Written by Cam Pellegrino
Everyone knows Navy runs a triple-option offense. Certainly, Chris Ash and his Notre Dame defense know that Navy is going to run the ball prior to nearly every snap. The Irish still couldn’t stop it in the first half.
Against the now 2-6 Midshipmen, Notre Dame got the job done in the end, 35-13, at Gillette Stadium on Saturday. Though, defensive performances of this caliber are not conducive to winning games against more talented teams, as proven by the previous loss to No. 8 BYU.
Navy quarterback Jackson Gutierrez had his way in the opening half, taking a whopping 24 carries for 97 yards and a score. His previous first-half high in rushes was 17, but given the continued success, there was simply no reason to stop.
“What you saw in the first half wasn’t really our brand of football,” said defensive lineman Boubacar Traore. “I feel like we weren’t doing what we were supposed to do.
“Navy’s a really good team. They run a bunch of different things, so I think we just had to get used to what they were doing. And then eventually we did, and we came out the second half doing what we do.”
Riding the hot hand, Gutierrez ran the ball in a variety of different ways, including a boatload of delayed runs. When a frustrated Irish front finally sold out to stop the quarterback, he flipped it off to his running backs.
With just over four minutes remaining in the second quarter, Gutierrez faked the handoff to Jadyn Jones and shuffled to his right. Both standout defensive lineman Bryce Young and linebacker Drayk Bowen beelined straight for Gutierrez, completely disregarding the third option of Michael Barrow.
The no-brainer read of a pitch resulted in a 16-yard gain, and perfectly highlighted the lack of organization defensively. Five plays later, Gutierrez plowed into the end zone from two yards out to give the Midshipmen a 13-7 lead with halftime looming.
It’s especially notable that the yardage didn’t come in massive chunks, just healthy ones. Navy was allowed to chip away throughout the entire first half, with 14 separate carries resulting in a gain of between five and 10 yards.
Only three Midshipmen rushes were explosive ones of 10+ yards, with Barrow’s aforementioned scamper serving as the longest of the day. Gutierrez managed a pair of 13- and 14-yard rushes in the opening 15 minutes, but never again as the Irish began to tighten things up in the second half.
“There were a couple plays where our guys should have known, this is what your job is, and you didn’t do it,” said Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman. “I think the ability to get them to calm down and just see what they’re getting attacked with helped them in the second half.”
In the second half, the storm was weathered defensively, and the offensive attack followed its lead. After ceding 163 rushing yards in the first half, the Irish run stop held Navy to just 49 in the second.
“There’s always a little bit of adjustment, in terms of what alignments, a couple movements of calls, but we couldn’t panic,” Freeman said. “That’s what I kept saying, stop panicking. Don’t come up with some magical calls that our guys don’t know how to execute.”
Safety Luke Talich led the team with 10 tackles and Jaiden Ausberry trailed close behind with eight. Traore posted six tackles and a pass breakup in his homecoming, as the Boston native has won a Massachusetts high school state championship on the same Gillette Stadium field, with Catholic Memorial.
The improved defensive showing directly resulted in points, thanks to the increased number of drives. The methodical run game churned the clock down in a hurry, putting quarterback CJ Carr on the field for just three drives in the first half. His offense clocked just under six and a half minutes on the field in the half, as compared to Navy’s 23:33.
The victory marks the second consecutive game in which the Notre Dame defense faltered in the first half and figured it out in the latter two quarters. In the case of the BYU loss, the figuring-out process came too late. Assuredly, that won’t fly against No. 1 Miami next Saturday.
“It means a lot for our team obviously,” Carr said of the upcoming Miami matchup. “And we can make it some big thing, but at the end of the day, we got to come in, we got to prepare, do what we do throughout the week, and then attack on Saturday.”
