#8 Notre Dame Fighting Irish VS Marshall Thundering Herd: Staff Picks

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish welcome the Marshall Thundering Herd to Notre Dame Stadium for the home opener. It’s also the first home game for new Irish head coach, Marcus Freeman. According to DraftKings Sportsbook, the Irish are 20.5 favorites against the green team from West Virginia.

Odds/lines subject to change. T&Cs apply. See draftkings.com/sportsbook for details.

Now it’s time for the OFD Staff to unleash their own picks. Here are a few thoughts from The Emperor’s Elite Pick-Em Force:

Pat Sullivan

ND’s defense held the Buckeyes to 21 points last week, so I imagine they’ll see more success — especially in terms of getting to the QB and forcing turnovers — against a relatively bad offense in comparison this week. Add in that the Irish offense won’t be facing a Jim Knowles defense, will have a lot to prove, and should be playing less conservatively due to the game plan, and I think the Irish rout a decent but not super dangerous Thundering Herd squad. Irish win 45-14.

Billy Gorman

Last week was just about as good a loss as Notre Dame could have. Even though Marcus Freeman said he doesn’t believe in moral victories the Irish will still be able to carry a good feeling into this week and with Marshall at home they should have no problem getting the first win of the season and of Freeman’s coaching career. What is most interesting to me is to see if Freeman and Tommy Rees will go for the big win against a lesser opponent, something Notre Dame teams have rarely done in the past.

Joseph Babey

The Irish bounce back in week 2 with a solid victory. I think the defense builds on last week and mostly shuts down the Thundering Herd and the offense answers some of its haters with a solid performance. Notre Dame: 38 Marshall: 10

Hayden Adams

I know no one wants to bring up the Brian Kelly era at Notre Dame anymore, but I do only to say that this game would be a malaise coming off a loss to Ohio State if he was still coaching. Instead, Notre Dame’s new coach is 0-2 in his first two games, both against top-10 opponents, so this is his chance to notch his first win — in his home debut, no less. Regardless of the opponent, I’m confident the Irish are gonna be a mix of pumped up and pissed off on Saturday, so give me them to win and cover. FINAL SCORE: Notre Dame 41, Marshall 13

Matt Greene

The Freeman Era at home begins with a bang. Offense is firing and the talent gap is too much. Thundering Herd do score, but I think we all will be bored in the 4th quarter (in a good way). 52-10 Irish.

There could be more explainers coming in over the next couple of days.

As a whole, we continue to use TallySight to keep track of everything. Besides the ND VS Marshall game, I asked the staff to pick:

Alabama Crimson Tide VS Texas Longhorns
Wake Forest Demon Deacons VS Vanderbilt Commodores
Pittsburgh Panthers VS Tennessee Volunteers
Washington State Cougars VS Wisconsin Badgers
Air Force Falcons VS Colorado Buffaloes
Virginia Cavaliers VS Illinois Fighting Illini
Florida Gators VS Kentucky Wildcats
BYU Cougars VS Baylor Bears