In an era in which many lament that nothing is sacred in college sports, a sacred rivalry renews this Saturday, with Notre Dame and Navy kicking off the college football season in Dublin, Ireland.
This week marks the 96th meeting between Notre Dame and Navy in 97 years, the lone season without a matchup coming in 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic jostled schedules. The series, in a well-recited history, continues out of gratitude from Notre Dame to the United States Navy, not necessarily for keeping us alive in the abstract sense, by defending our nation at sea, but for playing a significant role in keeping Notre Dame from going under in the later years of World War II. It didn’t start that way, though.
When Notre Dame first played the U.S. Naval Academy, Navy’s was a football program on the rise. In 1926, the Midshipmen had finished 9–0–1, tying Army in the season finale in what was then a nearly brand-new Soldier Field. The Dickinson System, possibly the first national rankings, awarded the national championship to Stanford (Alabama predictably claims a title this year too), but Navy finished 2nd, which was and remains the best season in school history. The next year, they began to play fellow independent Notre Dame. By that time, the Irish had long played Army, but the Notre Dame president, Fr. Walsh, advertised the introduction of Navy to the schedule as the third vertex in a “football triangle” involving the service academies and the Catholic school in South Bend. Like the others, Navy was a national school which drew its enrollment not based so much on location as on the school’s broader purpose. Like the others, it now had a good football team. This was built to be a marquee matchup, one fitting the national identities of the two brands.
Still, Notre Dame dominated. It took seven years before Navy won a game in the series, and in the series’ first three decades, Navy won just five times. It’s always been a mismatch, and often, this wasn’t only because Navy wasn’t great. The series took shape at a time when Notre Dame was so, so much better than we are now. And we aren’t bad right now!
Much has been made of the U.S. Navy saving Notre Dame in World War II, and it’s very possible the Navy did save Notre Dame. Admiral Chester Nimitz sent upwards of ten thousand bodies to the shores of St. Mary’s and St. Joseph’s Lakes at a time when so many young men were leaving South Bend to fight that even head coach Frank Leahy ended up enlisting. The program under which this influx of students occurred, though, is broader. The V-12 Navy College Training Program sent upwards of one hundred thousand young officers across the country to a total of 131 schools. It was a subsidized bachelor’s degree program, one designed to churn out officers to meet the war’s ravenous demand in the Pacific. Notre Dame was one of the largest participants on the school side, and it was one of only four to participate in the concurrent V-7 Midshipman Program, but it was far from alone. What made Notre Dame unique was what it could give the Navy in return: A constant contact with the upper echelon of college football. I don’t know what value that holds for the Naval Academy today. But it remains an honor for Notre Dame to continue to repay our infinite debt.
Navy is still a triple option team, and Navy should still be expected to be tricky. But, the program is in transition, firing Ken Niumatalolo this past winter and promoting defensive coordinator Brian Newberry to take over the job. Under Newberry, the offense is supposed to take some strides towards the mainstream in terms of its design, and defense is the program’s calling card. With the biggest Irish question marks coming at wide receiver and along the defensive line, it’s still a tough recipe. It’s not a game where margin particularly matters—whether Notre Dame squeaks by Navy or pummels them, the impact should be similar upon the end-of-season rankings—but if Notre Dame can have success throwing the ball and if Notre Dame can get a lot of action in the Navy backfield when the Mids have possession, that would be a great sign. Last year, you may recall the rumblings that the receiving corps was so bad against Ohio State and Marshall that scouts labeled evaluating Tyler Buchner “impossible.” Sam Hartman is stepping into a good situation in a lot of ways, and the receiver group has absolutely improved, but a lot of the responsibility to get production out of these receivers is on the transfer quarterback, and that’s unusual for a college football team with aspirations of playoff contention.
How good should Notre Dame be this year, overall? It seems fair to expect the Irish to fight to stick around the top ten. We’re in a tough spot right now where the program isn’t fully synced up in terms of when certain parts are peaking. Quarterback should be a gigantic strength. There’s a similar veteran presence across the linebacker corps. Notre Dame’s cornerbacks could be the best we’ve seen in decades (which probably means the best ever, given how the game’s evolved since Lou Holtz coached here), and the offensive line should be stout, and the backfield should be strong enough and talented enough in various enough ways to take a lot of advantage of that. But uncertainty on the defensive line combined with inexperience at receiver, offensive coordinator, and head coach is a challenging assortment of cards to throw into that mix.
What’s the expectation? 10–2 seems a reasonable request. 11–1 seems possible, especially if USC and Clemson are each as flawed as they were last year. 9–3 is probably the most likely, especially given that none of the other ACC opponents are out-and-out cupcakes this year. The trips to Raleigh and Durham and Louisville should be tricky. The visits from Pitt and Wake Forest could be dangerous. Even Stanford, across the country, has a lot of time to get better under first-year coach Troy Taylor. It’s not that Notre Dame is incapable of beating any team on the schedule—at the moment, the Irish are only an eight-point underdog against Ohio State. It’s that so many things must go right, and Notre Dame is going to have to win close games, and one of the primary concerns about Marcus Freeman—one he should improve at, but one that’s still a concern right now—is his ability to navigate close games. If this team wins a New Year’s Six bowl, it’ll have been a successful season. If this team makes the playoff, either the ACC and USC were quite bad or something wonderful has happened. If it’s the latter, all bets are off.
At the very least, Notre Dame should beat Navy on Saturday. And in a sacred tradition, that won’t be the most important part of the day.
The 2024 Schedule
Doubling up on football today.
I forget if we ever mentioned that next year’s game against Miami was pushed to 2026, but next year’s game against Miami was pushed to 2026. I forget what exactly happened on Miami’s side, but they somehow ended up with five nonconference games on the books and only four spaces in their schedule.
There’s a lot of concern about what this will mean for Notre Dame’s own schedule in 2024, but I don’t really understand it. There are road games on there against Texas A&M and USC. Florida State is coming to South Bend and has almost a 50/50 shot to be the reigning ACC champions. It’s not as tough a schedule as this year’s, but it doesn’t look worse on paper than the 2018 schedule does in hindsight, and if Miami is actually getting better (which they might be, but they also might not be, because we have no guarantee Mario Cristobal is a wizard), that’ll just beef up 2026, which could use some protein itself (the highlights right now are @ FSU and @ USC, but those aren’t exactly Ohio State or Georgia). If you want to worry about it, go for it, but if this is a worry on your Notre Dame list, you have a long Notre Dame list of worries.
Quick(er) Hitters
Marcus Freeman’s son is evidently going to Penn High School, rather than Marian or Saint Joe’s. I like it. Penn is a great school, but that’s part of the point we make when we get so mad at Notre Dame people for shitting on South Bend and the surrounding area: It’s not a bad place, the schools aren’t bad, and even if they were, the more Notre Dame can connect with it, the more everyone will benefit, in both tangible and intangible ways.
Brad Stevens’s son, Brady, is going to play for Notre Dame as a walk-on. He’s part of the 2024 class. The expected value here comes from Brad Stevens, not Brady, but I would never doubt a Stevens.
Also on the walk-on front: The men’s basketball program is having tryouts on Sunday at Rolfs to fill out the roster for this year. I like this. We know the team might be very bad. It could be historically fun while it happens.
Going back to football, Nate Roberts decommitted. That’s bad! The top-100ish recruit from near Norman, Oklahoma was an exciting cornerstone for the 2025 class. It appears someone else is going to get a good tight end, and while we don’t know Roberts’s motivations, questions about Notre Dame’s NIL approach are going to linger.
This Week
It was a rough opener for the women’s soccer team, who tied Milwaukee 2–2 on Thursday, but the Irish bounced back to beat Ball State 3–0 yesterday. They’ll host Butler on Thursday and Arkansas on Sunday this week.
The men’s soccer team opens play Thursday at home against Indiana and hosts IUPUI on Sunday. The Irish were picked by coaches to finish fifth in the ACC’s six-team Coastal Division, with defender Paddy Burns the team’s representative on the Preseason Watch List.
The volleyball team opens play Friday down in Lubbock, playing Wichita State before playing Texas Tech on Saturday. Notre Dame was picked 10th in the ACC in the preseason coaches poll, and the ACC’s a 15-team women’s volleyball league. No Notre Dame players made the 18-woman Preseason All-ACC Team.
