ATLANTA — Following his team’s 34-23 loss to Ohio State in Monday night’s College Football Playoff National Championship game, Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman sat in the middle of his two teary-eyed captains and accepted responsibility for a slew of mistakes that proved too much to overcome when it counted the most.
With quarterback Riley Leonard on his right and sixth-year senior linebacker Jack Kiser to his left, Freeman said the Irish made unusual blunders and communication breakdowns that left them with a 24-point deficit in the third quarter that they couldn’t recover.
“You’re always making mistakes, but those type of detrimental mistakes when you play a really, really good football team cost you points,” he remarked. “I believe the communication is the most important aspect that has stood out to me even between seasons. ‘Hey, we’re fine; we have it.’ We cannot make mistakes. It falls on my shoulders. And, as the head coach, we must prepare and improve for this moment. “These guys gave everything they had.”
Notre Dame, which was chasing its first national championship since 1988, saw its 13-game winning run snapped and suffered its first loss since September 7 against Northern Illinois. After an 18-play, 75-yard scoring drive in which Leonard ran nine times for 34 yards, including the game’s first score, Notre Dame’s offence faltered.
Leonard threw only one pass longer than 5 yards in the first half, with two of his five completions coming at or behind the line of scrimmage. His average completion was only 2.2 yards.
“We couldn’t run Riley every play,” Freeman explained. “It’s not appropriate for Riley, and it won’t provide the offensive success we need. We ran him a lot that first series, then in the second series, we had two penalties that forced us to punt, and in the third series, we had a miscommunication with the muffed snap, and that was the end of the half.”
After the game, Leonard apologized “to everybody for the way I played after that drive in the second quarter because it’s unacceptable.” He finished with two throwing touchdowns and one rushing score, making him the second FBS player this season with 20 passing touchdowns and 15 rushing.
“You see the next three drives after that, penalties and miscommunications,” Leonard observed. “All of that is on me. That first drive, we just came out and played Notre Dame football, taking advantage of our matchups as needed. We simply drove the ball down the field. We needed to run the ball a little. Everything was simply clicking.
“Then the next couple drives maybe I got relaxed a little bit, and I can’t let that happen,” he recalled. “… These are things that, while not strictly physical, are similar to the cerebral side of things in that I am unable to make certain mistakes. I just have to live with it and answer.”
In the first half, Ohio State ran 20 of its 33 plays inside Notre Dame territory (61%). Notre Dame couldn’t get off the field on third down, and Ohio State quarterback Will Howard completed his first 13 passes, going 11-for-11 in the first half with wide receivers.
However, one completion stood out above the rest. With 2:38 remaining in the game, Ohio State faced a third-and-11 from the 34-yard line when Howard connected with freshman wonder Jeremiah Smith for a 56-yard connection. Smith has never been targeted in the second half before. The play eventually set up Ohio State’s 33-yard field goal, which secured the victory.
“It was do-or-die,” Freeman explained. “It was that kind of down. If they run it and get a first down, we need to stop them, and we decided at the time that running zero pressure would be the best way to accomplish that. We must have faith at some time that we can make a play.
“There was times in the second half that we did in man coverage, but he’s a heck of a player,” Freeman said of the defensive tackle. “He is difficult to cover. You want to play zone, but they’ll find methods to take you apart. You want to play man, they’ll find a method to get him the ball. It’s a talented offence with that circumstance right there.”
Kiser, who had difficulty remembering on his time at Notre Dame without choking up, stated that despite the setback, Notre Dame remains on the right path.
“I think when you look back on the six years I’ve been here, what I remember is the people,” said Kiser, who received an encouraging slap on the knee from Freeman while speaking. “From when I was a small underclassman just trying to learn the ropes, looking at Drew White and Bo Bauer, to being a guy running with my boys in JD [Bertrand] and Marist [Liufau], and then this year coming back and feeling like I had a chip on my shoulder and getting to meet amazing guys like Riley coming in and just kind of going on the journey we took.
“To have Coach Freeman — yeah, it’s all about the people,” he remarked, his voice breaking. “It’s the people that’s made this place different.”
In the fourth quarter, on fourth-and-goal from the 9-yard line, Freeman went for a 27-yard field goal rather than keeping the offence on the field. Mitch Jeter’s kick went into the left upright, and the metallic clink of the ricochet could be heard throughout Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Ryan Day, the Ohio State coach, raised his hands in celebration.
Freeman stated that if it had been a shorter fourth down, he would have likely gone for it. Notre Dame concluded the season 4-for-10 on kicks inside the 40, the lowest field goal percentage in the FBS.
“I just thought instead of being down 16, let’s try to go down 13,” the player added. “I understand it’s still a two-score game, but you have a better chance of getting 14 points than 16 points. If it had been a shorter fourth-and-goal position, I would have gone for it, but I believed fourth-and-9 was not a good chance for us to make it and elected to kick it, which we did not make.”
Still, Freeman believes Notre Dame’s experience this season and the men in the locker room have helped him improve.
“You sit up here and listen to these two guys talk about their devotion for Notre Dame and for each other in that locker room. I’m just sitting here listening as if this is one of the greatest gifts in life to be able to lead this program because you have fantastic young people like this who share the blame — share the success when you win and own the blame when you fail. But I’m better because of them,” he explained.
“But we just need to be better. I need to make sure we prepare better for the next opportunity we have in the future.”
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