Notre Dame vs Navy: A History Lesson
- Erich Pilcher
- 4 hours ago
- 3 min read
Rivalries can be seen as the engine powering the super machine that is college football.
The massive tailgating, major pregame shows, and national television audiences drive the hype for these matchups. However, due to conference realignment, many of these Intraconference Matchups have fallen to the wayside.
That is, unless you are protected by the title of Independent, such as Notre Dame.
The University of Southern California (USC) rivalry notwithstanding, the Irish have done an exceptional job of keeping rivalries on the schedule. Although not playing every year, Notre Dame has Purdue, Michigan State, and Stanford on the docket this year. That leads us to one of the most esteemed and respected rivals, the Navy Midshipmen.
That matchup has been scrutinized by detractors of "Our Lady." They use it to deride the Irish and to throw the flimsy accusation that the Irish schedule cupcakes. All while ignoring certain teams in the south playing Division II schools in the second-to-last week of the season, a practice that only ends this season with the requirement of teams playing nine Power Five teams on a schedule. By doing this, they ignore the esteemed history of this rivalry and what it means to the Navy as a whole.
The rivalry started in 1927. It was born out of the fact that Notre Dame, at the time an all-boys college, had many students fighting in World War II. The Navy used the campus as a training ground that provided enough money for the institution to stay afloat. Because of this, Notre Dame has played Navy yearly out of gratitude; it was played annually from 1927 to 2019, making it the longest uninterrupted intersectional rivalry. That was until the COVID Pandemic ended the streak in 2020.
As much as the game means to Notre Dame in terms of gratitude and reverence, it means that much more to Navy. When the rivalry was renewed in 2016, then Navy Athletic Director Chet Gladchuck said, "...it is of great interest to our collective national audience of Fighting Irish fans, Naval Academy alumni, and the Navy family at large."
The benefits far outweigh what it means for the fans, alumni, and even players. It is the Navy's largest athletic financial windfall each year. Notre Dame does not make money from away games and does not share revenue from home games. That is why when the Navy hosts this game, it is played in NFL stadiums. This allows the Navy to generate millions of dollars in revenue from municipal payouts, ticket sales, and sponsorships. It also gives players who serve our country the opportunity to play in a “big game” atmosphere that they would only get otherwise by playing the annual showdown against Army.
History is the very fabric of tradition. By people deriding Notre Dame for scheduling this game, they show their ambivalence to tradition and biased ignorance of the meaning of this game. As rivalry and tradition give way to “super conferences” and “grabbing the bag”, we need this game to remind us of the purity and history of college football. Anything to diminish this game is simply an advancement of the game we love, becoming a bludgeoned body of capitalism.
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