Gilmore, the brother of Stephon Gilmore of the Indianapolis Colts, picked off a Tyler Buchner pass with 4:35 left, ran into the end zone and then jumped into the stands where Marshall fans were already celebrating the victory. Marshall (2-0), the first Sun Belt Conference team to play at Notre Dame Stadium, beat a team ranked in the top 10 for just the second time in school history. The Thundering Herd beat No. 6 Kansas State 27-20 in 2003. “I’m really proud of the way our guys competed,” Marshall coach Charles Huff said in his postgame courtside interview. “Notre Dame is a hell of a football team. I think about them, but our guys all week said ‘control what we can control’. I couldn’t be more proud.” Freeman, the 36-year-old first-time coach promoted after Brian Kelly left for LSU, had missed bowl games at Oklahoma State and Ohio State last week. Marcus Freeman is the first coach in Notre Dame history to miss his first three games: the All-Ireland bowl game, the season opener against Ohio State and now Marshall. pic.twitter.com/vzxE3DNa4y — ESPN College Football (@ESPNCFB) September 10, 2022 That will go down very differently with the optimistic Notre Dame fans, many of whom packed the stadium. In all three losses, Notre Dame led in the second half. Earlier Saturday, after the pregame walk on campus, Freeman told the crowd, “There’s no better place in this country to get our first win of this new era than right here in Notre Dame Stadium.” The Irish had a 42-game winning streak against unranked opponents. The Herd took a 19-15 lead with 5:16 left when Texas Tech transfer Henry Colombi completed a 3-yard pass to Devin Miller. The score was set up by a 42-yard run by Laborn, who broke a tackle at the line of scrimmage and threw Irish safety Brandon Joseph before breaking free. “With Marshall’s history and tradition, we show up and play hard,” Huff said. “These games aren’t as big for us as they are for other people because our kids stay locked into the process.” Any hope of a comeback by the Irish (0-2) ended when Owen Porter intercepted a pass by backup Irish quarterback Drew Pine with three minutes remaining. Pyne threw a TD pass with 14 seconds left to cut the lead to five points. “It’s never easy coming here after a loss, no matter who it is,” Freeman said in his postgame press conference. “It’s disappointing. We didn’t execute, and it comes down to execution.” Colombi was 16-of-21 passing for 145 yards and the Thundering Herd rushed for 221 yards on 49 carries. 2 Related The Irish, who struggled offensively a week earlier in a 21-10 loss to Ohio State with a play-safe, ball-control scheme, opened up the playbook against the Herd but still struggled to get much going. “We have to look at ourselves as individuals, the whole team, starting from the coach down and say, ‘What do I have to do?’ “What should we do to fix the problems?” Freeman said. “We have to look at the lack of execution in all phases of our team.” Buchner was 18-of-32 passing for 201 yards with two interceptions. He also led the Irish in rushing with 44 yards on 13 carries, while Michael Meyer had eight catches for 103 yards. The Irish took a 15-12 lead early in the fourth quarter on a 1-yard run by Buchner. He then held it and ran right for the 2-point conversion. But the Irish couldn’t mount much offense after that. Two plays with just over eight minutes left in the third quarter epitomized Notre Dame’s struggles. On third-and-2 from the Notre Dame 47, the Irish couldn’t get a first down on two carries from Audric Estime, coming within 6 inches as the line couldn’t get much pressure. That led to a drive by the Thundering Herd, highlighted by a backward pass from Colombi to Talik Keaton along the left sideline for a 30-yard gain, but the drive stalled when Cam Fancher took over at quarterback for Colombia. Marshall drove to the 4-yard line before settling for a 20-yard field goal to go ahead 12-7. “This is an assessment of everything we do,” Freeman said. “It starts with me, it starts with me as a coach.” The Associated Press contributed to this report.
