Marcus Freeman and Notre Dame very nearly pulled out a huge win over Ohio State on Saturday night, but ended up allowing the Buckeyes to score a game-winning touchdown with one second left on the clock. It was tough to see the Fighting Irish throw away a winnable game, but it was even more irritating when it was revealed that they only had ten guys on the field for their final two defensive snaps of the game.

Ohio State managed to convert a huge 3rd & 19 with just 15 seconds left in the game to get the ball on Notre Dame's one-yard line. Notre Dame would use their final timeout after lining up for the next play, and according to Freeman, not having another timeout to use resulted in him being unable to get a fourth defensive lineman on the field in time for the upcoming plays.

“Yeah, we were trying to get a fourth D-lineman on the field, and I told him just stay off because we can't afford a penalty. I didn't have any timeouts, right? So we couldn't afford a penalty there. You know — yeah, it's on us. We got to be better.” – Marcus Freeman, Football Scoop

This is a pretty crushing admission considering how Ohio State ran the ball in for the game-winning score, as things may have gone differently if they had another guy clogging up holes on the d-line. These sorts of communication breakdowns simply cannot happen with the game on the line, and Notre Dame will have to be better next week if they want to get back in the win column against Duke.