It’s natural that there will be some growing pains as Marcus Freeman settles into his new role as Notre Dame head coach. Some of them will happen on the field, and some will happen off of it. The Fiesta Bowl was one of those on-field occurrences as the Irish gave up 30 unanswered points while falling, 37-35, to Oklahoma State. The Irish’s major bowl drought will live for another year after they blew the biggest lead in program history.
The fourth quarter began with one of the craziest sequences you’ll see in football. With the Irish (11-2) driving, Logan Diggs literally had the ball ripped from him by Kolby Harvell-Peel, giving the Cowboys (12-2) good field position. The ensuing drive went well for the Pokes until the last possible moment. Brennan Presley was about to score a touchdown on a run when Drew White forced a fumble, which was recovered by Ramon Henderson in the end zone for a touchback.
Jack Coan, who set a Fiesta Bowl record with 509 passing yards, nearly gave the Irish lead back on a long throw to Lorenzo Styles, but Styles couldn’t complete the catch. That was as good as it got for the offense on that drive, and Jay Bramblett had to come out for another punt. The Cowboys reached the red zone on the drive that followed, but a face-mask penalty knocked them out of there. The Irish were able to prevent the Pokes from getting back there, but Tanner Brown kicked a 41-yard field goal to get something out of the trip downfield.
The Irish’s offense went with an all-pass attack on the next drive, and that worked for a while as it got the ball to the Cowboys’ 24-yard line. However, the next two plays were disastrous for Coan. First, he was sacked by Brock Martin for the second time in the game. Then, he threw an interception to Malcolm Rodriguez, snuffing out the Irish’s best chance to score the entire second half.
The drive that followed was all about eating the clock and getting any number of points to erase any doubt about the game’s outcome. As he had since late in the first half, Spencer Sanders did a fantastic job managing his offense, completing long passes and even calling his own number when needed to. It was that last item that erased all of that progress because he fumbled the ball at the Irish’s 11, and White recovered it.
Blessed with a break, it was up to the Irish to make something happen. What happened was nothing because after a 4-yard completion to Chris Tyree to advance the ball to the 15, Coan threw three straight incomplete passes. The Cowboys took over in the red zone but didn’t do anything fancy. They just ran the ball and forced the Irish to use all of their timeouts, paving the way for a 25-yard field goal from Brown.
With 2:16 left, the Irish absolutely needed a score to still have a chance at the win. Coan completed a couple of first-down passes, and Diggs even gave the pass-heavy offense a bonus with a 14-yard run. The Irish got further help from a defensive holding call, and Coan capped the drive with a 25-yard touchdown pass to Kevin Austin. Only 71 seconds had gone off the clock, so this game hadn’t quite been decided yet.
The Irish needed to recover an onside kick, but Jason Taylor got his hands on it before the ball even traveled the necessary 10 yards. All the Cowboys had to do was kneel a couple of times, and they did just that before celebrating the biggest comeback in program history. That definitely is not something the Irish wanted to be on the receiving end of, but that’s how it goes in football. Onto 2022.