Can The Midshipmen Beat An Irish Team That Isn’t In A ‘Down’ Year?
After defeating Navy 43 years in a row, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish have lost four times to the Midshipmen since 2007. The first came that year in a 46-44 triple-overtime thriller.
The next two occurred in back-to-back seasons in 2009 and 2010. Then the Fighting Irish dropped another contest to the Midshipmen in 2016 by a score of 28-27.
What do these Navy victories have in common? None came at the hands of an Irish team that the Midshipmen head coach Ken Niumatalolo saw as a quality opponent, at least by Notre Dame’s standard.
“We’ve been fortunate enough to beat them in the past, not a ton, but the times we’ve beaten them it hasn’t been some of their better teams," Niumatalolo said. “They were down those years that we beat them.”
In 2007 and 2016, the Irish finished below .500.
The 2010 season was Brian Kelly’s first at the helm of the program, but that team had a losing record 10 weeks into the season and would have finished that way if not for an inspiring four-game winning streak — including a bowl game victory — to close out the year.
But even a struggling Irish team is tough for the Midshipmen to beat.
“We had a nine-win team that beat them in Jacksonville [in 2016] and they had the ball only six times and we played probably as perfect as you could play,” Niumatalolo said. “We only beat them up by a point, and it wasn’t one of their better teams. We know they will be really hard for us to beat.
“We got to play well just to have a chance; that’s never going to change.”
The only seemingly competent Irish squad to lose to Navy was in 2009 when Notre Dame entered the game 6-2 and was ranked No. 19 in the Associated Press poll. But that team lost its last three games of the season, including a 23-21 upset at the hands of Navy, which led to the dismissal of head coach Charlie Weis.
A Rare Top-25 Matchup
The good news for Fighting Irish fans? Niumatalolo considers this year’s Notre Dame team just as good as the 2018 squad that earned a bid to the College Football Playoff.
“The last couple of years, they’ve been playing really well and, obviously, at the beginning of the season, they’re a team people were considering for the playoffs,” Niumatalolo said.
Even with two losses, Notre Dame is averaging 34.2 points per game and currently ranks No. 7 in the nation in ESPN’s team efficiency defense, sandwiched between No. 6 Georgia and No. 8 Michigan.
As Blue & Gold Illustrated senior editor Lou Somogyi pointed out, this Navy team is no slouch, either.
In fact, after digging through Sports Reference, this appears to be the first time since 1978 that this matchup will occur where both teams are ranked in the AP poll, with Navy at No. 21 and Notre Dame at No. 16.
Not that it matters much to the Midshipmen’s head coach.
“They're still a really good football team, and for us to be both ranked, that’s nice,” Niumatalolo said, “but we know how good they are even if they weren’t ranked.”
‘Fortunate’ To Play Notre Dame Every Year
Some members of the Notre Dame faithful wish the annual matchup with Navy would go away, but there is something to be said for the tradition of it and Niumatalolo feels the same way.
“It doesn’t take away from the competitive nature of how hard it will be to beat them, but we feel like we’re very fortunate as a program to be able to play Notre Dame,” he said. “If you went over the history of college football, through its totality, and you named the storied programs in college football, Notre Dame is probably No. 1.”
But aside from having the opportunity to revel in a storied tradition that began with Knute Rockne, Niumatalolo also sees it as a benefit for his program.
It allows him to market opportunities such as next year’s game between the two teams in Ireland to prospective players, and his team gets to play a nationally televised competition each season.
“We feel very fortunate because there are a lot of teams that would like to play Notre Dame, just from the standpoint that playing a marquee school like that brings a lot to your program in recruiting and some notoriety,” Niumatalolo said. “Now obviously, you got to try to win some games and be competitive, but we feel very fortunate.”
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