Notre Dame dominates with 49-14 win and sends Army back up the Hudson

New uniforms but same domination

Despite being told by countless people that Notre Dame versus Army wouldn’t be a repeat of Notre Dame versus Navy — it sure looked awfully similar on a Saturday night in Yankee Stadium. The Irish thoroughly dominated the Black Knights for a 49-14 win.

The Irish attack went fast to start the game. First, Notre Dame forced a three and out on Army and quarterback Bryson Daily, and then they moved efficiently down the field 68 yards for a touchdown — a 28 yard pass from Riley Leonard to Jordan Faison.

Notre Dame forced another three and out on Army’s ensuing drive, and then Bryce Young blocked the punt to set the Irish up with the ball on the 7 yard line. A few plays later, Leonard tossed it to Jeremiyah Love for a score and a 14-0 lead.

Trailing 14-0, Army put up a fight on its next drive — and the refs gladly helped out with a phantom facemask call on third down to help the Black Knights March down the field for a touchdown. The score took 12 plays to get and went 75 yards. On the ensuing Notre Dame drive, the Irish drove the ball all the way down to the 1 yard line but were stuffed on 4th and goal.

It was the last time Army looked like they might be in this game.

The Irish forced two more three and outs, and followed them up with rushing touchdowns — a 14 yarder from Jeremiyah Love and a 2 yarder from Jadarian Price.

Notre Dame recovered a fumble late in the first half, but with just 3 seconds left, Mitch Jeter missed a 48 yard field goal to end the first half.

Notre Dame made a statement to start the third quarter when on the first offensive play, Jeremiyah Love raced to the end zone for a 68 yard score to make it 35-7. Love finished the game with 130 yards on just 7 carries with two of those resulting in a score. He also had that 6 yard touchdown reception in the first quarter.

Before the end of the third quarter, Notre Dame pulled Riley Leonard out of the game. Leonard was 10-13 for 148 yards and 2 touchdowns to go along with 30 yards on the ground. In came Steve Angeli, and he engineered another touchdown drive which saw Jadarian Price run it in for his second touchdown of the game.

While up 42-7, Notre Dame handed the ball off to freshman Aneyas Williams on the first play of its next offensive drive, and he bolted up the middle for a 58 yard touchdown run to make it 49-7.

Army — fighting like hell — used up over 10 minutes of clock on a 17 play 75 yard drive to score a touchdown on the Irish backups to the backups to make it the 49-14 final.

More to come on OFD.