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Facing fourth-and-goal, down 31-15 early in the fourth quarter in a College Football Playoff National Championship clash against Ohio State, Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman elected to kick a field goal. Had Mitchell Jeter’s attempt made it through the uprights, it would have cut Ohio State’s lead to 13 with just over nine minutes left to play.
But Jeter missed, and Notre Dame walked away from a pivotal 12-play, 70-yard drive — that started after an Ohio State fumble — with nothing. After the Irish’s eventual 34-23 loss, Freeman explained the decision to go for three points rather than a fourth-down conversion.
“Instead of being down 16, let’s try to go down 13,” Freeman said. “I know it’s still a two-score game, but you have better — a better probability of 14 points [sic] than you do 16 points. So, if it was a shorter fourth-and-goal situation, I probably would have gone for it but I just felt fourth-and-9 was not a great chance for us to make and I decided to kick it and we didn’t make it.”
Freeman’s logic is sound when considering how strong Ohio State’s red zone defense has been this year. That sequence was the 25th time that Ohio State’s opponent has faced a first-and-goal and the ninth time it has come away without points.
Notre Dame still had all three timeouts and over nine minutes of clock. At that point, the Irish’s defense — which was throttled in the first half — had allowed just a single field goal in over 20 minutes of play in the second half.
The Fighting Irish did get a touchdown later in the fourth quarter when Riley Leonard hit wide…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/notre-dame-coach-marcus-freeman-defends-controversial-fourth-quarter-fg-decision-in-cfp-loss-to-ohio-state/
Author : Will Backus
Publish date : 2025-01-21 05:27:00
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