(Photo courtesy Notre Dame Athletics)

Jeremiyah Love rushed for 130 yards on just seven carries while scoring three times and the Irish defense was dominant against a highly touted Army triple option attack as #6 Notre Dame marched all over Army 49-14 in the Shamrock Series game at Yankee Stadium in New York.

It’s the ninth straight victory for Notre Dame as they improved to 10-1 on the season heading into the regular season finale at USC next Saturday.

“We’ve improved but we are starting to be more consistent,” Irish coach Marcus Freeman said after the game. “The sign of great teams, great businesses, great people is consistency–not the ability to do it one day and be really high and then the next day be really low but the consistency throughout a game, throughout a season. That’s what we’ve seen in the past couple of weeks. We’ve had to improve. We’ve had a lot to improve  from that Northern Illinois performance and we have done that. Now you are seeing a consistent football team and we have to continue to be that.”

It’s the first loss for Army, which entered the game 9-0 and ranked 19th in the country.

As a team, Notre Dame rushed for 275 yards on the day on just 28 rushes, averaging 9.8 yards per carry. Love had two rushing touchdowns, extending his rushing touchdown streak to all 11 games this season. He also caught the game’s 2nd touchdown pass. Jadarian Price rushed for 53 yards and two touchdowns while freshman Aneyas Williams added a 58 yard rushing touchdown in the 2nd half.

“Really proud of the performance,” Freeman said. “You never know how this game is going to go. We were preparing for a really good opponent and the preparation this week was really good. The challenge of beating that team in the turnover margin–to be able to get that done–had an impact on the game. It really did.”

Notre Dame forced their nation leading 26th turnover of the season against an Army squad that led the nation in protecting the football. It was just the 4th turnover Army had given up this year. Outside of one seven plus minute touchdown drive and a score in the final 30 seconds, Notre Dame’s defense completely dominated Army’s offense as Al Golden continues to have his Irish ready for triple option opponents.

Army quarterback Bryson Daily rushed for 139 yards and two touchdowns but it took 39 carries to do so.

“We knew we had to stop him–he’s the person that makes that offense go,” Freeman said of Daily. “He’s a tough, down hill, gritty football player but we had to match that type of mentality. We wanted to attack their offensive line and we wanted to attack him.”

Riley Leonard was 10-13 passing for 148 yards and two touchdowns. In addition to throwing the TD pass to Love, Leonard connected with Jordan Faison for a touchdown pass on the opening drive.

Notre Dame defensive lineman Howard Cross did not play for the 2nd week in a row as he battles back from ankle injury Freeman says Cross was close to returning but not quite ready. Linebacker Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa left the game with a knee sprain.

The one negative for the Irish was continued struggles in kicking field goals. Mitch Jeter, who is battling back from a groin injury, missed wide right on a 48 yard field goal and then had a 30 yard field goal attempt blocked. Freeman says he doesn’t think Jeter at this point is a health issue.

“We have some work to do on our field goal unit,” Freeman said.

Notre Dame is now one win away from making the College Football Playoff and almost certainly host a 1st round playoff game as well. Kickoff next Saturday in Los Angeles vs USC will be at 3:30pm ET. The game will be broadcast on CBS.