FanPost

Loosen up, Irish fans.


I realize that this morning, a lot of Irish fans will be wringing their hands over yet another "poor" performance by the team. We should have run over and through this Navy team all day! Wimbush can't complete a pass to save his life! What the hell was Kelly's game plan?! Yada, yada, yada.

Sorry guys. I have seen Navy, good or bad, give the Irish enough fits over the last ten years that I am simply happy whenever ND comes out with a W in this series. For anyone who thought that ND should have scored between 5 and 7 TDs against Navy, let's be reminded that ND put up 24 points in the 17 minutes that they had the ball during the game. Extrapolate that out to 30 minutes and it's the equivalent of 42 points. So maybe then it was the defense's fault for not getting Navy off the field and in effect surrendering an unbelievable 43 minutes to the Middies' offense. Maybe. But then in the space of those 43 minutes, Navy scored only 17 points. Again, adjusting for 30 minutes of action, that would be the equivalent of about 12 points.

I know you can't analyze a game in this manner, and that a 24-17 win doesn't appear to say much for the Irish. Still, when you think of how the Irish kept shooting itself in the foot in the first half, how Wimbush looked like a high school QB over those first 30 minutes or so, how our defense couldn't make stops on crucial downs---it's pretty amazing that with all that, the Irish actually came up with a win against a good Navy team. Yep, a good 6-3 Navy team. One that averaged nearly 34 points a game before coming to South Bend. One that averaged 370 yards rushing per game and 468 total yards of offense per game. One that lost to two Top 25 teams by 3 and 10 points. Yes, Navy also lost to Temple, whom ND crushed. But hey, we got humiliated by a Miami team that most people thought we would beat. Every team has a bad game.

So I'm not going to overanalyze this Navy game. I don't care if the Irish won only by 7 points, or if we couldn't get Navy off the field for much of the game, or if Kelly was reverting to bad play-calling that nearly cost us the game. A W is a W is a W. After going 4-8 last year, ND now sits at 9-2, with a good shot at going 10-2 and making it to a New Year's Six game. Stanford will be tough, but it plays the kind of game that ND seems to be best suited for. I like our chances, and I'm not going to allow myself to overthink what was a good win for us against a dangerous team yesterday.

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