Navy Coach’s Excitement In Hosting Notre Dame ‘Fizzled Out Pretty Quickly’
Ken Niumatalolo barely gave himself time for excitement and appreciation for a titanic piece of news before he drifted back to a less comforting reality.
When athletics director Chet Gladchuk told him that Navy would be hosting Notre Dame in Annapolis, Md., for the first time in the rivalry’s 94-year history, there wasn’t even enough time for a daydream about the home-field advantage a packed Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium might provide.
Instead, his mind went right to the cause of the news. Notre Dame is only coming to Annapolis to play Niumatalolo’s Navy team because the schools decided to move the game from its scheduled location in Ireland. The change was made because two college football teams traveling internationally isn’t exactly prudent right now.
This is how an occurrence that, under normal circumstances, would be an enjoyable new twist in a long-standing rivalry instead feels to Niumatalolo like the result of a stinkbomb at a concert.
“I remembered we’re in a pandemic and the reason we’re not going to Ireland is because of a pandemic, and we’re not going to have many fans,” Niumatalolo said Wednesday during a Zoom conference. “So that fizzed out pretty quickly.”
The date of the game was moved from Aug. 29 to either Sept. 5 or 6. Instead of the stadium being at capacity for a marquee game like it often has been, the stands will contain an unknown number of fans, if any.
“When we’ve had some bigger games here at home, we have a good home-field advantage,” Niumatalolo said. “I’d love to play Notre Dame with our stadium packed with our fans. Even some of the places we have gone to — when we went to San Diego [in 2018] it was predominantly Notre Dame fans and wasn’t like a home game — so any help we could get would be helpful.”
Spoken like a man who still feels the wounds from last year’s 52-20 loss to Notre Dame. Navy entered the Nov. 16 game in South Bend with one loss and ranked 21st in the College Football Playoff top 25. The game wasn’t close. Notre Dame led 28-0 early in the second quarter. Niumatalolo’s primary concern is figuring out how to compete with Notre Dame rather than the location of the game.
“Last time we played them, they beat us pretty good and I thought we had a really good team last year,” Niumatalolo said. “Quite frankly, they beat the crap out of us.
“Last time we went to Ireland, my wife really enjoyed the trip. She enjoyed visiting all the castles and those types of things. But it wasn’t so good a football game for us. They got after us pretty good.
“I haven’t really thought about any of that stuff as far as where we’re playing. I was more focused on keeping our guys safe and our actual opponent of Notre Dame.”
The game was officially moved on June 2, an inevitable conclusion when the coronavirus made travel more complicated and threw the college football season up in the air. The Irish government’s ban on mass gatherings through the end of August meant the game would be played in an empty stadium, further making the trip an ill-advised proposition.
There was, though, still speculation and ongoing discussions between Gladchuck and Notre Dame director of athletics Jack Swarbrick leading up to the announcement. Niumatalolo had little interest and his own pandemic-related complications to address.
“I wasn’t really concerned with where we were playing,” Niumatalolo said. “I was going to leave that up to Chet and Jack, let the two athletic directors figure that out. I just want to make sure our team is ready.
“During this whole time, I was more concerned with how everyone was doing during the pandemic, how summer school classes are going, how are we going to get these guys ready to play using virtual meetings.”
Navy players are returning to campus July 5 and will go into a 14-day quarantine before starting team activities around July 20. It’s a few weeks behind most other Football Bowl Subdivision teams, including Notre Dame, which started voluntary workouts June 22. Niumatalolo has not set a schedule for summer activities once they are cleared to resume.
“I’ve ripped it up and thrown it out more times than I can remember,” he said. “Normally we have a schedule ready and in place by the end of May.”
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