goal line stop away from taking down a legit national title contender. But we don’t know if OSU is one with Kyle McCord at quarterback like it was with C.J. Stroud, so let’s pump the brakes on any “Notre Dame showed it can play with anybody in the country” narratives for now. The truth is, Notre Dame did not deserve to win.

Let’s cut to it. The Irish had their chances. That’s one of the first things Freeman said in the opening statement of his postgame press conference. They just did not make winning plays when winning plays needed to be made.

There were two turnovers on downs on offense, and there was not getting off the field on third and seven to set up the first score of the game on a short Ohio State field goal just before halftime.

Ohio State running back TreVeyon Henderson scored on a 61-yard touchdown when graduate student linebacker Marist Liufau lost contain and took himself out of the play. Graduate student kicker Spencer Shrader missed his only field goal attempt in a three-point loss. Graduate student safety DJ Brown had the ball hit him in both hands for what could have been a game-sealing interception on a drive that ultimately ended in the game-winning touchdown for the opposition.

Those are veteran players literally letting the game slip through their fingers.

Don’t forget about the elephant in the room. Notre Dame only had 10 players on the field on back-to-back goal-line tries for the Ohio State offense from the one-yard line. The Buckeyes punched in the winning score on the ground on the second of those, pounding the ball right in the direction of where the Notre Dame player who was nowhere to be found would have been parked.

That was the cherry on top of a blunderful sundae made with spoiled milk. It was what officially sent Irish fans home without an opportunity to pose for an Instagram photo on the interlocking ND logo at midfield.

Knute, nothing to see here.

“We didn’t play the entire game just the way we would have liked to,” Freeman said. “…There are just a couple plays you wish you could redo. But you can’t.”

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