One of these teams is 3-1. One of them is 2-3. Probably not the ones you would have expected back in August.
Category: navy football
WESTERN KENTUCKY 36, NAVY 27
Lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Postgame Haiku, Vol. 79
Those passes last week?
Wish we could have saved a few.
Maybe then we win.
GAME WEEK: WESTERN KENTUCKY
When people analyze Navy’s run of success over the last decade, one of the most common reasons given for that success is coaching continuity. There’s a lot of truth to that. Navy’s coaching staff has experienced some of the least amount of turnover in the country. But why is continuity so important?
I recently had a conversation with someone about MAC football, and I made the point that it’s difficult for any MAC program to sustain success for very long. As soon as a team gets any good, a school with a bigger budget hires their coach away. Sometimes he’s replaced by someone from the staff that keeps the momentum going, but then he gets hired away and the cycle continues. Hiring coaches is a difficult task, and there’s a measure of luck involved. The more coaches you have to hire, the more likely it is that your luck will run out and you’ll eventually hire the wrong one. That goes for assistant coaches too. Besides, every time you’re forced to hire a new head coach, recruiting takes a hit. It makes it tough to build a winning program.
RUTGERS 31, NAVY 24
Do we even need to see a breakdown of this game?
Postgame Haiku, Vol. 78
What started so well
Went all downhill after that
Rutgers still running
GAME WEEK: RUTGERS
Rutgers is in the Big Ten.
This is a fact. You can see a big “R” logo on the Big Ten website and everything. While my brain knows this, it refuses to accept it. Conference expansion has led to a lot of odd pairings, but Rutgers to the Big Ten has to be the strangest.
NAVY 35, TEXAS STATE 21
At Media Day, it seemed like every other question asked of the players was about high expectations for this season. With 15 returning starters from a 9-win team, that didn’t come as much of a surprise. There wasn’t much we didn’t know about the Navy team back then. There certainly was on Saturday, though, with Tago Smith replacing an injured Keenan Reynolds at quarterback against Texas State. Now there was an element of the unknown. How would Navy react to its new signal caller? How well would Tago direct the offense?
Pretty well, as it turns out.
Postgame Haiku, Vol. 77
No Keenan? Just win.
I don’t care how they do it.
Mission accomplished.
NAVY 31, TEMPLE 24
Saturday’s game between Navy and Temple was a matchup between a seasoned team with a 3rd-year starter at quarterback against another squad with a roster full of freshmen and sophomores. Unfortunately for Navy, there were moments where you couldn’t tell which description applied to which team.
The Birddog 