Category: navy football

First-time starting QBs for Navy against Notre Dame

On By christianswezeyIn football, navy football, Paul Johnson12 Comments

Now that it’s official that sophomore Trey Miller will start at quarterback for Navy on Saturday in place of injured Kriss Proctor — it will be Miller’s first career start — it’s time to look back on a few other first-time starting QBs who began their careers against Notre Dame.

Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada, Notre Dame vs Navy in Baltimore, 2006

How he got there: Kaheaku-Enhada was named the starter after senior Brian Hampton sustained a season-ending knee injury in the previous game, against Rutgers on homecoming.

How he did: Kaheaku-Enhada had 19 carries for 42 yards and 2 touchdowns. His second touchdown closed Navy’s deficit to 17-14 just before halftime. But the Irish responded with a touchdown before the half, and another to start the second half, etc. Notre Dame won, 38-14, though Navy rushed for 271 yards.

Aaron Polanco, Notre Dame vs Navy in Baltimore, 2002

How he got there:  Starter Craig Candeto sustained a serious ankle injury on the opening drive against the fifth-ranked Irish. So not technically a start for Polanco, though he did start the following week.

How he did: Polanco played the rest of the way and guided Navy to a 23-15 lead with 5 minutes left. Notre Dame scored twice, however, to win, 30-23.

Brian Madden, Navy at Notre Dame, 1999

How he got there: Starter Brian Broadwater sustained a broken clavicle, also on homecoming, in the previous game.

How he did: Fairly well by anyone’s standards. Madden rushed for 168 yards and a touchdown; Navy led 24-21 with around 1 minute 40 seconds left when the Irish converted a 4th-and-10, then scored the winning touchdown soon after.

Ben Fay, Navy at Notre Dame, 1995

How he got there: Fay made his first career start in place of Chris McCoy.

How he did: Behind Fay, Navy led at halftime, 17-14; Notre Dame came back to win, 35-17. Fay played quite well: He threw for 231 yards and rushed for 53.

STOCK MARKET: WEEK EIGHT

On By MikeIn navy football32 Comments

STOCK DOWN: Life. It is cruel. It is filled with stubbed toes and people who cut you off on the freeway. It gives you wonderful things like strawberry milkshakes and carne asada burritos but then makes you fat if you eat them. It is the monster that created Ke$ha and the designated hitter and automatic transmissions. It sucks and there’s nothing you can do about it.

STOCK DOWN: October. What a wimpy-ass month. It can’t bring the heat like August, and it doesn’t have steel to deliver the harsh iciness of December. It’s boring. It’s milquetoast. It’s as spineless as a Conference USA referee.

STOCK DOWN: Flowers. Why do we tolerate things that do nothing but cause allergies and attract stinging insects? Because of the pretty colors? I’ve had pretty red scabs and pretty purple bruises, but nobody’s stopping to smell those.

STOCK DOWN: Washington DC. Every bad decision that the government has ever had? Yeah, it came from this place. How many baseball teams does it have to drive away before people realize how much it sucks? Have you ever tried to park there? They stack 4 signs on top of each other to confuse you into thinking you’re allowed to park somewhere when you really aren’t allowed to park anywhere because the city’s budget is funded entirely by parking ticket revenue. Yeah, like I really wanted to spend my Christmas in Washington.

STOCK DOWN: The letter C. Utterly redundant. It does nothing that K or S can’t handle. Its existence is probably because of some conspiracy by the ink and paper lobby to make books longer. We should all have learned our ABDs, but big business forced C on us. OCCUPY THE ALPHABET.

STOCK DOWN: MY TV. WHY? WHY MUST YOU DELIVER IMAGES OF ANGUISH AND DESPAIR INTO MY HOME?

STOCK DOWN: Puppies. Who the hell wants some hairy mess that turns kibble into poop if it doesn’t even know how to fetch my slippers yet? Yeah, they’re so adorable. As adorable as vet bills and carpet cleaning and hours and hours of training. Get back in your kennel, Fido.

UPON FURTHER REVIEW

On By MikeIn navy football29 Comments

It usually takes me several days to finish a game writeup, but I don’t want to wait until the end of the week to talk about Kriss Proctor’s unsportsmanlike conduct penalty at the end of Saturday’s game. Nobody wants to pick at scabs when discussion is better served by moving on. You can’t really talk about the game without mentioning that debacle, though, so here goes.

I think the flag was justified.

First, I want to refer back to a comment I made after the Delaware game:

(By the way, Kriss might want to cool it with the little “let me hear it” thing he did after that first touchdown. The refs are all flag-happy about that stuff this year. Air Force even had a touchdown called back against South Dakota because one of their players was strutting his stuff as he ran into the end zone. Kriss’ run wouldn’t have been called back since his “celebration” came after he had already scored, but we don’t need any penalties on kickoffs either.)

That comment is sort of ironic now. The fact that there’s a little history here (however innocent it was at the time) makes it hard for me to buy into the whole “well everyone was being chippy the whole game” line. I’m sure they were, but I don’t see that as much of an excuse. If this was just a case of a couple of players jabbering after the play, then yeah, the ref should have just stepped in and told them to knock it off. This was more than that, though. Kriss got up, circled the pile, and intentionally (in my opinion) bumped an Air Force player before getting into his face. That guy plays for Air Force so he probably deserved it, but unfortunately, Kriss deserved the flag, too. If you want to be pissed about the refs, make it about the pass interference flag.

If this happened against Army or Notre Dame, Kriss might’ve had a Bucchianeri moment and be persona non grata in the Hall. Fortunately it was just Air Force, so whatever.