Friday night at the pep rally, former Notre Dame quarterback Ron Powlus - now the director of player personnel development for the Irish - joked about Brady Quinn breaking his records.
Saturday against Navy, Quinn did just that.
With his four touchdown passes, Quinn moved his career total to 53 touchdowns, one ahead of Powlus. He has 27 touchdowns and five interceptions in his junior season.
"It's something where I'm really not going to focus on and look at it until I'm done here," Quinn said of his records.
Quinn also moved into first place on the single-season passing yardage list, with 2,931, surpassing Jarious Jackson's 1999 record.
"He was kinda quiet today, and he still had four touchdowns," tight end Anthony Fasano said of Quinn. "He continues to do a great job and put us in great situations."
Quinn had time to throw all day, as he was not sacked.
"For the most part he could just stand back there and wait for somebody to come open," Irish head coach Charlie Weis said. "Not every throw was timed ... one time he went off to his fifth receiver. You usually don't have time to get through the whole progression."
Samardzija finally doesn't find the end zone
For the first time this season, Irish wide receiver Jeff Samardzija did not score a touchdown. He was thrown to in the end zone, but the pass was broken up.
Coming into this season, he hadn't caught a touchdown pass, but had at least one in each game this season, good for 12 on the year, until Saturday's game.
He finished with five catches for 42 yards on the day.
Hoskins gets back on the field
Sophomore running back Justin Hoskins saw action on Saturday for the first time since Notre Dame played Purdue on Oct. 1.
He returned one kickoff for 13 yards and carried the ball twice for a loss of one yard.
Gameday captains
Quinn was the offensive captain and Brandon Hoyte was the defensive captain for the Irish, as they have been all year. Tom Zbikowski was the special teams captain, named such during the week after returning a punt and an interception for a touchdown against Tennessee Nov. 5.
Notre Dame won the toss and elected to receive. The Irish then scored on the first possession of the game.
Honoring their opponents
After the game, the Irish went to the Navy side of the Stadium and stood in reverence of the Naval Academy alma mater. Weis said he talked to Navy head coach Paul Johnson before the game and asked if it was all right for Notre Dame to stand as a team as a sign of respect for the Midshipmen.
"That's out of respect for those guys," Weis said. "They stand for a lot more than just college football players."
