Navy falls just short in clash with Notre Dame

It is no secret that I greatly admire the Naval Academy. Less known is the fact that over the last decade I lost any shred of respect I may have had for the University of Notre Dame. So, perhaps my pregame hopes of a Navy victory were fueled more by my heart than my head. But the heart of the Navy football players nearly turned that hope into a reality.

What a fantastic game. Despite the loss Navy proved once again how under-appreciated they are as a team and how overrated Notre Dame continues to be as a program. Falling behind 28-7 it looked as if Navy was in for an embarrassing night but there is of course no quit in the Midshipmen. The triple option attack continued to pound away at the Notre Dame defense and finally in the second quarter Navy broke through in a big way.

A big time drive of 78 yards over 10 plays was capped off with an 18 yard touchdown run by Demond Brown near the end of the half to bring the score to 28-14 Notre Dame with 2:30 left on the clock. A timely interception of Everett Golson by George Jamison gave Navy the chance to cut further into the lead. A five play drive opened with a huge 42 yard completion to Ryan Williams-Jenkins ended with a 44 yard field goal by Austin Grebe as time expired.

Navy was down 11 at the half 28-17.

Navy received the ball to start the second half and promptly continued their pounding attack on the Notre Dame defensive line. 15 plays, 75 yards and Navy had cut Notre Dame’s lead down to just four, 28-24. Navy’s next drive ended in a four yard touchdown run by Chris Swain, giving Navy their first lead of the night, 31-28.

Unfortunately the lead would not hold as Notre Dame would score on their next two possessions to go back up 42-31. Between the Notre Dame scoring drives, Navy was let down by poor execution on a foolish play call. Facing a third-and-seven, Navy attempted to have their running back, Noah Copeland, throw the ball down field to a streaking Keenan Reynolds. To Copeland’s credit the ball was delivered beautifully but Reynolds was unable to hold on to the ball and it fell incomplete. Navy’s momentum was suddenly gone on a play call that was simply unnecessary. The trick play simply seemed to interfere with the flow of Navy’s offense more than it disrupted the Notre Dame defense.

Navy would add another touchdown and two point conversion to bring the game to within a field goal before Notre Dame ultimately put the game away with another touchdown but Navy never really seemed to recover from that on play. It was ultimately a valiant effort from the Midshipmen but the experience of Notre Dame seemed to be the difference.

A poor play call and a couple of wasted timeouts to avoid delay of game penalties really exposed some of Navy’s big game inexperience. Unfortunate as it is to have such a thrilling comeback eventually fall short, Navy has nothing to be ashamed of from this game. They took the 10th ranked team in the country down to the wire and really reaffirmed for any who had forgotten that playing Navy is no cake walk.

The loss drops Navy to below a .500 mark with an overall record of 4-5. Next up for the Midshipmen is Georgia Southern and South Alabama before the big game against rival Army on December 13th.

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Brian Hradsky

The owner of MSB, I created this website while in college and it has never died.

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