SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Marcus Freeman knows the history of the Notre Dame–Navy series, which will play out for the 97th time Saturday (noon, ABC) at MetLife Stadium. It’s just that the past doesn’t matter much compared with the present, with No. 12 Notre Dame (6-1) and No. 24 Navy (6-0) both ranked at kickoff for just the third time in the past 50 years.
This iteration of a game known more for pageantry and tradition will have legitimate 12-team College Football Playoff implications. Win, and Notre Dame can almost see inclusion into the CFP, with The Athletic’s model putting the Irish’s chances at making the field at 83 percent if they beat the Mids, even with four games to play in the regular season.
Notre Dame feels like a team getting better, even if its schedule has taken a turn for the strange. At the same time that Navy and Army are both ranked for the first time since 1960, Florida State has cratered and USC takes on water. Still, the Irish’s defense appears to be rounding into form and quarterback Riley Leonard has flashed more of what Notre Dame hoped it was getting when he transferred from Duke.
Can Notre Dame keep rolling against Navy? Here are three keys and a prediction.
𝙂𝙖𝙢𝙚 𝙒𝙚𝙚𝙠
@ Navy
📍 East Rutherford, New Jersey (MetLife Stadium)
📅 Saturday, Oct. 26
🕛 Noon ET
📺 ABC#GoIrish☘️ | @DICKS pic.twitter.com/WcS3NYZsWp— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) October 21, 2024
Can Notre Dame make the red zone work?
If Notre Dame wins on offense against Navy, the Irish don’t need to do anything out of character to get over the line. They simply need to keep having success in the red zone on pace with every other game this season. And though Navy’s defense ranks ninth nationally at halting teams inside the 20-yard line — 19 opponent red zone trips turned into just eight touchdowns against the Mids — the academy has not faced a threat quite like Leonard just yet.
Of Leonard’s 10 rushing touchdowns, eight have been red zone scores. He also leads Notre Dame in third- and fourth-down conversions with 11. Basically, when the field gets condensed, the Irish are content to let Leonard go to work. And he usually gets the job done, which becomes even more important in a game in which possessions might be limited by Navy’s run-first offense.
Notre Dame ranks sixth nationally in red zone touchdown percentage, getting over the goal line 18 times in 22 total trips. Navy is actually first, scoring touchdowns on 22 of 23 red zone trips. The Mids have also yet to face a Power 4 opponent.
“Especially defensively, we have to find a way to get red zone stops versus this team. They’re obviously good on both sides of the ball,” Freeman said. “Offensively, it’s having a great plan and making sure we finish with touchdowns and not field goals. But defensively, I think you make sure you have a great red zone plan.”
It’s hard to imagine Notre Dame’s defense completely shutting down Navy’s offense in the red zone considering it’s built to grind out yards in small spaces. But if Leonard does what he does best by the goal line, it might not matter as much.
“Finishing. Finishing with seven,” offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock said. “And continuing where we’ve done a nice job. And we’ve got to make sure we do that again on Saturday.”
How creative is too creative for Al Golden?
In his first crack at Navy as Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator, Al Golden wanted to play a linebacker at safety and ended up playing a current defensive end at middle linebacker. And it all sort of worked, at least for a while. The Mids scored touchdowns on their second and third drives but then stalled, finishing with six empty possessions in Notre Dame’s 35-32 win in 2022, which never quite felt that close.
Much of the personnel that limited Navy in Baltimore is back. Linebacker Jack Kiser won’t get a tryout at safety. Safety Xavier Watts backs up the defense. Defensive tackles Howard Cross and Rylie Mills give Notre Dame power up front. The four graduate students own a combined 277 defensive snaps against Navy in the past two seasons.
Not only are they Notre Dame’s best defenders, but they’re also efficient against the option.
“So it’s really not about the guys that rushed the passer well, or the guys that played well last week, or the guys that played well versus Texas A&M,” Golden said. “It’s the guys that play this defense well, and obviously that play against this offense and how they operate well. I think that’s the most important thing.”
New Navy offensive coordinator Drew Cronic will test Golden with more up-tempo looks, shotgun formations and a willingness to pass when it’s not a last resort. The Mids have six 40-yard pass plays this season. The Irish have just two. This is not your older brother’s Navy offense.
The challenge for Golden will be staying ahead of Cronic’s adjustments and knowing when he’s better off playing the hits. Notre Dame has practiced against the option since training camp and it knows Cronic will have some new material. The trick is not trying to guess Cronic’s audibles, especially when it could get Notre Dame off balance defensively.
“Believe in what you do. Execute what you do. If you can’t execute the fundamentals of what you practiced all week, you can kiss the adjustments goodbye,” Golden said. “You’re just going to get further and further away from the core of who you are and your identity.”
Make Blake Horvath ‘pay the toll’
Last week at Georgia Tech, the Notre Dame linebackers beat quarterback Zach Pyron into the ground so badly he could barely peel himself off the field by the end of the fourth quarter. Doing the same to Navy quarterback Blake Horvath represents a bigger challenge, but it’s one Notre Dame’s defense wants to attempt.
The more the Irish hit Horvath, the more Notre Dame’s physical superiority adds up.
“If they’re a running quarterback, they got to pay the toll of running the ball,” linebacker Drayk Bowen said. “And so when running quarterbacks want to run it, that’s what you got to do. You just got to hit them and hit them and it will take its toll eventually.”
The Irish haven’t let a starting quarterback get through a game unscathed all season, from Conner Weigman to Tyler Shough to Ashton Daniels. Some finished the game. Some didn’t. All carried the hits delivered by Notre Dame out of the stadium. Hitting Horvath not only could limit the Navy quarterback — his 10 rushing touchdowns match Leonard’s — it could also keep the Mids out of short-yardage situations on third and fourth down.
Basically, if Notre Dame’s linebackers are textbook tacklers on second down — stopping forward progress at the point of contact instead of allowing a couple of extra yards — third down doesn’t become so automatic for Navy. The same is true on third down — winning at the point of contact to create a fourth-down opportunity.
“That is huge, because we’ve had a lot of defensive success on fourth-and-short this year, and a lot of that has to do with third down,” Freeman said. “Just at the point of contact and not giving up that extra yard.”
Prediction
This series might be more stressful the closer Notre Dame gets to it, meaning from the outside there’s little reason a College Football Playoff contender would be troubled by a service academy that has yet to face a Power 4 opponent. The Irish know better. A near-death experience against the Mids seems to pop up every other year. Notre Dame blew out Navy in Ireland in August 2023, the kind of result that seems to even out the next season. Still, Notre Dame is equipped to out-Navy the Mids, with a diverse run game and the ability to play offense in a phone booth. If Leonard and the offense can avoid the big mistake, the Irish should get out of MetLife Stadium with their CFP targets in play.
Notre Dame 35, Navy 21
(Photo of Riley Leonard: Brett Davis / Imagn Images)
