Notre Dame chokes and Dan Lanning steals Coach Prime’s soundbite

During the Notre Dame-Ohio State game, the stand constantly reminded spectators that Irish captain Marcus Freeman said he wouldn’t practice as scared as he did against the Buckeyes a season ago. He did that for 57 minutes Saturday night in South Bend, and the Irish ended up losing 17-14.

The drive began after a five-yard loss on first down at the 2:28 mark of the fourth, with the Golden Domers holding the ball and holding a four-point lead. On second down, sixth-grader Sam Hartman “dropped back to pass” and attempted a running back screen that was nearly intercepted. It was an egregious hedge that stopped the clock and didn’t give Hartman an honest opportunity to make a play.

Ryan Day was able to save a timeout, which came in handy on Kyle McCord’s subsequent game-winning drive. The junior quarterback was called for an intentional grounding, and Day was able to avoid a 10-second runoff that would have cut the time to 5 seconds and given Ohio State only one shot into the end zone.

Instead, a 21-yard catch by Emeka Egbuka brought the Buckeyes to the Irish one-yard line with nine ticks left on third-and-19. McCord stopped the ball with seven seconds left, and running back Chip Trayanum ran it off two plays later.

Not only was the screen pass the definition of conservative, letting Day keep a get out of jail card, but on that third-and-19, Notre Dame opted to rush three and drop eight .

Egbuka found a gap in the cover and McCord was able to calmly go into the throw without a green jersey near him. You can’t say you’re playing to win and not taking risks. There’s more to being aggressive than going for fourth-and-short.

Giving an Ohio State quarterback all day to push the ball downfield is never advisable, and dropping eight only works if the offense doesn’t expect it. Although Notre Dame only scored 14 goals, they moved the ball well and stalled or missed field goals. Even so, Hartman was still seconds away from giving the Irish their first win over Ohio State since the 1930s.

Then Marcus Freeman got the video game sweats and choked on his own penis.

Someone get Dan Lanning a deal with Aflac

It’s one thing to be decapitated in two quarters, but during the first half of the Oregon-Colorado broadcast, ESPN released a clip of Oregon coach Dan Lanning’s pregame speech to his team, and it was shocking even to the Internet .

That’s a lot of bullshit talking, and the decision to put cameras in the locker room — knowing full well that if the Ducks lose this clip will go viral for all the wrong reasons — meant Lanning was either extremely confident or certifiable.

It turned out to be the former (maybe), as the No. 10 Ducks took a 35-0 lead at halftime and cruised to a 42-6 victory over the No. 19 and soon-to-be-unranked Buffs a. The funny thing is that all Coach Prime had to do to make things “personal” again was go back and read Lanning’s comments in the offseason about Colorado’s return to the Big 12.

Although the core of his position faltered almost immediately when Oregon announced its move to the Big Ten, the shot was bold. But I guess Colorado was too busy making headlines to remember (or was afraid to poke the duck).

When the game was over – at halftime – the conversation turned to Bo Nix, the pass rush, the Ducks, but most of all to Lanning. And if we’re being completely honest: I’m more impressed by the media coup than the victory.