ND almost certainly would have called a pass play on 3rd down. Since they were on the 2 yard line that would have most likely resulted in either an incomplete pass or a touchdown. The worst thing you can say about Purdue’s time out is that it elminated the possibility of a sack ending the game and it prevented ND from doing something monumentally stupid. Since you typically don’t expect your opponent to be a complete moron you can’t really hold that against the Purdue coach.
What should have happened is that ND would huddle up, call a play, and snap the ball with 12-17 seconds left on the clock. At that point its almost certainly either a TD or an incomplete pass. If its incomplete then they have at least 5 seconds left on a stopped clock barring a sack. They would then huddle and get off their 4th down play with ease.
So yeah, the time out gave some advantages to ND. It opened up the possibility of the run, gave them time to get organized, and apparently prevented them from doing something retarded. That has to be weighed against the advantages of giving your defense a rest, swapping personell, and getting organized. Maybe it ended up helping ND more, but as I said before, there’s nothing to suggest that it was a monumental bonehead move. It didn’t allow ND to get another play off because they had plenty of time left on the clock.
Well, you left out “interception”, but that just doesn’t happen very often with Clausen these days.
I’m pretty terrible at reading defenses on the TV (or in person). Any chance that Purdue was completely unprepared for any sort of play and needed the TO to prevent an easy score?
That is not the worst thing you can say, not by far. It totally eliminated any sense of urgency the Irish may have felt, and that is a huge deal.
The advantages of giving your D time to regroup are far outweighed by the other team’s ability to regroup and think of a better play. That’s why defenses don’t call timeouts at the end of games. It didn’t “maybe” help ND more, it definitely helped them more, as evidenced by the fact that they actually scored and won the game.
Besides that, the Purdue coach is on record as saying that he didn’t even call the TO to regroup. He called it to save his offense some time in case the Irish scored a TD.