Things didn’t always look bleak for the Notre Dame football team on Saturday against Northern Illinois.

Despite a notably slow start and a frustrating afternoon, Notre Dame led Northern Illinois 14-13 with 6:07 left and faced a second-and-1 one yard from the halfway line.

What followed was one of the most questionable plays you have ever seen.

Riley Leonard, who hadn’t thrown the ball far in two games as Notre Dame’s quarterback, got a play ball to try and beat Northern Illinois with a long pass, but instead of going in, the ball ended up in the hands of Huskies defensive back Amariyun Knighten, who returned it to the 50-yard line.

Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman was asked after the game about the decision to throw deep in that situation. He said they wanted to do that there too, but needed to execute it better.

Yes, we wanted to try that situation. Obviously it wasn’t the execution we wanted. Of course, we never plan to intercept a pass, but that’s how we wanted to see it. That’s where we wanted to get the ball. We just need to throw a better ball.

Everyone will try to point the finger at someone, one side of the ball, one game, one person. It’s the entire program that fell short of its potential today, and the entire program needs to be aware of that and improve.

Leonard didn’t respond in detail after the game. He was more brief and to the point.

“Bad eyes, bad feet, bad ball,” he said.

I don’t understand the play calling at all. What I hated most on Saturday was that Notre Dame didn’t even try to run a real running game.

If Mike Denbrock and Marcus Freeman had the opportunity to start over, I suspect they would choose a different style of play just before the halfway line.

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