Navy Sinks The Irish

It really looked like the Irish had their act together. They finally started running the ball, improving over their league-last 34 yards per game to well over 200 yards. They played ball control but managed to toss the ball as well. Unfortunately, despite playing against an undersized Navy team, the defense couldn’t keep the Midshipmen out of the end zone, either, sending the game into three overtime sessions. The Fighting Irish simply couldn’t keep their 43-year winning streak alive:

It took 44 years and three overtimes for Navy to beat Notre Dame.
The Midshipmen snapped an NCAA-record 43-game losing streak to the Fighting Irish with a 46-44 victory today in triple overtime.
Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada threw a 25-yard TD pass to Reggie Campbell on the first play of the third overtime, then found him again in the end zone for the 2-point conversion.
Notre Dame cut the lead to two on a 5-yard TD run by Travis Thomas. But after a pass interference call gave Notre Dame a second-chance at the 2-point conversion, defensive lineman Michael Walsh and linebacker Irv Spencer tackled Thomas well short of the end zone.
It was the first time Navy (5-4) beat Notre Dame since a 35-14 win in 1963 when Roger Staubach was quarterback for the Midshipmen.

The Irish had a chance to win the game in regulation. They had put together a good drive in the final minutes, but stalled at the Navy 24 yard line. Faced with a fourth-and-eight, most people expected Charlie Weis to kick a field goal with less than two minutes to go. Even had it missed, it would have left Navy a long field to overcome and not enough time to cross it.
Instead, inexplicably, Weis sent his offense back on the field — and Navy sacked QB Evan Sharpley for a seven-yard loss.
Now the Irish have to face Army, Duke, and Stanford, and will be lucky to beat two of them. Even with a size advantage on the line of scrimmage, the Irish could not stop an option offense that looked like a throwback to better Irish teams of old. Navy has one of its better teams this year, but no one mistakes them for a strong opponent in Division I football, and if the Irish can’t use their size advantage to beat the Midshipmen, then it’s difficult to see how they can beat any of their opponents left on the schedule.
The Irish defense got outplayed, and Charlie Weis got outcoached. At some point, the Notre Dame AD will have to ask himself how many more games he wants to see those habits continue.

30 thoughts on “Navy Sinks The Irish”

  1. Go Navy !!!
    Seriously can anyone stand the cheatin Irish?
    This is a dream year, but I am scared that if the Irish do beat 2 of it’s last 3 opponents they will get a BCS bowl invitation and cheat some other deserving team out of a bowl spot…like they do every year
    dirL

  2. It’s official, this is the worst ND team of my lifetime (i’m 48). My friend says this is the worst ND football team of all time. He may be right also.
    The only reason I would not fire Weis right this second if I was the ND athletic director is because I am ND and that wouldn’t be in their mode. However, he has to go at the end of the season, no if’s and’s or buts. If he doesn’t, I do believe race was a factor in firing Willingham, and I am no bleeding heart liberal.
    Weis’ got hired for his supposed offensive genius at New England during their Super Bowl championships. However, they never finished better than 9th in the League. Notre Dame got snookered. Big time. Time to end the Weis era like they ended the Willingham and Faust eras.
    Go Buckeyes!

  3. it is SO sweet to see “what goes around comes around” happening in CFB this year – ND is being embarrassed and abused week after week and today, Kansas laid 76 points on the all-time worst offender in running up the score: Nebraska – it doesn’t get any better than ND at 1-8 and Nebraska on the wrong side of 76-39 score

  4. First off, you can’t teach speed.
    Second, contrary to dirL’s comments, if the Irish win all of their remaining games they will be 4-8. Supposedly to be offered a bowl game a team has to have 6 wins. So the only bowls that Notre Dame will see in December/January will have either soup or cereal in them. And they don’t cheat. They just complain a lot (Hence the names, Whining Irish and Golden Moaners).
    To kingronjo: I agree that Weiss now has go. His 3-year record will be as bad or worse than Willingham’s. Notre Dame looks even more silly now given the contract extension given to Weiss. They may finesse it by having Weiss “resign” similar to what they did with Faust. The real question is whether Kevin White and Rev. Jenkins will realize that keeping Weiss makes the University look racist (Personally I don’t think this is the case, it would just make them look stupid). Then again they may just play the “we’re better than you because we’re Notre Dame” card and ignore everyone.
    Disclosure: I am a long-time USC fan (My father’s best friend played there in the 50s with two guys named Gifford and Goux).

  5. this is off thread, with BC losing, what if Kansas wins out (and to do that they have to beat good Missouri and Oklahoma teams), how can they be denied a spot in the Championship game with Ohio State (there is no doubt of the Bucks winning out). One loss teams shouldn’t be ranked over undefeated BCS conference teams. If you are the Commissioner of the Big XII do you pull your league at that point? That would really, really prove the system isn’t working.
    KU, and the Big XII, would have played by the rules and been royally screwed.

  6. As a UCSD grad, commissioned through OCS I’ve never gotten worked up about the Boat School’s football team. However, the service academies are perennial underdogs since they can’t offer sports cars and basket weaving scholarships, let alone a pipeline to a pro career (Staubach actually had to do a tour in ‘Nam). So it’s always cheering when one of them pulls off something like this.

  7. For many years ND has lived off certain natural religious fans, and has benefited accordingly. After retirement, Woody Hayes was asked why he always refused to schedule ND. He stated that Ohio State had hundreds of thousands of fine Catholic fans in Ohio and if he went up to South Bend every few years and beat the hell out
    of ND, he would have jeopardized the support of all of those fine people. He was, of course, absolutely correct. Sad really, but correct!
    For many years, Captain, ND was able to play the religious card and get away with it in terms of favorable treatment in many ways. All that ended in recent years . ND is now faced with what one might refer to as a level playing field. Things are not going well and many individuals, who are not pleased with the historical circumstances, are
    openly gloating! Frankly, it is hard not to sympathize with them to a certain extent!

  8. One grim reality for ND fans: if you fire Weiss, there may not be a long line of quality candidates willing to replace him.
    One of the reasons ND ended up with Willingham (who, by the way, should have been given at least another year) and Weiss is that a number of preferred candidates (eg, Bob Stoops, Urban Meyer) didn’t look twice at the job.
    And, of course, the more coaches you fire after 3 years, the less likely anyone of quality will look at the job in the future.
    The Hesburgh/Joyce administration gained enormous respect by sticking with Jerry Faust for the length of his contract. The current crowd simply looks like another craven group of Big College Sports administrators, just less competent at bringing hiring quality.

  9. I will confess to a certain level of schadenfreude at seeing the state Notre Dame is in. As a Georgetown man, I’ve always fumed a bit at how Notre Dame positions itself as the leading Catholic university in the US (in their mind), so seeing ND got stomped repeatedly in the one thing they’re really known for (an opinion I know is open to vigorous dispute) is a fine comeuppance.
    (For the record, GU has an awful football team this year, but on the other hand, I don’t think anyone even on the Hilltop cares too much about that squad. We were last in a bowl game in 1941. And I’ll bet folks liked seeing our basketball team get stomped when we were lousy a few years ago, too.)
    And it *is* nice to see the service academies do well, if only because both Army & Navy have athletic traditions that go back well over a century. Oh, for the days when the Army-Penn football game could fill Franklin Field.

  10. Sorry Captain,
    I know you’re a staunch supporter of the Irish, but it was great to see Navy beat Notre Dame yesterday. Now there is only ONE Navy game left.
    Like is says in the last two words of the National Anthem, “Beat Army!”
    Arch

  11. Shipmates,
    As a former sailor, I too take pride in watching Navy beat anyone. I think that the USNA has some serious problems, and could use with a 1-2 year stand down to cull out the problem staff and redo the curriculum, but I still get worked up to watch Navy play, especially against Army.
    As for Charlie Weiss, I wouldn’t fire him. Despite the easy mark he seems for everyone’s frustrations, he is still an excellent coach. The problem is the players he has to work with. The really good athletes are looking for the top tier schools, the ones with the better advantages both in school and after graduation. ND simply cannot, at this time, hope to match the recruitment efforts of schools like Ohio State, the U, USC, etc.
    ND is what it is. Even Weiss can’t save the program there. They need to find a way to attract some top high-school athletes, or stop complaining about losing. Firing Weiss is a really bad idea. It’s hard to bring in a top-level chef, tell him to make filet mingon, and give him a pile of chopped liver to do it with.
    Respects,
    BEAT ARMY!

  12. I watched the game, Capt’n, and it’s no mystery why ND lost!
    The sheer, unmitigated ARROGANCE of Charlie Weiss!
    Disdaining the FG in the final minutes, and going for it on 4th and 8; that’s not “confidence”; that’s STUPIDITY!
    He did earlier on that same drive, deep in their own territory, going for it on 4th and 16, and the got incredibly LUCKY, and made it.
    One of the announcers stated that Weiss had NEVER not gone for a 4th down against the Navy team, in all the times they played with Weiss as coach.
    Again, that’s not “confidence”, that’s not “coaching”, that’s complete and utter stupidity and Arrogance!
    Charlie Weiss caused his team, his kids, the victory, he’s an ass, and now he has to live with it!
    You reap what you sow…

  13. Charlie Weis didn’t get a contract extension for taking the Naval Academy to triple overtime? Seems the norm for close losses to quality oppostion in South Bend these days.
    Sometimes “instant karma” takes about three years. I dedicate that loss to the folks who saw fit to fire Ty Willingham. I’m a Michigan fan, and Lord knows we’ve got problems of our own (the majority of which wear sweater vests in Columbus, OH), but as bad as this season has been we would never do to Llllloyd Carr what Notre Dame did to Willingham.

  14. I was gonna write exactly what Dale did.
    I’ll add that as a ND fan, I was rooting for Navy because I wanted to see kids with heart, win. Simple as that, smaller, slower, lighter, yet with huge hearts.
    It was a great game for a football fan to watch. Pop Warner coaches, THIS is a game you should show your kids.

  15. I was amazed at Weis’ contract extension when it happened. Whatever his abilities as a coach may be, recruiting does not seem to be one of them, and player development may also be lacking. As a pro coach, he was getting top talent via the draft, free agency and trades. We all know that putting a college team together is none of that. In my mind, he is just out of his area of competence.
    Whatever the AD does will reflect on the integrity of ND. If Willingham and WU were leading the Pac 10 right now I’m sure his schadenfreude would be showing, but he isn’t doing very well on his third go around leading a major program. It’s not as easy as it looks apparently.

  16. AW1Tim:
    I think ND has a number of unique assets with which to recruit first rate high-school athletes. The days of the big schools ignoring academics and paying their players are gone. The Irish have lots to work with.
    First, it has tradition that runs off the page. 8 National Championships, Knute Rockne, Johnny Lujack, Paul Hornung, a list of All Americans pages long, and a large percentage of the players in the NFL are Irish Alumni.
    Second, they provide an excellent education. It’s not Dartmouth, but there is way more there than any undergraduate can learn.
    Third, that fight song! How can “Minnesota Hats off the Thee” or “On Wisconsin” possible hope to compete?
    Fourth, every Catholic priest in the country is a potential scout. If the prospect is at a catholic school or goes to mass, the Irish have an inside track.
    Fifth, even in years like this, they play every game on television. That exposure alone attracts the pro scouts.
    Sixth, they have fans in every bar in the US, most of whom have never seen the inside of a college classroom.
    Don’t sell the Irish short.
    Arch

  17. kingronjo,
    The problem with firing Weis is that he just signed a 10 year, high salary, contract. It would be hugely expensive to fire him.

  18. Second, contrary to dirL’s comments, if the Irish win all of their remaining games they will be 4-8. Supposedly to be offered a bowl game a team has to have 6 wins.

    True enough, though it was my understanding that to play in a BCS bowl you have to be a good team and ND still got in one last year.

  19. exhelodrvr:
    It is my understanding that Notre Dame has a $1 billion endowment just for athletics. Weiss’ contract is peanuts compared to that. If Weiss continues to have a losing season they may still fill the stands but will the Notre Dame station (ie. NBC) still provide them with lots of revenue with declining ratings and ad revenue?
    PackerBronco:
    The reason the Irish got to a BCS game last year had nothing to do with their record and had everything to do with their ability to draw fans to the game. The BCS system is not so much a method to determine the National Champion as it is to generate revenues for the Bowl Committees, the teams and their Conferences. Notre Dame got preferential treatment at the start of the BCS system because, well, they’re Notre Dame (see my earlier comment).

  20. IIRC, the “6 wins rule” was put in because ND accepted a bowl bid with a 5-5-1 team. Nearly caused a mutiny among the players, many of with rightly felt they didn’t deserve it.
    “When Irish mouths are whining…”
    scha
    den
    freude
    Go Army!! Go Buckeyes!!

  21. The last time ND fielded a team this bad, they were still trying to play in cassocks…
    Steve Skubina — Gotta put Navy’s teams in perspective. Would you want to share a submarine berthing space with 300 pound offensive lineman?

  22. The BCS system is not so much a method to determine the National Champion as it is to generate revenues for the Bowl Committees, the teams and their Conferences.

    Oh I know that, but just try to get any official from the BCS, college football, or Notre Dame to admit it.

  23. kingronjo said
    “Weis’ got hired for his supposed offensive genius at New England during their Super Bowl championships. However, they never finished better than 9th in the League”
    And look what New England’s offense is doing this season. Weis obviously was given too much credit for their past success.
    owever, is firing him from ND the solution? There aren’t a ton of better replacements.

  24. Captain,
    Congratulations on the Naval Academy beating Notre Dame. I had the good fortune of being with a Naval Academy Grad in person and one on Yahoo from Iraq throughout the game. It was thilling to see the Navy win.
    Glad to see the longest losing streak is over.
    Congratulations. Will be on the otherside of the warm fuzzy feelings for the next game in November.
    GO Army! Beat Navy!

  25. Although sitting at 6-3 and in the driver’s seat of the SEC East, I will gladly consider a one-for-one trade: Phillip Fulmer for Charlie Weis.

  26. ND football has been on the decline ever since “Dr.” Kevin White became AD. Maybe, instead of repeatedly firing coaches, they should fire the guy who hired those coaches.

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