NFL News NFL News, Reports and Updates
NEW ORLEANS — Set to face its highest-ranked opponent since falling at home to Ohio State 15 months ago, Notre Dame football clearly has recovered from the “Ten Men” fiasco that allowed the sixth-ranked Buckeyes to escape with a stunning 17-14 win in the game’s final second.
Marcus Freeman’s Irish have gone 18-3 since that point.
Wednesday’s foe in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals is second-seeded Georgia, but Irish defensive tackle Gabriel Rubio still graciously shed some light Monday on how one of the country’s best defenses was left playing a man short on its final two goal-line snaps.
“We’ve gone back and forth on it a number of times, whenever it first happened,” Rubio said at Sugar Bowl media day. “It is very confusing.”
Madden Faraimo: Notre Dame football gets to unwrap its latest linebacker present (and future)
So, what the heck happened?
“We had our first personnel group out there,” he said. “We subbed in me whenever I went in for our heavier package, our goal-line package. And then we had that timeout, and we subbed it again. That’s when the confusion happened. Someone came out that wasn’t supposed to come out.”
Zapruder-like replay study suggested at the time that the culprit was likely Rubio or Vyper end Jordan Botelho. In fact, it could only be one of those two, based on defensive groupings on the preceding plays.
CJ Carr: No surgery, no regrets for CJ Carr after redshirt year for Notre Dame football
“I was supposed to come out, I believe,” Rubio said, never mentioning anyone else. “It still stings, but that’s been so long ago that we’ve moved on and we’ve learned from it. And now we have things that prevent that from happening.”
A lesson in moving beyond regret
Even playing a man short, Notre Dame nearly kept 235-pound running back Chip Trayanum from…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/last-second-loss-ohio-state-002214238.html
Author : South Bend Tribune
Publish date : 2024-12-31 00:22:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
