Notre Dame Turns the Bronx Into a Track Meet, 49-14

They came to the Bronx with a streak and a plan and a quarterback who runs downhill, and for one quarter Army even looked the part. Then Notre Dame turned Yankee Stadium into a track meet, and there was nothing the Black Knights could do but watch the green jerseys run by. Final: 49-14, and it wasn't even that close.

Notre Dame didn't wait. On the game's opening possession Riley Leonard found Jordan Faison for 28 yards and a touchdown with 10:24 still on the first-quarter clock, and four minutes later Leonard hit Jeremiyah Love from six. Two drives, two scores, and a crowd that had come to see a fistfight was already watching a sprint.

Give Army this: Bryson Daily would not quit. The Army quarterback churned for 139 yards on the ground and punched in a 4-yard score early in the second to make it 14-7, and for a heartbeat the option offense had its rhythm and the building had its noise back.

The hinge

The game turned at the goal line, but not the way Army needed. Notre Dame had a first-and-goal inside the 5 late in the second and got greedy with it -- Love stuffed for a loss back to the 2, the drive dead, a rare empty trip. It should have been a lifeline. Instead Notre Dame just kept coming. Love ran in a 14-yarder, and with 26 seconds left in the half Jadarian Price scored from two. What looked like a one-score game at the break was 28-7, and the damage was done before the bands finished playing.

Then came the body blow. On the very first snap of the second half, Love took it 68 yards to the house -- one cut, one seam, gone. That is the whole story of the night in a single run: one offense moved on schedule and broke the long ones too, and the other lived snap-to-snap and never got loose. Price added a 10-yarder late in the third, Aneyas Williams ripped off a 58-yard touchdown in the fourth, and the rout had its own gravity.

Daily got his second score on a 1-yard plunge with 22 seconds left, a touchdown for the box score and nothing else. The arithmetic had been settled hours earlier, somewhere around the time Love crossed midfield untouched. Notre Dame finished what it started on every series that mattered; Army finished the one that didn't. Leonard threw two touchdowns and never had to do more. Love ran for 130 and two scores and looked like the best player on a field full of them. The Black Knights walked off the Bronx with their answers, and none of them were good.