Oct. 16, 2004

Recap | Box Score | Photo Gallery

NOTRE DAME-NAVY SERIES NOTES

• Notre Dame extends its NCAA-record winning streak over Navy to 41 consecutive games, dating back to the 1963 season.
• The Irish improve to 68-9-1 (.878) all-time against the Midshipmen, including a 43-6-1 (.870) mark at neutral sites.
• Notre Dame holds Navy to its lowest scoring output in the series since 1998, when the Irish blanked the Mids, 30-0, at Jack Kent Cooke Stadium (now FedEx Field) in Raljon, Md.
• The Irish have scored 27 or more points in 18 of the past 20 meetings with Navy. Dating back to the 1985 contest, Notre Dame has averaged 38.4 points per game in the series, including five 50-point eruptions and back-to-back 58-point outbursts in 1993 and ’94. And, the Irish have scored more points against the Midshipmen (2,098) than any of the other 134 opponents in school history. Notre Dame topped the 2,000-point mark against Navy in 2001 on an eight-yard touchdown run by Terrance Howard in the third quarter of a 34-16 Irish victory.

  NOTRE DAME TEAM NOTES

• Notre Dame moves its career record against the service academies to 125-22-5 (.839), including a 65-11-4 (.838) record at neutral sites and a 32-1 (.970) mark since 1986. It also is the 11th consecutive win for the Irish over a service academy, dating back to a 20-17 overtime loss to Air Force in 1996.
• Notre Dame remains perfect in 11 all-time games at Giants Stadium, including all six matchups with Navy at the NFL venue. In fact, the Irish see their record in current NFL stadiums rise to 23-6-2 (.800), registering their first victory at an NFL site since a 22-0 win over Maryland in Kickoff Classic XX on Aug. 31, 2002 at Giants Stadium (Tyrone Willingham’s debut at Notre Dame).
• Notre Dame now has a 14-0 all-time record in New Jersey, including an 11-0 mark at Giants Stadium. Of the other three Irish wins in the Garden State, two came at Princeton’s Palmer Stadium in 1923 (25-2) and 1924 (12-0), and the third was a 45-17 triumph at Rutgers Stadium in 2000.
• Notre Dame scored on its first possession of the game on a 33-yard touchdown run by senior RB Marcus Wilson. It was the first time the Irish scored on their opening drive since last year’s Stanford game, when Julius Jones had a 10-yard TD run on the first Notre Dame series. Today’s score also was the fastest opening TD for Notre Dame since Oct. 13, 2001, when Jones scored on a 19-yard run with 13:45 left in the first quarter vs. West Virginia.
• Notre Dame scored two touchdowns in the first quarter for the third time this season (2 TD at Michigan State on Sept. 18; 3 TD vs. Washington on Sept. 25).
• All three of Notre Dame’s touchdowns today were scored by New York natives – one by senior RB Marcus Wilson (Staten Island, N.Y./Poly Prep) and two by senior RB Ryan Grant (Nyack, N.Y./Don Bosco Prep).
• Notre Dame had its second 100-yard rusher of the season when senior RB Ryan Grant rushed for 114 yards (Darius Walker – 115 vs. Michigan on Sept. 11). In the three-year Tyrone Willingham era, the Irish now are 9-1 (.900) when they have a 100-yard rusher – the only loss came in 2002 vs. Boston College (Grant’s last 100-yard game … 107 yards).
• Notre Dame had a season-high 204 yards rushing as a team this afternoon, the fifth time this season the Irish have gone over the 100-yard mark on the ground and their best rushing day since last year’s Stanford game (320 yards). Notre Dame is 5-0 this year when it rushes for at least 100 yards.
• Notre Dame’s defense limited Navy to just three pass completions today, the fewest by an Irish opponent since Oct. 24, 1998, when Army had two pass completions in a 20-17 Notre Dame win in South Bend. Navy’s six pass attempts are the fewest by a Notre Dame opponent since the Mids tried five passes (completing four) in last year’s 27-24 Irish victory.
• Notre Dame had eight different players catch passes today, the fourth time this season the Irish have had seven or more players with a reception.

  NOTRE DAME INDIVIDUAL NOTES

• With 114 yards rushing today, senior RB Ryan Grant moved into 13th place on Notre Dame’s career rushing list with 1,961 yards. In today’s game alone, he passed five different players – current Green Bay Packer Tony Fisher (1,849 yards from 1998-2001), current Pittsburgh Steeler Jerome Bettis (1,912 from 1990-92), Tony Rice (1,921 from 1987-89), Don Miller (1,933 from 1922-24) and Marchy Schwartz (1,945 from 1929-31).
• Grant’s 114 yards rushing today marks the fifth 100-yard game of his career and his first since the 2002 season, when he ran for 107 yards in a loss to Boston College.
• With 20 pass attempts today, sophomore QB Brady Quinn moved into sixth place on Notre Dame’s career pass attempts list with 545. Today, he passed Jarious Jackson, who had 536 attempts from 1996-99.
• Quinn has spread his pass completions around through Notre Dame’s first seven games of the 2004 season. Quinn has completed passes to 16 different receivers in those seven contests, a breakdown of seven wide receivers, five running backs, three tight ends and two passes to himself (caught off of deflections vs. Washington and Purdue).
• Senior RB Marcus Wilson had a career-long 33-yard run for a touchdown in the first quarter. It also was Wilson’s first career touchdown. Wilson finished with the second-highest rushing output of his career (44 yards at Air Force in 2002).
• Senior K D.J. Fitzpatrick boomed a season-long 47-yard field goal in the second quarter. His previous best this season was a 45-yard kick against Washington on Sept. 25. In fact, two of the longest field goals in Fitzpatrick’s career have come vs. Navy – in last season’s matchup in South Bend, the Granger, Ind., native had a career-long 50-yard field goal.
• Fitzpatrick also continues to be a weapon in the punting game. Two of his four punts today were downed inside the Navy 20-yard line, giving him 17 punts inside the opponent’s 20 this season. By comparison, Fitzpatrick had seven such punts last season and Notre Dame had 10 as a team.
• Sophomore TE John Carlson caught the first two passes of his career today for 17 yards.
• Senior LB Brandon Hoyte, a Parlin, N.J., native, registered a career-high 16 tackles in his homecoming this afternoon. Hoyte’s previous best was 11 tackles in the 2003 season opener vs. Washington State.
• Senior LB Mike Goolsby had 12 tackles today, marking the third time this year he has recorded double-digit tackles (11 at BYU; 14 vs. Michigan).
• Senior FS Quentin Burrell logged a career-high 11 tackles, breaking his previous personal best of 10 stops, which he set last season vs. Navy.

  NOTRE DAME MISCELLANEOUS NOTES

• With the Navy game televised nationally by CBS, the Irish extended their streak of appearances on one of four major networks (NBC, ABC, CBS or ESPN) to 143 consecutive games, a stretch that covers 10 full seasons (1993-2003). The last time the Irish didn’t appear on one of those four networks was more than 11 years ago (Oct. 31, 1992), when Notre Dame downed Navy, 38-7, at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. That game was shown locally in the South Bend area on WNDU-TV.
• Today’s game captains for Notre Dame were: K D.J. Fitzpatrick, LB Brandon Hoyte, RT Mark LeVoir and WR Maurice Stovall. The Irish have chosen captains on a game-by-game basis throughout Tyrone Willingham’s tenure at Notre Dame.
• Navy won the toss and elected to defer to the second half, while Notre Dame chose to receive and defend the West goal.