Undeniably, what we ask of our military men and women is a sacrifice far beyond any I’ve ever been asked to make (though not for lack of trying on my color-blind part). But I find this edition of Navy, the one both coddled by Charlie Weis and encouraged to play dirty by Ken “Sweep the Leg!” Niumatalolo, to be a particularly infuriating version of Navy. Gone is the fighting spirit of a team of underdogs who have absolutely no quit in them. In their stead, a team of Scott Farkuses, practically laughing, HAHA, as they take late and early hits aimed directly at the knees and the livelihoods of so many ND players before customarily waiting for our head coach to bring both his players and his own pelt before them and their band for the singing of the Navy fight song.
I don’t just want to win this game; Probably more than any game this season, I want ND to annihilate them. But the score for which I truly lust is the one marking the number of times this Navy team regrets ever stepping on the field with the Irish in one column, and the depletion of their hope for ever winning another game against ND in the other.
For too long have the Irish bowed down to the Middies. For too long have we tip-toed along egg shells while Navy took the line of scrimmage, the game, and our pride. For too long have we spent 60 minutes fêting these future Naval leaders rather than playing them in a game of football. And for too long have we shown Navy a lack of respect by failing to give Navy that which they so richly deserve: ND’s best and most physically brutal game to this point in the season.
Don’t forget, and don’t let Navy forget it either.
- Friday Roundup: That Was Fast Edition - December 14, 2018
- Ian Book Is Smokey and the Bandit - December 12, 2018
- Don’t Call It A Comeback - December 10, 2018
Looking forward to Calabrese and Teo making some big hits Saturday.
I first want to say that in no way do I mean any disrespect to Navy or the causes in which the USA defends freedom around the world. As a Canadian, I clearly understand how vital the efforts of the US armed forces are to world security. I am not naive in this regard. I must say however that I do not understand why any team calling itself a team would not want to crush the service academies. These boys step onto the field to compete, let’s compete and give them a ride; anything less would be to disrespect them.
Speaking as a member of the US military who just returned 2 months ago from a year in Afghanistan…STOMP ON THEIR THROATS!!!
yay, great, they do cool military things like be away from their families for a year and get mortars lobbed at them…absolutely nothing to do with the game, and beating them 52-0 has absolutely no effect on our national security. You’re not going to ruin a future Admiral or have some future Navy seal make a bad decision under fire because he got run over by Robert Hughes. WIN EVERY PLAY. Taking it easy on our future servicemembers only trains them to be wusses. And speaking as an Army guy, the Navy has enough wusses as it is.*
*Kidding, I love you guys, worked with a ton of Navy guys in AF, including a Navy Seal Master Chief who could have broken me 17 ways with his pinky. And besides, if it weren’t for my Navy compatriots, who would I be able to tell Air Force jokes to?
Thanks for the service brother. And totally agree.
Also, I was at my brother’s wedding last November when we gave the game to Navy. I could not given the circumstances vent my full fury. I personally hope our lads crush the midshipmen.
tjak–as an aside, your Canadian boys over there are doing a helluva job as well. Worked with quite a few Canadians, and they do you guys proud.
Thanks Nate. When Canadians show up, they play for keeps.
So ND has held back against Navy for the past four decades? GMAFB.
…and if you’re going to show the shot on Blanton (uninjured), show the cheap shots on Dobbs and Jimmy C’s crybaby cheap shot after Vela picked him in the 4th.
And, please, educate yourself about cut-blocks, which are used not only by Navy but by ND as well (though maybe not as frequently or as effectively) before you carp about something that is totally legal.
So it sounds like this year’s game will go forward without the traditional pats on Navy’s head. Terrific!
Play ball.
Navy guy, please re-read. Then you can re-comment if you want. We’ll give you a mulligan.
…umm, I did. And if one stupid play makes Navy a bunch of Scott Farkases, yellow eyes and all, then whatever, dude. Call it Catholics vs. Convicts II, if you need to, but the self-righteous sanctimony gets a bit old.
A buddy of mine called it when you posted this video after last year’s game. It’s now your “remember the Maine” moment. Make good use of it, because it’s a rarity. And it had nothing to do with the outcome of the game.
I wonder if they coach ND players to play hard all the way to the whistle… I assume so. Interestingly, the legitimate cut block, done during the play (before the whistle), to a ND player who is not, and because he is not, is regarded as a cheap shot. I had some respect for ND fans, assuming they would know the game that is so important to their legacy. Guess the respect was misplaced.
How many of these Navy guys are on here?
This post is great, someone figure out how to get it on the locker room wall. Navy deserves better than the patty-cake football we’ve brought the past few years.
As a proud member of the United States Navy, I hope that ND burns Annapolis down and leaves it a smoldering heap. Even the football players have to keep themselves within Physical Readiness standards (which makes them smaller against almost every opponent every year), it’s sad to think that they have to resort to cheap shots. It’s one of the many things Navy has done to stay competitive in DI ball.
You’re an idiot…
…yeah, Navy, the least penalized team in D-1 for 2009–3.4 per game, for the year. “Cheap shot MF’s!”
Find another way to get your boys fired up.
OOhhh this could get NASTY by saturday. Stop the fullback, hit the quarterback every play.
how did that work out…
As a U.S. Navy veteran I have to say I am very disappointed in the sportsmanship of the Academy. Did any of you see Niumatalolo’s rant at halftime of the Maryland game earlier this year. This guy has no class. Go Irish! Give Navy the beatdown they deserve.
A coach yelled at a ref. Unprecedented. What’s next, a coach putting a ref in a headlock?
and you must have missed the apology later I’m sure…
Everyone can just calm down. Navy won’t get more than 17 points on Saturday, if that. They scored 13 on Georgia Southern. ND by a minimum of 2 touchdowns.
I think your D is worse statistically than last year…
Check the stats again…you’re mistaken.
i forgot you just played WM
After being one of only two schools, LSU is the other that has played six BCS teams in the first six games. Get your facts right.
hahaha coming from a guy whose team played such heavy weights as Georgia Southern and Louisian Tech
ask the irish lion how he’s feeling now
The difference this year is simply this: Charlie Weis isn’t the coach anymore. No OTHER coach since Hughie has lost to the Middies. Not even Rah-Rah Faust or Stone-Faced Willingham. And forget locker room BB material. Kelly provided the team all the motivation they will need for this Saturday at halftime vs. WMU. Re-run the second half. They finally got it.
I hope ND sends Navy to Davy Jone’s Locker (or maybe to the place where Jimmy Hoffa was “resting” in the old Meadowlands stadium). Then I hope ND continues the tradition of going over to Navy’s side line for their alma mater. That being said, I will be in Philly to cheer Navy when they beat Army in December
Time to start another streak.
Holy cow, I thought I stumbled on a Rival’s message board for a minute here.
I find it suprising that amongst the previous opponents that MQ has railed against, the most return fire so far is from Navy.
I find it surprising that those “returning fire,” if you’ll forgive re-use of the pun, are Navy folks who’ve totally misunderstood my criticism of ND’s past treatment of Navy as criticism of Navy. If anything, I’ve said Navy deserves better; in the form of play by ND and in the form of a Head Coach at Navy.
c’mon, are you REALLY, actually surprised?
I even gave the one guy a second chance to read again, and he still missed your entire point.
How many different ways do I have to spell out, “ND treats Navy differently from any other opponent by doing lame things like singing their fight song with them and going out of their way to be non-hostile,” before the Navy guys will pick up on the point? I wonder if it occurs to them that we’ve never made the players go sing the Purdue fight song. Or if they realize the HC at ND has never taught players the history of the Washington football program before a game.
The lack of reading aptitude being shown off around here is devastatingly depressing.
Well, I got your more subtle points, but it’s going to be pretty hard for Navy fans to read past your words in the first paragraph, and if they do get past them, as I did (barely), it is really hard to take your implication if not outright claim that we only won in recent years past because ND didn’t play hard. That’s pretty insulting to every player who was on the field, is it not?
I can’t possibly express in words the level of apathy I have for whether or not my words have offended Navy fans. I couldn’t express myself strongly enough to do that apathy justice, and apparently I couldn’t express myself simply enough for the Navy fans who’ve commented on this post to understand what I’m saying.
Now you’re just being MEAN! Saying you have APATHY for people! The nerve!
And yes, it is insulting to every player on the field that I’m saying ND didn’t play hard. Too damned bad. ND didn’t play hard last year or the year before. It was pathetic. They should be ashamed. And in 2007, ND was simply inept.
ND has always brought its best, in my opinion. As a fan, I’ve never felt that the guys on the field didn’t respect Navy’s talent, etc. On that basis, I don’t understand the need to paint Ken Niumatalolo as Urban Meyer or the Mids as a bunch of headhunters, but as I said before, whatever–do what you feel you need to do during game week.
As for Navy deserving a better head coach (if that’s what you suggest), thanks, but no thanks. This Navy grad is glad to have Niumat, and I can’t say we or anyone else deserves any better. (Funny, never heard a domer say that Navy deserved better when we were enduring the likes of Tranquil, Chaump, Uzelak, etc.)
They’re not headhunters, they’re kneehunters.
Then you weren’t talking to me.
Yeah, these sailors are all fired up. Sad though,that they try to defend the indefensible.
where’s the video of Clausen’s personal foul in the 4th quarter after Navy intercepted him at the Navy 5?
Lax, ask TLNDMA he/she seems to have all the answers
Sorry, if I get a little peturbed from watching that video. As I’ve been favoring my left knee, for twenty or so years, from a similar gutless act. I get a little riled whenever I see a deliberate intent to injure.
Yeah , Clausen committed a personal foul and you won’t hear me try to defend him.
Im sick of the ‘its only Navy’ bs that we get from the likes of the Bristol Baffoon and not being able to shut his ass up. We are all agreed here that Navy is 1000x better than theyre given credit for, but we are still monumentally more talented and shoud NEVER lose that game. Dropping 15 in a row to a destructive USC is one thing, losing to Navy, no matter how good they are is inexcusable. Load the freaking box and DESTROY DESTRPY DESTROY!!!!
If we’re going to talk about teams for playing “dirty”, Stanford wins the title on the ND schedule. We might not like cut blocking, but not only is it legal, ND does it as well (just not as much).
It doesn’t matter whether it’s Navy, or Army, or Syracuse, or St. Sally’s School for the Blind…ND needs to stop playing to the level of the competition (up or down) and play to their level of ability. ND indisputably has more talent at every position than Navy. Navy coaches up their talent–in the last decade, ND has coached DOWN theirs. Simply based on talent alone, ND SHOULD never lose to Navy. I give Navy a ton of credit, and as a service member I’m very happy to see them represent and have successful bowl seasons and beat “normal” teams and all that. I wish they’d lose 2 games a year: ND & Army. With a decent head coach we should beat Navy, no question. I’m not saying we should beat them by 50 (though I wouldn’t mind it at all), they’re a GOOD team. But we should win by a comfortable 10-14 margin, simply matching talent vs. talent.
Will we? Who knows…I take nothing for granted anymore. I will be happy with a win against the Middies, so anything beyond that is gravy.
By the way, welcome home Nate.
Thanks man!
What stands out in my mind as a lack of respect is Clausen’s fumble on the 1 yard line. He scrambles for a great gain, and a Navy defender comes out of the end zone to meet him at the one. Now, if he respected Navy, he would remember that this defender is going to be a brick wall and will know how to tackle, even if he is smaller than some of the other defenses he’s seen that year. Instead, Clausen tries to run him over – gets killed — and fumbles the ball, and injures his wrist.
To me, that play showed the lack of respect we saw all game. It was a “we are clearly more talented so of course we will win against this smaller team” attitude, not the “we must win every down if we want to win this game.”
Credit to Navy still for playing hard, figuring out our defense’s weakness up the middle for the triple option, and playing better than we did – but a team with Clausen, Floyd, and Tate should not lose to Navy. Of course, they shouldn’t lose to UConn, etc., either, but tradition demands a win against Navy. And if an ND player doesn’t understand that tradition, then maybe they shouldn’t be playing for ND; more to the point of this post, the coach needs to understand that tradition.
Look, there’s legal cut blocks and there’s illegal. That was clearly an illegal block even if it wasn’t a deadball, which it was, which was yet a second ground for a foul call and possibly ejection. Diving into the back of a guy’s knees is gutless and pathetic. Navy and AFA are also masters of the chop block, which is also illegal, results in serious injuries quite often and is sometimes the result of legal cut blocking (from the front and inside the tacklebox) at a moment when the defender is engaged already with another blocker. It’s not fair to say all the cutting is cheap, but the style of play calls for techniques which produce a lot of illegal blocks. The Academies get away with a lot more of these particular types of illegal blocks in part because they use them all the time and in part because no crew of refs is going to call all those penalties and neutralize their offense.
As to the rest, ND got what they deserved when they lost those two games. Sure ND played as soft, probably not as badly as they played against Syracuse or UConn, but pretty soft. Navy had a good, disciplined team and they won. Simple as that. Navy deserves the credit and Weis deserved the boot. I think it worked out quite well.
I’ve thought for a long time…when is a Notre Dame coach going to go into this Navy game with the mentality of “what is good for the goose is good for the gander?” If I were head coach, I would actively teach my linemen to block the way Navy’s line blocks–just for this game alone. After all, the Navy line isn’t the tiny line of old. Those guys are bigger and heavier than they used to be. And although Navy’s linemen may still not be as big as ND’s linemen, I am 100% positive that they would not appreciate an opponent going after their knees. I’d have my guys cut block and look over at the Navy sidelines and wave. That would stop that crap.
Hey maria, check out this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8uZsP8y0J0&feature=related) and tell me what kind of block Armando Allen tries to put on Ram Vela, just before Vela vaults his way to Sharpley.
It’s called a “cut-block.” Perfectly legal, though Allen gets a C- on execution.
Hey jackass, it’s an entirely different thing. Note that the penalty on your precious little leg sweeper was “late hit,” you incompetent dipstick. It occurred “after the play.” What part of the English language that the ref is using is hard for you to understand, exactly?
You must be some sort of embarrassment to the Navy. Is the Navy really recruiting someone with the IQ of a turnip? God help us. I can’t believe they’d let anyone as incapable as you do anything beyond peel potatoes. So hurry up and get back to that. The men doing anything important are probably getting hungry.
You’re all class, dumer boy.
Read Maria’s post–she’s talking about cut blocks, not late hits. Your entire column is about one play in one game. She was talking about cut blocks generally.
You get your mulligan back.
You are insufferably insecure. You’re also incapable of keeping track of a conversation. Your original comment on this post defended that block in the video by saying “cut blocks” are legal and used by ND. Duh. But that’s not what we saw in the video, now is it, clever boy? Feel free to keep commenting. It’ll give any 4th graders who may read the site a big boost in confidence in their own mental capabilities.
Does playing with boats in the bathtub make you a Navy guy ?
I find it ironic how these “Navy Guys” come to an ND site to get all hostile and whatnot. Domer says Navy deserves better play and less princess treatment from ND, while simultaneously criticizing that cheap shot (it was cheap, no doubt about it) that was put on Blanton. It all seems pretty clear cut to me. These Navy guys get fired up (all the higher up they are for the fall on Saturday)
Let’s face it–ND’s favored for good reasons, starting with talent and terrific coaching. Notwithstanding injuries to Floyd & Riddick, the odds makers are betting that my team gets overwhelmed. (If it happens, I suspect that it will take the form of a heavy dose of Hughes.) Navy needs outstanding, mistake-free play to have even a small chance.
Domer said that Navy should get what it deserves–a good game. I spoke up to make sure that the readers get what they deserve–the truth.
Yeah, I’m a bit “fired up” on the Scott Farkas exaggeration, and yes, it is an exaggeration because it is based on one play over the past 80+ years. (If that’s necessary in order to fire up the ND faithful, whatever.) But if you read my posts as sounding overconfident (or even confident) about Saturday, you’re mistaken.
I’d be “fired up” too if I were in a boy-band with an indian, cop, cowboy and a construction worker.
Great idea! When are the tryouts?
really
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Takes big deep breath
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!
Takes even deeper really big deep cleansing breath
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
OK, that’s enough of that silliness. If we can stop insulting the effort and intentions that our teams bring to the field then we can put all this behind us. Good luck the rest of the year, and we’ll see you next year.