Know Your Notre Dame Football Enemy: Navy
The Notre Dame football rivalry with Navy is always contentious, yet based on mutual respect.
Since 2000, Navy has been the dominant military academy. Of the 18 Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy’s awarded in that time, Navy has won 10. Under coach Ken Niumatalolo, Navy has become a respected program that can compete against anyone, including Notre Dame football.
Of course, since Keenan Reynolds moved on, Navy hasn’t been nearly as good as they were. Last season, the Midshipmen finished a putrid 3-9.
That’s unlikely to happen again. Navy is too well coached and disciplined. As they stand now, Navy is a good triple-option quarterback away from being a bowl team again.
As far as Navy’s offense, everyone knows what to expect — the triple option. On most plays, Navy will use misdirection and multiple options to run the ball: the fullback hand-off, quarterback keeper, or pitch to the running back. They isolate a defender and force them to stop one player. Whomever they let go takes the ball for a moderate gain. They do this over and over again, slowly moving up the field.
It’s death by a million cuts. It’s incredibly frustrating to stop. Every single player on defense needs to do their job exactly right. If you blow your assignment or leave your gap, that’s where the ball is going. To beat Navy, you need to tackle and stay disciplined.
For the Notre Dame defensive line, they’ll need to have active hands. That’s because Navy cut blocks on the line. This means they dive at knees to mow down linemen and create space to run. To beat this, defensive linemen need to stay low and use their hands to push offensive linemen into the ground, before they reach their legs.
Of course — being a military academy — Navy doesn’t have nearly enough talent to compete with Notre Dame straight up, which is why they play this style of football. This style of football does require a particular type of quarterback, though, which Navy needs to find. They need a quick thinking, tough, and agile quarterback. If they can find that, they’ll be deadly again.
Malcolm Perry, explosive and inconsistent, will likely play quarterback for the Midshipmen. If he can become a more consistent all-around player, he could steady the ship. However, Perry is better suited to play a slot back position. If they have a better or even equivalent option out there, Navy should go with the other option and take advantage of using Perry elsewhere.
More important for Navy, their defense was terrible last season. Navy gave up 426.4 yards and 33.5 points per game. A defense that bad needs to be paired with an awesome offense to keep up with their opponents, especially in an explosive AAC.
Even worse, the triple option is designed to make the game easier on a defense. It limits opponents possessions and time to score. Recently, Army has shown how to effectively limit opponent possessions, holding Oklahoma to 21 points in regulation in 2018.
To fix this awful defense, Navy brings in a new defensive coordinator — Brian Norwood. His most recent job was in the same position at Kansas State.
Navy has some young talent in the secondary, but that won’t matter. Their front seven is going to experience massive turnover. Notre Dame won’t need to throw. They’ll be able to gut Navy with the running game. Furthermore, there won’t be a pass rush to bother Ian Book. Notre Dame should light up the scoreboard with relative ease.
Prediction: Notre Dame 48, Navy 16
There’s no reason this game should be close — especially not in South Bend. Notre Dame is leaps and bounds more talented. More importantly, Navy doesn’t have a set quarterback or a sound defense. They’ve got a fire burning in their house, which they need to put out before they can think about beating the Irish.