Brian Kelly somehow avoids penalty despite being on field for onside kick

Brian Kelly somehow avoided being called for a penalty despite being on the field during USC’s onside kick attempt towards the end of Saturday night’s game.

Notre Dame hung on to beat USC 30-27 in what turned out to be a close game at the end. The Trojans scored to make it 30-27 with just over a minute left and attempted an onside kick. Kelly ran onto the field to try waiving his players over, but the refs did not see and did not call a penalty.

Video shows how blatant it was:

He’s not even maybe on the field. Like 3-4 yards onto the field. Just wild pic.twitter.com/MKfXYpM4Ue

— Geoff Schwartz (@geoffschwartz) October 13, 2019

USC coach Clay Helton saw Kelly was on the field and was calling for the refs’ attention over the matter.

Brian Kelly was on the field *during* the onside kick and Clay Helton was NOT happy about it. pic.twitter.com/V6iBFidG33

— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) October 13, 2019

Kelly was lucky to get away with it and avoid a penalty. He joked about it after the game.

“I was going to take the onside kick. I felt like I have the best hands of anybody on the team. So I was going to try to get in position for it, but they already told me that we had 11 guys on the field,” Kelly said, via ESPN.

Helton was not so amused.

“It should have been a flag, no question,” he said.

Helton is right. That’s a rough break, and there’s no excuse for the officials to miss that call.

USC is now 3-3, while Notre Dame is 5-1.