Last night, Notre Dame dismantled #19 Army in Yankee Stadium 49-14 to move one step closer to clinching a spot in the College Football Playoffs. As they have done all season, the Irish were led by perhaps the nation’s best defense and a running game that Army had no answer for. In the process, the Irish showed once again that they are a legitimate contender and not just a feel-good story of a team that will be happy to make the playoffs.
Another Al Golden Masterclass
Notre Dame’s defense set the tone for the game by forcing three-and-outs on Army’s first two drives. The Black Knights’ only chance to make this game interesting was to get a lead and shorten the game to put pressure on the Irish offense. They did the exact opposite, thanks to the Irish defense dominating from the onset.
The only Army touchdown drive before garbage time was aided by several errors – a free first down by jumping offside on a 4th and 1, a free 15 yards on a face mask penalty, and another free first down via penalty after they made a huge stop on 3rd down that would have forced another 4th down attempt. It took all of that on one drive for Army to score. They didn’t score again until the game’s final moments when the Irish bench was emptied. Army went for it on 4th down a total of four times. Their only conversion was the one from the offside penalty.
Army came into the game with the best-rushing offense in the country. Notre Dame held them to 3.6 yards per attempt. The Black Knight held the ball for nearly 40 minutes but had almost nothing to show from it.
Jeremiyah Love might be the 2025 Heisman Favorite
Jeremiyah Love scored three touchdowns on Saturday night while touching the ball just eight times. He ran for an absurd 130 yards on just seven carries with two scores and added a third through the air – literally – on his lone reception. Love hurdled a Navy defender with ease to give the Irish a 14-0 lead on a short pass from Riley Leonard.
Love is averaging 7.0 yards per carry this season with 14 rushing touchdowns and another two receiving touchdowns. He’d be producing video game numbers if he had the same volume as other top-backs in the country. With an entire off-season of hype, Love will enter next season as one of the pre-season favorites for the Heisman.
Notre Dame looks like a championship contender, not just a playoff contender
Notre Dame is pulverizing its opponents right now, and last night was no exception. This game was never really in doubt – even when Army pulled within seven ad 14-7. It seems almost unfathomable considering where this team was at after the NIU loss, but Notre Dame looks like a legit championship contender – not just a team with playoff hopes, as we’ve seen from past Notre Dame playoff squads. The Irish are punishing their opponents each week and have not been seriously challenged since early October against Louisville.
Even with the loss to NIU on its resume, a case can be made for Notre Dame jumping Penn State in the rankings this week after a lackluster performance in a one-point win over Minnesota (next time, go for it, PJ!). Penn State has the “better loss”, but Notre Dame is dominating opponents like few other programs are right now. This year appears to be WIDE open and Notre Dame is peaking at the right time.
Not time to panic about place-kicking… yet
There is some well-placed concern about Notre Dame’s field goal-kicking operation. Mitch Jeter had clearance to kick longer field goals after having a limit of 42 yards last week, but missed from 48 yards and then had a kick blocked in the second half. The kneejerk reaction here is that the sky is falling in this department. While this is an overreactions column, in this case, the overreaction is to not panic yet.
The really encouraging aspect of Jeter’s performance is that his 48-yarder had the distance. In recent weeks, his extra points looked laborious for him. So, his distance of 48 is encouraging in terms of his injury recovery. Missing as he did is far from ideal, but coming off the injury and missing a kick on a cold night in November isn’t the end of the world. Kicking conditions will be markedly better next weekend in sunny California, and hopefully, it’s still more than a month until Jeter is needed to make a clutch kick.
Redzone play calling was head-scratching
While there was a ton of good in this game, offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock needs to take his redzone plays from this game and throw them in the trash can. Denbrock seemed hell-bent on getting Riley Leonard a touchdown last night because he kept calling QB power into the teeth of an Army defense that looked like it knew exactly what was coming. Instead of getting Mitchell Evans on a linebacker or utilizing Jordan Faison’s athleticism to get open there, Denbrock seemed to almost be trying to prove a point. Well, the point he made was that the redzone game plan this week was brutal. Luckily, the Irish scored so much from outside the redzone that they didn’t need to be perfect there, but they can’t have that kind of performance in a playoff game.
Shamrock Series jerseys were awful on TV
When the Shamrock Series jerseys came out over the summer, I thought, “These are going to look terrible on TV because they’re too shiny.” I even wrote a column about it. Well, it turns out that gut reaction was accurate. While they probably looked slick up close, and I’m sure the players loved them, it was tough to tell who was making plays— TV – even with their names on the back of them this week.
