Marcus Freeman expresses disappointment with Notre Dame's second half performance vs Navy

Notre Dame came out firing in the first half against Navy, scoring 35 points in the game’s first two quarters. But the second half was a different story as the Midshipmen scored 19 unanswered points as the Fighting Irish held on for a 35-32 victory.

After finishing the first half so strong, Freeman didn’t mince words about how things went after halftime.

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“Honestly, not what you want,” he told ABC’s Kris Budden after the game. “Man, you’ve got to continue to tell yourself it’s so hard to win and to appreciate it. We didn’t finish the way we wanted to. Thankfully, we were able to come out with a victory, so we’ve got to get some things cleaned up on both sides of the ball.

“But we’ll take a victory. That’s most important.”

In the first half, Notre Dame had everything going well, totaling 323 yards of offense, including 234 passing yards from Drew Pyne. But Navy did a good job of making halftime adjustments and kept the Fighting Irish to 12 total yards after halftime, including a staggering -23 rushing yards. The Midshipmen, meanwhile, totaled 166 yards after halftime.

Navy’s ability to take away the run game changed everything, Freeman said.

“When we’re running the ball with efficiency, [Pyne’s] able to put the ball where it needs to go, it opens up the pass game,” Freeman said. “But what happened int he second half was we weren’t able to run the ball, now we’re trying to force some passes. We have to play complimentary football. We’ve got to be able to run and throw it. It was a tale of two halves.”

Heading into this week’s game, Freeman talked about the need to put last week’s huge upset of Clemson in the past and not get too high or too low. Instead, he wanted his players to stay “in the middle” and play to their capabilities.

Notre Dame did that to start, but the Fighting Irish couldn’t get much going in the second half.

“It was great to start the game,” Freeman said. “You go up 35-14 and then, you go out to a lead. But it was the tale of two halves, and we weren’t in the middle that second half. Man, we came out with a victory, which is so important. But, man, we’ve got to get better.”