Undefeated Army faced its most talented opponent of 2024 on Saturday night in Yankee Stadium and the result was a bloodbath. In all aspects (well maybe not kicking field goals) Notre Dame dominated the action from the opening whistle to secure Marcus Freeman’s second straight 10-win season with the Irish.

Let’s recap the blowout win over Army.

QUARTERBACK: A

Outside of Riley Leonard trying to jump for a touchdown and getting stuffed a few times it was a nearly flawless performance from Riley Leonard who exited the game early with a handful of minutes remaining in the 3rd quarter. Just 3 incompletions with a couple scores through the air–it was easy work as the Irish running backs did the majority of the damage.

We were poised to see a lot of Steve Angeli but Army ate up most of the 4th quarter slowly moving the ball against Notre Dame’s emptied bench. That only allowed Angeli to throw 5 passes (completing 4 but missed an easy touchdown) in his action. I thought we might see Kenny Minchey but instead Angeli didn’t even throw a pass in the 4th quarter (Notre Dame’s ran only 1 play in the 4th quarter, the long touchdown run by Aneyas Williams).

RUNNING BACK: A+

This was frightening efficiency from Notre Dame’s running backs. I stopped tracking success rate in my old school way from the past but the eyeball test felt like this was well over 75% for the Irish. Maybe even higher outside of those rather silly runs up the middle near the end zone that didn’t go anywhere.

20 carries for 245 yards from Love, Price, and Williams. An average of 12.25 yards per carry!

WIDE RECEIVER: B+

Did we have a game with no drops? For the most part, the receivers were very wide open on the night and did their job well. It was certainly a low-stress affair. Looking over the box score, no receivers were targeted on 3rd down snaps–a product of only 5 total 3rd down attempts for Notre Dame in the entire game, and one of those was the attempted field goal before halftime.

TIGHT END: B+

I thought this might be a game where Mitchell Evans had a big game barreling through the Army secondary. However, just a couple targets went his way, although Evans caught both.

Had Angeli been able to make the connection in the end zone, Cooper Flanagan would be leading the team in touchdown receptions on just 5 overall catches in 2024. A missed opportunity.

OFFENSIVE LINE: A+

We’ve already covered the destruction given out by the Irish running game. Leonard was under pressure on dropbacks exactly one time, I believe? He was surrounded and about to take a sack but just got the ball out in time.

This is a good place to point out that Notre Dame only ran 47 plays on offense. It was the first time since the 2019 season that Notre Dame averaged over 9 yards per play on offense.

DEFENSIVE LINE: A+

Domination.

LINEBACKER: A+

Domination.

SECONDARY: A+

Domination.

For all the hype of Army’s offense, Notre Dame brought the pain and shut their scheme down violently and with impressive speed on defense. If this wasn’t the best performance against an academy offense it had to be way up there. Army had 2 sustained drives into the 4th quarter, the latter mostly against the Irish bench and even that was a turnover on downs result.

On Army’s other 7 drives before garbage time they gained 62 yards.

This might have been the best tackling game I’ve seen from Notre Dame in a long, long time. Not just physically stopping guys for no extra yardage but doing so with incredibly bad intentions and a high level of intensity. There were a couple chippy moments throughout but the message was clear: Notre Dame came to the Bronx not to eff around.

Although I will say, what was this gameplan from Army?

Running quarterback Bryson Daily 39 times is part of it. Army didn’t have any explosive plays of 10 yards or more until right before halftime (Daily promptly lost a fumble after a 19-yard gain) but they just kept giving the ball to him hoping for the best. For the #13 offense according to FEI to come out and with this gameplan was pretty bizarre. And to continue doing it late in the game, against Notre Dame’s 3rd-team defense, was pretty embarrassing.

NOTES:

Being +5.8 YPP is an absurd ass kicking, you guys. Nearly 40 minutes of possession and only 14 points for Army doesn’t seem like it could be possible but that’s academy offense for you.

The roughing the passer penalty on Jack Kiser is one of those calls all you can do is shake your head about. I was surprised that was called against Army of all teams, too. That was like the 6th hardest tackle Daily took on the night!

Notre Dame didn’t punt in the game. That was the first time since the 2023 opener in Dublin against Navy.

What was the verdict on these Shamrock Series uniforms? I really like this blue-gray shade and wouldn’t mind it being used semi-regularly. I was looking at other photos of the standard blue and kind of preferring this look. The shiny numbers, well, they weren’t very useful for identification purposes. It was cool to see nameplates, though. We are one step closer to putting them on all of the jerseys.

Blue-gray for the win?

Just under 32% of Notre Dame’s offensive snaps were of the explosive (10+ yards) variety.

How close do the Irish have to get for you to feel comfortable with an injured Mitch Jeter making a field goal against USC? I might refrain from kicking anything outside of 35 yards. If it’s 4th & 5+ yards from this area of the field perhaps it’s punt to win time.

Notre Dame was several close calls on interceptions away from making this a 60-point win and I firmly believe that.

Can you imagine this Army team making the playoffs? They are the only G5 team (along with Boise State) with 1-loss on the season now. The Broncos have to play whatever is left of the Oregon State program and then likely UNLV in the Mountain West Championship. Army faces UTSA and then Tulane in the AAC Championship. Remember, Army could conceivably go 12-1 with that AAC title, lose to Navy the following week, and still be locked in the no. 12 seed because the committee won’t re-rank after conference championship weekend.