Navy (0-0, 0-0 AAC) vs. #13 Notre Dame (0-0)
When	Saturday, Aug. 26, 2023 | 7:30 pm (Dublin) / 2:30 pm (ET)
Location	Dublin, Ireland | Aviva Stadium
Television	NBC (Jac Collinsworth, Jason Garrett, Zora Stephenson)
Live Video Stream	Peacock
Listen	Navy Football Radio Network (Pete Medhurst, Joe Miller, Keith Mills, Scott Wykoff) WBAL 1090 AM / 101.5 FM (Baltimore) | WFED 820 AM, 94.3 FM (Frederick, Md.) | WFED 1500 AM (Washington, D.C.) | WFED 104.5 FM (Western Fairfax / Loudon, Va.) | WNAV 1430 AM, 99.9 FM (Annapolis) | KWFN 97.3 FM (San Diego) | WGH 1310 AM / 100.9 FM / 94.1 HD2 (Norfolk, Va.) | WJGM 105.7 FM (Jacksonville, Fla.) | Satellite: SiriusXM 84 and on the SXM App | Apps: Audacy (WNAV) and TuneIn (WBAL)
Live Stats	Navy Athletics
Game Notes	Navy | Notre Dame | AAC
Season Statistics	Navy | Notre Dame | AAC
Social Media	@NavyAthletics | @NavyFB | Facebook | Instagram

Opening Kick
•    Navy (0-0) and #13 Notre Dame (0-0) meet for the 96th time on the gridiron and for the third time in Dublin, Ireland when the two square off on Saturday, Aug. 26 at 7:30 pm  (2:30 pm ET) at a sold-out Aviva Stadium (51,700). The game will be the debut for Navy head football coach Brian Newberry.
•    The two teams previously played in Dublin in 1996 at Croke Park and in 2012 at Aviva Stadium. Notre Dame won the 1996 game 54-27 and the 2012 game 50-10.  
•    Navy will have the longest regular season in the country this fall, playing its first regular-season game of the year against Notre Dame and its final regular-season game on Dec. 9 vs. Army at Gillette Stadium in New England.    
• The two programs are among the winningest FBS teams in college football history. Notre Dame ranks fourth all-time with 938 wins, while Navy ranks 25th with 733 wins.
•    The two schools had played 93-consecutive times, which was the longest intersectional rivalry in college football, until 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic caused the game to be canceled. Navy and Notre Dame were originally scheduled to open the 2020 season in Dublin, Ireland. Travel restrictions, however, forced the game to be moved to Annapolis for what would have been the first game in series history to be played at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium before the contest was ultimately canceled.
•    Notre Dame leads the series 81-13-1 and has won five in a row over the Mids. Navy's last win over Notre Dame was in 2016, 28-27, in Jacksonville.The Mids lost by seven points to the Irish (24-17) in 2017 at Notre Dame and by three points (35-32) last year in Baltimore.
•     Navy has defeated four Notre Dame teams ranked in the top 25 all-time: 1936 over #13 Notre Dame 3-0 (Municipal Stadium in Baltimore); 1944 over #2 Notre Dame 32-12 (Municipal Stadium in Baltimore); 1957 over #5 Notre Dame 20-6 (at Notre Dame) and in 2009 over #19 Notre Dame 23-21 (at Notre Dame).
•     An upset by Navy would make Brian Newberry the first head coach in school history to beat a ranked opponent in his first game.
•    August 26 will be the earliest start to a Navy football season. Prior to this year, the earliest date was August 30 (4x - 2001 at Temple, 2002 vs. VMI, 2008 vs. Towson, 2014 vs. Ohio State in Baltimore).
    
Broadcast Coverage
•    NBC will televise the game with Jac Collinsworth (play by play), Jason Garrett (analyst) and Zora Stephenson (sideline) on the call. The game will also be streamed on Peacock and will be televised by Sky Sports in Ireland and the UK.
•    The Navy Insider Show will air from 12 noon-1:30 pm on WBAL Radio (1090 AM) with Pete Medhurst, Joe Miller, Keith Mills and Scott Wykoff.
•    The Navy Football Pregame Show with Medhurst, Miller, Mills, Wykoff and special commentary from John Feinstein will get underway at 1:30 pm on the Navy Radio Network, followed by game action beginning at 2:30 pm with Medhurst, Miller and Mills on the call.
•    NBC will also air pregame and halftime shows with coverage beginning at 2:00 pm. Host Maria Taylor, along with analysts Matt Cassel, Michael Robinson and Joshua Perry will count down to kickoff, previewing and setting the stage for the contest.
•    Following the contest, Medhurst, Miller, Mills and Wykoff will recap the day's events in a 30-minute postgame show.
    
Why We Play
•    Without Navy, Notre Dame may not still exist. Notre Dame fell on hard times in World War II. The school's population dwindled to a depression era number of 2,623 students in 1943 and a 20 percent reduction in 5 years led to stark financial problems for the school. Then the Navy came to Notre Dame's rescue.
•    According to then Notre Dame president Hugh O'Donnell, the school "offered all of the facilities of this institution to the government. In April of 1943, the V-7 Indoctrination School was created and the first group of 900 men, all college graduates enlisted for one month as apprentice seamen."
•    The late Notre Dame Vice President Father Edmund Joyce also shared the same sentiments of Navy's importance to the school. "All I can say is without the Navy during the war, this institution would have gotten down to a few hundred students. Instead of that, we were almost twice our normal size during the war, and we were able to contribute something to the Navy."
•    The Navy signed a contract with the South Bend-based school at the time, guaranteeing $487,711 for its infrastructure needs and administrative expenses.
•    Notre Dame has never forgotten Navy's kindness and support in its time of dire need. In fact, in the 1950s and 60s when colleges across the country en masse were ending their ROTC programs, Notre Dame stood by Navy and allowed its University to serve as a base for college naval recruits.

Scouting Notre Dame
0-0 Overall
Head Coach: Marcus Freeman

•    Notre Dame returns 11 starters and 31 letter winners off a team that finished 9-4 in 2022 and defeated South Carolina in the Gator Bowl 45-38.
•    The Fighting Irish have just 6 players that transferred to Notre Dame from another school, but one of them is Heisman Trophy candidate Sam Hartman, who transferred to South Bend from Wake Forest.
•     Hartman threw an ACC-record 110 touchdown passes for the Demon Deacons, while throwing for 12,967-career passing yards, which ranks second in ACC history. Hartman has topped the 300-yard passing mark 21 times in his career which is the most in ACC history. Additionally, he has either rushed for or thrown a touchdown pass in 34-consecutive games.
•    Notre Dame returns leading rusher Audric Estime, who ran for 920 yards and 11 touchdowns on 156 carries last year.
•     6-8, 322-pound junior offensive tackle Joe Alt was an All-American last year and is expected to be one again in 2023. Both Hartman and Alt were selected to the Walter Camp Award Watch List, an award presented to the national player of the year.  
•     The Irish return their top-two tacklers on defense in graduate student linebackers JD Bertrand and Jack Kiser.
•    Bertrand closed out last year with 82 tackles, 8.5 tackles for loss and 2 sacks, while Kiser had 58 tackles, 5.5 tackles for loss and 2.5 sacks.
•     In last year's game, Navy outscored #20 Notre Dame  19-0 in the second half and outgained the Iriish 166-20, but it wasn't enough as the Irish hung on for dear life to beat Navy 35-32 in front of 62,124 fans at Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium.
•    Braden Lenzy reached around a defender with both arms to make a spectacular touchdown catch, one of four TD passes by Drew Pyne before halftime to give Notre Dame to a 35-13 lead at the intermission.
•    Pyne also ran for a touchdown in the first half and Notre Dame blocked a punt for a fifth-straight game. Lenzy's catch, however, was the most impressive highlight. Navy's Mbiti Williams Jr. was positioned between Lenzy and the ball on Pyne's deep pass to the goal line, but Lenzy reached around with both hands and controlled the ball, appearing to pin it against Williams' back. Then he pulled it around the cornerback with his right hand to complete the catch.
•    Navy had the ball down 21-13 in the second quarter, but an interception on a trick play gave the Irish possession at the Navy 41. Pyne ran for an 11-yard touchdown moments later, and then the blocked punt by Jack Kiser — Notre Dame's seventh of the season — set up Pyne's 37-yard TD toss to Jayden Thomas.
•    Navy quarterback Xavier Arline threw a 23-yard touchdown pass to Mark Walker in the fourth, and a 2-point conversion made it 35-24. Then Maasai Maynor's 20-yard TD pass to Maquel Haywood late in the fourth, along with another 2-point conversion, cut the lead to a field goal. 

Brigade of Midshipmen March-On
•    A pregame timeline was not available at the time of publication, however there will be a March-On by approximately 400 members of the Brigade of Midshipmen that made the trip to Dublin before the game as well as a fly-by.

Aer Lingus College Football Classic Sold-Out
•    The 2023 Aer Lingus College Football Classic featuring Notre Dame and Navy on August 26 at Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland, is sold-out. Over 40,000 international fans are expected to make the trip for the event, including over 39,000 fans directly from the United States which represents a new world record for the largest number of Americans to travel internationally for a single sporting event.
•     The 2023 College Football Classic has been valued in an independent report from Fáilte Ireland and Grant Thornton to be worth in excess of €147 million to the Irish economy. Based on previous college football events held in Ireland, data indicates that American visitors for the game will stay an average of seven nights in Ireland and visit three different destinations. The most popular of those destinations include Dublin, Galway, Belfast, Killarney and Cork.
•     "The Aer Lingus College Football Classic Series is a really important event for the tourism and hospitality sector in Dublin and all across the island and I am pleased to support the series via funding from Fáilte Ireland and Tourism Ireland," said Minister for Tourism, Catherin Martin T.D.
•     "The game in August will also provide opportunities for business, education and other sectoral exchanges between Ireland and US and will further strengthen the cultural, sporting and affinity links between our two countries."
•     "The demand for tickets for the 2023 Aer Lingus College Football Classic proves that Ireland is the home of college football outside of the United States," said Padriac O'Kane, the Co-Founder and Director of the Aer Lingus College Football Classic.
•     "This year's event in Dublin will see the largest movement of Americans into Europe in peace time with the game set to provide a huge boost to the Irish economy and hospitality sector."

Strong Ireland Ties For Two Navy Players
•    Colin O'Connor (Sr, WR) and D.J. Donovan (Jr, TE) both have strong family ties to Ireland.
•    All four of O'Connor's great grandparents are immigrants from Ireland and were born near Dublin. Both of his great grandfathers, Patrick Joseph O'Connor and Patrick Joseph Murphy, came to the United States in the early 1900s and settled in the New York City area. Patrick Joseph O'Connor volunteered for the U.S. Army not long after settling in America and fought in Europe during World War I.
•    Donovan's great grandfather, Daniel Donovan, was born in Ireland on April 24, 1910, in Castleisland in County Kerry and  was one of 12 brothers and sisters. D.J. Donovan's great grandmother, Margaret Mohan, was born in Tipperary, Ireland in 1916. Donovan's great grandmother arrived in Boston when she was 7 years old, while his grandfather arrived in New York in 1929 at the age of 19 on the Cunard Liner, "Scythia." He did not arrive through Ellis Island as he was processed on the ship before arrival. While they immigrated to the United States at different times, they went on to meet in New York at an Irish dance.
•    Donovan's great grandfather, Edward Maher, is also from Ireland.
•    Approximately 20 members of Donovan's family will be traveling to Ireland to attend the game. His family is planning to visit the farm where his great grandfather grew up.