Irish loss ‘falls on my shoulders,’ Freeman says
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Heather Dinich, Senior College Football Insider
ATLANTA — Following his team’s 34-23 loss to Ohio State in Monday night’s College Football Playoff National Championship game, Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman sat in the middle of his two teary-eyed team captains and took ownership for a multitude of mistakes that ultimately were too much to overcome when it mattered most.
With quarterback Riley Leonard sitting to his right and sixth-year senior linebacker Jack Kiser on his left, Freeman said there were uncharacteristic mistakes and breakdowns in communication that put the Irish in a 24-point hole in the third quarter they couldn’t overcome.
“You’re always making mistakes, but those type of detrimental mistakes when you play a really, really good football team cost you points,” Freeman said. “I think that’s probably the biggest thing that has stuck out to me even in between series, the communication. ‘Hey, we’re good, we got it.’ Well, we can’t make mistakes. It falls on my shoulders. And as the head coach, we have to prepare and be better prepared for this moment. These guys gave everything they got.”
Notre Dame, which was seeking its first national title since 1988, had its 13-game winning streak snapped and suffered its first loss since Sept. 7 against Northern Illinois. After opening with an 18-play, 75-yard scoring drive, during which Leonard ran nine times for 34 carries, including the game’s first touchdown, Notre Dame’s offense fell flat.
Leonard completed just one pass longer than 5 yards in the first half, and two of his five completions were thrown at or behind the line of scrimmage. His average completion was just 2.2 yards.
“We couldn’t run Riley every play,” Freeman said. “It’s not right for Riley, and it’s not going to sustain the success we needed offensively. We ran him a whole bunch that first series, and you look at the second series, we had two penalties, which ended up forcing us to punt, and in the third series, we had the miscommunication with the muffed snap, and that’s the end of the half.”
After the game, Leonard apologized “to everybody for the way that I played after that drive in the second quarter because it’s unacceptable.” He finished with two passing touchdowns and one rushing touchdown, becoming the second FBS player this season with 20 passing touchdowns and 15 rushing.
“You see the next three drives after that, penalties and miscommunications,” Leonard said. “And all that stuff is on me. That first drive we just came out and played Notre Dame football, took advantage of our matchups when we had to. We just drove the ball down the field. We had to run the ball a little bit. Everything was just clicking.
“Then the next couple drives maybe I got relaxed a little bit, and I can’t let that happen,” he said. “… These are things that aren’t necessarily physical but just like the mental side of things that I can’t make certain mistakes. I’ve just got to live with that and respond.”
In the first half, 20 of Ohio State’s 33 plays were run in Notre Dame territory (61%). Notre Dame couldn’t get off the field on third down, and Ohio State quarterback Will Howard completed each of his first 13 passes, and he was 11-for-11 in the first half targeting wide receivers.
There was one completion, though, that might be remembered more than the rest. With 2:38 left in the game, Ohio State was facing a third-and-11 from its 34-yard line when Howard connected with freshman phenom Jeremiah Smith for a 56-yard completion. It was the first time Smith was targeted in the second half. The play eventually set up Ohio State’s 33-yard field goal that sealed the win.
“It was do or die,” Freeman said. “It was that type of down. If they run it and they get a first down — we’ve got to get them stopped, and we thought at that moment the best way to get them stopped is to run zero pressure. We have to have faith at some point that we can make a play.
“There was times in the second half that we did in man coverage, but he’s a heck of a player,” Freeman said of Smith. “He’s difficult to cover. You want to play zone, and they’ll find ways to pick you apart. You want to play man, they’ll find ways to get him the ball. It’s a talented offense with that situation right there.”
Kiser, who had a hard time reflecting on his time at Notre Dame without choking up, said in spite of the loss, Notre Dame is heading in the right direction.
“I think when you look at the six years I’ve been here, what I remember is the people,” said Kiser, who got an encouraging pat on his knee from Freeman while he was talking. “From when I was a small underclassman just trying to learn the ways, looking at a Drew White, Bo Bauer, to being a guy running with my boys in JD [Bertrand] and Marist [Liufau], and then this year coming back and feeling like I had a chip on my shoulder and getting to meet amazing guys like Riley coming in and just kind of going on the journey we went on.
“To have Coach Freeman — yeah, it’s about the people,” he said, his voice breaking up. “It’s the people that’s made this place different.”
In the fourth quarter, on fourth-and-goal from the 9-yard line, Freeman opted for a 27-yard field goal instead of keeping the offense on the field. Mitch Jeter‘s kick sailed into the left upright, and the metallic clink of the ricochet could be heard in Mercedes Benz Stadium. Ohio State coach Ryan Day raised his hands in celebration.
Freeman said that had it been a shorter fourth down, he probably would have gone for it. Notre Dame finished this season 4-for-10 on kicks inside the 40, the worst field goal percentage on those kicks in the FBS.
“I just thought instead of being down 16, let’s try to go down 13,” he said. “I know it’s still a two-score game, but you have a better probability of getting 14 points than you do 16 points. If it was a shorter fourth-and-goal situation, I probably would have 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.”
Still, Freeman said the journey Notre Dame has been on this season and the players in the locker room made him better.
“You sit up here and you listen to these two guys speak and the passion they have for Notre Dame and each other in that locker room. I’m just sitting here listening like this is one of the greatest gifts in life is to be able to be the leader of this program because you have great young people like this that share the blame — share the success when you win and own the blame when you lose. But I’m better because of them,” he said.
“But we just have to be better. I’ve got to make sure we prepare better for this next opportunity that we have in the future.”
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Dan Wetzel
During college football’s Bowl Championship Series era, the sport’s opposition to an expanded, let alone expansive, playoff could be summarized in one colorful quote by then-Ohio State president E. Gordon Gee.
“They will wrench a playoff system out of my cold, dead hands,” Gee said in 2007.
We are happy to report that while college football does, indeed, have a playoff, Gee is still very much alive. The 81-year-old retired just this week after a second stint leading West Virginia University.
What is dead and buried, though, is college football’s staunch resistance to extending its postseason field. After decades of ignoring complaints and the promise of additional revenue to claim that just two teams was more than enough, plans to move from 12 participants to 16 were underway before last season’s inaugural 12-teamer even took place.
A once-static sport now moves at light speed, future implications be damned.
Fire. Ready. Aim.
So maybe the best bit of current news is that college football’s two ruling parties — the SEC and Big Ten — can’t agree on how the new 16-team field would be selected. It has led to a pause on playoff expansion.
Maybe, just maybe, it means no expansion will occur by 2026, as first planned, and college football can let the 12-team model cook a little to accurately assess what changes — if any — are even needed.
“We have a 12-team playoff, five conference champions,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said this week. “That could stay if we can’t agree.”
Good. After all, what’s the rush?
The 2025 season will play out with a 12-team format featuring automatic bids for five conference champions and seven at-large spots. Gone is last year’s clunky requirement that the top four seeds could go only to conference champs — elevating Boise State and Arizona State and unbalancing the field.
That alone was progress built on real-world experience. It should be instructive.
The SEC wants a 16-team model but with, as is currently the case, automatic bids going to the champions in the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, SEC and the best of the so-called Group of 6. The rest of the field would be at-large selections.
The Big Ten says it will not back such a proposal until the SEC agrees to play nine conference games (up from its current eight). Instead, it wants a 16-team system that gives four automatic bids apiece to the Big Ten and SEC, two each to the ACC and Big 12, one to the Group of 6 and then three at-large spots.
It’s been dubbed the “4-4-2-2-1-3” because college athletic leaders love ridiculous parlances almost as much as they love money.
While the ACC, Big 12 and others have offered opinions — mostly siding with the SEC — legislatively, the decision rests with the sport’s two big-dog conferences.
Right now, neither side is budging. A compromise might still be made, of course. The supposed deadline to set the 2026 system is Nov. 30. And Sankey actually says he prefers the nine-game SEC schedule, even if his coaches oppose it.
However, the possibility of the status quo standing for a bit longer remains.
What the Big Ten has proposed is a dramatic shift for a sport that has been bombarded with dramatic shifts — conference realignment, the transfer portal, NIL, revenue sharing, etc.
The league wants to stage multiple “play-in” games on conference championship weekend. The top two teams in the league would meet for the league title (as is currently the case), but the third- and fourth-place teams would play the fifth- and sixth-place teams to determine the other automatic bids.
Extend this out among all the conferences and you have up to a 26-team College Football Playoff (with 22 teams in a play-in situation). This would dramatically change the way the sport works — devaluing the stakes for nonconference games, for example. And some mediocre teams would essentially get a playoff bid — in the Big Ten’s case, the sixth seed last year was an Iowa team that finished 8-5.
Each conference would have more high-value inventory to sell to broadcast partners, but it’s not some enormous windfall. Likewise, four more first-round playoff games would need to find television slots and relevance.
Is anyone sure this is necessary? Do we need 16 at all, let alone with multibids?
In the 12-team format, the first round wasn’t particularly competitive — with a 19.3-point average margin of victory. It’s much like the first round of the NFL playoffs, designed mostly to make sure no true contender is left out.
Perhaps last year was an outlier. And maybe future games will be close. Or maybe they’ll be even more lopsided. Wouldn’t it be prudent to find out?
While there were complaints about the selection committee picking SMU and/or Indiana over Alabama, it wasn’t some egregious slight. Arguments will happen no matter how big the field. Besides, the Crimson Tide lost to two 6-6 teams last year. Expansion means a team with a similar résumé can cruise in.
Is that a good thing?
Whatever the decision, it is being made with little to no real-world data — pro or con. Letting a few 12-team fields play out, providing context and potentially unexpected consequences, sure wouldn’t hurt.
You don’t have to be Gordon Gee circa 2007 to favor letting this simmer and be studied before leaping toward another round of expansion.
CHICAGO — NASCAR is pressing pause on its Chicago Street Race, answering at least one major question about its schedule for next season.
NASCAR raced on a street course in downtown Chicago on the first weekend in July each of the last three years. But it had a three-year contract with the city, leaving the future of the event in question.
Writing to Mayor Brandon Johnson on Friday, race president Julie Giese said the plan is to explore the potential of a new event weekend with his office and other community leaders while also working on a more efficient course build and breakdown.
“Our goal is for the Chicago Street Race to return in 2027 with an event that further enhances the experience for residents and visitors alike, as we work together towards a new potential date, shorter build schedule, and additional tourism draws,” Giese wrote in her letter to Johnson.
Giese said NASCAR is keeping its Chicago Street Race office and plans to continue its community partnerships.
“We deeply value our relationship with the City of Chicago and remain steadfast in our commitment to being a good neighbor and partner,” she said in the letter.
NASCAR is replacing its Chicago stop with a street race in San Diego.
A message was left Friday seeking comment from Johnson’s office.
NASCAR’s Chicago weekend featured Xfinity and Cup Series races on a 12-turn, 2.2-mile course against the backdrop of Lake Michigan and Grant Park – to go along with a festival-like atmosphere with music and entertainment options.
The goal was an event that appealed to both a new audience in one of NASCAR’s most important regions and the most ardent racing fans. NASCAR used to race at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, a 45-mile drive from downtown, but it pulled out after the 2019 season.
Johnson’s predecessor, Lori Lightfoot, was in charge when the three-year contract for the downtown weekend was finalized.
It wasn’t exactly a popular move in Chicago. Local businesses and residents were frustrated by the street closures in a heavily trafficked area for tourists in the summer. But organizers shrunk the construction schedule from 43 days in 2023 to 25 this year, winning over some of the race’s critics.
Drivers and their teams had some concerns about the course ahead of the first weekend. But the setup was widely praised by the time the third year rolled around – both the course and the ability to walk to the circuit from their downtown hotel.
Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson called Chicago “probably my favorite event in NASCAR each year.”
The racing in downtown Chicago has been dominated by Shane van Gisbergen, who won the Xfinity and Cup races this year from the pole. He also won in Chicago in his Cup debut in 2023 and last year’s Xfinity Series race.
“I love the track,” he said after this year’s Cup win. “It’s a cool place to come to. You feel a nice vibe. You feel a good vibe in the mornings walking to the track with the fans. It’s pretty unique like that.”
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