Well, it wasn’t the blowout that I was expecting, or at least hoping for, but a win is definitely a win. Our defense continues to show some holes in the secondary, but overall I think it was a good day for the Fighting Irish. How did the Notre Dame defense perform against the Naval Academy? Let’s take a look!
The Notre Dame defense held the Navy offense to 16 first downs. They did a fantastic job at stopping the Navy passing game, holding them to just 22 net yards of passing, but the run game is another story. The Navy offense managed to get 318 yard of net yards rushing against the Notre Dame defense. The Navy offense was only able to convert on third down 2-of-11 times (0.182). But on fourth down Navy was flawless, converting 4-of-4 times (1.000).
Notre Dame’s Elijah Shumate (22) points to the crowd as he runs off the field after making an interception during the Notre Dame-Navy football game on Saturday, Oct. 10, 2015. SBT Photo/ROBERT FRANKLIN
The Fighting Irish defense collected a season-high three turnovers during Saturday’s game (two fumbles and one interception). Navy had turned the ball over just once through its first four games this fall. Notre Dame also set a season high, on Saturday, for points off of turnovers on its first opportunity alone when C.J. Prosise ran for a seven-yard TD after a Navy fumble and Justin Yoon converted the point-after attempt. The Irish did not score more than six points off turnovers in any of their first five contests this year, and tallied just nine such points all season entering today. In addition, DB Elijah Shumate’s interception of Navy QB Tago Smith with 6:14 left in the fourth quarter was the first non-Cole Luke interception for the Irish this season.
| Team Totals | NAVY | ND |
|---|---|---|
| First Downs | 16 | 27 |
| Net Yards Rushing | 318 | 178 |
| Net Yards Passing | 22 | 281 |
| Total Offense Yards | 340 | 459 |
| Fumbles: Number-Lost | 2 – 2 | 0 – 0 |
| Penalties: Number-Yards | 3 – 41 | 4 – 35 |
| Punts – Yards | 2 – 89 | 2 – 84 |
| Possession Time | 28:44 | 31:16 |
| Third-Down Conversions | 2 of 11 (0.182) | 7 of 12 (0.583) |
| Fourth-Down Conversions | 4 of 4 (1.000) | 1 of 1 (1.000) |
| Sacks By: Number-Yards | 2-8 | 1-5 |
| Field Goals | 1-2 (0.500) | 2-2 (1.000) |
Who were our standout performers on defense? Sheldon Day had five solo tackles and four assists, Greer Martini had three solo tackles and six assists, Joe Schmidt had four solo tackles and four assists, KeiVarae Russell had seven solo tackles, Matthias Farley had four solo tackles and three assists, Isaac Rochell had two solo tackles and four assists, Jarrett Grace had one solo tackle and four assists, and Romeo Okwara had one solo tackle and one sack (the only sack of the game). It was also fantastic to see the defense taking advantage of the opportunities in front of them and creating some Navy turnovers; Elijah Shumate’s interception, Jaylon Smith’s recovery when the option pitch fell through the hands of Chris Swain and the Nyles Morgan strip which was recovered by Devin Butler. Excellent teamwork in motion!
Notre Dame’s Jaylon Smith (9) celebrates after recovering a fumble during the Notre Dame-Navy football game on Saturday, Oct. 10, 2015. SBT Photo/ROBERT FRANKLIN
Notre Dame ## Player Solo Ast Tot TFL/Yds FF FR-Yd Intc BrUp Blkd Sack/Yds --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Day, Sheldon 5 4 9 2.0/6 . . . . . . Martini, Greer 3 6 9 . . . . . . . Schmidt, Joe 4 4 8 0.5/1 . . . . . . Russell, KeiVarae 7 . 7 . . . . . . . FARLEY,Matthias 4 3 7 . . . . . . . Rochell, Isaac 2 4 6 1.0/2 . . . . . . Grace, Jarrett 1 4 5 . . . . . . . Smith, Jaylon 1 3 4 . . 1-0 . . . . Onwualu, James . 4 4 . . . . . . . Shumate, Elijah 2 . 2 1.0/1 . . 1-0 . . . Morgan, Nyles 1 1 2 . 1 . . . . . Trumbetti, Andrew 1 . 1 . . . . . . . Cavalaris, Connor 1 . 1 . . . . . . . Okwara, Romeo 1 . 1 1.0/5 . . . . . 1.0/5 Cage, Daniel . 1 1 . . . . . . . Watkins, Nick . 1 1 . . . . . . . Coney, Te'von . 1 1 0.5/1 . . . . . . Tillery, Jerry . 1 1 . . . . . . . Coleman, Nick . 1 1 . . . . . . . Butler, Devin . . . . . 1-0 . . . .
Some quotes from Brian Kelly regarding the defense:
Q. Martini seems to be built for these games. Talk about his performance.
Brian Kelly: He’s got a really good understanding of his job and he’s a disciplined player, so when we ask him to do his job, he’s going to get it done. He just fits really well with the scheme that we’re employing and so it’s just a really good fit. Very disciplined. He trusts what we’re asking him to do. Again, he’s one of the 11 guys out there that makes it work for us.
Q. And Farley, you kind of plugged him in pretty early. Can you talk about why you did that and what you got out of him?
Brian Kelly: Well him and Max were going to be interchangeable for us. We just felt like we went with Matthias and we could have gone either way with that. And we gave Max a chance to start and we wanted to see Matthias, too. And then as the game kind of unfolded, we just stayed with Matthias. But both of them practiced hard all week, it was really just probably a little bit of a preference with a veteran player more so than anything else of the.
Q. Two part question. First half they had 97 yards rushing on 11 carries at the fullback position. Second half 37 yards on 10 carries. What was it that was giving you some issues in the first half and what was the adjustment in the second half? Execution, scheme, what was going on there?
Brian Kelly: Well, both. We couldn’t get to the fullback. The fullback was hitting wider than we couldn’t get our backer, we couldn’t get our five technique down. So, consequently when we tried to get into our front that put our Sam and our Will on the dive, we just couldn’t get there and they were not running it to Jaylon, they were running it to James Onwualu’s side. They obviously checked away from Jaylon every time and James was trying to get down to tan he was getting knocked off. So we went with grace in the second half, a bigger body and he was able to get himself down on to that fullback a little bit better in the second half.
So, it was a little bit of scheme, and it was a little bit of execution. They keep prodding and looking for opportunities to run their offense and that was one of the areas where they thought that they could get the fullback through. And then did effectively and we made some adjustments.
Q. Their first series offensively they had success and then after that you kind of shut them down. What, how concerned were you with another first series success and then what did you do to shut them down?
Brian Kelly: Well, again, it goes kind of to the question that was asked earlier, their fullback was hitting wider and we knew that was going to be the thing that we needed to stop. On that particular long run, we just over ran the play. We had our safety right there as an unblocked hat and we simply did not execute. So the long run that they had, the quarterback, we were in a position where we just did not execute on that play. And then they came back and our corner, they cracked inside, our corner’s supposed to replace on the second play for a touchdown and just did not fill the way he should have. So, we weren’t that concerned on those two plays, other than they scored so quickly and all right, here we go, off to a poor start. But I thought we responded very well offensively. And I think that response is scoring right away, kind of settled everybody down.
With another win under our belt we can now look forward to SC week. After watching SC play Washington last Thursday night I am quite confident that USC is beatable. Now all Coach Kelly has to do is have the boys prepared, both mentally and physically. What say you?
Cheers & GO IRISH!
Her Loyal ... Daughter
Lisa Kelly is a multidimensional marketing professional. She has over two decades of marketing experience and earned a bachelor of business administration and marketing from the University of Notre Dame (Class of 1993 ... Siegfried Hall!). She is a Digital Publishing Manager by day and by night is writing her third book, a continuation of "Echoes From the End Zone: The Men We Became" and its sequel "The Men We Became: MORE Echoes From the End Zone." In 2012, Lisa was crowned the "Biggest Fan of the Big East" in a blogging and social media contest, representing Notre Dame.
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