AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. -- There are no moral victories at the Air Force Academy.

It's black or white. Either you're shot down or you did the shooting.

Saturday night, Air Force was done in by a weapon it normally uses to perfection.

Stealing a page from the Falcons' playbook, No. 7 Notre Dame controlled the ball, the clock and the game as the Fighting Irish knocked off No. 15 Air Force in front of a Falcon Stadium record crowd of 56,409.

	“	We usually win the time of possession but we were unable to do that and when you take that away from us like Notre Dame did, we're in trouble. ”
		— Fisher DeBerry

The Irish rushed for 335 yards -- including a career-high 190 yards from Ryan Grant -- and totaled 447 yards total offense. Notre Dame controlled the ball for 11 more minutes than Air Force and held the nation's best rushing offense to just 116 yards, 230 below its average.

"They were able to control the clock and make plays," said Air Force coach Fisher DeBerry. "We usually win the time of possession but we were unable to do that and when you take that away from us like Notre Dame did, we're in trouble."

It was like some bizarro world football game. Here was Notre Dame running at will. Grant seemingly had his choice of lanes and cut back so often the Denver Broncos would have been proud.

When Grant wasn't running wild, Arnaz Battle was making plays. The receiver finished with eight catches for 112 yards and regularly made moves that left Air Force players grasping at air.

"You have to hand it to Notre Dame," said Air Force linebacker Anthony Schlegel, who finished with 19 tackles. "They were the most physical team we played and they made the big plays. We just were on the field too long and didn't give our offense a chance to make plays."

In reality, it was the Irish that didn't allow Air Force to make big plays. Coming off a strong week of practice, the Irish stuffed the wingbone. QB Chance Harridge never had a chance to make his usual assortment of plays and the offense was flustered by the deceptively quick Irish.

"They ran to the ball well, the DBs were fighting off blocks and they were physical," Harridge said. "It seemed like we were always a step away from a big play, but they wouldn't let us hit it."

Still, Air Force takes some positive from the loss. This doesn't affect the Falcon's two biggest goals -- winning the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy and winning the Mountain West championship. Beating ND would have been nice, but ...

"This one hurts," Harridge said. "It's a good thing to dream about and it is a letdown. It would have been nice to be 7-0 and beat Notre Dame, the big team out there right now, but we're not going to dwell on it.

"We have other goals," he said. "I just hope Wyoming is ready to play."

Joe Wojciechowski is the college football editor at ESPN.com. He can be reached at joseph.j.wojciechowski@espn3.com.