3 Notre Dame Fighting Irish to blame for blowing game vs. Ohio State

1. From Al Golden to Marcus Freeman, the entire defensive staff blew it

If you want to blame anyone from this game, it has to be the entire defensive staff of Notre Dame. How do you not recognize that you only have 10 players on the field in crunch time deep in your own territory? Al Golden is a savvy defensive coordinator and Marcus Freeman is an excellent up-and-coming head coach, but this blunder of epic proportions falls on them and the entire defensive staff.

I mean, who had eyes on this? What graduate assistant or defensive analyst is going to have to run laps at practice for this unmitigated disaster in football accounting? Good teams win, but great teams don't beat themselves. Notre Dame is good. That's not really debatable right now, but they may not be as great as we all thought they were this time a week ago. This game was at home, too. What the hell?!

Ultimately, you win and lose as a team. This was the year a program like Notre Dame could have gotten the best of a team like Ohio State in a bit of transition. It was at home with all of the college football world watching. Per usual, Notre Dame did what Notre Dame has typically done since Lou Holtz stopped being their head coach and underperformed in a major spot vs. a quality adversary.

If anyone is going to eat this loss for Notre Dame, let's slice up that humble pie, Freeman and Golden...