Slap the Sign
Fansided

The 5 Best Games in Notre Dame vs. Navy History

By Daniel Morrison

SOUTH BEND, IN - NOVEMBER 02: The U.S. Navy Blue Angels perform a stadium flyover before the Notre Dame Fighting Irish take on the Navy Midshipmen at Notre Dame Stadium on November 2, 2013 in South Bend, Indiana. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
SOUTH BEND, IN - NOVEMBER 02: The U.S. Navy Blue Angels perform a stadium flyover before the Notre Dame Fighting Irish take on the Navy Midshipmen at Notre Dame Stadium on November 2, 2013 in South Bend, Indiana. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
1 of 6
Next
Notre Dame
SAN DIEGO, CA – OCTOBER 27: Helmets of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish near the bench area in the 2nd half against the Navy Midshipmen at SDCCU Stadium on October 27, 2018 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Kent Horner/Getty Images) /
Notre Dame
SOUTH BEND, IN – NOVEMBER 02: The U.S. Navy Blue Angels perform a stadium flyover before the Notre Dame Fighting Irish take on the Navy Midshipmen at Notre Dame Stadium on November 2, 2013 in South Bend, Indiana. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images) /

Here are the five best Notre Dame vs. Navy games in history.

Notre Dame has played Navy every year since 1927, the year after the Irish began their series with USC. That’s good for the longest running intersectional rivalry, which has not skipped a season, since its inception. It’s also one of the most lopsided rivalries in all of college football. Notre Dame leads it 76-13-1.

That’s along the lines of Oklahoma-Iowa State (76-6-2), Michigan-Indiana (58-9), and Alabama-Kentucky (37-2-1). The closest intersectional rivalry in lopsidedness is LSU-Tulane (69-23-7). That’s a rivalry that hasn’t been played since 2009.

The Notre Dame-Navy game is played out of tradition. It’s played because the US Navy paid enough money to us Notre Dame as a training center that the university survived financial hardships of World War II. Therefore, an open invitation to play every year exists from Notre Dame to Navy.

They’re determined to keep it every year.

This season, both teams are ranked, an oddity for the game. Navy doesn’t recruit the same level as other FBS schools. To go along with their high academic standards, their players need to commit to military service. That limits their recruiting pool exponentially.

It also means that they haven’t made a major bowl game since 1963. It wasn’t until Paul Johnson took over the Navy program they started to consistently make any bowl games. Since Roger Staubach left Navy in 1964, they have three 10 win seasons.

Suffice it to say, Notre Dame and Navy don’t play in a lot of close games.

This season should be different. Both teams are ranked entering this Saturday’s match-up. On top of that Notre Dame will be missing Julian Okwara. Without Okwara to help take away the edge, more pressure will be left on the linebacking corp to fill holes, and make tackles in the running game. This is only exacerbated by the the injury to Jack Lamb.

Navy is also averaging 3 sacks a game. Meanwhile, Ian Book has been struggling to deal with pass rush all season long. He’s been scrambling too quickly and misreading his throws under pressure. That could make Saturday a very long day for the Irish offense.

From a pure talent perspective, Notre Dame should win this game. That can be said of the Notre Dame-Navy game every year. We all know that’s not how things work out. There have been some great, exciting games between these two storied programs. Here are the top 5 meetings.

Home/Notre Dame Football