Author: Mike

THE BIRDDOG HALL OF AWESOME: JASON MONTS

On By MikeIn Hall of Awesome, navy football16 Comments

2004 is a year that Navy fans won’t forget anytime soon. The team went 10-2, proved that Navy football was here to stay by repeating as CIC Trophy winners, and finished ranked #24 in both polls. The campaign was capped off with a convincing 34-19 win over a solid New Mexico team at the Emerald Bowl in San Francisco. It was a great game in a great city to wrap up a great season. The win was clinched when the Mids ate up almost the entire 4th quarter with a scoring drive that would last for an NCAA-record 14 minutes and 26 seconds, ending with a Geoff Blumenfeld field goal. Navy fans still talk about “The Drive” as the perfect example of just how soul-crushing this offense can be. What we don’t talk about nearly as much is the play that made that drive possible.

New Mexico had put together a drive of their own and faced 4th and goal from the Navy 1. Kicking a field goal when you’re down by 12 still leaves you needing two scores, so Lobos head coach Rocky Long didn’t hesitate to go for it. Running back D. D. Cox took a handoff and ran to the right, only to be met by a gaggle of Navy’s defensive stars. Cornerback (and game defensive MVP) Vaughn Kelley took him high. Linebacker Bobby McLarin grabbed his legs. Josh Smith came running in all the way from the other side of the formation to get to the ball, and Jeremy McGown stepped up from his free safety position. The referee was knocked to the ground, but when he stood up, he spotted the ball one foot short of the goal line. Navy had held, thanks to the collective effort of some of the season’s most celebrated players. But those guys weren’t alone. Cox was strung out to the sideline, unable to make a cut upfield towards the end zone. And that was thanks to the awesomeness of Jason Monts.

Monts wasn’t the most heralded player on the team, and you won’t find his play reflected on the stat sheet. If there was a stat for being badass, though, this definitely would qualify. When Cox took the handoff, all 6’7″ and 340 pounds of New Mexico tackle Terrance Pennington pulled around the tight end to clear a path to the end zone. Monts met him head on. And despite giving up 6 inches and 120 pounds to the future draft pick, it was Monts that got leverage and moved Pennington backwards. With his lead blocker being pushed back into him, Cox was forced to bounce outside and run toward the sideline, never getting the chance to turn the corner.

We have here a relatively unknown player, refusing to fail, making a play through sheer determination that he probably shouldn’t have been able to make. It wasn’t the most glorious of jobs, but it was his job nevertheless, and he did his part to lead his team to victory. In one play, Jason Monts embodied everything we love about Navy football. And that’s why he gets the nod for the Hall of Awesome.

THIS BLOG NEEDS SOME MORE WANT-TO.

HATS OFF TO CRABTOWN

On By MikeIn navy football57 Comments

Do you guys scan the links once in a while? If you don’t, you’ll miss things like Pete Medhurst’s return to blogging, Patrick Stevens counting down all 120 teams, and BGS talking about plays that didn’t work last year. Of course, we have regular commenters here that are bloggers themselves. You’ll also miss this excellent post on The Sports Arsenal.

TSA is an extremely well-written blog that focuses on The Citadel, but also wanders off into the sporting world in general from time to time. Maybe The Citadel isn’t the first thing you feel like reading about when you fire up the computer, but it isn’t unusual to see parallels between what’s written on TSA and what we talk about here. For example:

I want to start, though, by pointing out something that is obvious, but gets forgotten about sometimes when alums talk about attendance.  For a school of The Citadel’s size, its historical football attendance is great.  Not good, great.  Even in a disappointing year (last season the average attendance per home game was just 12,261), The Citadel had an attendance-to-undergrad ratio of 6 to 1.  Do you know how many schools out there (especially FCS schools) would kill for even a 2 to 1 ratio?  Schools with just 2,000 students and a small alumni base really shouldn’t be doing that well.  It says a lot for the school’s loyal alums and fans that the attendance is as good as it is.

We’ve talked about this a few times. With the number of midshipmen usually hovering just above 4,000, the Naval Academy is one of the smallest schools in all of I-A. Upon graduation, almost all of those newly commissioned ensigns and second lieutenants are sent out to all corners of the country (and the world). It isn’t exactly the best way to create a robust local fan base. Most other schools’ graduates remain within a reasonable distance of campus; reasonable enough to drive a few hours on a Saturday morning, anyway.

Here’s the 2008 top ten in I-A average attendance:

Not surprisingly, every school on this list is a giant state school with at least 20,000 in undergraduate enrollment. But you get a much different list when you take that attendance and divide by enrollment:

I don’t think anyone is surprised to see Notre Dame sitting on top of this list. Clemson and Southern California certainly aren’t a shock, either. The other seven schools on the list, though, aren’t exactly schools you think about when it comes to attendance superlatives. So what does it mean? In Navy’s case, I think it shows just how much community support there is for the football program. Air Force has a higher ratio, but the Falcons are pretty much the only game in town in Colorado Springs. Denver is 70 miles away, and the closest I-A program, Colorado, is 100 miles away. Within 30 miles of the Naval Academy are two NFL franchises, two Major League Baseball franchises, a BCS state school, plus NBA and NHL teams. There is tremendous competition for the area sports fan’s dollar. For small school like Navy to draw nearly 35K per game in this environment is borderline miraculous. Keep in mind that this number does not include Army-Navy attendance, nor Navy-Notre Dame in Baltimore. This is strictly people passing through the turnstiles at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.

For another measure of how well Navy is doing, take a look at the company Navy keeps when it comes to attendance relative to stadium capacity:

You aren’t going to find too many lists with Navy sandwiched in between Ohio State, Florida, and Michigan. There is a lot of demand for Navy tickets, all things considered. Why? I think there are a few factors. One thing that NAAA has done pretty well over the years is that they haven’t marketed only to sports fans. They’ve put a lot of effort into making Navy games events that appeal to entertainment seekers in general, with the march-on, flyovers, tailgating, etc. Annapolis itself is a fun place for just about anybody, which also plays into that theme. The team being good only adds to the appeal. There are also a lot of USNA graduates that end up settling around Norfolk, Oceana, Washington, and Annapolis, which helps offset the the lack more recent grads in the immediate area. But only a little. For the most part, NMCMS is packed with locals.

Anne Arundel County deserves a lot of credit for its support of Navy football.

RICKY TAKES SOME SNAPS

On By MikeIn navy football19 Comments

The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Navy team that day:
They were down by twenty points, with but one quarter left to play.
So when Kaipo’s body failed him, and his hamstring, it went lame,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

The crowd had started to disperse the last time Temple scored.
There were Owls fans talking trash upon the GoMids message board.
With the game all but decided, the silver lining on this crap:
If nothing else at least we would see Ricky take some snaps.

Continue reading “RICKY TAKES SOME SNAPS” →

THINGS YOU CAN LAUGH AT

On By MikeIn air farce, football14 Comments

In life, we’re often forced to make tough decisions. These decisions aren’t always a simple matter of right vs. wrong; sometimes, they’re a little more complicated. Sometimes, our core values are placed in opposition to each other; we find ourselves evaluating what’s truly important to us, and choosing accordingly. I am engaged in such a conundrum even as I sit here punching away at my keyboard. As I weigh both sides of this predicament, I find that my urge to point and laugh at unintentional comedy is greater than my urge to boycott stupidity. With that, I link you to this seemingly insignificant blog entry by the Colorado Springs Gazette writer David Ramsey.

First, a little background. The Air Force Academy has recently revised its media guidelines, making access to coaches and players a bit more difficult. Not surprisingly, Falcons beat writer Jake Schaller thinks this is unfortunate. And it is; those of us who try to keep a finger on the pulse of Air Force football appreciate the work Schaller does, in print and on his blog (even if we disagree about things). Obviously, less access for him means fewer updates for the rest of us. It’s our loss. Schaller used his blog entry to give us all a heads up on how these new rules will affect his coverage. Ramsey, on the other hand, just wants to pick old scabs.

Continue reading “THINGS YOU CAN LAUGH AT” →

I-DAY

On By MikeIn football, I-Day, navy football1 Comment

I-Day was yesterday. Other than the environmental effects from the explosion of new whiteworks smell that is now being carried around the globe via the jet stream, the most important part of I-Day is the official release of recruit lists. As most of you already know, the Naval Academy does not participate in the National Letter of Intent program, so Navy coaches cannot discuss recruits until they are actually enrolled in the school. You can find the football release here.

The coaches don’t talk about recruits until I-Day, but thanks to various media sources we usually already have a pretty good idea of who’s coming. That makes the official release less of a cause for celebration, and more a cause for nervous apprehension as we scan the names looking to see who’s changed their mind since verbally committing. The most unusual part about this year’s class is that there are only two quarterbacks. Normally there are a bunch of them; two or three will end up staying at QB, and the rest are athletic enough to fit in at other positions. Not so this year. We already know that Kavon Seaton left NAPS. Apparently, this year’s QB crop is all headed to Newport first. I’m not panicking, I just found it a little bit strange to only see two QBs.

Anyway, as usual on I-Day, it’s also time to re-post the manifesto.

OTHER PEOPLE’S RIVALRIES AND THE FUTILITY OF DEFENDING AGAINST THE WISHBONE

On By MikeIn football114 Comments

I’m home alone right now, and great googly moogly is it boring around here. My wife is out of town on some urgent family business, so my personal interaction with others has been limited to pushing my cat down every time he climbs up onto my keyboard. That’s not to say that there isn’t any excitement, though. I mean, last week I came home from work one day to discover that the cat had opened the door to the garage, and the dog had learned how to escape from his crate. The two of them proceeded to find the bag of dog food that we keep in the garage, rip it open, engorge themselves, then leave heaping piles of crap all over the carpet. VROOM VROOM DER PARTY STARTER. The thought of an encore makes me feel all tingly.

As exciting as that was, I still look for other, less odorous, ways to entertain myself. Rather than doing anything productive with my free time, my favorite pastime in this situation is watching old games. It’s like my own little ESPN Classic, but without the bowling or world’s strongest man competitions. It’s good to calibrate my memory whenever I get the chance; it’s sort of amazing how the things you think you remember can differ from what actually happened in a game. It’s fun to see players and plays I haven’t thought about in a while, too. The best part about revisiting old games is being able to look at them with a critical eye, but without the inherent emotional bias that you have when watching it live.

Emotional bias really wasn’t a problem for the first game I decided to take a look at– last season’s Georgia Tech-Georgia game. I mean, I wanted Georgia Tech to win, of course, but a loss wouldn’t have had the same marriage-jeopardizing implications for me that most Navy losses do. I know, I know… Georgia Tech again. Blah blah blah. But even if you’re sick of talking about them, there’s still plenty to learn from watching them. They’re like an offensive laboratory for us. It’s not because of what they’re doing themselves, necessarily; I don’t think they’re doing much that we haven’t seen before, although the frequency with which they do a few things is a bit different. It’s really about the opportunity to see how a different group of defenses line up and try to stop the spread option, and to see if there’s any difference in how common opponents (like Duke) try to defend the two teams. I’m kicking myself right now for not having recorded more Tech games this year, but oh well. I’ll be sure to get their games that don’t conflict with Navy’s next year.

Anyway, enough talk of poop and regret. More talk about football. As I was rewatching the game, I took notes on a couple of items that I thought would be of interest to Navy fans. I began this post with the intention of highlighting only those things, but as I got going I figured I might as well break down the whole game like I would any other. In the process of doing so, I was reminded of plays we’ve seen in Navy games past. I decided to go ahead and include that stuff too. It makes for one long, sprawling post. But hey, it just gives us more to talk about in the middle of the summer, right? So off we go.

Continue reading “OTHER PEOPLE’S RIVALRIES AND THE FUTILITY OF DEFENDING AGAINST THE WISHBONE” →

GEORGIA TECH: FRIEND OR FOE?

On By MikeIn football, navy football37 Comments

Paul Johnson may have left the Naval Academy, but I think it’s safe to say that most of us still root for him. It’s hard not to. His offense gave Navy a singularity in the cosmos of major college football; something above and beyond the usual “they play hard for 60 minutes!” type of chatter that seems to come naturally to casual observers of the service academies. College football reporters and talking heads thst covered this ingenious combination of run & shoot and spread option couldn’t seem to decide if the offense was innovative or archaic. Navy fans didn’t care either way. To us, the offense was just something uniquely ours. Of course, with the wins, bowl games, and service academy domination, Johnson could have run pretty much anything and Navy fans would still be happy. Beyond the offense and results he produced, he was also a great interview– sarcastic, straightforward, and funny to listen to. Most of us just plain liked the guy. So as upset as we were when he moved on to what he felt were greener pastures at Georgia Tech, most of us hope he finds the kind of success in Atlanta that he didn’t think was possible in Annapolis. (Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong). Even those of you who might not be pulling for Coach Johnson still get the enjoyment of seeing skeptics of this offense have to eat their words. (Of course, we knew that would happen all along).

(As a side note, how annoying is it to watch the same “experts” who told you how the option would fail in a BCS conference now try to explain to you how and why it works? Meh, moving on…)

But now, the offense isn’t just ours anymore; our friends at Georgia Tech have joined us in the pleasure of hearing the same cliches every year about how the option won’t work.  As fun as it can be having a second chance to see our favorite offense in action each Saturday, do you ever wonder if Paul Johnson being at another school somehow has an adverse effect on Navy? I mean other than the obvious questions people have whenever a new coach takes over a school; hopefully by now you don’t need any convincing as to Ken Niumatalolo’s ability to lead the Mids. But could it be possible that in rooting for Georgia Tech, you are indirectly rooting for Navy’s demise? That Georgia Tech, in using the same offense that helped catapult Navy to success, might somehow be working against the Mids now?

Continue reading “GEORGIA TECH: FRIEND OR FOE?” →

THIS IS WHY WE HAVE A LINK TO THERE

On By MikeIn army-navy6 Comments

Dan Steinberg at the Post’s DC Sports Bog is reporting that the Army-Navy Game will be played at Fedex Field in 2011. Initial reaction:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, I’m not privvy to the inner machinations of the bidding process, so I fully acknowledge that this could very well be the result of an offer that Army and Navy just couldn’t refuse. And if both sides want to continue getting competitive bids from other cities, it’s probably important to throw a bone to someone outside of New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore once in a while. On the surface, though, it kind of stinks. Nobody likes Fedex Field; it’s a soulless, hard-to-access behemoth in the middle of nowhere that looks not unlike the ship that took ET back home. The Navy-Air Force games played there couldn’t get back to Annapolis fast enough.

My biggest concern, though,  is the prospect of 20,000 empty seats at the game. Can Army-Navy really fill 90,000 seats? I hope so. Demand for tickets is probably enough to surpass the 65-70,000 that are available for games in Philadelphia and Baltimore, but 90,000 is a lot. People say that there’s a concentration of alumni and fans in the Washington area, so we’ll see. It didn’t make a difference for the Air Force game. Then again, nobody cares about Air Force.

UPDATE

Navysports.com has the details of the eight-year contract.