Instant Reaction | Notre Dame 35 Navy 32

We all thought it was going to be an easy win and the Irish could be on cruise control in the second half with a three score lead.

Unfortunately Notre Dame’s offense didn’t have the e-brake on and rolled back into a ditch. They had one of the worst non-hurricane second halfs of football that I can remember and the Irish squeaked out a victory that was way closer than it should have been.

This goes back to something I wrote earlier in the week. You want to learn lessons in games where you still come out with a win. Hopefully Notre Dame’s offense learned some valuable lessons here because an offense that took complete advantage of Navy’s porous pass defense couldn’t accomplish that in the second half.

- Look at the stat line and you’d say it was a fantastic Drew Pyne performance.

81% completion percentage, 12.8 yards per attempt, and four touchdowns is completely different than what we’ve seen from him in the past month.

The second half was a different story. He has to get rid of the football when they are bringing the house. Everyone heard Dan Orlovsky talking about this and he can’t wait to let the ball go when they are bringing that many defenders.

He wasn’t being helped out by Tommy Rees in the second half either. For whatever reason, they went away from some of those early down screens where they were getting free access throws. They also didn’t throw the ball to the backs in the second half after Navy didn’t cover Audric Estime and Chris Tyree on touchdowns in the first half.

Navy was selling out so hard with the blitz and they weren’t peeling off in coverage when they did that. I don’t know why Notre Dame didn’t take advantage of that.

- The Irish gave up some big plays in the first half, but I thought they adjusted well to that fullback counter and stuffed it eventually. In the second half they gave up the one drive to start the 3rd quarter, but it was helped by a couple of penalties (that DJ Brown penalty was a bad call in my opinion).

They held Navy to three and then had three three-and-outs on Navy’s next four possessions. They also had Clarence Lewis pick the ball off on a great play with him coming across the field and they forced the three-and-out before the half to give Notre Dame a chance to score.

The defense deserved better in this game. They set up the offense with two straight drives on the Notre Dame 47 and 39 in the second half. The offense did nothing with that field position.

- When you consider that they were missing JD Bertrand and how critical he was going to be for their run defense, they probably deserve even more credit. He was replaced by JR Tuihalamaka, who had one tackle.

It’s a tough spot to put a true freshman in. The most experienced guys they had vs the option at linebacker, Bertrand and Bo Bauer, weren’t options for Notre Dame.

- In hindsight, how huge was Pyne missing Michael Mayer wide open on the wheel route? That makes it 42-24 with nine minutes to go in the 4th quarter. That could have been ball game.

- I’m running out ways to say how impressed I am with Brian Mason. Seven blocked punts and six different players who have blocked them. Wow.

- The game plan on offense to start the game was good. They simply got away from it and didn’t adjust to blitz in the second half.

They had some leaks early on defense, but made some good adjustments as the game went along. The plan to go three down on the final drive was a mistake, but overall they did a good job in the second half.

This felt like a Navy game in just about every way. There are more ugly ones than there are ones where Notre Dame dominates, for whatever the reason.

They can forget about this game on defense because this triple option they face is not like anything they will see again. They can’t forget about this on offense because what happened in the second half was inexcusable.

Notre Dame won so they get simmer on this and hopefully learn from it. That’s better than the alternative of blowing a game like this. I don’t think the result of this game means much more for the final two regular season games other than it being a reminder that they better have their foot on the gas pedal against Boston College next week.

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