Accompanying all the online tension and discourse surrounding Notre Dame’s independent status is the question of which opponents, and specifically which rivals, are most important to Notre Dame. The potential end of the historical intersectional series with USC has sparked debate over whether the annual showdown is more important to the Irish or Trojans. Even fans of universities within the super-conferences of the Big Ten and SEC have decried Notre Dame’s “privileged” status as college football’s lone relevant (sorry, UConn) independent. The fact of the matter is that if any school could survive as an independent as Notre Dame has for over a century, they would choose that route instantly. The Irish possess immense monetary, branding and scheduling power due to their independence, playing out in one way through the importance of preserving rivalries. And the University’s most important rival, regardless of what the talking heads from La La Land say, is the United States Naval Academy.
Since first meeting on the gridiron in 1927, Notre Dame has dominated Navy, winning 83 (two vacated) of the 97 meetings. The series continued without interruption until the COVID-19 pandemic, making it college football’s longest-played intersectional rivalry. Notre Dame has rattled off an infamous 43-game winning streak. But the importance of this rivalry extends well beyond the playing field, with its impact reaching the battlefield.
Like many universities during the Second World War, Notre Dame faced extreme financial struggles due to dwindling enrollment. As an all-male Catholic institution, still decades prior to its academic revitalization, many of Notre Dame’s prospective students were forced to put down the books and pick up the weapons to defend their nation from fascism abroad.
To help combat this decline and improve the technical training of its officers, the United States Navy designed the V-12 College Training Program. Naval soldiers could attend classes at select universities before returning to combat with expertise in fields such as medicine, engineering and foreign language. Alongside Cornell, Northwestern and Villanova, Notre Dame was one of four flagship Midshipmen Schools in the program. The Navy invested in facilities, which, along with the enrollment bump, helped to keep Notre Dame afloat. Speaking before the 2004 edition of the rivalry, famed Notre Dame President Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C., stated, “All I can say is without the Navy during the war, this institution would have gotten down to a few hundred students.”
Although Navy and Notre Dame were both football powerhouses at the advent of the game’s growth on college campuses, the Midshipmen’s glory days are now long behind them. Navy can still field competitive teams, occasionally cracking the top-25, and usually defeating their arch-rivals Army. But none of that matters to Notre Dame, the sport’s most iconic and important brand. Playing Navy every year is a way for the University to display its appreciation and admiration for the Navy’s assistance during a time of crisis, both for the University and the nation. The rivalry allows Notre Dame to repay its debts, and the games, though mostly lopsided, personify that mutual respect.
While nearly all of Notre Dame’s rivalries are scheduled out with contracts, which is what has led to the dispute with USC, the annual meeting with Navy is to be played indefinitely. Although there is a traditionalist mindset behind competing with Michigan, USC or even newer rivals like Clemson, the primary motivations of these contests are success and money. That is not the case with Navy. While winning is still important, especially for both teams this November, Notre Dame and Navy play for something more. Both schools, though one public and one private, one secular and one religious, one on the Eastern Seaboard and one in the Midwestern heartland, play for the sacred honor and duty of upholding the traditions of America, not against each other, but collectively.
In a time of great tumult and uncertainty surrounding college sports and higher education as a whole, it is important to remember the sanctity of Notre Dame’s unofficial motto, sculpted into the exterior of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. It doesn’t mention conferences, strength of schedules or even Southern California. It speaks of what Notre Dame and its students hope to uphold and embody everyday, traversing beyond the football field. For this University to prosper, both then and now, it needed only God, Country and Notre Dame.
