BY BEN FORD
bford@etruth.com
NOTRE DAME -- Notre Dame's 23-21 home loss to Navy Saturday was such a disaster that the National Guard may have to be called in to help clean up the mess.
Bowl Championship Series berth? Gone. Heisman Trophy for Jimmy Clausen? Gone. Coach and quarterback? We'll see, but what happened during this bizarre game probably didn't do much to convince Clausen to return next season or make Charlie Weis' job any more secure.
"I'm going to roll in tomorrow morning exactly the same way, whether we had won or lost," Weis said. "Does it feel bad? Yeah. Does it hurt? Yeah. But it's not going to change my approach of how I coach."
Navy (7-3), a 12 1/2-point underdog, won for the second consecutive time at Notre Dame Stadium -- the last time that happened was 1961 and '63 -- by rushing for 348 yards and forcing two Irish turnovers inside the Middies' 5-yard line.
After Nick Tausch's onside kick with 24 seconds remaining went through the hands of Irish linebacker Darius Fleming and out of bounds, giving the ball back to Navy, Middies quarterback Ricky Dobbs took a knee to end the game. Though the midshipmen in the stands jumped around, waving their hats in the air, the players' celebration was a less exuberant one than two years ago, when Navy won in triple overtime to end a long losing streak to the Irish.
The Middies expected to win this time.
"We'd done it before, and we went into this game not really placing as much emphasis or too much importance on it," said Navy linebacker Ram Vela, who had a much-replayed flying sack in the victory in 2007 and an interception and fumble recovery on Saturday. "We just treated it like another game."
Still, the Middies displayed far more passion than the 19th-ranked Irish (6-3), who were told all week that the key to the game was matching Navy's intensity.
"From the start of the game, I didn't feel like us as a whole were as excited as we usually are," receiver Golden Tate said.
Navy seized on that lack of intensity and took a 14-0 halftime lead, limiting Notre Dame to four possessions in the half -- two of which ended in missed field goals by Tausch.
The Irish drove 80 yards for a touchdown run by Robert Hughes in the third quarter, but went down by two scores again a minute and a half later when Dobbs found wide receiver Greg Jones down the middle for a 52-yard touchdown. The Irish cut it to 21-14 with 4:46 left and had the ball on their own 13 with 1:48 to play, but Clausen was sacked on two consecutive plays for a safety, all but killing Notre Dame's hopes of another fourth-quarter comeback.
"It was just their normal guys rushing," said Clausen, who finished 37 of 51 for a career-high 452 yards passing.
Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo said his players "dug deep" despite being outweighed by 50 pounds on average by the Irish offensive line.
The Irish never punted and finished the day with 512 yards of offense to Navy's 404, but they scored on just two of their six trips inside the red zone. Clausen threw an incompletion on fourth and goal from the 3 in the second quarter, fumbled on a hard hit by Kevin Edwards at the 1-yard line in the third, causing an injury to his non-throwing hand, and threw an interception that hit Floyd in the back and bounced into Vela's arms at the 4 in the fourth on a play Clausen called a "miscommunication."
There was no confusing what the loss meant for Notre Dame's postseason aspirations, though, or how devastating it was to the Irish.
"We beat them 43 straight times and I've lost to them twice already," said linebacker Brian Smith.