You don’t need analytics to tell you that cutting a 16-point deficit to 13 still means its a two-score game.
Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman earned wide-spread criticism during Monday’s 34-23 loss to Ohio State in the national title game when he opted for a field goal while trailing by 16 in the fourth quarter.
The Fighting Irish’s Mitch Jeter missed the kick with 9:34 remaining in a 31-15 game, shining even more light on the decision to forego a fourth-and-goal from the nine-yard line.
“Attempting that field goal was maybe the dumbest coaching decision I’ve seen all football season. Not hyperbole,” popular X account @Super70sSports posted. “That was legitimately horrible. You are NOT scoring two more touchdowns after this. Zero chance. Wow.”
Needing a miraculous rally after falling behind, 31-7, Notre Dame scored a touchdown and two-point conversion and then marched into the Ohio State red zone early in the fourth quarter.
The Fighting Irish lost one yard on a run and then two Riley Leonard incompletions set up a long fourth-and-goal.
Most expected Notre Dame would go for the touchdown since a field goal would still require two touchdowns to win the game and the Fighting Irish had not slowed down Ohio State’s offense.
Even Kirk Herbstreit noted with some astonishment that the field goal unit had been summoned to the field with the clock working against Notre Dame.
Freeman, though, didn’t like his chances of finding the end zone from the nine-yard line.
“I just thought instead of being down 16, let’s try get down to 13. I know it’s still a two-score game, but you have a better probability of getting 14 points than you do 16 points,” Freeman said. “If it was a shorter fourth-and-goal situation, I probably would’ve gone for it. But, I just felt fourth-and-9 was not a great chance for us to make that and decided to kick it and we didn’t make it.”
This new age of analytics has only intensified debates about when teams should take the points or go for it on fourth down, but this decision seemingly earned universal scorn.
Former Giants offensive lineman Geoff Schwartz posted: “That’s what they deserve for attempting a field goal. That made no sense. You’re not getting two more offensive drives that go that deep into Ohio State territory.”
ESPN’s Field Yates tweeted: “Why even attempt a field goal to make a 2-score game a 2-score game?”
Action Network’s Brett McMurphy posted: “With that miss, Notre Dame still needs six field goals to beat Ohio State #CFBPlayoff.”
One prominent reporter noted, though, how perhaps the sequence leading into the decision deserved more criticism than the to-kick-or-not-to-kick moment.
“I have less of a problem with the field goal than I do the three play calls before it. Play like you want to win,” NFL Network’s Jeff Darlington wrote.
