EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Navy football had a chance to make a statement on a national stage Saturday within sight of New York City.

Instead, the Midshipmen were a no-show.

Quarterback Riley Leonard and tailback Jeremiyah Love were the catalysts of a very efficient offense and No. 12 Notre Dame took advantage of four unforced fumbles on the way to blowing out Navy, 51-14, before an announced 76,112 at MetLife Stadium and a national television audience on ABC.

Leonard completed 13 of 21 passes for 178 yards and two touchdowns, while Love rushed for 102 yards and two scores for Notre Dame (7-1), which capitalized on three turnovers in building a commanding 31-7 halftime lead.

“Obviously, I’m really disappointed with the outcome. We were real excited about this one and our kids believed that we could win,” Navy coach Brian Newberry said. “I knew we were going to have to play extremely well, we had to be at our best in all three phases. We obviously were not today.”

Newberry wondered aloud if the moment might have been too big for some of the Midshipmen. Navy was seeking its fifth victory over Notre Dame since 2007 and this team wanted to make a statement that it was a contender for the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff.

“I thought the stage might have been a little big for some of our players today. I thought we had some guys playing afraid to make mistakes, and when you play with fear in your heart like that, that’s when mistakes happen,” Newberry said. “I thought we had some guys that tried to play outside of themselves. We had talked about not doing that in a game like this. You just got to be yourself.”Linebacker Jack Kiser recorded nine tackles and recovered a fumble to spearhead a powerful defense that made Navy (6-1) earn every yard it got. Rover Jaylen Sneed also had nine tackles and recovered a fumble in the end zone.

Quarterback Blake Horvath was the lone bright spot for the Midshipmen, rushing for 129 yards and a touchdown. He also completed 7 of 13 passes for 88 yards as Navy was knocked from the dwindling ranks of the unbeaten.

However, Horvath was also the culprit on two of the fumbles, including dropping the ball on a pass attempt from his own goal line. He later threw an interception in the end zone to thwart a rare scoring opportunity for the Mids.

Horvath was asked afterward if it was easy for the Midshipmen to move on since it wasn’t an American Athletic Conference contest.

“We’ll see. You can’t answer that question yet. We’ll have to see what we’re made of. Obviously, this is just a chapter. It’s not the whole story,” Horvath said. “We’ll see how we answer that question this week.”

Eli Heidenreich had Navy’s second muffed punt of the game midway through the fourth quarter, losing the ball at his own 17-yard line. That brought Navy’s turnover total to six, the most it has committed since October 19, 2002, in a 46-21 loss at Boston College.

It marked the fourth time in the game that Notre Dame started a possession in Navy territory and led to its seventh touchdown. The Fighting Irish scored 27 points off turnovers.

“You can’t win a game with that many turnovers and we knew that coming in,” Horvath said. “You look back at them and they weren’t because of anything they did. That’s the frustrating thing. Almost every single turnover it was something we did. We beat ourselves.”

Senior captain Colin Ramos led Navy with a season-high 15 tackles, the fifth time this season he’s reached double digits. Fellow inside linebacker Kyle Jacob contributed 10 tackles. Ramos and Jacob are both northern New Jersey natives and this was not the homecoming they had hoped for.

“We didn’t play the way we expected to play. We still have so much ahead of us. We’re going to learn from our mistakes and go back to work on Monday,” Ramos said. “We didn’t play our style of football. I don’t think the moment was too big. We just have to be better, and we will be.”

It did not take long for Notre Dame to show that it could move the ball easily against the Navy defense as Leonard directed a nine-play, 75-yard touchdown drive on the game’s opening possession. Leonard found speedy wide receiver Jaden Greathouse wide-open on a post route and that 42-yard completion put the Fighting Irish in the red zone.

Four plays later, Leonard dove over from 1 yard out to give Notre Dame a 7-0 lead with just 4 1/2 minutes elapsed.

Disaster struck on Navy’s opening possession as fullback Alex Tecza dropped a pitch and the loose ball was scooped up by Notre Dame safety Adon Shuler and returned 28 yards to the Navy 7. It only took three plays for the Fighting Irish to score again with wide receiver Kris Mitchell getting wide-open in the end zone for an easy 6-yard touchdown catch that made it 14-0 with 5:44 left in the first quarter.

A nifty flea flicker trick play produced a 32-yard completion from Horvath to Tecza and got the Midshipmen into enemy territory. However, a chop block penalty pushed the ball back to the home side of the field and the next play was another Navy fumble with Horvath dropping the ball after a botched mesh with the fullback.

Defensive lineman Junior Tuihalamaka recovered at the 44-yard line to give Notre Dame another short field. The Midshipmen rose up in the red zone with end Justin Reed sacking Leonard on third down to force a field goal attempt. Zac Yoakam, who was handling place kicks because starter Mitch Jeter was injured, missed from 36 yards.

Horvath gave Navy life by breaking loose for a 47-yard touchdown run on the ensuing possession. Horvath took an option keeper around the right side, found a huge running lane and outraced several chasing defenders down the field, making a nice cutback to beat the only player in position to make the tackle.

Kicker Nathan Kirkwood made the extra point to cut the deficit to 14-7 at the 13:33 mark of the second quarter and Navy was seemingly right back in the game.

It didn’t take long for the Fighting Irish to take the wind out of the Midshipmen’s sails. Less than a minute later, Love burst through a big hole on the right side and raced untouched for a 64-yard touchdown, restoring the two touchdown lead.

An exchange of punts wound up costing Navy as returner Isaiah Bryant muffed a high-arcing kick that James Rendell angled toward the sideline. Bryant should have let the ball bounce, but instead tried to field it and misjudged the trajectory.

Kiser recovered the fumble at the 40-yard line and Notre Dame had a short field for the third time in the first half. A 17-yard completion to wide receiver Jordan Faison set up a 2-yard touchdown trot by Love that grew the advantage to 28-7 with 5:05 left in the second period.

“I thought we were poor on special teams in terms of execution — knowing when to fair catch the ball and fielding the ball,” Newberry said.

Newberry noted that Navy did not commit a single turnover in the previous five games.

“We didn’t take care of the football. We turned the ball over six times today and put the defense in a bad position quite a bit,” he said. “You understand going into a game like this that you have to be in the plus margin in turnovers to have a chance. We’re never going to win a game against a better opponent when we turn the ball over six times.”

Navy missed an opportunity to get points late in the first half after Horvath had taken another option keeper 59 yards deep into Notre Dame territory. The Mids picked up another first down, but the drive stalled thanks to consecutive negative plays followed by an incompletion.

Coach Brian Newberry settled for a field goal and Kirkwood missed from 40 yards. Making matters worse was the fact Notre Dame had time to drive downfield for a 32-yard field goal by Yoakam with 26 seconds left and took a 31-7 lead into halftime.

“I still love this football team. I love these players and am really proud of them. It’s only a failure if you don’t learn and grow from it,” Newberry said.

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