Notre Dame played one of their best games of the season last Saturday as they beat a solid Navy team 49-10. Coming into the game, there were questions about Notre Dame’s ability to defend a Navy team that runs an incredibly unique offense. However, the Irish answered any questions with a great performance, showing this is not nearly the same defense the team started the year with. Today, we grade each defensive group’s performance from their win over the Midshipmen.
Defensive line
The defensive line was needed a lot during the game, and they did a solid job limiting this unique Navy offense. When a team runs a triple-option style offense, it’s the job of the defensive line to stop the play before it gets to the second level. It was mostly the linebackers doing the tackling, but the defensive tackles quickly closed most of the holes up the middle and forced plays to the outside where the linebackers and cornerbacks could make the tackles.
The line had a big task against this Navy offense that was going to be a run-heavy squad, and they allowed 206 rushing yards. Against any other team, that would be mediocre at best, but Navy averaged 317.3 rushing yards per game coming into the week. So, holding them to 206 is actually a very solid accomplishment. Again, the stats of the defensive linemen are not often going to look very flashy when a team has a run-heavy offense, but when a defense holds an offense to 10 points and a total of 227 yards, you are doing something right.
Weekly grade: “B+.” Season grade: “B.”
Linebackers
Against Boston College, the star of the linebackers was junior team captain Drayk Bowen. Against Navy though, sophomore Jaiden Ausberry was everywhere for the Irish, picking up eight total tackles and two tackles for loss, including one in the third quarter where he sacked quarterback Braxton Woodson for an 11-yard loss in addition to forcing a fumble on the same play. Woodson ended up recovering his own fumble, but it was still a high impact play by Ausberry and one that ended up being a drive killer.
Everyone talks about No. 4 on the offense being such a high impact player, and obviously no one disputes that. However, No. 4 on the defense has been an incredibly underrated part of this linebacker group, and he led the way for the Irish defense in containing their unique option-style offense. Bowen and sophomore Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa also contributed five tackles each for the Irish. True freshman Madden Faraimo also contributed four tackles coming off the bench. The linebackers were a huge part of stopping the run, and even though it wasn’t their most flashy game of the year, it’s hard to find much to criticize about their play on Saturday.
Weekly grade: “A-.” Season grade: “A-.”
Secondary
The quarterback for Navy the entire year has been Blake Horvath. However, he didn’t end up playing on Saturday due to injury, leading to backup Woodson getting the start. Had Horvath played, he would not have thrown the ball much, but Woodson threw the ball even less than Horvath most likely would have, only having eight passes. Woodson only completed three of those for 22 yards. That’s the lowest mark Navy has thrown for all year, and it isn’t particularly close. Additionally, senior cornerback DeVonta Smith and freshman safety Tae Johnson also made some important tackles during the game, Smith picking up five and Johnson picking up four.
Notre Dame came into the week leading college football in interceptions with 16, but they were unable to force one against Navy, only the second game this year where the Irish have failed to do so. However, when the opposing quarterback only throws eight passes, that’s not exactly surprising. The defense wasn’t asked to do much, but on the rare occasions that Woodson dropped back, the Irish defense locked down. That was huge in leading to the dominant win the Irish had.
Weekly grade: “A.” Season grade: “B.”
Special teams
This week was certainly an improvement from the Boston College game. The starting kicker for the Irish was true freshman Erik Schmidt, and Irish fans were going to be monitoring his performance very closely. He wasn’t asked to kick any field goals, but he ended up needing to kick seven extra points. He did his job, knocking all of them through without much drama. There are still some questions to be answered as Schmidt wasn’t asked to do too much this week and hasn’t converted on a field goal yet this year, but this game certainly was an improvement from the contest against Boston College.
Weekly grade: “A.” Season grade: “B-.”
Additionally, every group gets a boost to their letter grade because there were no penalties committed by Notre Dame that game, the first time the Irish have done so since 1997. The defense played one of their best games of the year on Saturday, and they will look to keep that momentum heading into a ranked matchup against Pitt this upcoming weekend.
