SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- It took Notre Dame less than two minutes to make a week's worth of problems -- heck, maybe a season's worth -- disappear.
Michael Floyd and Jonas Gray scored in a span of 1 minute, 59 seconds Saturday, and Notre Dame rolled from there, rebounding from its rough week with a 56-14 thrashing of Navy. The Irish (5-3) rushed for seven touchdowns, most in 19 years, while limiting Navy (2-6) to a season-low 229 yards of total offense in the Midshipmen's sixth straight loss.
"As a family, we all have good days and bad days. And you work through that as a family," Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said. "We communicated with each other as a team and as a family, and you saw it today. You saw a team that played together. I told our team, that's the best collection of plays relative to all 11 players playing together."
A lopsided loss to USC last Saturday night pretty much ended Notre Dame's chances of a BCS bowl for yet another year, and tensions within the team apparently flared after Kelly talked about having to "retrain" the players he inherited from Charlie Weis. Some of the veterans, including star linebacker Manti Te'o, expressed their displeasure with his comments on Twitter, and the Chicago Tribune reported Saturday that Kelly apologized to players during a team meeting Friday.
But winning cures all kinds of ills and the Irish looked like a happy bunch Saturday, exchanging flying chest bumps after TDs and dancing on the sidelines.