The Notre Dame-Navy rivalry endured World War II interruptions to American life, but the COVID-19 pandemic continues to linger above the 2020 college football season. The clout of the deadly virus can still cancel or abbreviates schedules.
The Irish and Midshipmen, though, have demonstrated determination to continue the series for a 95th straight year – the third longest uninterrupted rivalry in the nation.
Plan B was quickly put in place after the Aer Lingus Classic set for Aug. 29 in Dublin, Ireland, was called off on June 2. Notre Dame will travel to play Sept. 5 or 6 at Navy Marine Corps Stadium in Annapolis.
The Irish visiting the Midshipmen’s 34,000-seat venue offers a new chapter to the rivalry. Navy’s home games are scheduled at larger stadiums around the nation – most recently 2018 in San Diego. This will be the first time in Annapolis.
“I’m excited to have it as a home game in our stadium,” said Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo in a recent Zoom call with reporters.
That was Niumatalolo’s initial reaction when he learned Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick and Navy athletic director Chet Gladchuk worked to reschedule the game.
“I was thinking about some of our bigger games with a good home field advantage,” he said. “I would love to play Notre Dame with our stadium packed with our fans. Because even places we’ve gone to — when we went to San Diego it was predominately Notre Dame fans, so it wasn’t like a home game.”
But he knows it’s not that simple. If the game is played, it remains to be seen how many fans, if any, are permitted through the gates to comply with social distancing.
“Any help we get is helpful, but then I remembered we’re in the pandemic,” Niumatalolo said. “The reason we’re not going to Ireland is the pandemic. So there may not be many fans, but I’m excited to be at home for a lot of historical reasons. I’m grateful some fans will be there if we do play.”
The series began in 1927, but its continuation dates to a financial crisis Notre Dame faced during the World War II years. As an all-male school at the time, enrollment dwindled. The U.S. Navy rescued Notre Dame from red ink when it placed a V-12 officer training center on the South Bend, Indiana, campus.
Notre Dame, as a debt of honor, has agreed to play Navy every year since then despite the Irish’s domination of the rivalry. Notre Dame’s 88-13-1 advantage includes a 43-year winning streak from 1964 to 2006.
Navy was a worthy national power for the Irish until the 1960s. But a combination of rising salaries in pro football and the Vietnam War evaporated the recruiting pool for the three service academies, Navy, Army and Air Force.
Navy’s revived program under former coach Paul Johnson and Niumatalolo — Johnson’s offensive coordinator before he was promoted when Johnson left for Georgia Tech — has won four times since ending the losing streak with a 46-44 triple-overtime victory in 2007 under Johnson. Niumatalolo’s teams have beaten the Irish in 2009, 2010 and 2016.
But Notre Dame’s talent edge still creates one-sided results. A year ago, the Irish won 50-20 in South Bend. In San Diego two years ago, Notre Dame won 44-22.
“I’m just trying to make sure our team will be ready,” Niumatalolo said. “During whole time I was more concerned with how are our guys were doing during the pandemic, how they were doing in summer school and how are we going to get our guys ready to play through virtual meetings. That was where my focus was at.
“I wasn’t concerned where we playing. I just know the people we are opening up with is a team that beat us pretty good the last time we played. I thought we had a good team last year (11-2), and they beat the crap out of us.”
Another possible threat to any service academy game is a Department of Defense ruling that can limit travel. During a 2013 government shutdown from Oct. 1 to Oct. 17, service academy games were at risk week-to-week until the shutdown ended. But Notre Dame’s agreement to travel in 2020 to Annapolis fills that potential pothole.
As an independent, Notre Dame has plenty of motivation to adjust its schedule. The Irish lost three games following the Big Ten and Pac-12 announcements to play only conference opponents as a pandemic safety precaution. The Irish were scheduled to play Wisconsin, USC and Stanford.
The Irish also have six games scheduled against Atlantic Coast Conference opponents as part of its partial membership in football that permitted full membership in other sports. But ACC commissioner John Swofford has indicated those games will be included in the ACC’s “conference” contests.
Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said today on ESPN’s “Get Up” he is confident the ACC will include Irish in partial schedule plans. He added Notre Dame has plenty of other options with other games around the nation having been canceled.
“There is a lot of inventory of games out there,” Kelly said.”Our phone is ringing off the hook. That’s probably the least of our conecerns. I think there are plenty of games to play. We’d just like to play some.”
Notre Dame also has an SEC game against Arkansas and non-conference contest against Western Michigan.
Navy, an American Athletic Conference member, has conference home games with Temple, Houston, Tulsa and Memphis and road games at Tulane, East Carolina, SMU and South Florida. It’s difficult to imagine the AAC shuffling its schedule in a manner that threatens Navy’s payday and the conference’s marquee exposure.
Navy’s other two non-conference games are Oct. 3 at Air Force and Army Dec. 12 in Philadelphia.
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