Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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24 NOV. 15, 2025 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED 1. Jeremiyah Love Has Earned Heisman Consideration If you stop the video at the right moment, you'll see six Navy defenders on the ground and one Jeremiyah Love who is not. Love began the play, an ordinary first-and-10 from the Midshipmen 48-yard line, by running right and seeing the play-side outside linebacker completely unblocked. He bounced off said backer, spinning away and before being wrapped up by the second man in. It looked at first like a valiant effort in a 3-yard loss. But Love, maniac that he is, just kept running. As it turned out, Navy sophomore defensive end Julien Moutome had pulled Love on top of him. No part of No. 4's body had touched the ground. As he raced to the end zone, redshirt senior wide re- ceiver Malachi Fields and redshirt freshman quar- terback CJ Carr thought the same thing. "Me and CJ looked at each other like, 'This guy's not real,'" Fields said. "Play's over, and all of a sud- den he's running down the sideline." Love gained 121 yards from scrimmage against Navy, bringing his season total to 1,242. He scored twice, giving him 16 on the year. Both of those numbers are at or near the top of college foot- ball, and it's no longer a pipe dream to have this discussion. Love, if he keeps this up, deserves a trip to New York. "In my mind, yes, he is [a Heisman Trophy candi- date]," Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman said. "There is no question about it." This writer agrees. And it's getting difficult to argue otherwise. 2. Credit To Notre Dame For Sticking With And Improving The Run Game Setting aside the "Love is incredible" part, Notre Dame made real strides on the ground from the first half to the second. Navy made its intentions clear from the get-go: The Midshipmen were going to stop the run or die trying. The Irish punished them with the requi- site shots downfield, but they also adjusted their blocking schemes and ran the ball much better after the break. "They kept battling," Freeman said. "We always have a plan, but we have to be able to say, 'OK, this is what they're doing to us in these forma- tions. Here are the runs and the schemes that we think will work.' I thought our coaching staff did a good job of doing that and implementing it to the players." The Irish ran for 8.3 yards per carry in the second half, as opposed to 3.9 in the first half. It wasn't just either. Redshirt junior Jadarian Price had more room to work with, and sophomore Aneyas Wil- liams had a lot more room to work with on his 54-yard touchdown run. Offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock and com- pany deserve credit for not just sticking with the run game against a defense intent on stopping it, but figuring out ways to make it effective. This will help later in the season when other teams inevita- bly try the same thing. 3. Horvath Injury Turned Back The Clock For Midshipmen Offense Navy junior quarterback Braxton Woodson is a good player. He's tough, physical and faster than his 6-foot-3 frame would indicate. But he is not Blake Horvath, who missed the game with an up- per-body injury. Woodson does not have Horvath's explosiveness, nor does he provide the same threat in the passing game. With its backup quarterback, Navy largely abandoned its modernized triple-option offense and instead ran the traditional flexbone for most of the night. From Notre Dame's perspective, that meant the game plan became less geared toward preventing explosive plays and more geared toward violence and block destruction. In other words, it was much closer to last year's Army game than last year's Navy game. If the Midshipmen had to play behind the chains, they couldn't play at all. And Notre Dame forced them to do that more than enough. "Once the ball is snapped, it's football," redshirt sophomore linebacker Jaiden Ausberry said. "You gotta play fast, play violent." 4. Why You Didn't See Boubacar Traore Against Navy The Irish played five defensive ends versus Navy, and none of them were redshirt sophomore Bou- bacar Traore. After the game, Freeman confirmed that his absence was a coaches' decision. "It was more of this game right now, probably not his strong suit," Freeman said. "Now, probably some third-down situations we could've [played him] but no, it was not injury related." Redshirt junior Joshua Burnham and senior Ju- nior Tuihalamaka started instead, and they played well. Defending the option might as well be a dif- ferent sport, particularly for players whose No. 1 job is usually to rush the passer. Notre Dame's feelings about Traore, arguably its best defender this side of Leonard Moore, have not changed. 5. The Pitt Game Is The Season After Week 12 at Pittsburgh, Notre Dame rounds out its regular season with Syracuse at home and Stanford on the road. The former is winless since former Irish quarterback Steve Angeli tore his Achilles Sept. 20, and the latter just clinched its fifth straight losing season. Barring an epic collapse, Pitt — a fun but flawed team that sits at 7-2 and will be coming off a bye — is the final team with a chance to beat Notre Dame. One more win all but clinches a 10-2 record and a spot in the College Football Playoff. For the second straight year, Freeman's ability to turn his team around in September has astound- ing. It feels almost surreal to be typing this again, but the Irish, who fell all the way to No. 24 in the country after Week 3, have climbed all the way back. One to go. ✦ FIVE THOUGHTS BY JACK SOBLE With 121 yards from scrimmage and 2 touchdowns against Navy, junior running back Jeremiyah Love has 1,242 total yards and 16 scores this season. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER