Notre Dame beat Navy again. For the 80th time in history the Fighting Irish ended up victorious over the Midshipmen. It’s not a measuring stick game, just something to endure, suffer, and get over with as healthy as possible. For the most part, it was a pleasant enough afternoon although a non-contact knee injury to a captain lingers as a really disappointing storyline for Notre Dame.
Stats Package
| STAT | IRISH | MIDDIES |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 34 | 6 |
| Plays | 61 | 58 |
| Total Yards | 430 | 184 |
| Yards Per Play | 7.04 | 3.17 |
| Conversions | 7/14 | 7/19 |
| Completions | 24 | 1 |
| Yards/Pass Attempt | 9.3 | 6.0 |
| Rushes | 31 | 55 |
| Rushing Success | 62.0% | 30.7% |
| 10+ Yds Rushes | 5 | 3 |
| 20+ Yds Passes | 3 | 0 |
| Defense Stuff Rate | 44.8% | 22.9% |
A score-less 1st quarter and slow start on offense put Irish fans in a sour mood early. However, big 2nd and 4th quarters put the game away comfortably while Notre Dame kept Navy out of the end zone completely on Saturday. Maybe it didn’t quite feel like a pure dominant win but a 28-point victory, cover, 246 total yards advantage with a 3.87 yards per play advantage meant Navy didn’t have much of a chance without the Irish shooting themselves in the foot.
Offense
QB:Â B
RB:Â A-
TE:Â B
OL:Â B-
WR: B
This was a fine, if not unspectacular performance from the Irish offense. They surrendered a few too many stuffs and were slowed down on the run game a little too often while also punting 4 times and turning it over on downs once. Without a stellar defensive effort maybe there’s an alternative game where the Notre Dame offense was pressed to do more and struggled a bit more.
Otherwise, it was largely good stuff. Coan survived mostly on short completions and added a big 70-yard score to Kevin Austin and a nice 31-yard completion to freshman Deion Colzie.
Should we have seen more from Tyler Buchner? It sure seemed like it after being inserted in the 2nd quarter and leading an 11-play touchdown drive.
Rushing Success
Williams – 10 of 17 (58.8%)
Coan – 0 of 1 (0%)
Tyree – 0 of 1 (0%)
Diggs – 6 of 8 (75.0%)
Buchner – 2 of 2 (100%)
It was yet again another fun game from Kyren Williams who darts for 95 yards and 2 scores on the ground plus catching all 7 of his targets in the passing game for 36 more yards.
Chris Tyree made his return to the offense but only for a single carry and did not participate in a kick return this time around. His turf toe injury has really set him back especially as he’s witnessing Logan Diggs blossoming into a very dependable young running back.
Today was Kevin Austin’s first 100-yard receiving performance of his career.
Michael Mayer hasn’t scored a touchdown since the Toledo game.
We await the news on the Avery Davis injury and it’s expected to be bad. The depth at this position is so poor which is scary moving forward, maybe more so for the bowl game. At least Styles and Colzie are developing quickly. If this is the end of Davis’ career he’ll finish with 862 yards receiving and 156 yards on the ground in one of the more feel-good stories of perseverance in recent memory.
Defense
DL: A+
LB:Â B+
DB:Â B+
This was an ass kicking, folks.
Navy went 3 and out on 5 separate occasions and only strung together a couple long drives before the game was relatively out of hand late. The Middies found some decent success with fullback Isaac Ruoss (73 yards) but it took 22 carries (14 were unsuccessful) and it just wasn’t sustainable without explosiveness somewhere else.
No other Navy ball-carrier had more than 2 successful carries on the day–not a good recipe for them. The Middies tried to pass on 5 occasions, resulting in 2 sacks and only 1 completion.
The defensive line absolutely ATE at nearly every opportunity. Look at some of these gaudy stuff numbers:
Stuffs vs. Navy
Hinish – 5
Ademilola, Jay – 4.0
Bertrand – 2.5
Lacey – 2.5
Foskey – 2
Botelho – 1
Kiser – 1
Cross – 1
Watts – 1
Ademilola, Jus – 0.5
Bauer – 0.5
Lewis – 0.5
Wallace – 0.5
MTA – 0.5
Kahanu – 0.5
At times, Navy was very aggressive going for it on 4th down 4 times and converting 3 chances. I was very shocked they settled for a field goal on their opening drive of the 2nd half while trailing 17-3. I know the mentality of marching 14 plays with no points is crushing but once upon a time this used to be a Navy program that would try its best to go for those momentum-changing shots.
It was 4th and 4 from the Notre Dame 4-yard line. Navy never scored again after settling for 3 points.
Final Thoughts
I know it’s Navy and weird formations and schemes are sometimes cooked up. Still, it was interesting to see linebacker Jack Kiser start at free safety.
How about Xavier Watts getting his first extended action of the season from safety and coming down hill really well a couple times?
Diggs vs. Tyree next year for starting reps, who is your pick right now?
This was the fewest yards allowed to Navy during the Brian Kelly era.
Navy falls to 2-7 on the season and 5-14 over the last 2 years. It’s been a rough couple seasons for the Middies who have not been able to find any answers on offense or at the quarterback position since Malcolm Perry graduated. Case in point, Navy’s starting quarterback had 6 unsuccessful carries from 7 attempts for -7 yards and would leave the game with a shoulder injury.
Virginia was off this week and we don’t know the status of quarterback Brennan Armstrong. Georgia Tech is frisky but lost to Miami to drop to 3-6 on the season. Stanford was decidedly less frisky without their quarterback getting their doors blown off by Utah. How are we feeling about an 11-1 finish to this season?
i’ve been pretty vocal about my lukewarm feelings about tyree so i’m definitely rolling with diggs as the primary back.
think the frustration with coan comes from some of his wisconsin tendencies. checking down on 3rd and 14 and just conceding the drive to punt is infuriating. also feels like it might get kyren killed at some point
Just saw this tweet from Robby Toma that addresses your concern. 🙂
https://twitter.com/rtoma9/status/1457091522726227970?t=a6n_507ek59wkRjLN9UNow&s=19
Personally, I’d just run for 150 yards against drop 8 but that’s just me.
On how many attempts are we talking about here?
I wonder if the fact that next week’s game being in prime time is any indication about the health of the Virginia qb? If he plays, and Hamilton does not, that is going to be a tough match up.
The offense was so frustrating to start, though their D had been playing better as of late. Thank goodness their offense is putrid this year, or Eric’s alternate reality could have come true.
Although I will be more nervous if Brennan Armstrong plays for Virginia, I suspect he won’t be 100%. It looks like he took a hell of a shot to the ribs last week, and he’ll be sore if he plays. And the injury is on his throwing side, so it’ll likely affect his performance.
Legal hits only, but hit him, guys (if he plays).
Book broke his rib vs northwestern in 2018, missed the next week be FSU then played syracuse and usc. I thought he was tough as hell but clearly not as good as northwestern and before
I suspect there’s a 30% chance Armstrong plays, and a 95% chance that if he does, he’ll be a shell of what he’s been previously. But I’m just talking out my ass here.
UVA should probably think about what happened to Burgermeister Meisterburger of Virginia Tech before trotting Armstrong out against us. I’m not rooting for anyone to get injured, but when ND’s defense hits, they hit hard.
So uhh, who plays WR now? I kinda hope it’s to Tyree if healthy just to give him more snaps. Really sucks that Davis’ ND career probably ended on a non-contact knee injury blocking. Shame his story ends like that.
Was hoping this would be the game to hold them without a completion. Almost happened!
Coan missed a wide open Austin in the end zone, and I think he had Mayer a few times too. Not really sure how well he’s seeing the field, looked a bit shook when Navy would show pre-snap pressure but then drop 7-8 into zones, which to be fair, understandably so. At this point would love to see a little more Buchner, the offense just feels more natural with the better fit in there.
I can understand your desire to see more Buchner…but can he throw the medium and deep passes? We’ve seen Coan fit the ball in some tight windows on medium-deep passes this year. His pass efficiency is quite good.
What was Tommy Rees trying to do in the opening set of series? Was Michael Mayer not open for quick, short gains? The opening few series seemed like a failed experiment of some sort.
It’s hard to know whether to pin that on Rees or Coan. Being at the game yesterday, there aren’t too many passing plays where Coan couldn’t throw the ball to Mayer if he wanted. And he’s twice the mismatch against Navy that he is in a normal game.
Also, Coan was late on the pass that Austin took to the house. Against any other team on our schedule, that would have been batted away if not intercepted. The guy just isn’t a very good QB, but we are trying to squeeze out of him what we can. I won’t be sad when the reins are turned over to Buchner next year.
“but can he throw the medium and deep passes“
Only one way to find out…
Navy’s defensive gameplan was interesting — they’d basically guess what we were going to do, and then either drop 8 or blitz everyone, no in between. Unfortunately, our response to that was to guess, and often guess wrong.
I don’t know why it took so long to go to Buchner, as his running ability was the obvious answer to what Navy was doing.
11-1 with this team would be a monster coaching job by Kelly. Probably better than 2018 or 2020 in terms of results-given-inputs; only 2012 would be better if it happens.
I would like to see how this schedule ranks for the Kelly era. It does seem like among the weakest but maybe that perception is off (Wisconsin improving later on helps things).
And somewhat scarily we still have a outside – not crazy – chance to make the playoffs. Who is confident that Oregon and Oklahoma are not going to lose to a mid-tier conference opponent the rest of the way? I’m more confident Oregon will lose but neither losing would surprise me. And if OSU wins out and Georgia beats bama (looking more and more likely) then that leaves Georgia, OSU, Cinci and _____ a bunch of 1-2 loss teams left with ND among the currently highest ranked (depending on where a 2 loss Bama) would end up.
I’m saying it’d be good for us to make the playoffs and play Georgia. Just saying it could feasibly happen (even if it still isn’t very likely to happen).
It’s a very weak schedule, but consider that were 2-0 and +42 against the B1G, including a Wisconsin team that will probably win the West and super spooky upset machine Purdue.
I’m biased, but I think that conference seriously sucks. I also agree with you that it’s likely we’re going to back into the playoffs. I have zero interest in that, but it could happen.
Wisconsin is apparently #4 in SP+! – https://twitter.com/ESPN_BillC/status/1457403087610654722?s=20
Reminder that SP+ doesn’t actually effect that happens in games.
How is that possible????
Agree about the big 10.
With the MSU loss they should really drop at least to around 9 but Michigan needs to drop to 10 because of the head to head loss.
Penn state could easily beat both of the michigan teams too.
And I should add even if the schedule is weak it’s still pretty impressive. Look at Clemson whose schedule is not any stronger and look at them.
I wouldn’t be shocked if we got in. Especially if Bama were to lose. If they win out, 2 slots are taken off the top, them and GA.
Wouldn’t surprise me if the BIG champ has 2 losses. Cinci has looked bad against lousy competition lately and isn’t assured of winning out by any means. ACC is out of it. Wouldn’t surprise me if Utah beat’s Oregon. Not sure what happens with the Big12, but if Bama loses and we win out, things could plausibly work out for ND.
I’m thinking OSU wins out so it would essentially be Georgia(Georgia beats Bama), OSU, and Cinci (no one else is really good enough to beat them on their schedule). Though another WR injury and a few INT’s from Stroud could lead to an OSU loss but I’m most confident in OSU running the table than the other non-Georgia/Cinci teams.
The last spot with favored teams susceptible to minor upsets that could take them out.
My only question about this is how impressive a job it is to go 11-1 against what turns out to be a very weak schedule
Consider this anonymous has-been d2 linebacker super impressed! With a less-than-stellar secondary outside of one Kyle TheMan-ilton, crushing injuries across the board, half the field taken up with true freshman at times, converted TE’s to LT, heavy NFL draft losses, and a result of 8-1… that’s incredible. ND has won against a top tier defense, top tier offense, and everything in between. I think it’s a true testament to the depth of the roster, and quite frankly, adaptability of the coaching staff to make the most of the season.
With some prevailing talk preseason of this potentially being a rebuilding year, to be a stone’s throw away from another playoff birth, regardless of whether or not we get it, just wow. I’m so thankful to experience this. Is the schedule softer than expected? My gut says probably, but look at other schools getting shocked by softer opponents?
When I was enduring the post-holtz fiascos of Davies, not-Willingham, and charles, my dad brother and I DREAMED of when ND would be a consistent winner. That time is upon us, and it’s been a treat to experience the last half decade of irish football.
All gushing aside, I tip my hat to this staff for what theyve accomplished this season; I feel like if you put most any other college staff in this position, they dont display the adaptability to produce this result.
Great point about the injuries. That does increase the impressiveness of the coaching job.
Interesting question, looking at preseason it seemed this was a 10-2 team and probably more likely 9-3 before going 11-1…So by that measure, I think you have to give credit that Notre Dame will outperform almost all expectations before the start of the season.
Go ask MSU or Iowa if they would take a 2 TD win over Purdue…Wisconsin may well win Big10 West, Notre Dame has pulled out a couple decent wins against teams that hypothetically could beat just about anyone on any given day.
So I don’t know if I’d agree it’s a “very weak schedule”. ND has played two top-10 FPI teams (Cincy, Wisconsin). There are five FPI top 40 teams on the schedule. It’s certainly not a strong or super-competitive schedule and has a lot of lower-end teams dragging it down, but I would give ND coaching and overall program DNA some credit for being well-organized and cohesive enough not to lose any games they shouldn’t in a sport where that happens all the time.
Ppl forget that the preseason O/U on this team was 8.5
And that was before injuries and the first few games of the season.
I feel like a ‘monster’ coaching job would be going 12-0.
After the first quarter I thought we were in for One of Those Days, but thankfully we got that straightened out.
I’m going to ask an ignorant question, as I have never played or coached football. Is there something about “Just Do What Works” that isn’t realistic?
Yesterday, Navy wanted us to run directly into their 8-man fronts, and we obliged them. We insist on running these NDNation wet dream packages with TEs as offensive linemen and of course it doesn’t work because TEs are not offensive linemen. Buchner comes in for a drive and out-Navys Navy, then he’s benched. Coan clearly did better in a hurry-up offense against SC and UNC, so yesterday we’re back to having him go through like six progressions and he gets sacked.
I just don’t get it. We’re 8-1 and that’s great but I feel like both our coordinators are unruly children who will run into a busy street the second Kelly isn’t keeping an eye on them.
I understand the frustration, and felt the same way while watching the game, but looking back now, the offense, and in particular Coan, was actually much better than I expected. He was sacked once(?) and completed 79% of his passes. Take it for what it is worth, but I read that his PFF ranking was the highest of any offensive player this year.
That’s a very fair point. If it works, it works.
I dunno. I just feel like we insist on playing New Game+ when it isn’t necessary at all.
I have hope for Freeman. Rees as a coordinator pretty average. Lance Taylor had done a good job, but otherwise who I’m the offensive coaching staff operates on a championship level? If they were all shown the door, would things get worse?
He may not be that good, but he has flashes. But what REALLY counts IMO is his toughness and attitude. Especially he doesn’t pout for a second, and comes back in during hard moments and does well. If we have a successful season, a lot is on him. That’s what I think anyway.
Who are you talking about?
Jack Coan, sorry. I was trying to “reply” to the discussion below re: the QBs, but wound up making a separate post. My bad.
Diggs vs Tyree: I think Diggs will have more carries as the primary back next year. Tyree will be back # 2 again. I think the established relationship between Buchner to Diggs will win the day. Rarely does Kyren stay on the field when Buchner comes in. This is all development for next year.
I suspect Pine will transfer in the off season. He hasn’t seen the field in awhile and I suspect sees the writing on the wall.
With Fischer back next year, a new O-line with more experienced players, a defense in their second year under a new system, I like the possibilities. I believe we’ll be in the playoff and provide our best showing in 2022-23.
As far as playoff this year, it is a possibility. I think I remember someone suggesting on here that a 1 loss ND team could jump a 1 loss Cincy team, if Cincy losses to Houston in the AAC championship game or somewhere else, especially since we were still figuring out our O-line at the time we lost to Cincy. The BIG will have a one loss champion. No guarantees OK, or Oregon wins out, even if they win their conference.
I, myself, hope this doesn’t happen. I would rather see a competitive game in a NY6 setting vs be mauled by Georgia in a 1 v 4 matchup with their strength on D going against our weakness on O, I believe that game would be a Coan sack fest.
Pyne will be #2 and one play away from being #1. I think it’s 50/50 on him leaving.
Our Oline should be quite good next year, especially if Patterson returns. Of course they’ll have their work cut out for them 1st game.
I dunno. We’re trying to flip that 5-star from LSU, Walker Howard. I don’t think it’s a certainty that Pyne stays ahead of him if we’re successful.
Of course things could change. Angeli could beat him out too, but, I think on opening day odds are Pyne’s #2.
Yeah, I agree. I think Howard is an extreme longshot to come to ND, unless LSU badly bungles the HC search.
Pyne is a year out from graduating and I believe would have 3 years of eligibility for 2023, 2024 and 2025 due to COVID season in 2020 and 2021 is going to be a redshirt year since he will play in less than 4 games. I think Pyne will get his degree and move on after 2022, and he’ll get a real chance to compete for the starting job against Buchner. Also, history tells us that quarterbacks for Kelly don’t usually go wire-to-wire, still a real chance Pyne could be a factor in 2022 for Notre Dame if Buchner gets hurt or isn’t performing.
QB’s transfer a lot, so it wouldn’t be totally shocking if Pyne leaves before next season, but I think there’s a path where he has a chance and reason to stay and graduate and still have plenty of time to find a smaller school where he’s more likely to start.
Howard is such a long shot. He has said that basically the only way he doesn’t go to LSU is if they screw up the coaching hire. But he’s an 18 year old kid. Pretty much any hire is going to impress him. They’d have to hire BVG or some D2 coordinator.
And then, we would still have to beat out other schools for him.
What are our chances with Howard? That would really be a big deal. Buchner has some obvious potential but he in no way a sure thing.
Doesn’t Pyne seem to be one of those guys who just wants to be at ND so that PT may not be a deciding factor on tranferring?
Diggs seems to be a lot like Kyren and so a better runner than Tyree even if Tyree is more explosive. Finding a way to get Tyree the ball in space needs to be the offseason homework assignment of Rees.
Tyree only ran behind the lines that were abject disasters. I think he’ll be fine when healthy (which, I’ve had turf toe, it’s a total bitch) and has a good line. Even Kyren’s yards/carry were in the toilet until the past few games. Diggs has done well, but he’s at 4.8 yards/carry IMO in general people are too excited about the shiny new toy for the offense.
Tyree was at 6.8 yards/carry his freshman year, and yeah beast o-line and all, but he was just fine when his average initial contact wasn’t behind the line of scrimmage…
Yea I’m just thinking of last year with Tyree as a runner. If you give him space he’s obviously a stud. But Diggs seems more in the mold of Kyren who makes the space himself so to speak with his agile moves.
So it seems like the better runner overall would be the starter and the homerun threat that needs special treatment in the run game would be the guy who comes in next.
Maybe it will prove to be that way. But I’d say there’s a chance that Tyree is “the better runner overall”. Diggs is probably better between the tackles more consistently, I see what you’re saying, and stylistically Tyree at 195 is probably only going to be so much of a workhorse but skils-wise I was talking more to a general notion in the fanbase right now where I think the memory of Tyree is down too much, and maybe the hope of Diggs’ potential is a little too high at the same time.
As far as the OL, what will it look like next year then?
Fisher-Kristofic-Correll/Patterson-Spindler-Alt
If Patterson doesn’t come back hopefully Correll can be a better center than guard. Then just like that the line should be a strength again.