Notre Dame Moves To 8-0 After Team Win
Notre Dame (8-0) rolled up a season-high 584 yards of total offense on Saturday night in front of a sold-out crowd (63,626) at SDCCU Stadium in San Diego. More importantly, the Irish got a crucial 44-22 win over Navy (2-6), but it didn’t come without a touch of drama.
Quarterback Ian Book found Jafar Armstrong for a 27-yard gain on 3rd-and-10 to extend a fourth quarter drive, which led to a Miles Boykin touchdown to put the Irish up 44-22 with 8:29 left in the game.
“That last third down, had a long time back there, stayed alive, stayed alive,” stated Navy head coach Ken Niumatalolo. “That was a backbreaker. We feel like we're two scores at that point. If we could have got a stop there, that would have been huge. He made that play.”
Book finished the night completing 27-of-33 passes for 330 yards, two touchdowns and one interception, but he knew he had to make the play to deliver a knock out punch.
“On that play, it's just a broken play,” recalled Book. “The guys are working to try to get open for you. As a quarterback, to see Jafar sprinting down the field, there's nothing better. Happy he was working that hard. It was a big play in the game for us.”
In the first half, Notre Dame could do little wrong as they took a 27-0 lead into the halftime. In fact, the Irish defense was dominating as they held Navy to just 70 rushing yards on 21 carries.
“Being able to execute on all levels of the defense, first, second, third level,” Notre Dame safety Alohi Gilman said of the success of the defense. “Guys keying into their keys, executing what they had to do to do their job. When we did that, we played well as a defense.”
Senior running back Dexter Williams was a star in the first half for the Irish as well. The Florida native rushed for 73 yards and three scores in the first half.
Despite the big numbers, Williams remained humble and is willing to do whatever the team needs from him.
“I don't really try to chase stats,” Williams explained. “I try to go out and win each and every game with my brothers. It doesn't matter if I have 10 carries, 20 yards, 10 carries, a hundred some yards. I really go out and try to lay it all on the line that night and really just keep moving and just keep on winning.”
Boykin also had another big night for the blue and gold. The senior receiver recorded four catches for 58 yards and two touchdowns after fumbling away Notre Dame’s first offensive possession.
“Miles is mentally strong,” stated Book. “It was the first play. Takes a little bit of momentum away. We come back as an offense, I know we're strong. That's football. Stuff like that happens. It's how you bounce back.
“I talked to Miles. I think he was good. You could tell he was fine. As an offense, we knew we had a bad play. It's about the next play. No point thinking about what happened when you have a whole game in front of you.”
Senior linebacker Te’von Coney led the Irish with 14 tackles, but Coney is looking forward to having the chance to go 9-0 next weekend at Northwestern.
“It’s fun to play guys that come out and give it their all,” said Coney. “We're happy to move on to the next game, get ready for our preparation next week, get another win.”
Moving to 9-0 is the goal, but just how good is this Notre Dame team?
"I played them many times," said Niumatalolo. "There's a great sense of focus on their team. They're really good in a lot of different places. Just offensively obviously really good. I thought they shut us down offensively in the first half. Sound on special teams.
"they're ranked No. 3 for a reason. Just a really solid, focused group. Like I said, we played them before, played Coach Kelly's team before. This is one of his better teams."