Quick hitters: Why Marcus Freeman preferred Audric Estimé did not score a game-winning TD
On Saturday night, No. 11 Notre Dame defeated No. 17 Duke, 21-14, at Wallace Wade Stadium in Durham, North Carolina. Afterward, coach Marcus Freeman spoke to reporters. Here are four key things he said: from preferring running back Audric Estimé not to score the game-winning touchdown to center Zeke Correll’s pre-snap penalties.
On the play call and outcome of Estimé’s touchdown run:
“We were drawing it up to really run the ball, get the clock down, call timeout and kick the game-winning field goal. It’s a great coaching point because we practice that we probably should go down, right?
“People will go, ‘Hey, don’t take points off the board. You probably should go down right there at the 1-yard line. Kick a field goal from the 1-yard line and win the game that way. And so great teaching opportunities, but, man, I’m glad he scored. I’m glad he scored and I’m glad we won.”
On the spot of Bryce McFerson’s punt being reversed from the 1-yard line to a touchback:
“Yeah, they said that they reviewed it and it looked like the ball went over the top of the pylon. I didn’t get many explanations today that I was really looking for. But we won, we won.”
On WR depth/why freshman WR Braylon James did not play:
“Obviously, with injuries, with three guys now in that room, we didn’t have much depth. Braylon James is close. He’s getting there. But he just wasn’t ready today. What you see over the course of the game (when) you can’t rotate wideouts, they get tired.
“I’m so proud of the gutsy performance they did have out there. Rico (Flores) to catch that two-point conversion. They continue to battle. We were thin, and we need those guys to get back for next week.”
On Correll’s pre-snap penalties:
“I mean, a couple of those pre-snap penalties, like three of them, I think, were give Duke credit for the crowd news, right? We were trying to go on clap. We were trying to go on first sound. It was pretty loud out there. And that’s something that, whenever we travel, we got to be prepared for. So, we got to do a better job there.
“Some of the other pre-snap penalties we got to fix, right? We got to clean up lining offsides. That happened twice a day. And some of the pre-snap penalties that we self-inflicted.”
