Marcus Freeman breaks down double safety blitz call that led to Ohio State touchdown
One of the pivotal plays in the Notre Dame vs. Ohio State game in Week 1 was when the Fighting Irish called for a double safety blitz on third and 11. That led to a go-ahead touchdown by the Buckeyes — and Marcus Freeman broke down what happened this week.
On the play, CJ Stroud found Xavier Johnson for a 24-yard touchdown pass to make it a 14-10 Ohio State lead in the third quarter. Although the call didn’t work out as Freeman hoped, he said he’d make the same call if he could do it over again.
However, he’d want to change some things.
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“It was right before a timeout,” Freeman said. “We had a timeout and I remember Coach Golden said, ‘Hey, do you guys like’ whatever the call was? It was a zero-pressure. I agreed and everybody else agreed. You look at the execution of that play — it’s not the call. It’s third and 11. We had said going into the game, we had a plan for third down and one of those plans was to be able to bring six and be able to play a zero pressure. We had not run that all game and we said, ‘OK, here’s a good time for it.'”
“The execution of it wasn’t where we wanted. The safeties were a little bit too late, we had a guy drop out when he probably should’ve been going. … You got a freshman in that big moment. If we could go back and do it over again, I wouldn’t change the call. I’d probably just change the way we communicate and the execution of it. But, man, that was a heartbreaker and obviously, changed the tide of the game.”
Marcus Freeman updates Jarrett Patterson’s status heading into Week 2
Jarrett Patterson is one of the biggest question marks for Notre Dame as he works his way back from an injury. He didn’t play against Ohio State, and Marcus Freeman had another update ahead of the Fighting Irish’s matchup against Marshall in Week 2.
Freeman explained why Patterson warmed up before the Ohio State game and didn’t play, saying it’s still going to be wait-and-see for his senior captain this week.
“The communication we had with the medical staff with Jarrett was, ‘Let’s go through warm-ups and see how you feel,’” Freeman said. “When you get to that environment, sometimes the excitement and what that environment will do for you will kind of numb the pain sometimes. He wasn’t able to go after warm-ups. So, we said we made the decision, ‘OK, you won’t go.’ We’ll re-evaluate him today and this week and I would still think he’s questionable. Let’s see. If he’s ready to go, we’re going to play him this week.”