Outside of Tuitt’s touchdown (we’ll get to that in a second) none of the linemen – including Prince Shembo and Ishaq Williams, who lined up as ends – put up gaudy statistics. But, against an option attack where the main assignment is to crash and prevent the fullback dive from even being a possibility, this is exactly the result you’d be hoping for.

The highlight of the game was big Stephon Tuitt not rumbling, not stumbling, but straight-up hauling-ass 77 yards for a touchdown to put the Irish up 27-0 in the second quarter. Ishaq Williams set the stage for his fellow sophomore by kinda/sorta forcing a Trey Miller fumble that bounced directly in Tuitt’s path. I really can’t explain the joy I was overcome with while I watched Tuitt glide down that Aviva Stadium pitch like a 300-pound gazelle. This type of athlete is one we have not seen in a loooong time on the defensive side of the ball for the Irish (the last one wears a similar facemask and plays for the New York Giants)…and he’s only a sophomore. That, folks, is a beautiful thing.

As Tuitt bolted away from Trey Miller and Darius Staten, a run-first quarterback and a running back that both weigh more than 100 pounds less than him, I couldn’t help but wonder how much of the relative ease he scored with was due to simply being a freakishly fast 300 pound man and how much was due to playing against a slower team. So, I did the only thing I could do: I timed his run.

After a multitude of stopwatch trials, it appears that #7 ran 77 yards in about 9.45 seconds. If he kept that pace against Usain Bolt in the 100m dash, he would finish in 13.5 seconds. Not quite Bolt-type speed, and over 3 seconds slower than teammate George Atkinson (10.36 seconds) but still phenomenal speed for a defensive lineman [Also, this is clearly not comparing apples to apples as you don’t run track meets on grass wearing football pads].

Since nobody runs a 77-yard dash, how about a 40 yard dash? Breaking down his time, you are looking at a forty time of around 4.6 seconds for Tuitt at full speed and of just over 5.0 seconds for the first forty yards he had the ball in his hands. By comparison, George Atkinson ran the last 40 yards of his kick return against USC in between 4.0 and 4.1 seconds. For some context, Bruce Irvin of the Seahawks led defensive linemen at the 2012 NFL Combine with a time of 4.50 seconds, while the Bears’ Shane McClellin had the second best time with 4.63. The difference? Irvin weighs 58 pounds less than the 303-pound Tuitt, and McClellin weighs 43 pounds less than Tuitt. In fact, only one D-lineman with a top 10 forty time even weighed more than 270 pounds at the time of his run (the Jets’ Quinton Coples). For a multitude of reasons – grass, football pads, holding a ball, having a running start, not necessarily running in a straight line, ineptitude of guy trying to time another guy running on TV – this is a very rough comparison, but it is incredibly interesting nonetheless.

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What went right: From the opening drive, you could tell that the Irish were going to win the game in the trenches, and not just because of their decided size advantage. Parenthetically, we had a similar size advantage in 2010 and enjoy one of greater or lesser extent every year. Starting his first game for the Irish, Everett Golson effectively managed the game by handing off to a bevy of ball-carriers, exploiting the holes the Irish O-line opened for them all day long to the tune of 293 yards on the ground. On defense, LNIII, Kona Schwenke, Ishaq Williams and Stephon Tuitt consistently blew the Navy line back into the play, harrying the once harrowing triple-option, or “flexbone,” offense, which requires precision blocking to work. And oh, by the way, we were plus three on the day in turnovers, giving it away once via a Golson interception and taking it away four times, including Te’o’s first fumble recovery (of his career) (seriously) and first interception (of his career) (again, seriously) and Stephon Tuitt’s first 77-yard fumble return (off an Ishaq Williams force) for a touchdown. This was impressive stuff.

What Went Meh: Less impressive was the secondary, but you kind of knew that was going to be a problem. I mean, maybe not so much against Navy, but when you watch the $C-Hawai’i highlights from Saturday evening, you can’t help but want to go with the “over” on November 24. To be fair, while Navy’s touchdown at 14:45 in the Third Quarter was a nicely thrown twenty-five yard pass from Trey Miller, freshman cornerback KeiVarae Russell got twisted all sorts of wrong by Navy’s receiver. Russell’s error grew instantly fatal when the safety got caught in no-man’s land and couldn’t get deep to help in time. Still, as freshman, Russell’s learning and every game rep is valuable, even the bad ones. Zeke Motta flashed hot and cold, too, getting beat outside on Navy’s opening play and failing to contain the ball carrier on a twelve yard run.

More Awesome: Speaking of running, Notre Dame ran and ran often. Five players not named Andrew Hendrix ran the ball 39 times for 281 yards. Hendrix, who played most of the Fourth Quarter, carried six times for twenty yards. The vaunted third dimension that Golson brings to the offense and Tommy Rees seems to bring only to off-campus parties (zing!) was kept under wraps for at least another game or two as he DIDN”T RUN THE BALL ONCE. In fact, Golson’s stat sheet is decidedly Rees-like: 1 for -8. This is unfair, to Golson, as his only “carry” was a brutal blind-side sack/complete miscommunication between him and Zack Martin. Martin probably confused “hey! Zack! you need to block THAT dude!” with “I, for one, enjoy playing in a stadium that features BOTH ‘Crazy Train’ and a Jumbotron.” Author’s note: if you DVR’d the game, go back and watch the start of the second-half, in particular, as you can both hear ‘Crazy Train’ and see the jumbotron. AND THE EARTH DIDN’T SPIN OFF ITS AXIS PEOPLE. Wait, it was an away game. Never mind.

Speaking of running, Theo Riddick and GAIII shredded Navy’s defense. GAIII averaged 9.9 yards per carry, finishing a yard shy of 100, while Theo carried 19 times for 107 yards. Each picked up two TD’s. Robby Toma nabbed a very nice rushing touchdown late in the game and Cam McDaniel did well for himself, too, carrying 9 times for 56 yards. In short, Coach Kelly went to the run early, it paid off early, and he never took his foot off Navy’s throat.

And it helped Everett Golson, who played like he’d been there before, going so far as to correct a sideline reporter from Davenport who referred to the Aviva Stadium as “Croke Park.” But seriously, Golson was fine overall and very fine in spots. He played on a very tight leash, never once getting to display the elusiveness he did in the BlueGold game. While this was likely due to our dominant O-line, who gave up only two sacks on the day, it was more likely a scripted move by Coach Kelly to pay out plays to the young starter. When Kelly did let Golson throw, though, he was mostly rewarded as Golson was competent, tossing two nice lobs in a row to Tyler Eifert, just one of which was marginally out-of-bounds. Troy Niklas should have scored a second passing touchdown, but didn’t, stumbling just shy of the goal line on a 29 yard pass play. To be fair, he gained fifteen yards as he fell from 6’7″ to the ground.

All in all, this was a great, necessary win. As we often say in New Orleans, “you can’t go 10-2 without starting 1-0.” Which is silly, as you can, in fact, start 0-2 and run the table, but it makes it so hard. Just think back to last year’s rain-soaked stink-fest against USF.

But if you needed confirmation that the ship is headed in the right direction, Coach Kelly, at Sunday’s post-game presser, said that Tommy Rees would be allowed to start competing for the backup job. With that, Golson’s coming out party, such as it was, was complete. Well done, lads. Get some sleep, get back at it, and get ready for Purdue. Seriously, I mean that. Don’t look past them. Guys. Come on. Seriously.

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