Notre Dame, Freeman Outwit Smart, Georgia On Critical 4th Quarter Play
It may not have quite risen to the level of game theory as Bill Belichick deciding against calling a timeout in the waning seconds of Super Bowl XLIX, but Marcus Freeman absolutely found a way to exert leverage on Kirby Smart midway through the fourth quarter of the Allstate Sugar Bowl on Thursday night.
Up two scores with 7:45 to play, the Irish faced a 4th-and-1 from their own 18-yard-line.
There was a stoppage just prior as officials reviewed the spot of the previous play.
Irish running back Aneyas Williams’ reception had initially been ruled a first down, but replay clearly showed he went out of bounds short of the line-to-gain.
All year, Freeman has pushed the boundaries of being aggressive on fourth down, but couldn’t afford to give the Bulldogs an extremely short field and an easy chance to cut the deficit to six at that point in the game.
Still, the stoppage gave Freeman the chance to cook up something.
Once it was announced that it was now fourth down instead of first, Freeman immediately sent his punt unit on the field. Georgia countered with its punt return team.
But the second the officials whistled the ball in for play, Notre Dame’s punt team raced off the field in its entirety and was replaced by the Irish offense.
In the frenzied atmosphere of the moment, many opposing coaches would have panicked and called a timeout, leaving them with just two timeouts with time working against them. That would have been a win for the Irish.
But to Smart’s credit, he did not.
“That's what they wanted,” Smart said after the game. “They wanted us to burn a timeout there.”
Instead, Georgia calmly replaced its punt return unit with its starting defense, recognizing officials wouldn’t ready the ball for play until it had the chance to do so.
So far, so good for Smart in terms of matching wits.
But Freeman and Notre Dame still had the advantage.
The Irish had three timeouts and as the team ahead, unlike the Bulldogs, they could afford to burn one if need be.
The rush of substitutions surely prevented the Georgia staff from stressing the importance of not jumping offsides to its defense. Meanwhile, Notre Dame certainly had those discussions with its offense throughout the review moments earlier.
So, if Georgia didn’t take the bait and jump offsides, the Irish would have the chance to call a timeout and return its punt unit to the field with little loss.
Instead, the Bulldogs did jump offsides, allowing the Irish to retain possession and essentially grind out enough clock to secure the victory.
Afterward, Smart said he was under the impression you could not substitute in the manner in which the Irish did.
“I've been told by our head of officials in the SEC that you can't do that,” Smart said. “You can't run 11 on, 11 off.”
But, there’s nothing in the NCAA rulebook with regard to substitution infractions that suggests any such restriction.
Smart went on to say that the Bulldogs had done something similar against Tennessee back in 2017. But the play-by-play of that game shows no record of Georgia being penalized for any such infraction or any fourth-down conversions in that 41-0 win over the Vols.
Meanwhile, Irish quarterback Riley Leonard literally had to interrupt Freeman during his postgame press conference to give his head coach credit.
“He's being humble,” Leonard said as Freeman passed on an opportunity to take any individual credit.
“That was completely his play, and we were going to do it a different way two days ago. And then he flipped it, and we executed it that way, and it worked. So he's being humble.”
Freeman stopped to emphasize the play was the team’s and not his.
“You know this guy,” Leonard laughed. “But I'll say it for him.
“Great play, great execution.”
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