Stacking Up The Notre Dame Defense vs Navy

Notre Dame's defense is coming off its best performance of the season in its 35-14 victory over Clemson. The 6-3 Irish now have to regroup and prepare for the Navy triple option offense. It will be a completely different type of test for Notre Dame.

Let's look at how the Notre Dame defense stacks up against the Midshipman offense.

Notre Dame Rush Defense vs Navy Rush Offense

Advantage: Notre Dame

Notre Dame holds the advantage here, but it's not one I feel great about. The reason is we just don't know which version of the Notre Dame run defense is going to show up. I'm more optimistic now than I was early in the season, but this team still has to show it ready to be consistently dominant.

Notre Dame has held three of its last four opponents to under 100 rushing yards, and the 146 it allowed against UNLV (the only exception) was due to giving up a 70+ yard run early in the game. There is no question the defense is better against the run now than it was in September, but this is also a defense that has been prone to bouts of assignment sloppiness, and this is not the offense you want to deal with that.

If Notre Dame plays clean I have no doubt it will shut the Navy run game down. If it doesn't, or if the game plan versus the option isn't sound, the Irish could struggle and allow Navy to eat up the clock.

Yes, Navy averages over 200 yards and ranks 9th in rushing offense, but this is not your typical Middie ground attack. The other two option teams - Air Force and Army - are both averaging over 300 rushing yards per game. That's where Navy used to live.

From 2010 to 2019, Navy averaged between 276.5 rushing yards per game to 360.5 rushing yards per game. In that span of 10 years, Navy averaged at least 310.1 rushing yards per game eight different seasons. In the last three years Navy has averaged 177.6, 226.4 and 236.9 rushing yards per game.

If Notre Dame can be disciplined and if Isaiah Foskey, Jayson Ademilola and the rest of the defensive line can dominate this should be a rout. I'm also looking forward to seeing how the Irish staff use JD Bertrand and Marist Liufau in this game.

Notre Dame Pass Defense vs Navy Pass Offense

Advantage: Notre Dame

Notre Dame's pass defense has been extremely underrated all season. The Irish ranked 33rd in passing yards allowed, 17th in yards per attempt and 27th in yards per completion despite playing three Top 30 passing offenses and another that ranks 40th.

Freshman cornerback Benjamin Morrison has been a first-year sensation, but this is a different animal for him. He'll need to be patient and good getting off blocks to shine in this game. He can cornerback Cam Hart need to be disciplined all game long. Navy won't throw it much, and they aren't good at it, but it only takes a couple of mistakes, or a lack of focus at cornerback or safety to give up chunk plays.

Dominating the run game could put Navy in some obvious passing downs, which should allow the pass rush to eat up what has been a subpar pass blocking unit from Navy.

Notre Dame Scoring Defense vs Navy Scoring Offense

Advantage: Notre Dame

This really isn't close. Outside of its red zone defense, Notre Dame has been really good on defense all season. Navy has struggled all season. The good news for Notre Dame is it finally made a red zone stop last week against Clemson. Not only that, the interception that stopped that drive was returned for a touchdown.

Winning early downs is the key to slowing down the Navy offense. Navy isn't great on third down, but Navy actually converts fourth downs at a higher rate (54%), and the Middies rank third nationally in fourth down attempts. That means if Navy only gets four on 3rd-and-6 they are happy and willing to go for it on fourth down.

That will be a key in this game, and Notre Dame ranks 18th nationally in fourth down defense.

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