QUICK RECAP: Notre Dame loses to Marshall in home opener, 26-21

This wasn’t how things were supposed to go for Notre Dame against Marshall. Irish head coach Marcus Freeman talked about getting off to a fast start, and there was a ton of confidence in and around the program that they would.

Except Notre Dame didn’t back it up at all and lost to Marshall 26-21. In Notre Dame’s first three offensive possession, the Irish ran 19 plays for 51 yards which resulted in a couple of punts and a turnover on downs.

It was the Marshall offensive possession after Notre Dame’s third try on offense that made a worrisome afternoon quite scary. The Herd rattled off a 10 play 79 yard drive that ended with a powerful running performance in the redzone for a touchdown by Khalan Laborn. The missed PAT put Marshall up 6-0.

Notre Dame’s immediate possession resulted in a Tyler Buchner pass being intercepted by Micah Abraham.

The Irish defense finally stiffened up, and Notre Dame turned a short field into a touchdown drive that ended with Tyler Buchner running it in from the one yard line. Of the 56 yards on the scoring drive, 21 yards came from Buchner rushing yards.

Marshall answered the Buchner touchdown with a 74 yard drive that ended in a field goal to go up 9-7, and as the Irish pissed away a couple of opportunities — that how the score stood at the half.

After forcing Marshall to punt to start the third quarter, Audric Estime was stopped on a 4th and 1 play to turn the ball over. Marshall drove down the field — with the help of a busted trick play that ended up working — and tacked on another field goal.

Notre Dame showed real signs of offensive life on the next possession with big passing plays to tight ends Michael Mayer and Kevin Bauman to get it down to about the 2 yard line to end the 3rd quarter. Tyler Buchner snuck it in from the one to start the 4th, and then Buchner ran a bootleg into the endzone for the 2 point attempt to put Notre Dame up 15-12.

Marshall answered yet again. After starting the drive with a 3rd and 8 on their own 6, the Herd put together an 11 play 94 yard drive that ended with a Devin Miller TD reception to go up 19-15 with a little over 6 minutes left in the game.

On the ensuing drive, Tyler Buchner threw another 3rd down interception — this time to Stephen Gilmore who took it to the house to put Marshall up 26-15 late in the fourth quarter.

Notre Dame was driving the ball on its next possession, and Tyler Buchner went out with a shoulder injury after gaming a first down in Marshall territory.

Drew Pyne came into the game and threw two passes. The first was an incompletion and the second was an interception.

I’m not even going to finish this. It sucked. More to come on OFD.