Marcus Freeman breaks down what went wrong on Ohio State's 3rd-and-long conversion

While it won’t be the play that caps off the highlight reel of Saturday’s thrilling contest between Notre Dame and Ohio State, the Buckeyes’ 3rd-and-long conversion with about 10 seconds left in the game was arguably the most important play of the day.

Ohio State had the ball at the Notre Dame 22-yard line for 3rd-and-19 with 15 seconds left on the clock. On the previous play, Buckeyes quarterback Kyle McCord had been called for intention grounding. That forced Ohio State to call its final timeout to avoid a clock runoff.

With zero timeouts remaining, Ohio State had to either score a touchdown, get a first down or get out of bounds on the play to keep the game alive. If the Buckeyes were stopped in bounds and tackled before the first down marker in bounds, it would have been very difficult for them to get a good fourth down play off before the clock expired, especially depending on how long the play lasted.

It didn’t go how Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman would have hoped. McCord found Emeka Egbuka for a 21-yard completion, moving the chains and setting up an opportunity for the Buckeyes to score from the 1-yard line.

“We wanted to play coverage,” Freeman said in his post-game press conference. “We thought we were gonna be able to kind of give him a different look and play some quarters. He threw a good ball. He threw a really good ball. That last series, we’re trying to kind of mix it up a little bit with a young quarterback and not just play man every play. He ended up putting it in a tight window. They made a play.”

Ohio State spread out five receivers on the play with three to McCord’s left and two to his right. Egbuka was in the slot on the left side and ran a go route up the middle of the field. He found an open space in the zone right around the 1-yard line and McCord fired in a bullseye to hit him. Notre Dame did a good job wrapping up to stop him at the one, but it was still a disappointing result.

Especially because the Buckeyes scored three play later with just a second left to pull out the 17-14 victory in South Bend.

“The emphasis was not to let them catch the ball and get a first down,” Freeman said.