The Army Black Knights took on the Notre Dame Fighting Irish on Saturday night as part of the Shamrock Series at Yankee Stadium. Notre Dame entered the matchup ranked sixth in the College Football Playoff rankings, while Army was ranked 19th as it looked to strengthen its case for a playoff berth.
The Fighting Irish got off to a fast start, scoring on their first drive on a Riley Leonard 28-yard touchdown pass to wide-receiver Jordan Faison. The Fighting Irish continued their dominance in the first quarter as their special teams unit came up with a blocked punt to set up the offense inside the 10-yard line. As a result of the blocked punt, Leonard threw a six-yard touchdown pass to running back Jeremiyah Love.
On the next drive, Army would find its footing on offense. The Black Knights went on a 12-play, 75-yard drive that resulted in quarterback Bryson Daily’s four-yard rushing touchdown to make it a 14-7 game in the second quarter. The Army defense made a stop against the Fighting Irish on the one-yard line. The Army offense took over with an opportunity to tie the game, but that drive resulted in a three-and-out.
The Fighting Irish would take over after the punt and go down to score in just three plays, as Love scored on a 14-yard rush to make it 21-7 in the middle of the second quarter.
The Black Knights struggled on offense on their next drive, going three and out for the second consecutive drive. Notre Dame took over and scored quickly on a two-yard rushing touchdown from running back Jadarian Price to make it a 28-7 game. As the quarter was coming to a close with 20 seconds left on the clock, Army fumbled, which led to a missed Notre Dame field goal at the end of the second quarter.
On the first play from scrimmage in the second half, Love broke off a 68-yard run to put the Fighting Irish up 35-7 to start the third quarter. The Notre Dame defense continued its dominance, forcing a turnover on downs on Army’s first drive of the second half.
Notre Dame drove down and got into field goal range after the defense forced a turnover on downs, but the drive resulted in a blocked field goal by Army as the Irish attempted their second field goal attempt on the night, failing to convert on both.
For the remainder of the game, the Fighting Irish continued to dominate on both sides of the ball, as the game ended with a score of 49-14.
After the game, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman spoke on his team’s performance during this nine-game winning streak and running back Jeremiyah Love’s performance these past few weeks.
“We’ve improved, but we started to be more consistent, and that’s the sign of great teams,” Freeman stated when speaking about his team.
“I want to say his confidence, but he’s always been confident, he was confident in high school, he’s a confident football player… The thing I love about Jeremiyah Love is that he’s protecting the ball and he’s not causing turnovers… it’s like he’s anticipating what the defense is gonna do and when he breaks through the second level not many people can catch him,” said Freeman.
The Fighting Irish are now 10-1 heading into the last week of the regular season when they will take on the University of Southern California. The Black Knights will look to rebound when they face the University of Texas at San Antonio next week.
