Same defense. Navy’s
punt returner is like the
Maytag repair man.

WON’T ANYONE THINK OF THE POOR BLOGGERS?

Seriously, this short week is a pain. People talk about how it might effect the two teams or how it’ll effect area high school games, but what about MY timeline? I’m supposed to get a game preview out in time for a Friday game, but here it is Thursday and all I’ve managed to do is dupe other people into doing my writing for me. It’s pathetic. Despite the fame, fortune, and good gas mileage that comes with being a college football blogger, I still insist on keeping another job. And even though this blog is my ticket to glory, I sometimes let that other job get in the way. I know, priorities, right? Don’t bother to send the nasty e-mails, I already hate myself. Anyway, on to the game.

Last year I said of Ball State, “If this team was called anything other than Ball State, they’d be fairly highly regarded right now.” And the Cardinals backed up my words, putting together their first winning season in a decade, a bowl game… and of course, beating Navy. So this year, you hopefully don’t have to be introduced to Nate Davis, Dante Love, and Darius Hill. You know that Nate Davis threw for a school record 3,667 yards and 30 TDs last year, with only 6 interceptions. You know that Dante Love was second in the nation in all-purpose yardage in 2007 (206.92 ypg) and racked up nearly 1,400 receiving yards. You know that tight end Darius Hill set another school record with 11 TD receptions last year. You know all three of them are probably going to be drafted. You also know that the Ball State offensive line has a pair of excellent bookends, including Outland Trophy watch listee Robert Brewster. You know they’re good, and can throw the football.

After last year’s game, how could you forget? Nate Davis threw for 277 yards and three touchdowns. Love and Hill were on the receiving end of two of those, and the two combined for 12 catches and 178 yards. As good as they were, though, the real difference in the game was running back MiQuale Lewis. Lewis, who at 5-6, 184 is built more like a Navy slotback than your typical running back, ran for 161 of Ball State’s uncharacteristic 262 rushing yards. Up to that point, Ball State hadn’t really been able to establish a running game, finishing 106th in rushing offense in 2006 and looking lackluster when running the ball in its first two games of 2007. All that changed when the Cardinals took on Navy, and Lewis followed up his performance in Annapolis with 122 yards at Nebraska before suffering a season-ending injury. He’s apparently healthy now, though, and ran for 95 yards on 11 carries in Ball State’s opener against Northeastern.

The “duh” analysis tells us that the top two priorities for Buddy Green will be to stop Lewis, and get pressure on Davis. Most of Lewis’ yardage came in the first half of last year’s game. The Mids did a MUCH better job slowing him down in the second half, and it’s no coincidence that they also held Ball State to 10 points in that same stretch. As for getting pressure on Davis, that’s going to be tough to do without blitzing. Jabaree Tuani came in as a situational pass rusher against Towson and managed to get to the quarterback twice by simply bull-rushing his way there. That’ll be a lot tougher to do against Ball State’s senior tackles. Their guards, though, are a redshirt freshman and a sophomore. Nate Frazier might be able to cause a little trouble inside. No matter how you look at it, though, it’s probably going to be a lot more effective to defend the pass from the front end than it will be on the back end, covering these receivers.

Offensively, Navy is still dealing with some injuries. Jarod Bryant will get the start again, although in a bit of a surprise announcement, Kaipo will, in fact, dress for the game. It still doesn’t appear likely that he’ll see the field, but he will apparently be available if needed. Unfortunately, Andrew McGinn had his bell rung against Towson. He’ll be replaced at RT by Mike Von Bargen. In better news, Greg Shinego and Andre Byrd should be back to give Ivin Jasper a couple more options at slotback.

Even with the injuries, Navy has every chance to put up some big numbers. The Mids put up 521 rushing yards against Ball State in the 2007 game. Let’s take a look at how that happened.

Ball State used a 4-man front on defense against Navy last year. For most of the game they left the A gaps uncovered and had their interior linemen in a 3 technique, responsible for the B gaps. Two linebackers would crash the A gaps on the snap, with the DE (the quarterback’s give key) showing that he was playing the QB and not the FB. The idea was to mess up the quarterback’s read; the QB would read the DE and give to the fullback, who would be met by a charging linebacker or two. Paul Johnson’s adjustment? Run the fullback off tackle:

By running off tackle, the linebackers take themselves out of the play when they charge the A gaps. The fullback runs right by the DE, who is focused on the quarterback. The run support is covering the pitch, leaving open field for Adam Ballard. And just like that, a week’s worth of Ball State gameplanning was thrown out the window.

After that, the linebackers were extremely tentative, which made them easy picking. On the very next play, PJ called the midline option. The linebackers were confused, blocked without problem, and Kaipo ran up the middle for 15 yards:

From that point on, Navy owned the middle of the field. Of Navy’s 521 rushing yards, 395 came from the quarterbacks and the fullbacks. It was the kind of game well-suited for Jarod Bryant, who relieved an injured Kaipo and led the team in a second-half comeback. The lesson here, kids, is that no one trick is going to stop this offense. Your best bet is to vary the looks you give the quarterback on every play. We’ll see if Ball State’s coaches learned their lesson. I can’t imagine they’ll line up the same way.

Whatever questions there are about Navy’s defense will be answered tomorrow. Even if the defense plays well, though, Ball State is going to score some points. The offense will be challenged to keep pace. This is the first game in a long stretch of tough ones, so whatever momentum Navy can get will be valuable. This is Ball State’s first ESPN primetime game at home, so you know they’ll be excited. Here’s hoping Navy can match the intensity.

Because I like you people, I’ve enlisted the help of another Ball State blogger– Brandon from Ball U Nation— to help you get to know the Cardinals a little better. Don’t say I’ve never done anything for you.

The team is coming off of a winning season and a bowl berth. Jason Whitlock is doing his best to deliver what hype he can. There’s a ton of returning offensive talent and a newly renovated stadium to show off on primetime Friday ESPN. How big of a game is this for the Ball State program?

This is a huge game for our program. Our program does not get many chances like this to show a national audience how good our team is and this could do good things for our recruiting profile as well. Obviously, since Jason has been talking up the program lately, it will give us a chance to show college football fans that he is not totally crazy for hyping us as a BCS crasher.

Where does Ball State fit into the MAC title picture in 2008?

Ball State definitely has the talent to win the MAC title, it will come down to the Central Michigan game. I think both teams will only have one or two losses going in to the game, if we can finally get a win over the Chips, then we pretty much have the title in the bag because I don’t see any team that scares me in the East.

Break down the Northeastern game a little.

The Northeastern game was close to perfection for the offense. Nate Davis had one of the best games of his career and completed 80% of his passes, Dante Love and Darius Hill had good games, and Dan Ifft and Briggs Orsbon played well as the second and fourth receiver respectively. Best of all, MiQuale Lewis showed that he’s recovered from ACL surgery and Navy is now going to have to respect the run game as well and will not be able to play off the ball and dare Ball State to run. The defense played relatively well, especially the run defense, but we did look vulnerable to short passes and our pass rush needs to be better at consistently pressuring the quarterback. Shockingly, with the exception of Jake Hogue and his terrible kick-offs, the kicking game was solid and Chris Miller did his usual excellent job as our punter.

The old cliche with MAC recruiting is that they get the Big Ten’s leftovers. But how many Big Ten teams would kill to have the trio of Nate Davis, Dante Love, and Darius Hill?

I know Michigan would kill to have an offense half as good as ours right now, Michigan State and Iowa could also use their services.

Run defense has been a problem for the Cardinals the last couple of years. How is the defense shaping up in 2008?

The defense looked good against Northeastern, the million dollar question being was it because they’re legitimately improved or was it because any defense looks good against Northeastern? I thought the linebackers looked good, although they seemed slow to react to a couple of screen plays and the secondary, Trey Buice in particular, did a good job as well. The big question mark in 2008 is once again the defensive line. The ends were able to get some pressure against Northeastern, but the season will come down to the play of the defensive tackles. If they can maintain their gaps and keep the linebackers clean consistently, we should be good defensively. If they cannot…well, it’s a good thing we have such a high-powered offense, we’ll need it because we’ll be in a shootout every week.

Thanks to Brandon for the view from Muncie. Be sure to head over to his site for my answers to his questions.

It’s hard to believe that it was four years ago today that he died. Take a minute to remember him and pray for his family.

Phil Friend is the proprietor of the fine internet establishment known as The Sixth Ball Brother, a Ball State blog that you might have noticed has occupied a place on my blogroll for a while now. He was kind enough to answer a few questions on Ball State football.

You have two degrees from Ball State. You’ve been a Cardinals fan for a long time. That means you’ve seen a lot of bad football. If anyone can relate to the joy of finally winning football games after years and years of losing, it’s a Navy fan. How special was last year for you, and how does it feel to go into a season with such high expectations?

In all honesty, while last year was pretty special, it had a chance to be so much more. The near-miss at Nebraska, the &^#*# loss to Miami in the opener, and we laid down against Indiana and Central Michigan in the biggest game of the year.

All that being said, I’ve never been as excited for a season as I am now. We’ve been patiently waiting for this since Nate arrived on campus and now the time is here. I know I’m not the only BSU fan to feel this way, but sometimes I have to pinch myself when I hear everyone talking about how good we can be. We aren’t that far removed from the 21-game losing streak and Bill Lynch running our program into the ground. We’re also not too far removed from Curtis Painter and the North Dakota State quarterback from each throwing for more than 400 yards against us. So I try my best to stay grounded.

What concerns do you have for the team going into this season?

If Nate gets hurt, we are up S creek. Tanner Justice is not very good. Also, like every year, our defense. It’s like Swiss cheese, there are a lot of holes. You guys know that, you tallied 524 rushing yards against us last year…yet lost :), which still makes me smile. Basically, our offense is unstoppable as long as we stay healthy. Our defense is the complete opposite.

Nate Davis, Dante Love, and Darius Hill are pretty well known to any hardcore college football fan. Who else should Navy fans keep their eyes on in this game?

I didn’t know we had anyone else on our team! But you guys should be familiar w/ our 32-year old defensive end Brandon Crawford, he blocked the field goal in last year’s game. Offensively, any number of guys could have a big day against Navy’s D. But WR Dan Ifft may be someone to watch out for.

The running game hasn’t been Ball State’s strength the last couple of years (on either side of the ball). But MiQuale Lewis ran for 161 yards against Navy last year, and was on his way to a similar performance against Nebraska before an injury knocked him out for the season. Is Lewis healthy? And is the running game a point of emphasis for the offense this season?

By all indications, yes, he’s healthy. And he’s a huge part of our offense. I think we all breathed a huge sigh of relief when he took his second carry of the game 48 yards against Northeastern. But he’s only 5-4, and each of his past two seasons have ended early because of injury. If we’re going to go 12-0, 11-1 or 10-2, Lewis will have to be healthy and the running game does need to be a point of emphasis.

As a Ball State fan, what is your perception of Navy both as a team and a program?

I don’t think I have a bad thing to say about the Naval Academy. From all accounts, they treat everyone with class. But as a team, you definitely think triple option when you hear Navy.

Thanks to Phil for doing my job for me and providing me with content for my humble corner of the internet. Make sure to check his site for my answers to his questions as well as his breakdown of the Cardinals’ opener against Northeastern. I may have one more Q&A exchange for you this week, so stay tuned.

It might have been vanilla, but don’t call it bland!

Navy kept things simple yesterday while beating Towson, 41-13, in front of a season-opening crowd of 31,613. What was billed as a history-making day for Towson, playing their first I-A opponent in school history, became a history-making day for Shun White. White ran for three touchdowns on a school-record 348 yards, and is spending his Sunday as the toast of Annapolis. White broke Eddie Meyers’ 27 year-old record of 298 yards, set against Syracuse in 1981.

Ken Niumatalolo laid it out in his press conference after the game. “We didn’t try to get too sophisticated out there,” the Navy head coach said after his successful regular-season debut. White’s 348 yards might not seem to say “simplicity,” but when you think about it, it really does. Almost as amazing as all those yards is the fact that White had 19 carries. That’s usually about 3 games’ worth of carries for a slotback in this offense, and it shows how Ken and offensive coordinator Ivin Jasper kept things basic. Rather than the usual mystery that comes with identifying the ballcarrier on each play in the Navy offense, the gameplan this week was simply to get the ball to Shun White.

It was the winning move in the proverbial chess match of football coaching. Towson head coach Gordy Combs had done his homework:

We thought that with Bryant coming in as quarterback, they might be more conservative with Kettani on the dive and we did a good job on stopping that. Maybe we should have spent more time on stopping the pitch.

Hey, you’d think the same thing if you saw Bryant’s last start, a 35-24 win over Northern Illinois last year. Just about everything was kept between the tackles, with Bryant and the fullbacks getting most of the carries on designed handoffs and midline options. But in one of those “he knows, but I know that he knows and he doesn’t know that I know that he knows” things, Coach Niumat saw it coming.

“We gave [Shun] a challenge early on in the week… that this is what we were going to do. We were going to ride him if they were going to take away Eric.”

And sure enough, taking away Eric Kettani is exactly what Towson set out to do, sticking 8 men in the box and selling out on the fullback. And with that, Shun’s run to the record book was born. It didn’t even matter that Towson’s coaches knew what was coming:

We had some difficulties with Shun White. We figured out after the 1st quarter what they were trying to do. They were trying to put him in position to be the pitch man or the toss guy and we knew it and made some adjustments. We tried to stop him and just couldn’t. They did a good job of blocking along the perimeter.

(LOL @ “some difficulties,” by the way.) That’s a credit to the offense’s execution. Speaking of which, if you’re playing defense against Navy this year, I recommend that you keep an eye on Curtis Sharp. Holy crap he was laying some blocks out there that would cure cancer, they were so incredible. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

I haven’t gone back to actually count it all up yet, but I’d estimate that about 90% of Navy’s plays on offense consisted of one of three plays: triple option, counter option, and toss sweep. I know the joke is that Navy only runs 5 or 6 plays anyway, but that’s only half-serious. And with Towson selling out on the fullback on every play, it made the reads on those option plays really, really easy to make. And when you make things easy for an option quarterback, you’re pretty much screwed.

So why would Coach Niumat want to keep things simple anyway? Probably to keep anything interesting off of Ball State’s radar. Like I said before the game, Navy should beat Towson. So if you can win without tipping your hand to your next opponent, you do it. As obvious as it was on offense, it was almost as obvious that was the plan on defense, too. After Towson converted their first 3rd & long, I got a really sick “oh no here we go again” feeling in my stomach. But as the game wore on, it was obvious that Buddy was doing as little as he could get away with. He almost never sent more than three or four rushers in to get Towson quarterback Sean Schaefer, and the secondary was playing even softer than they usually do. That is, until the 4th quarter. As Towson made its way into Navy territory late in the game, Buddy finally put in a blitz package or two. And when he did, the Mids teed off on Schaefer for three sacks.

It’s hard to get a good idea of any improvement that might have been made on defense, since Towson, while competent in what they do, is no Ball State. Still, there were some definite signs of good things to come. The front seven played well. The linebackers didn’t miss many tackles and were all over the field. The defensive line caused trouble all day. I’d say that Nate Frazier was unstoppable, but Towson discovered that if you just tackled him on every play, he’s a lot more manageable! Jabari Tuanee, one of the more exciting recruits from this year’s class, got into the game at DE and pitched in with a pair of 4th-quarter sacks. Clint Sovie had 8 tackles, and he and Ross Pospisil combined to break up 5 passes.

A clear improvement over 2007 was Jon Teague’s kickoffs. Teague booted his first one deep into the end zone for a touchback. The rest weren’t as deep, but they had terrific hang time and allowed the coverage to get down the field to make the play. Towson’s average starting field position was their own 20 yard line, and a lot of that was thanks to Teague. If the Navy defense is improved at all, giving them a little more field to work with only helps them that much more.

All in all, it was a good game. Jarod Bryant ran the offense well, the defense showed a little life, and Shun White made Navy history. The good feelings will be short-lived, though, as the Mids have to get right back to work to prepare for one hell of a Ball State team on Friday night. Still, the opener was everything Navy fans wanted it to be, and a good debut for the new coaching staff.

Eric Kettani
is on my fantasy team.
Sadly, not Shun White.

For those who do not already know, I graduated from our fair academy in 1999. ’99 was the incredible shrinking class, dwindling to less than 900 by the time we graduated. In fact, an unusually high number of ’99ers were separated in the few weeks preceding graduation. The joke around the class back then was that graduation better get there soon, because at the rate things were going there wouldn’t be anyone left to graduate. I find myself feeling the same way now, as the beginning of another Navy football season is finally upon us after a slew of injuries in practice. Most offseasons tend to be pretty dull, but not this year. With coaching upheaval, ASO drama, and injuries galore in fall camp, the last 8 months have been a confusing and occasionally frustrating time. Usually people get fired up with the start of a new season, but this year it’s almost calming to finally be able put aside everything else and simply focus on one game and one opponent. And in week one, that opponent is Towson.

Any time Paul Johnson wanted to knock his Navy teams down a peg or two, he’d gather them up after practice and ask “how many of you were recruited by Maryland” or “how many of you were recruited by Duke” or whoever the opponent happened to be that week. Nobody would raise his hand. PJ’s point was to show the players that the teams Navy plays each week are usually more talented; and if you aren’t going to out-talent a team, you had better outwork them. Unfortunately for Coach Niumatalolo, it’s a motivational tool that isn’t available to him this week; Towson probably recruited several of Navy’s players, at least the ones from the Mid-Atlantic states. So perhaps motivation is the reason why Navy can beat Pittsburgh and Notre Dame, but lose to Delaware. Or why Navy can go 10-2 and finish at #24 in both polls, but struggle to put away Northeastern. Or why a one-point squeaker over UMass is sandwiched between victories over a Pac-10 team and a bowl-bound Conference USA team. Or maybe it’s because the talent level isn’t as different as we want to think. Either way, except for a 37-10 win over VMI in the 2003 opener, Navy hasn’t exactly played its best football against I-AA opponents.

That said, I don’t want to start going overboard Lou Holtz-style here. Towson is a work in progress, both as a football program and as a university. The school is growing, having been tasked by the state system in 2003 with expanding its enrollment to 25,000 students over 10 years. The plan to make that happen is called “TU 2010.” Part of the plan is to “develop a Towson ‘Brand’ to bring the Towson story to the external community,” and to “make the arts and athletics key components of campus life and use both as links to the external community.” Translation: fire up the football program! And they have. Towson (or Towson State back then) was once a Division III team that saw occasional success at that level, even advancing to the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl in 1976. From 1979-1986, the team played in Division II, and was a playoff regular towards the end of their run at that level. In 1987 the team made the jump to I-AA. Towson was a member of the non-scholarship Patriot League from 1997-2003. They joined the cream of the I-AA crop, the A-10 (now CAA), in 2004. This will be their second season with the full compliment of 63 scholarships. The Tigers have had some modest success, too, with winning seasons in both 2005 and 2006. A lot of that success, though, came from a less-than-stellar non-conference schedule. And last year, when there wasn’t enough scholarship depth to make up for a rash of injuries, the team struggled to a 3-8 record.

Nevertheless, the theme for Towson football is growth, and their game at Navy is a big part of the plan. Those non-conference schedules are getting a jolt. This weekend’s contest at Navy will be the first game against a I-A opponent in Towson history. It’ll be the first of several, with games against Maryland, Northwestern, and Indiana on tap for the future. Towson will get some cash from these games, of course, but they’ll also help to raise the profile of the school. It’s a big deal, and Towson fans know it; they’re apparently coming by the busload. Good for them if they can pull it off. Good for us if they buy tickets and spend money! But enough of that namby-pamby, feel-good nonsense. There’s a football game to be played!

Towson is a good opening opponent for the Mids. Navy should win, but not before Towson puts them to the test on both sides of the ball. Offensively, Towson does exactly what Navy couldn’t handle last year: throw, throw, run a draw play, then throw some more. Towson’s entire offense ran for fewer yards (754) than either Kaipo or Eric Kettani last season; on the flip side, the Tigers threw 38 passes per game, including a Hawaii-like 60 attempts in the season finale against James Madison. This presents a tremendous opportunity for the Navy defense to show how far it has come since the nightmare of 2007. Navy couldn’t stop much of anything last year, but what it really, REALLY couldn’t stop was a controlled, short-yardage passing attack. Delaware, North Texas, Ball State… All of them utilize the same kind of spread-em-out-and-throw-it-around style that Towson does, and all of them moved the ball at will against Navy and their 119th-ranked pass efficiency defense. Towson doesn’t have the same talent as these schools (although they certainly played better defense than Navy did against Delaware), but schematically they are more or less identical. So it won’t take long to be able to tell if the defense has made the kind of improvement we think it has.

Towson is led by the QB-WR tandem of Sean Schaefer and Marcus Lee. Schaefer is a four-year starter who leads all active I-AA quarterbacks in career passing yards and will become the most prolific passer in Towson history barring injury. Schaefer completed 61% of his passes last year, but 19 were to the wrong team. Bad decisions come when pressure is applied, so it’s no surprise that where there are a lot of interceptions, there are a lot of sacks. Towson’s injury problems were particularly bad on the offensive line last year, and Schaefer went down 39 times. While they’re healthy now, Towson is still starting three sophomores up front. With the pass rush being the #1 problem on Navy’s defense last year, this could be a good chance for the defensive line to gain some confidence to start the season. Getting pressure on Schaefer might not mean that all of Navy’s problems are solved, but not getting pressure on the Towson signal caller could mean big trouble with Nate Davis waiting next Friday night.

Lee is a preseason all-conference selection after catching 66 passes for 680 yards in 2007. A prototypical posession receiver, the 6-2, 202 lb. Lee is remarkably consistent; he caught at least 5 passes in 8 of Towson’s 11 games last year, including three 9-catch games. He’s joined in Towson’s 3-receiver lineup by what has to be the biggest physical contrast of any receiving corps in college football. Tommy Breaux is a 6-8 forward on the Towson basketball team that gives Schaefer a huge physical mismatch with pretty much anyone, especially in red zone jump-ball situations. Healthy again after missing most of last season with a foot injury, Breaux is a fade pattern waiting to happen. At a lower altitude is the 5-9 Dave Newsom, a transfer from regular NAPS rival Nassau CC. Newsom turned heads at Towson’s spring game, catching 7 passes for 60 yards and two touchdowns. The three of them combine to form a receiving corps that gives opponents a little bit of everything to deal with.

The stereotypical college football team that likes to chuck the ball around as much as Towson does usually has a pretty lackluster defense. But that wasn’t the case here; Towson had a top 50 I-AA defense in 2007, and was top 30 in scoring defense. That performance earned defensive coordinator Bob Benson an associate head coaching job at the D-II Colorado School of Mines. Replacing Benson is former Yale assistant Jeff McDonald. McDonald is keeping Benson’s 3-4 scheme, which probably means Ivin Jasper will see a lot of odd-man fronts. This puts Ken Niumatalolo’s decision to move Ricky Moore to center in the spotlight right away. Moore, at 6-4, 295, is a lot bigger than Antron Harper or any other Navy center of the last few years. Niumat moved him from tackle to center specifically to handle odd-man fronts, where the nose guard is usually lined up directly over the center. He felt that Moore’s size would help neutralize the big interior linemen that Navy will face. That theory gets its first test on Saturday as Moore will line up opposite Yaky Ibia, Towson’s 6-2, 295-pound nose guard. Moore has reportedly struggled against Nate Frazier in practice and has been a focal point of the offense’s problems in fall camp. How he handles Ibia will be a good indicator of whether Moore is struggling, or if Nate is just that damn good.

The biggest question on offense, though, is at quarterback. Kaipo is reported to be making progress with his hamstring, but hasn’t practiced in pads in quite some time. Jarod Bryant has been getting all the snaps at QB with the 1st team offense and will probably start. Bad news? No. It isn’t good news, of course– I’m sure everyone here is well aware of my Kaipo-worship, and he is without a doubt the best quarterback on the roster. And everyone is also well aware of my criticism of Jarod in the past as not being as sharp in handling the offense. But that was then, and this is now. One of the patterns that we’ve seen over the last 6 years is the maturation of Navy quarterbacks between their junior and senior years. In 2002, Navy was a fumble factory. Fans were calling for Craig Candeto to be benched in favor of Aaron Polanco. Then Polanco got the start against UConn, and the offense laid an egg in a 38-0 loss. After Candeto graduated, fans wondered how Navy would replace him. But Polanco stepped up to deliver one of the most clutch seasons in Navy history in 2004. Then we had Brian Hampton, who received the exact same criticism as Bryant his sophomore and junior years– he just didn’t have a handle on the offense. But once it was his turn to start in 2006, he ran the offense just fine. It isn’t magic. It’s just the result of getting one more season of reps in practice. I’m confident that we’ll see the same thing in Jarod Bryant. He won’t be as good as Kaipo, but there’s no reason why he won’t be every bit as good as Candeto, Polanco, Owens, and Hampton. And that’s good enough. That said, we clearly want Kaipo back so both of them can get onto the field. But with the offense likely safe in Jarod’s hands, it isn’t worth risking Kaipo for the season by rushing him back for the first game.

A healthy Towson team is clearly better than last year’s 3-8 record. They aren’t the most talented team Navy will face this season, obviously, but they have a capable offense and a proven defense. They will put Navy’s 2007 weaknesses to the test right away. Close your books, sharpen those #2 pencils, and add whatever other test-taking cliche you can think of. It’s time to get started!

You know, when our offense was OMG TEH AWSUM and our defense made little children cry? Yeah, about that…

“We stink on offense right now,” said Navy head coach Ken Niumatalolo. “That is two weeks in a row the defense has come out and whipped the offense’s butt. I don’t think I’ve ever been involved in a scrimmage here where the offense hasn’t scored at least one touchdown. I’ve been here 11 years and this is the first time that has happened. The defense played great and the offense has a long ways to go.”

So, was your first reaction the same as my first reaction?

I mean, that’s two scrimmages in a row now. Our offensive line can’t block anyone, our quarterbacks are dropping like flies, we don’t have a clear backup fullback, and we’re turning to freshmen to give us slotback depth. And this is against a defense that was atrocious last year. But haven’t we heard this all before? Hmmm…

Q. Why don’t you just kind of tell us what you thought about today?

A. I don’t think we’re very good.

Q. Why do you say that?

A. Well, did you watch the scrimmage?

Q. Yes.

A. That’s why I said it.

Q. Too many mistakes and not executing?

A. It’s pretty hard to play when the offensive line is just turning people loose. They’re not even getting in the way of the defense. I hope we’re good on defense.

That is, of course, an exchange between Bill Wagner and Paul Johnson following the second fall scrimmage… of 2004. As you’ll recall, that season Navy ended up 10-2 and ranked in the top 25 of both polls. So I haven’t gone base jumping without a parachute just yet. Things aren’t looking so good, but a wise man once said that things are never as good or as bad as they seem. This definitely does NOT mean that past performance is indicative of future performance. But it might mean that the world isn’t ending. If anything, it’s nice to see the defense getting fired up. That doesn’t mean I don’t have my concerns…

Kaipo’s injury is a bad thing. Not necessarily because we’ll suffer at quarterback, but because we’ll suffer at slotback. Jarod Bryant was turning heads with AND without the ball. With injuries to Andre Byrd and Greg Shinego, that put him on top of the depth chart opposite Shun White. But with Kaipo hurt, Jarod is playing quarterback… and all those injuries are creating a vacuum that might have to be filled by freshmen. Fast & talented freshmen, mind you– but still freshmen. Freshmen filling prominent roles is rarely a situation you want to face.

I say “rarely” instead of “never” because another freshman, Alex Teich, has risen to #2 on the fullback depth chart. If a freshman is going to play, you rather it be because he performed too well to be denied rather than filling a role by default. And the former is certainly what we see here. Both Teich and #3 fullback Wes Holland have reportedly impressed coaches with their quickness, not surprising considering they are both former slotbacks. They’re a definite change of pace from the typical bruising Navy fullback, not that there’s anything wrong with those. Coach Niumatalolo hinted on media day that Kettani might not split very much time this year, but it might be interesting to see how the fullbacks are used if he does.