East Rutherford, NJ – The now No. 8 Fighting Irish of Notre Dame took advantage of Navy turnovers, mental mistakes and some jitters to blast the No. 24 Mids, 51-14. In a game that could have pointed the Navy season (6-1) in a more positive direction, the Fighting Irish (7-1) scored early and often to display their superiority. Our party of over 40 celebrators attending www.collegefootballfan.com’s 700th game noted the Mids propensity to try to “bite off than they could chew” efforts.
The Fighting Irish, as known by many, recruit bigger, stronger and faster players than do the Mids. However, we noted a lot of football recruits along the Navy sideline for this game. A Navy alum, John Semcken in attendance with us this weekend, reported Navy is benefiting and not being impacted negatively by the transfer portal. As many schools prefer now to bring in transfers, more high-level quality, high school players seek playing opportunities with the Naval Academy.
Great start for the Fighting Irish
Navy deferred the ball to start, and the Irish opened with a 75-yard scoring drive on nine plays. Fighting Irish QB Riley Leonard’s pass on a third and five to Jaden Greathouse for 42 yards to the 12 demonstrated Notre Dame’s superior speed against the Navy secondary. Leonard scored from the one. Many fans expected to see the Navy offense display improvement on their subsequent series. It didn’t help, however, when Navy returner Isaiah Bryant took the kick in his end zone and only got out to start from the 11. Jitters? A touchback would have been the “smarter” decision to take it at the 25. At the 34, FB Alex Tecza fumbled without contact. The Fighting Irish put the ball in play at Navy’s seven on Safety Adon Shuler’s return. Leonard passed a strike to wide-open WR Kris Mitchell from the six to go up, 14-0.
Fighting Irish take advantage of Midshipmen miscues
Mid QB Blake Horvath fumbled this time without much contact. Notre Dame took over at the Navy 44. Zac Yoakam’s 36-yard FG attempt sailed wide left. Maybe, Navy would finally settle in to make this a game. Going into the second period, however, things looked better for USNA. Horvath weaved and dodged into the open for a 47-yard touchdown. A sign of what the Mids had done all season. However, Jeremiyah Love broke away on a 64-yard touchdown run to keep the Fighting Irish rolling.
With Notre Dame up now 21-7, the teams exchanged punts. On fourth and seven, from our section 148, our celebratory tailgating band watched the wind push the ball to the near sideline. Bryant made the effort to field the wind-swept, curving football. He fumbled it away instead of letting it go out of bounds. The Fighting Irish recovered to continue their drive starting at Navy’s 40.
On fourth and seven at the 37, Notre Dame displayed air superiority again with 17-yard pass to Jordan Faison to get to the 20. Five running plays later, Love (102 rushing yards, two TDs) took it over from the two for a 28-7 lead. Next, Navy misfired on a field goal attempt to cut the lead. Instead, the Irish retaliated with Yoakam’s conversion from the 32 to take the lead at the half, 31-7.
Navy turnover woes continue
On a beautiful, sunny, cool day for football, our party stuck it out hoping to see the Mids make some second half adjustments and challenge offensively at least. They showed some semblance to come around. They drove 75 yards on 12 plays to begin the third quarter. The drive could’ve been shorter. On second and goal at the three on a well-executed reverse option pass, Horvath dropped an on-target pass in the end zone. Two plays later though, Eli Heidenreich carried it in on fourth and goal at the one.
After that, it was all Irish. Riley tossed a 37-yard touchdown pass to WR Beaux Collins. Next, Bryant misplayed the ensuing kickoff knocking the ball out of bounds to start the Mids on their four-yard-line. It got worse. Horvath fumbled at the eight, and Fighting Irish Rover Jaylen Sneed recovered it in the end zone for a score. The PAT failed to give the Irish a 44-14 lead, but it came quickly. Into the third, Navy drove to the Fighting Irish 17. Irish CB Leonard Moore intercepted in the end zone to take over on the 20. We’d seen enough. A second team scrimmage was about to start.
Fighting Irish finish it off
Notre Dame’s second team offense punted. Navy fumbled on the return. The Fighting Irish second team went up, 51-14 ending with a 16-yard drive. By that time, most of our 700 Game partiers returned to the parking lot to savor food and drink once again at our great tailgate feast! The Fighting Irish marked their stamp on this, our historical milestone, 51-14. Many had hoped for a more competitive game than witnessed. The Mids fell out of the rankings, for now, falling into the “Also Receiving Votes” category with 23. Late in the season, key games including AAC foe Tulane loom to possibly face undefeated No. 21 Army (7-0, 5-0) for the American Athletic title. This may occur one week before playing in their traditional season-ending rivalry in Washington, D. C. this year. As two AAC members now, these two greatest of college football rival will play annually in a non-conference game.
Future battles lie ahead for all today
The Fighting Irish take a bye next Saturday before hosting decimated Florida State (1-7) in South Bend. The Mids take it on the road to Houston to face American Athletic foe Rice, (2-6, 1-3). Rice comes off a 20-17 loss to UConn. For collegefootballfan.com though, it doesn’t get better than next week.
Our 701st game starts us off at State College, PA where No. 3 Penn State (7-0, 4-0) hosts arch-nemesis and No. 3 Ohio State (6-1, 3-1). PSU defeated Wisconsin last week 28-13, and the Buckeyes got by Nebraska, 21-17. Were both looking ahead to this one now with the Buckeyes trailing the Nittany Lions in both national and Big Ten standings? Will PSU HC James Franklin have his players ready for a team he’s still not beaten since he’s been at State College? OSU’s only loss has been to No. 1 Oregon this season.
Can’t plan much better than this
How’s this for our scheduling? Two weeks after this one, we’ll see No. 1 Oregon visit Wisconsin for our first game ever at Camp Randall. On October 5 this year, we attended No. 4 Georgia’s win over Auburn. At this point, we’ll see the current top four teams in the nation play by end of November. In addition, we’ve seen the No. 8 Fighting Irish of Notre Dame and the No. 9 BYU Cougars (8-0), leading the BIG XII Conference. On January 9, we already have the Capital One Orange Bowl CFP semi-final meeting penned in. We have a good shot at seeing two of these teams meet in that one!
Get ready for us on NPR Travel podcast in January
Recently Michael Olcott of National Public Radio (NPR) Travel contact us for an upcoming podcast about Tailgating. We did an online interview a few weeks ago, and Michael came to visit our pregame tailgate in The Meadowlands this past Saturday. Besides myself, he spoke with others attending about our experiences and the great, ongoing, unique adventure I’ve continued to march on with. Once we know more information about the release of this podcast, look for it here on www.collegefootballfan.com!
Some upcoming schedule changes
In two weeks, we had undefeated Liberty visiting Middle Tennessee on our slate. Liberty took it on the chin this past week to winless Kennesaw who we saw lose twice this year. Amazing! Congratulations to the Owls for their first FBS win ever. Since the aspect of not seeing the undefeated Flames play against hapless MTSU doesn’t thrill us anymore, we decided to stick even closer to home. We haven’t seen the surprising Vanderbilt Commodores (5-3, 2-3 SEC) play yet. So instead on November 9, we wait to see them host South Carolina (4-3, 1-3) where our daughter Alex and some of our money went while she was part of Gamecock nation for four years. A few other changes and additions look to be worthwhile in the future – to be determined.
By the way, St. Laurie and I have a full Nashville slate that weekend now. Out with our friends Dave and Kalani hopefully around on that Friday night if they’re in town. On Sunday, we utilize my birthday present from our kids for a hop-on/hop-off microbrewery tour. On Monday, we go see Bonnie Raitt at the Ryman Theatre. Retirement is grand. I love it! And we like it here – near Nashville!
-ed. by Steve Koreivo Member of Football Writers Association of America and author of the book Fifty Years of Tailgate Tales: The Good, the Fun and the Ugly. Click on the title to buy it and review it on Amazon.com!
