The revival of Navy football rolls on in 2016. Twelve years, yes twelve years, since Paul Johnson turned around a 2-10 team into a 10-2 team within two falls the Midshipmen continue to cruise through college football. Now in their second year of conference membership Navy is currently 11-2 in the AAC and would’ve been ranked while facing Notre Dame for the first time since 1978 if they had come back against South Florida last week.

Notre Dame (-6.5) at Navy

EverBank Field
Jacksonville, Florida
Date: Saturday, November 5, 2016
Kickoff: 11:30 AM ET
Television: CBS
Series: 76-12-1 Notre Dame

Navy came into 2016 with the story line of having to replace NCAA all-time rushing touchdown leader Keenan Reynolds and watched somewhat experienced new quarterback Tago Smith tear his knee up in the opener. With so many starters to replace across the entire roster things looked like they could fall apart quickly. However, senior Will Worth has come in at quarterback and played really well, allowing the always dangerous Navy offense to continue piling up wins.

3 Matchups to Watch

Notre Dame’s Quest for 30 points vs. Navy’s Defense

It’s my annual reminder that Notre Dame has never lost a game against Navy when scoring 30 points in regulation. Morevoer, the current 5-game win streak over the Middies has seen the Irish average 46.8 points per game which is plenty enough.

Navy’s rush defensive stats don’t look terrible on the surface (well, up until last week’s debacle) but S&P+ isn’t all that impressed ranking them 90th in the country. Even worse, their passing defense is ranked 121st, yikes! Their 5 non-option opponents have gone 127 of 192 (66.1%) for 1,475 yards, 9 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions. This unit even made a UConn passing offense look lethal!

Negative Plays vs. Navy’s Outside Attack

You’re rarely going to get tackles for loss when Navy runs the ball up the middle with the fullback or quarterback. But when they try the edges it’s really important to make some plays in the backfield. Notre Dame has been averaging about 6 TFL per game against the Midshipmen in recent meetings and that’s about the bare minimum you’d like to see–roughly one every other series.

It’s crucial you pick up those TFL to put Navy into uncomfortable passing situations.

Stopping Navy on 4th Down

If you’re like me I hate playing Navy because you know they’re a billion times more likely to go for it on 4th down on Notre Dame than a typical opponent. Last year, the Middies were insanely productive on 4th down converting an absurd 24 out of 26 attempts!

This year, they’ve slipped down to 57.1% on 14 attempts which is pretty average. At some point, a crucial break in this game is going to come down to whether Navy picks up a 4th down to keep a scoring drive going or if Notre Dame stops them and goes on to score themselves.

2 Sides of the Line

Navy has had the pleasure of breaking in an entirely new set of full-time starters on the offensive line this fall. Four of the positions have remained steady in all 7 games: Senior left tackle Blake Copeland (6-4, 281), senior left guard Adam West (6-3, 297), junior right guard Evan Martin (6-3, 294), and sophomore right tackle Andrew Wood (6-4, 300).

Junior Parker Wade (6-2, 271) won the center job coming out of camp but has given way to senior Maurice Morris (6-2, 327) over the past 3 games. Collectively, this is one of the biggest Navy lines of all-time.

The Middies dropped a massive stink bomb against rival Air Force (57 total rushing yards!) but have been pretty dynamic in the post-Keenan Reynolds era, even with the season-ending injury to quarterback Tago Smith in the opener. Over the last 3 weeks they’ve gained 1,070 yards on the ground with 133 points scored.

Last week against USF, the Middies started offensively by failing a 4th and 1 conversion (see, they’re super meaningful for a triple option team!) and then a 3rd and 1 conversion before finding themselves down 21-0. Once it was 45-14, Navy put up the bulk of their rushing while finishing the game with 5 straight touchdowns. Be that as it may, S&P+ still likes this rushing offense a ton. Last year they were ranked 5th nationally and they come into the weekend ranked 4th.

As is typical with Navy these days they only rely mostly on 3 players up front in their 30 front scheme. Senior defensive end Amos Mason (6-1, 266) is the lone returning starter and has 27 tackles with 5.5 TFL this season. On the other edge sophomore Jarvis Polu (6-3, 280) has also added 27 tackles with 3 TFL and 2 sacks.

At nose guard senior Patrick Forrestal (6-4, 305) is now a starter after being a primary backup last season. He’s managed 13 tackles thus far. Navy will also utilize senior defensive end Nnamdi Uzoma (6-3, 251) who has 1 TFL, freshman nose guard Jackson Pittman (6-3, 315) who has 6 tackles, and junior end Tyler Sayles (6-2, 255) who has a pair of sacks.

1 Prediction

In sorting through the lead up to this game it’s difficult to balance the beam (singular, let’s not get ahead of ourselves) of sunshine from a victory over Miami with the sorry history embedded within us from this 2016 season.

Defensively, things are always sketchy at best when facing Navy. At least 4 starters for the Irish will be facing the real live oh-crap-this-isn’t-scout-team Midshipmen offense for the first time. Also, while it sounds like Greer “I Live to Tackle Triple Options Teams” Martini might suit up after suffering a concussion last weekend Notre Dame may be without Daniel Cage at nose guard which isn’t super great news for a team that hasn’t developed a third option at the position, or a true backup at 3-tech for that matter.

Offensively, things are kind of interesting which isn’t usually the case against Navy. The Irish (with the built-in hurricane) are sitting at 72nd in FEI and 53rd in S&P offense right now. Pound for pound it’s probably the worst offense since Kelly’s first year back in 2010–a sentence that seemed inconceivable early in the season.

But, dear Lord is Navy’s defense ghastly. I mentioned some of their stats above and in addition they’re tied for 120th in tackles for loss, 122nd in allowing third down conversions, and 100th in yards per play. They also only have caused 9 turnovers in 7 games and have 1 more sack than Notre Dame’s historically sack-barren defense.  That’s for a team that hasn’t faced a Power 5 opponent yet, mind you.

The most painful part of this season would be Notre Dame completely falling on its face offensively in this game and struggling to score 20 points. Realistically, that would take perhaps the worst performance of the Kelly-era and rival the 2010 game in the Meadowlands against Navy (Diaco got the most heat that day but the offense was absolutely brutal too) which just doesn’t seem possible anymore without Dayne Crist trying to complete passes to John Goodman and Duval Kamara.

The game being played so early and in Jacksonville offers some intrigue. We’ve had a game in Ireland but otherwise recent “road” contests versus Navy have been in New Jersey (2x), Baltimore (2x), and Washington. Not since 2000 has this rivalry been down in Florida and that feels like 30 years ago at this point. I’m not sure if this moves the needle much in either direction. I can’t think of a more uninspiring place to play than the home of the Jaguars so I guess in some small way this favors Navy who never has a problem getting up for the Fighting Irish.

End of the day, I’ll stick with the equation that Notre Dame’s offense is just too good for Navy’s defense. There’s the possibility that Notre Dame comes out with an awful defensive gameplan and can’t make on-the-fly adjustments but I’d assume Master Teacher Bob Elliott will carry over enough knowledge to make just the right amount of plays when they’re needed.

Notre Dame 42

Navy 35