EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — It took Navy five years, five wins to start the season and a second-year coach to get back into the AP Top 25.

That No. 24 ranking could be on the line Saturday when the Midshipmen (6-0) face No. 12 Notre Dame (6-1) at MetLife Stadium in the New Jersey Meadowlands sports complex.

“It’s a great opportunity for our team and our program,” Navy coach Brian Newberry said. “These are the kind of games you want to play in. It’s a great thing about coming to school here at Navy is you get to play a team like Notre Dame every year: a big game on national stage like that. That’s what you want.”

Beating Notre Dame will be a big ask for Navy, which lost 42-3 to the Irish in Dublin in August 2023. BetMGM Sportsbook has made Notre Dame a 12½-point favorite in this 97th meeting in a series that dates to 1927.

“We know who we are and what we’re able to do, and we have to control that,” Navy quarterback Blake Horvath said. “There’s nothing that Notre Dame can do that will change who we are. We can beat ourselves and that’s for sure and that’s something we haven’t done so far this year.”

Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman said the Irish are playing an opponent that vastly improved from last season. The Midshipmen are averaging 44.8 points and 435.8 total yards, including 274.8 rushing.

“I love it,” said Freeman, whose team beat Georgia Tech 31-13 this past weekend. “We’re looking forward to a great challenge. To play a 6-0 team, as the head coach you’d much rather do that than play a team that’s 0-6, because it doesn’t take much to motivate your guys.”

Navy is just as motivated in a sense.

“We can’t treat this like it’s the Super Bowl,” senior linebacker Kyle Jacob said. “It’s the next game.”

Everyone knows the Super Bowl for Navy will be Dec. 14 against Army at the Washington Commanders’ home stadium in Landover, Md. The teams, each 6-0 for the first time since 1926, could also meet in the American Athletic Conference title game eight days earlier in either Annapolis or West Point.

The rivalry

Notre Dame knows it is the biggest game on essentially every opponent’s schedule. And while the list of longtime Irish rivals includes matchups with schools such as Michigan, Purdue, Southern California and Stanford, the one with Navy carries a different feel.

That’s not because these teams have met on the football field every year since 1927, except the pandemic 2020 season. This one has been played in a variety of locations, including Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, San Diego, Cleveland and South Bend, Indiana.

Heisman Horvath?

Charlotte coach Biff Poggi said after his team’s 51-17 loss at Navy that Horvath deserved Heisman Trophy consideration. There is still a long way to go before that’s a possibility, but Horvath and Alabama’s Jalen Milroe are the only players in Football Bowl Subdivision with 10 touchdowns each rushing and passing.

“There’s a lot of great guys out there with with Travis Hunter and Ashton Jeanty,” said Horvath, who has amassed 1,509 yards combined on the ground and through the air through six games. “All I can do is just play my game and control what I can control.”

Horvath, a sophomore who ran something similar to offensive coordinator Drew Cronic’s system in high school, has been the key to a complete turnaround on that side of the ball. Navy is tied for the best red zone offense in the country, relying far more on the pass than the typical service academy.

New Navy look

Getting ready to face Navy’s offense has been an adjustment for teams.

“I think we’ve been preparing for it since fall camp,” Freeman said of Navy’s triple-option system. “You’re intentional about having certain periods on certain days in fall camp. We attacked it again during the bye week so we have a good foundation for what we’ve planned on doing and we’ve enhanced it.”

There is one new change. With Horvath having an excellent season throwing, Navy uses a shotgun formation about 45% of the time. In years past, it was mostly on passing downs.

Special encore?

Coming off a bye, the Irish did everything right on special teams. They executed a fake punt and a fake field goal, converting each time for a first down. They blocked a field goal and twice tackled Georgia Tech kick returners deep in their own territory.

Freeman, naturally, isn’t saying whether Notre Dame will try anything like that again this week. But now that it’s on tape, Navy — and all future Notre Dame opponents — must be prepared to defend all of it.

AP Sports Writers Mike Marot and Stephen Whyno contributed.