Marcus Freeman describes conversations he had with refs regarding fake punt issue

Notre Dame took care of business over the weekend, beating Virginia by a score of 35-14. However, head coach Marcus Freeman would have loved to have had one more score after a fake punt was taken off the board by a controversial illegal formation penalty.

On the play, Notre Dame was lined up on a fourth down from their own 27. At the time, the Irish had a 14-point lead late in the second quarter, but the Irish offense had struggled for the most part in the first half. That’s when the Irish ran what was essentially a fumblerooski out of the punt formation for a 73-yard score by Jordan Faison.

At least, it seemed like a score before the penalty. That call, to many, didn’t appear to be the correct one and as Marcus Freeman explained, they didn’t show officials the play beforehand but there had been conversations about it.

Calling back the Notre Dame fake punt TD on some sort of technicality (still don’t understand it!) feels like when Father Pat called a foul on the first-ever alley-oop simply because he was so mystified.

“It’s a touchdown, ACC refs. It is a touchdown.” pic.twitter.com/irbfzWrPWI

— Tyler Horka (@tbhorka) November 17, 2024

“Again, we’ve had this ready to go for about four weeks,” Marcus Freeman said. “You tend not to show clips to officials in the locker room. That’s not something that is highly encouraged. So, more than anything, you got to explain it, which I explained it to them. ‘Hey, we have a fake punt that we’re going to come out of the huddle quickly and snap it. I just want you to know that our guys have to be set. We know all the rules, and we run it.'”

Officials threw a flag and ended up having a lengthy conversation before calling an illegal formation. The broadcast disagreed with the call and so did Marcus Freeman on the sideline. However, they stuck with it and Notre Dame had a touchdown taken off the board when they were forced to punt.

“I don’t want to make it a bigger deal than what it is. I’m dang proud of the way our guys executed. I know it didn’t count for seven points, but we’re going to celebrate that fake punt,” Freeman said. “I can’t wait to show them, because there’s been a lot of work put into that. We obviously had it ready. You guys might not know this, but we had it ready for the bowl game, didn’t get a chance to run it, and we brought it back out after Georgia Tech. When you practice something for weeks, the players are dying to run it. Just the opportunity didn’t happen. It did this game, and they executed it flawlessly.”

The play is on film now and it’s going to be much harder to trick anyone if Notre Dame wants to run it again. However, that type of special teams creativity could be massive going into the end of the season and, potentially, the College Football Playoff. That is, assuming there are no penalties.