Tag: Army Knights

This stat shows that Navy and Army will challenge Notre Dame

The service academy’s on Notre Dame’s schedule have played at an extremely high level

While Notre Dame football won’t be facing Navy or Army for a few games, but that doesn’t mean that head coach Marcus Freeman and the Irish aren’t well aware of the difficulties both teams will pose to the home team.

Both of the service academy run a triple-option offense, and they do it extremely well. It’s been good enough to be ranked as one of the top offenses in the country in terms of points-per-drive according to CFB Focus.

Army leads the country in this category, scoring an impressive 4.53 points when the offense gets the ball. Ohio State is sandwiched between Navy, who scores almost as often as the Knights at 4.36 points-per-drive.

The kicker is that the statistics disregard garbage time drives, so these two teams aren’t just inflating their stats when the games are over. Even without this information, Army and Navy aren’t easy to prepare for, and Notre Dame can’t afford to take them lightly.

Oct 5, 2024; Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA; Army Black Knights running back Kanye Udoh (6) runs for a touchdown against the Tulsa Golden Hurricane during the second half at Skelly Field at H.A. Chapman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Danny Wild-Imagn Images

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Notre Dame wasn’t just preparing for Stanford during its bye, two other teams also

The Irish were looking ahead during their bye

While you may have been expecting the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team to just have its focus on this weekends game against the Stanford Cardinal, it is the wrong assessment.

During head coach [autotag]Marcus Freeman[/autotag]’s Monday press conference, he explained that not only were the Irish getting ready for Stanford, they also were preparing to face the triple-option attacks of both Army and Navy.

Yes, these games aren’t coming up soon, with the Midshipmen coming to South Bend at the end of this month and the Knights on the second to last weekend of November.

While this might seem like it’s way too early to be getting ready for the two service academy’s, they both run offenses that typically aren’t run by the majority of teams the Irish face. It makes plenty of sense to do this during a bye week, as the extra practice time won’t really cut into the prep for Stanford.

Sep 21, 2024; Annapolis, Maryland, USA; Navy Midshipmen quarterback Blake Horvath (11) scores atouchdown during the second half Memphis Tigers at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images

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