It was the annual Navy game this Saturday night in a rainy/sleety/snowy South Bend so there was no escaping a certain level of annoyingness that is as familiar for Notre Dame fans as dozens of traditions surrounding the program. Thankfully, the worry didn’t last very long as the Irish took firm command of the game by the early-to-mid 3rd quarter and never looked back. It was the 84th (and 8th straight) victory over the Middies.

Here’s the game review of the 49-10 win over Navy.

QUARTERBACK: A

There were only 3 incompletions on the evening from Notre Dame quarterbacks, it’s irresponsible to expect them to hit every throw–especially when many of them were attempted daggers from CJ Carr. Navy loaded the box and sent a lot of pressure Notre Dame’s way. When it came time to throw that pressure was picked up and they paid the price.

For the 3rd time this year, Notre Dame finished a game with at least 13 yards per completion. It was all around good stuff, including watching Kenny Minchey get some quality run and show off a little bit. His pirouette away from blitzers to find tight end Jack Larsen down field was a thing of beauty. The drop by Gi’Bran Payne would’ve been another big chunk play, luckily a roughing the passer penalty wiped out the incompletion.

RUNNING BACK: B+

The traditional numbers for the ground game look pretty good, plus we finally got to see the backups as Aneyas Williams and Payne got extensive run in the 2nd half. That was good stuff, with Williams even breaking off the longest run of the game–on 4th down no less.

There were times when the running game didn’t look great, though. Jeremiyah Love was only successful on 6 out of his 13 carries as an example. Yes, he gave us yet another highlight to his ever-growing library reel that we’ll be sharing with generations to come.

Short yardage didn’t feel awesome, although the only 3rd & short failures with the running game were an early miss by Price and a late one by Williams that preceded his long run.

WIDE RECEIVER: B

Early in this game it looked like Malachi Fields was going to romp to a huge career day, and in the end he didn’t even eclipse 100 receiving yards! But, it was a Notre Dame career high for the Virginia transfer. Perhaps the worst part of the game for the receivers was Fields’ drop near the sideline.

We were so close to a 100% completion rate and over 250 yards passing–I wonder has this ever happened in Notre Dame history?

Finally breaking into some of the depth at receiver was nice to see. Cam Williams was targeted down field and drew a pass interference call, KK Smith caught his second touchdown of the season, and Jerome Bettis, Jr. made his first career catch for the Irish.

TIGHT END: C+

I haven’t seen snap counts yet but it seemed like Ty Washington was on the field a ton against Navy. He was rewarded with his first touchdown reception of the season–also the first by an Irish tight end in 2025.

For the second time this season, Eli Raridon didn’t haul in a catch. Although, the scramble and catch by Jack Larsen was a pretty sweet play by a tight end who doesn’t see the field very much.

OFFENSIVE LINE: B+

This is now back-to-back games without allowing a sack for Notre Dame. They’ve allowed the 11th fewest sacks among power programs in 2025 through this past weekend. In fact, the Irish have gone over 11 quarters without giving up a sack stretching back to the 1st quarter of the USC game (when Carr turned right into the pressure).

We know the line isn’t at its best and using some backups. They’re still performing at a pretty high level. For the third time this season, the offense scored at least 4 rushing touchdowns. That moves them up to a tie for 9th nationally with 26 rushing touchdowns, although it’ll take some work (and another deep playoff run) to catch last year’s power team-leading 45 scores on the ground.

DEFENSIVE LINE: A-

With injuries (captain Donovan Hinish was added to those held out with a concussion) the defense was rolling out quite a few backups early in this game and did a really good job keeping Navy’s running game in check.

Navy doesn’t rely on their fullback as the focal point of their offense like they used to back in the Coach Ken N. days. Still, running back Alex Tecza had a run of 13 yards and just 7 more yards on 4 other carries. Navy got very little production up the middle in this game.

LINEBACKER: B+

Navy’s backup quarterback Braxton Woodson was tasked with carrying a lot of this offense and he looked pretty effective in spurts during the 1st half. In fact, three out of the Middies’ 7 total explosive run plays came from Woodson on carries of 41, 11, and 10 yards.

It’s just nothing was consistent or sustainable against Notre Dame’s quick defenders. That’s the name of the game with this Navy game–explosive plays are kind of okay to give up once and a while (you’ll get the ball back quicker!) but it’s the 5 and 6 yard gains that bleed you to death that need to be avoided.

Woodson picked up 39 yards on his other 20 carries. See, not sustainable! Yes, it was Navy’s backup quarterback but the Irish held Navy to their season low in yards per play by a wide, wide margin. Their previous single game low was a still very good 6.32 YPP earlier in the season against Tulsa on the road. Navy ended up more than 2 full yards below that average on Saturday night.

Jaiden Ausberry was very effective (he’s perfect for this type of game) and I noticed true freshman Madden Faraimo getting a lot of playing time, as well.

SECONDARY: A

Mark Zackery got beat pretty badly on one route that led to a 17-yard gain for Navy on 3rd & 8 with the first half winding down. That was one of the handful of poor plays for this Irish defense. Following a stuffed run up the middle, sack by Tuihalamaka, and an incompletion, Navy ended up settling for a field goal–their last points of the game.

Navy more or less didn’t do anything else (5 yards on 9 other attempts, yikes that’s so bad!) throwing the ball.

In this unusual defensive gameplan, nickel Davonte Smith started at corner. I always look to see how the defensive backs tackle in a game against a military academy and I thought they did a good job.

NOTES:

Notre Dame beating Navy to knock them out of the playoff race on November 8th is a sentence that wouldn’t have made any damn sense not that long ago. Although, there’s still a case where Navy might get that G5 auto bid if they can win out in the AAC, plus become victorious in the league championship game. I desperately want to see the playoff committee put Navy in only for them to lose the following week in the Army game.

We can forgive them for missing their starting quarterback but Navy just wasn’t the ultra sharp bastards they can be at critical points in this game. Two pivotal moments stood out:

It’s 7-0 Irish late in the 1st quarter with Navy holding the ball on 3rd & 7 from the Notre Dame 37-yard line. They throw an incompletion, line to punt, false start, and give the ball back to the Irish.

It’s 28-10 Irish early in the 3rd quarter with Navy holding the ball on 3rd & 5 from their 30-yard line. They throw a short completion, decide to go for it on 4th & 2 only to get stuffed. This series was bookended by the crazy Love not on the ground touchdown run and a quick strike 34-yard touchdown pass. Now it’s 34-10 with over 11 minutes remaining in the 3rd quarter and effectively game over.

The game cameras are wild these days. You couldn’t really tell it was precipitating at all from the main camera feed–plus the lack of muck and dirt on the artificial surface helps with the illusion. Then, on the close up shots it was a much different story. Not until late in the 4th quarter when things started to stick to the turf did the main camera show the real weather effects.

This game time lasted 2 hours and 57 minutes. Tidy! Imagine our lives if halftime wasn’t 45 minutes long!

Hat tip to SubwayAlum_2012 in the Discord for pointing out Notre Dame had zero penalties called on them with this AAC officiating crew. I’ve since noticed on social media this was the first time since 1997 that the Irish didn’t have a penalty? Does that seem real?

The run of not giving up any 4th quarter points is now extended to 6 straight, that’s pretty nice.

No field goal attempts by Erik Schmidt (which is when we’ll really be tense) but going 7 for 7 on PAT’s is a step in the right direction. Things could get very important this upcoming weekend in cold weather at Pittsburgh.