The Anti-Preview: #16 Notre Dame Fighting Irish VS #21 Navy Midshipmen

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are 7-2 and we can’t make up our mind about what flag to fly. Tim Prister likes to talk about how each week gives new perspective on the season, but with this season, each week feels more extreme and transient than most years. When that happens, you can either fight the change or go all in with the madness.

I choose the madness. I choose to be a motherfucking pirate because that’s all that’s left. Pirates have no past and they have no future. Each day comes as it is, and each day is as fresh or as boring as it’s made. So, to hell with it all.

Let’s just breeze right through this thing.

Navy Midshipmen

As I mentioned on the OFD Podcast, Navy has not played a Power 5 school this year. At 7-1, their lone loss came at the hands (paws) of the Memphis Tigers on the road. The best win for the Middies is the Air Force Falcons which Sagarin has ranked as #33 (Notre Dame’s best win is against the Virginia Cavaliers #36). The rest of their schedule is littered with bad teams, but they have crushed their bad teams.

So there’s that.

Regardless of the schedule and records, it is safe to say that this Navy team is a “good Navy team,” and we’ve seen Notre Dame struggle against good Navy teams before.

I really just want to spend a coupe of paragraphs just slamming Navy, but because there are a great number of Irish fans that would lash out at me for “respect” and all that nonsense — I shall refrain. I find it insulting that Navy players aren’t treated with the same type of respect as other teams we play every year, and given a good roasting.

CAN’T TARNISH THAT RIP MILLER TROPHY Y’ALL!

What should you be drinking?

If you can find a stash on a deserted island somewhere, then RUM is always good. No island? Well, I suppose Krogers works too.

What should you be eating?

Crawfish? Sure.

What should you be wearing?

Yep.

STATS ON STATS ON STATS

3 reasons to hate Navy

Photo by Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Can we even do that?

1. It’s such a boring week, they make you miss playing Purdue.
2. Irish fans lose their collective minds regardless of outcome.
3. Ram Vela

Keys to the game

Same keys as every year:

• Score on every possession
• Knock Navy off schedule on its downs
• Stay home
• Prepare to fight until the clock reads 00:00

At the end of the day...

Ian Book and the Irish offense got a little more aggressive against Duke than what we’ve seen from the rest of the year. While that is a really good thing, the possession game against Navy is pretty important and a turnover hurts twice as bad. I think Notre Dame rolls the dice and throws out another aggressive offensive gameplan in the air. Defensively, assignment football might be Clark Lea’s biggest strength as a teacher/coach. Although Navy will still do damage on the ground, Notre Dame will force enough 3rd and 6+ to knock Navy off that schedule a few times.

It’s all a giant mystery. Irish win 31-22.