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What they’re saying about Notre Dame’s 49-10 victory against Navy

Singer headshotby: Mike Singer17 hours agoMikeTSinger

Notre Dame increased its winning streak to seven games on Saturday night, defeating the Navy Midshipmen 49-10 and improving its record to 7-2. The Irish offense nearly doubled its point total from a week ago (25 against Boston College), and Erik Schmidt was 7-of-7 on extra points, following a kicking disaster a week ago.

In this article, we’ll take a look around at what the media is saying about the Fighting Irish’s win against the Midshipmen, including Blue & Gold’s Mike Singer and Robby Toma giving their instant reaction to the game in a YouTube live show. You can watch the replay of the show in the video player above.

Eric Hansen, Blue & Gold: Notre Dame’s style points in its 49-10 romp over Navy start with its aggressive mindset

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Jaiden Ausberry was style points personified Saturday night at Notre Dame Stadium. And he wasn’t alone in that.

Playing a position concocted especially for him, with a shelf life of just one week, against offense he’d never seen before enrolling at Notre Dame and struggled with his first taste of it last season, the redshirt sophomore linebacker played like his hair was on fire.

And Navy felt every bit of it, as well as the precision Ausberry was able to couple with that aggression, in a 49-10 College Football Playoff résumé-enhancer for the 10th-ranked Irish (7-2).

“Sometimes we get a little annoyed because it’s the triple-option,” Ausberry offered. “We have to stop playing regular football for a week. But we said, ‘Forget it, we’re going to go out here, do what we’ve got to do, handle business.’”

With so many circumstances making it easy to do less than that, including the winterish weather, Navy’s starting quarterback — Blake Horvath — being a late scratch, and some key injuries in ND’s defensive front pushing a letdown agenda that never materialized.

From Ausberry’s standpoint, handling business meant playing a hybrid safety/linebacker/pass-rusher role, where he moved around the defensive formation, causing havoc to the tune of 8 tackles, including 2 for a loss with a sack, and also forcing a fumble.

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Jack Soble, Blue & Gold: Why Notre Dame RB Jeremiyah Love deserves Heisman Trophy consideration

If you stop the video at the right moment, you’ll see six Navy defenders on the ground and one Jeremiyah Love who is not.

Love began the play, an ordinary first-and-10 from the Midshipmen 48-yard line, by running right and seeing the play-side outside linebacker completely unblocked. He bounced off said ‘backer, spinning away and before being wrapped up by the second man in. It looked at first like a valiant effort in a 3-yard loss. But Love, maniac that he is, just kept running.

As it turned out, Navy sophomore defensive end Julien Moutome had pulled Love on top of him. No part of No. 4’s body had touched the ground. As he raced to the end zone, redshirt senior wide receiver Malachi Fields and redshirt freshman quarterback CJ Carr thought the same thing.

“Me and CJ looked at each other like, ‘This guy’s not real,’” Fields said. “Play’s over, and all of a sudden he’s running down the sideline.”

Love gained 121 yards from scrimmage against Navy, bringing his season total to 1,242. He scored twice, giving him 16 on the year. Both of those numbers are at or near the top of college football, and it’s no longer a pipe dream to have this discussion.

Love, if he keeps this up, deserves a trip to New York.

“In my mind, yes, he is [a Heisman Trophy candidate],” Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman said. “There is no question about it.”

This writer agrees. And it’s getting difficult to argue otherwise. Here are four more thoughts on Notre Dame’s 49-10 win over Navy.

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Nick Shepowski, Notre Dame on SI: Notre Dame Routs Navy—Instant Takeaways as Irish Continue CFP March

Make it seven straight wins for Notre Dame as the Fighting Irish routed Navy 49-10 on Saturday night, moving to 7-2 on the year and one step closer to returning to the College Football Playoff.

It was close for a half before one of Jeremiyah Love’s more impressive plays to date resulted in a 48-yard touchdown run and a 28-10 Notre Dame advantage.

From there, the rout was on as less than 10 minutes into the second half the lead swelled from 21-10 to 42-10.

So what especially stood out from Notre Dame’s blowout victory and what left us wanting more?

Here are the instant takeaways from Saturday night’s blowout victory in South Bend.

CJ Carr Threw at Will Against Navy

Notre Dame’s passing attack started with a pair of early big pass plays to Malachi Fields, but by night’s end it was pretty much every receiver getting in on the action. Navy did a lot to try to slow down Notre Dame’s rushing attack and understandably so, but it simply didn’t have the manpower to matchup with Fighting Irish wide receivers.

As a result, CJ Carr picked apart the Navy defense to the tune of 218 yards and three touchdowns, along with three touchdown passes.

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Fighting Irish head coach Marcus Freeman

Opening statement from postgame press conference:

“Yeah, obviously proud of the way our guys battled. It’s always a great challenge when you get ready to play Navy just because of the uniqueness of their schemes on both sides of the ball. It is difficult to prepare for because it’s not something you see every week, and it’s a good team.

“I just thought our guys truly prepared the right way, had difficult practices, which is important, and really bought into what we were trying to get them to do, and went out there and performed well.

“As I told them in the locker room, you feel good now that you got the outcome, but the struggle of the game is no different than the struggle of a week, no different than the struggle of a season. You just got to continue to stay in the moment, continue to struggle in the moment, and, you know, the journey will be a sum of those moments.”

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Navy head coach Brian Newberry

Opening statement from postgame press conference:

“We’re obviously disappointed. Not necessarily in the result. Really didn’t think it was going to be as lopsided as it was. I thought we came out first half and played relatively well. Gave up a couple explosive passes. We were able to stop the run for the most part. The Achilles heel today for us on defense was just not being able to get off the field on third down. We had several opportunities in the first half. If you can get off the field on those third and sevens, third and nines, it’s a different game at halftime.

“Come out in the third quarter, give up the long run to Love. Thought it was a TFL. Third and nine right before that. Just couldn’t get anything going offensively in the second half, particularly in the third quarter. I think we started out with two three and outs. Maybe three. Defense is on the field. I put us in some bad situations, going forward on fourth and two. Felt like we had to take a chance there. They got the stop. It really just snowballed from there.

“I’m proud of our effort. Proud of our fight. Knew we had to execute really, really well tonight. Just didn’t do it well enough to be in the game. That’s a really, really good football team that we played tonight. Just wasn’t good enough on our part. Would have loved for this to have been a competitive game. Like I said, just kind of got away from us in the third quarter. Proud of a lot of our guys. Got to learn from it. Got to get better from this as a staff and as a team. Got a big one coming up next weekend in Annapolis. So we’ll push forward.”

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