Notre Dame vs. America: How Navy and Army Matchups Could Shape College Football Playoff

The ironic twist is that the Fighting Irish have had a great relationship with the academies in decades-long, mutually beneficial series.

Notre Dame could play spoiler for one of the best stories of this college football season. / Brett Davis-Imagn Images

Father Theodore Hesburgh, the most prominent president in the University of Notre Dame’s history, wrote a book in 1990 entitled God, Country, Notre Dame. That slogan can be seen on T-shirts at every Fighting Irish home football game.

The most famous Catholic university can always claim (rightly or wrongly) to have God on its side. But for the next month, it’s Notre Dame vs. Country on the football field. The Fighting Irish are not America’s team—they’re trying to defeat America’s teams.

This is an involuntary and improbable heel turn for a school that congratulates itself on high-minded ideals. The Irish now loom as the seditious spoilers in one of the most remarkable seasons ever for service-academy football. Saturday, Notre Dame takes on the undefeated No. 24-ranked Navy Midshipmen in New Jersey. On Nov. 23, the Irish take on the undefeated No. 23 Army Black Knights.

In a season rife with unexpected plot twists, it has come to this: Notre Dame vs. the United States of America. The Irish have always been a love-hate lightning rod, but these matchups could coalesce a large percentage of our divided country around the military academies.

The last time Army and Navy were simultaneously 6–0 was 1926. The Cadets have taken it a step further to 7–0. Regardless of how they do against Notre Dame, the two academies could end up playing for the American Athletic Conference championship Dec. 6—then playing again a week later in their traditional regular-season game.

But if one or both of them manage to beat the Irish, then it gets really interesting from a College Football Playoff perspective.

For starters, a second Notre Dame loss figures to be a playoff eliminator. The Irish already have a loss on the books to the Northern Illinois Huskies, a 4–3 team from the Mid-American Conference. They have a road win over the Texas A&M Aggies that continues to age well, but anticipated big games against the Florida State Seminoles and USC Trojans have fizzled due to opposition ineptitude. Given the schedule, it’s difficult to foresee making the playoff at 10–2 with both losses to teams from outside the Power 4 conferences.

On the flip side, beating Notre Dame would provide a tentpole victory that elevates either service academy into the playoff—if it wins the AAC. If they both beat the Irish and play for the AAC championship, the winner would seem to be a near-lock for the playoff.

(The primary competition for the Group of 5 automatic bid figures to come from the Mountain West Conference, the Boise State Broncos and UNLV Rebels, in particular. Those two play a very big game Friday night.)

The ironic twist to Notre Dame vs. the military is that the school has long had a great relationship with the academies. They have played each other for decades in mutually beneficial, respectful series.

Navy is Notre Dame’s most-played opponent—even more than USC or Purdue. This will be their 97th meeting, a series that dates to 1927. The Irish have completely dominated the rivalry (that’s the beneficial part for Notre Dame), but Navy gets a regular blueblood opponent that helps it sell a ton of tickets when the games are not in South Bend. (Navy home games in the series are often played in NFL stadiums; the two have never met in the academy’s on-campus stadium, which seats just 34,000.)

The historic relationship between Notre Dame and the Navy extends beyond football. In 1943, as the Catholic school in Indiana was drastically losing enrollment to the World War II effort, then-Notre Dame president Rev. Charles O’Donnell contacted Navy Adm. Chester Nimitz about using the sparsely populated campus as a training ground. A program that trained roughly 12,000 Navy officers was established at Notre Dame.

Even after the war, the Navy maintained its training base there. In 1946, the university built an area that became dubbed “Vetville,” apartments for the military men and their families who were stationed there. The Navy influx is widely credited with keeping Notre Dame economically viable, and Nimitz was granted an honorary degree. After Hesburgh became president in 1952, he vowed to keep Navy on the football schedule for as long as the academy wanted. And so the series continues.

Army is Notre Dame’s fifth-most played rivalry, with 51 prior meetings. The two played every year from 1913 to ’47 with the exception of ’18, a season in which Notre Dame canceled about half of its schedule due to the influenza outbreak and Army canceled all but one game due to World War I. (The New York Times reported the Army season cancellation thusly: “The Army football situation went to smash yesterday with the receipt here of an order graduating the top two classes at the academy on Nov. 1.”) 

From 1923 to ’46, all but one meeting was played in New York City, either at the Polo Grounds or Yankee Stadium. This provided a big gate for Army and big-city exposure for Notre Dame, which had risen to become the preeminent national power in the sport. Flush with talent during World War II, Army won national championships in 1944 and ’45, routing Notre Dame each season. The next year, the two teams battled to a 0–0 tie in what was probably the first college football “Game of the Century.” Notre Dame went on to be crowned champion that year.

Notre Dame has even had 30 meetings with the Air Force Academy, which did not come into existence until the late 1950s. The two played every year but one from 1972 to ’91. The Irish suffered four straight losses to the Falcons in the 1980s, helping assure the end of Gerry Faust’s inadvisable and inglorious tenure.

So there is abundant history between Notre Dame and the service academies, most of it one-sided and all of it built upon goodwill. But for the first time in a very long time, there is a lot on the line for both the Irish and the military teams. Each of them stands in the way of the other’s playoff dreams.

It’s Notre Dame vs. the USA, twice in the next month. Might be time for the Fighting Irish to fully embrace a villain role.