SOUTH BEND, Ind. — By Monday, Marcus Freeman and his 11th-ranked Notre Dame football team had moved on from their math miscalculation made in front of 77,622 at Notre Dame Stadium and reportedly 10.5 million more watching on NBC’s multiple platforms.
They had to.
He also knew much of the rest of the college football world, understandably, hadn’t.
So, the Irish playing with 10, instead of the normal 11, players on the field for their final two defensive plays of a 17-14 loss to then-No. 6 Ohio State came up again and again and again at his weekly Monday press conference, previewing Saturday night’s road test at No. 17 Duke.
Kickoff for the game will be 7:30 EDT, and ABC has the telecast this time.
“It was a learning opportunity for myself and everybody involved in our program,” Freeman said of the two plays from the Irish 1-yard line in the closing seconds, the second of which resulted in the game-winning touchdown.
So for clarity’s sake, he’s what happened, the word salad Freeman offered instead of assigning blame, and how the Irish will handle the situation if it ever comes up again.
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What happened and who knew what?
With the Irish leading Ohio State 14-10, a 21-yard completion from Buckeye QB Kyle McCord to Emeka Egbuka on third-and19 put the ball at the ND 1-yard line with the clock winding as soon as the ball was set for play. McCord spiked it on first down to stop the clock with seven seconds left.
Notre Dame lined up for the second-down play with 11 defenders on the field. Notre Dame then called a timeout, its third and final timeout of the half.
“We called that timeout, because we wanted to see what formation they were in,” Freeman said Monday. “We wanted to call the timeout just to try to match up to it.”
But after the timeout, only 10 defenders ran out onto the field for the second-down play.
Some of the confusion Saturday night derived from the fact many of the media members in the press conference didn’t know until it was mentioned that there were 10 men on the field. And some only thought that was the case for OSU’s final offensive play, a one-yard TD run that put the Buckeyes ahead.
What Freeman made clear Monday was that the coaching staff did not discover the mistake even after McCord threw an incomplete pass against the 10-player defensive alignment, bringing up third down with three seconds left.
Running back Chip Trayanum came running onto the field for Ohio State late in the play-clock cycle, at which time Notre Dame could have substituted without risking a penalty by getting caught running a player on late.
The coaching staff still was unaware until it was indeed too late. At that point, if they had run a player on at that position on the field, they risked Ohio State snapping the ball and essentially getting a free play. If the Buckeyes scored, they could decline the penalty, If they didn’t, they got a do-over.
The only recourse would have been for an ND player to not only independently decide to jump offsides, but to make contact with an offensive player. That would have stopped play. Otherwise, simply jumping would have resulted in a free play for the Buckeyes.
What did the audit of the situation turn up?
Freeman threw himself under the bus, kind of.
“Ultimately, it falls on me,” he said. “I'm not going to get up here and say, ‘This person should have done that. That person …' Ultimately, I have to do a better job as the head coach and make sure those systems that we have in place are executed.
“We, as a coaching staff, should be held to the exact same standards we tell our players to. We tell our players — you often hear me say ‘Fight the drift.’ You can't get caught watching the game. Everybody has a job to do on this play. Coaches too. We all have to own that and make sure that never happens.”
And if it does?
“We talked about it as a staff,” Freeman said. “But you don’t want a plan for having 10 guys on the field. It’s just a unique situation … because the ball’s on the 1-yard line on the far hash. If that happens when the ball’s at the 25-yard line, you just get somebody on the field. We should be fine. We talked about the biggest thing is having a signal to say, ‘Hey, jump offsides.’ That’s something we usually go over on Fridays. These last situational plays that could happen in a game, we’ll go over it on Fridays.”
Hello again, Mike Elko
When then-Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly fired defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder four games into his third season with the Irish, it came shortly after a loss to this week’s Irish opponent — Duke.
Following the 38-35 home loss to the Blue Devils on Sept. 24, 2016, the Irish were on track to record their worst total defense, rushing defense and scoring defense rankings in school history.
Kelly installed two interim defensive coordinators, a public/ceremonial one — analyst Greg Hudson — and the real one, long-time defensive assistant Mike Elston.
In December of that year, amidst a massive staff turnover and a coaching philosophical makeover for himself, Kelly hired relative stranger Mike Elko from Wake Forest.
Elko stayed at ND for only a year, leaving for Texas A&M and a bigger paycheck the next offseason, but he coaxed the Irish in a positive direction on defense continues to trend today.
Among the recruits he was able to land in the frantic final weeks of the 2017 cycle was defensive line Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa and eventual unanimous All-American and Butkus Award-winning linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah.
He also brought his eventual successor, Clark Lea, with him from Wake Forest.
Elko parlayed four successful seasons as the Aggies’ defensive coordinator into the Duke head coaching job. He’s in his second season with the Blue Devils with a 13-4 record to date.
The common thread at ND, at Texas A&M, at Duke and at all his coaching stops before hitting South Bend is improving defenses. Here are the national rankings in rush defense, pass-efficiency defense, total defense and scoring defense for his final season at Wake Forest, his only season at ND, his four years at Texas A&M, and his year-plus as the head coach at Duke.
Year School RD/PED/TD/SD
2016 Wake Forest 33/43/40/23
2017 Notre Dame 51/46/46/31
2018 Texas A&M 3/106/32/47
2019 Texas A&M 30/26/29/37
2020 Texas A&M 2/67/9/28
2021 Texas A&M 36/10/14/3
2022 Duke 25/82/67/31
2023 Duke 68/4/16/4
“He’s always done a good job,” Freeman said of Elko. “I was at Kent State when he was at Bowling Green. His defenses did a great job. I followed him at Wake Forest, followed him when he was here. His defenses have always been well-coached. The thing that you respect is how hard they play. They’re aggressive. They play extremely hard and they’re sound.
“They’re not exotic. They don’t do crazy things on defense, but they play fast and they play hard and they tackle well. I have a lot of respect for him as a football coach and the defenses he’s been a part of. It will be a great challenge for our offense on Saturday.”
One final full-circle note. Hudson came to ND as an analyst in 2016 after being fired as defensive coordinator at Purdue at the end of the 2015 season after three seasons. Elevated in that transaction to co-defensive coordinator was the Boilermakers’ linebacker coach, Marcus Freeman.
Night owls
The announcement Monday that Notre Dame’s Oct. 7 matchup at Louisville will get a 7:30 p.m. EDT kickoff means the Irish will play four night games in a row for the first time in program history. Ohio State started the streak, followed by Duke this Saturday night, Louisville on Oct. 7, then USC at home on Oct. 14 before the first of two bye weeks ensues.
“You’re adding the travel now,” Freeman said Monday upon hearing of the Louisville kick time. “We'll get home from Duke around 3:30 in the morning, and so as I think [about] the following week, for Louisville, we have to take that into consideration.
“I haven't put together an itinerary yet, the practice schedule, all those things, but we have to take that into consideration. That was one of those things we talked about last year that I've learned — every week truly isn’t the same. Just because we're playing at night versus Duke and versus Louisville, you have to take into consideration when you get home [from the trips], so that will change a little bit of the practice structure. But it shouldn't be too much.”
No simple fix
Notre Dame’s lack of sacks (119th out of 130 FBS teams) and tackles for loss (128th) continue to be talking points, despite some outstanding numbers in other areas by the Irish defense. Notre Dame is notably second nationally in pass-efficiency defense, seventh in total defense and 15th in scoring defense.
The only sack Saturday against Ohio State came in the game’s final minute, and as a result of an intentional grounding penalty.
Lessons learned in that area, though, likely won’t be able to be applied perhaps until the very tail end of the 2023 schedule. After facing non-running threat Kyle McCord, Duke junior Riley Leonard starts a string of QBs the Irish will face with elite running skills, the ability to extend plays with their legs, or both. That list also includes reigning Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams of USC in three weeks.
Leonard is averaging 60 yards rushing a game and 8.2 per carry, with four rushing touchdowns.
“We’re always going to try to improve,” Freeman said of the pass rush. “We’re not satisfied. We’re greedy people. Do we have to be better at pass rush? Absolutely. Do we have to be better at pass defense? Yeah. And we’re top-2 in the country. We have to improve in all areas, absolutely.”
New holder
Walk-on quarterback Devin Devezin was an intriguing story, the way he joined the Irish roster just ahead of spring practice and nailed down the job holding on place kicks shortly thereafter.
That role ended Saturday night, when punter Bryce McFerson replaced Devezin as ND’s No. 1 option at holder.
"It was something that's a comfort for Spencer [Shrader]," Freeman said. "When we worked in practice, ultimately he felt a little bit more comfortable with Bryce being the holder, and that's why we changed it.”
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