Navy faces stiff test against Irish
Revamped, motivated Notre Dame presents ‘huge challenge’ for Mids
Speaking during a postgame news conference Saturday, Evan Martin described the Navy football team’s lastsecond victory over Southern Methodist as “euphoric.” With his next breath, the standout senior offensive lineman said the Midshipmen could celebrate for only one night because “we’ve got to come back tomorrow and get ready to beat the Irish.”
Navy faces perhaps its toughest test of the season Saturday when it travels to South Bend to take on Notre Dame. The Midshipmen will be seeking to beat the Fighting Irish for the fifth time since 2007.
Notre Dame (8-2) was ranked third in the College Football Playoff poll last week, but will no doubt drop dramatically after enduring a 41-8 drubbing at the hands of Offensive lineman Evan Martin, middle, said Navy quickly turned its attention to Notre Dame after a dramatic win over SMU. Miami on Saturday night. The Hurricanes moved all the way up to No. 2 in the Associated Press poll based off the impressive performance and could make a similar jump in the next CFP rankings. Notre Dame is ranked ninth in this week’s AP poll.
“Miami was the better team today. They deserved to win. We didn’t see this coming,” Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said afterward. “Obviously, we felt like we were prepared to play at a high level. We did not. We simply have to coach better and have to play better next week against Navy.”
The Midshipmen figure to get a Fighting Irish squad that is angry about getting embarrassed on national television in a game with serious postseason implications. However, coach Ken Niumatalolo said Notre Dame is a formidable foe for Navy regardless of its result the previous week.
“Notre Dame is Notre Dame. They’re always a really talented football team. Whether they won or whether they lost,