Notre Dame played nearly flawlessly in Saturday’s 49-10 trouncing of rival Navy. The Fighting Irish outrushed the nation’s best rushing offense 249-206 and popped off the stat sheet virtually everywhere while rolling to their seventh consecutive win.  

The Irish were 7 of 10 on third down, 4 of 5 on red zone trips (all touchdowns) and never turned the ball over on a night that saw both cold rain and eventually snow fall from the sky in the South Bend night.  

Something else the Irish didn’t do: commit a penalty. It marks the first time since 1997 that the Irish played a game without a single yellow flag thrown against them.  

“I give you all similar answers for a lot of these questions,” Irish head coach Marcus Freeman said. “How do you get that outcome? You're focused and locked in on play one. I try not it to give you guys the same answer, but it's true. I don't want to make up some different formula. You practice really hard on Tuesday, you prepare, put the work in, you do that all throughout the week, and then you really lock in and focus on play one. You try to win that play. Then you do it again play two.  

“Sometimes the outcome is going to be no penalties,” Freeman continued. “But we have to continue to just evaluate the mistakes, evaluate the penalties from the previous week, make sure we don't tolerate below standard performances in practice or in a game, and then you get pretty good results.” 

Calm Kicking 

Something the Irish did do all night was kick the ball. After three Irish kickers missed kick a week ago in a win at Boston College, Erik Schmidt took over both place kicking and kickoff duties this week against Navy. Schmidt connected on all seven of his extra point tries and never gave the Midshipmen a chance to return a kick, because all eight of his kickoffs were touchbacks.  

Irish special teams coordinator Marty Biagi spent extra time before the game looking at Schmidt’s mechanics. Biagi videoed his kicks during pregame warmups to ensure the disastrous kicking against BC would not happen again.  

“I think desperation probably causes you to seek even harder to find answers,” Freeman explained. “We all look for answers. I'm going to go watch the film and say, okay, how do we get better. That's what we do. When you're at a point where it's the performance we had last week, I think it creates a little bit of desperation to say, okay, let's exhaust every avenue that we can. So, if that means filming a guy in pre-game warmups, it means that. If it means meeting with our sports psychologist. 

“But the best thing is buy-in from our kickers, especially Erik, as much as it's been from the coaches,” Freeman continued. “If you have coaches that want this and are desperate, but you got a player that says, I'm not invested in that, then you won't see the elevation we need. I mean, you truly see buy-in from all parts.” 

Jeremiyah Love For Heisman

Jeremiyah Love is a human highlight machine. He went 94 yards for a touchdown against the Eagles last week but his 48-yard run against the Mids was even more impressive.  

Love went right on a handoff on the fourth play of the first possession of the second half. He broke a pair of tackles and then looked like he was about the be brought down near the line of scrimmage. As Love was being pulled down, he sat on a Navy defender and then spun off him without his knees or elbows ever touching the turf. Love then raced down the sideline to find the end zone.  

Could a Heisman run follow? 

“In my mind yes, he is (a Heisman candidate),” Freeman said. “There is no question about it. You talk about one of the best players in the country, if he's not one of them, then, you know, it's hard to believe how many other players are that special. He's a special player and he had a great week of prep and, again, continues to do things that you haven't seen but things you know -- you're not surprised with Jeremiyah Love.” 

No Traore 

Boubacar Traore entered the game as Notre Dame’s sacks leader with 6.5 this season. Defending Navy’s option offense is far less about sacks and more about setting edge for a defensive end though, and Traore did not play for the first time this season. Fellow ends Junior Tuihalamaka, Josh Burnham, Bryce Young and Jordan Botelho combined for six tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss, a quarterback hurry, and a pass breakup against the Mids. 

“It wasn't injury related,” Freeman said of Traore’s absence. “It was just more this game right now, probably not his strong suit. Now, probably some third down situations we could've, but, no, it was not injury related.” 

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