Why Notre Dame should drop the service academies.

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#12 Notre Dame looks to take on #24 Navy Saturday at Met-life Stadium host to the NY Giants and Jets. The game is set for a noon kickoff, and many Irish fans myself included are understandably nervous about this matchup as well as the Army matchup a couple weeks later. A lot of Irish fans would just as soon have Notre Dame drop them and play a traditional Power 4 team in these weeks, but before we get to that let's understand why Notre Dame plays this game against Navy. During WWII many universities like Notre Dame were struggling to stay a float. Notre Dame was at the time was an all male institution which made it difficult to have kids enrolled when most of them were off fighting in a war at the time. During this time Navy reached out and extended Notre Dame a lifeline, they used their facilities for V-12 training for officers and Navy paid Notre Dame enough during this time to keep their doors open. This prompted an open invitation from Notre Dame to play them every year in football. This grand gesture aside I think the time to play them on a yearly basis has run its course. If you ask any Notre Dame fan which game they are dreading every year its this one. It's not because we as a fan base are afraid to play Navy, but this game is a lose lose situation for Notre Dame. First, you have to change your whole defense in the middle of your season to prep for Army and Navy, and this year perhaps even more considering both of these traditional wing T teams are now throwing the ball and throwing it well. Second, these games aren't something you can prepare for the week before you play. In fact Notre Dame usually has prep weeks in summer and fall camps as well as some prep every week leading up to the game. Not only are you trying to prepare for the Louisville's, Texas A&M's and the Georgia Tech's on your schedule but during those weeks your sole focus may not only be on them. Finally, what is there to gain for Notre Dame in winning this matchup? Sure it would go down as another ranked win this year, but in most years this isn't going to be the case. Lose this game and your playoff hopes are toast and Marcus Freeman's seat gets a little warmer and maybe even hot losing to Navy and Northern Ill in the same season. Win by a score or two and your seen as a weak team who can't handily beat a lesser opponent when you have the superior athletes. Finally, win by 3 scores or more and everyone says well its just Navy and your impressive win is not taken seriously. Notre Dame has a scheduling problem and Navy and Army need to be axed to fix it.

Written by: Kagan Gentry