Notre Dame gifted a touchdown with horrible offsides call (Video)

Notre Dame had precisely nothing working offensively to start the game against Cal but the refs gave the Irish a gift with a bogus offsides call.

Marcus Freeman and Justin Wilcox must’ve met pregame and decided that Notre Dame and Cal should pay homage to Iowa’s offense to start their Week 3 matchup in South Bend on Saturday. The offenses were stagnant and struggled to even get a first down, much less put points on the board.

The Golden Bears got the scoring started early in the second quarter, though, with a touchdown pass to go up 7-0. Immediately after, the Fighting Irish were driving to try and answer but the offense stalled out in Cal territory and they went to settle for a field goal — except the kick hit the upright and seemingly left the Irish to walk away emptyhanded.

But then the refs stepped in. The call was offsides on the Golden Bears, giving Notre Dame a first down and they scored on a 21-yard touchdown pass from Drew Pyne to Chris Tyree two plays later.

Notre Dame scores first touchdown after bogus offsides call

When you look at the call on the field goal, however, it seems like the Irish were more than just lucky and got an absolute gift from the officials on a truly horrendous call as it doesn’t appear that a single solitary soul on the Cal special teams unit that was offsides.

For all the college football conspiracy theorists who believe that Notre Dame is always going to get favorable treatment from everyone, this is like catnip.

It’s also impossible to deny that the Irish were handed that chance to score with a horrible call. There are bang-bang plays that officials might get wrong from time to time, which is frustrating but also understandable. A missed call like this, however, is much more difficult to justify.

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