The honeymoon is over for Notre Dame football coach Marcus Freeman.
At least, it sure ought to be.
It’s not that Freeman didn’t have his team ready to play Saturday night against Ohio State. It’s not that the Irish didn’t compete at a high level — and, at times, look like the better team — against the favored Buckeyes in a gut-wrenching 17-14 defeat that came down to the final play in South Bend. It’s not that Freeman doesn’t seem to be doing, in Year 2 in this gig, a fine job on the whole.
But what happened — or didn’t happen — on consecutive defensive snaps for the Irish with the game’s outcome hanging in the balance was the kind of thing that scars coaches’ reputations and even gets them fired.
It’s bad enough that the Irish’s outstanding defense let the Buckeyes drive 65 yards in 15 plays in the waning moments to steal a win as running back Chip Trayanum ran it in from the 1-yard line with 0:01 left on the game clock. It’ll drive the Irish mad that they couldn’t hold firmer on third-and-10, fourth-and-7 or third-and-19 earlier on the drive.
But at the end — to have only 10 defensive players on the field as the Buckeyes lined up from the 1? And then, after an incompletion with 3 seconds left, to make the same egregious mistake again?
It’s beyond astonishing that the Irish would fail to put an 11th man on the field for two straight plays that could make or break their season. It’s coaching malpractice. Freeman and defensive coordinator Al Golden — twice a head coach himself, at Temple and Miami — come out looking terrible no matter the details of how communication broke down and who was at fault.
“We were trying to get a fourth D-lineman on the field,” Freeman attempted to explain, “[but] I told him, ‘Just stay off because we can’t afford a penalty.’ I didn’t have any timeouts. We couldn’t afford a penalty there.”
Right, OK, sure, but on two plays in a row? What kind of amateur-hour nonsense is that? It wasn’t Freeman’s or Golden’s first rodeo, was it?
Imagine how love-him-or-hate-him coach Brian Kelly would have gotten hammered by fans and media for the same screw-up. And now triple that and we’re approaching what it would have been like for Charlie Weis, Tyrone Willingham or Bob Davie.
Butts backed up to the goal line and playing a man light up front against the big, bad Buckeyes? It’s unthinkable.
“Yeah, that’s on us,” Freeman said. “We’ve got to be better.”
It’s the very least they could do.
The Irish fell to No. 11 in the new Top 25 poll. For those of you trying to do the math at home, that’s 10 plus one.
See? Not that complicated.
