Category: navy football

GAME WEEK: AIR FORCE

On By MikeIn air farce, football, navy football21 Comments

Navy’s winning streak over Air Force started back in 2003. The upstart 2-2 Mids came out of Landover with a 28-25 win over a Falcons team that had come into the game 5-0, fresh off a win over conference nemesis BYU, and ranked in the top 25. With another convincing win over Army two months later, Navy had earned its first Commander in Chief’s Trophy in two decades. It had been so long that USNA officials had no interest in waiting for Air Force to ship it to them. The day after the game, deputy athletic director CAPT Greg Cooper was dispatched to Colorado Springs with orders to claim Navy’s prize. He flew to Colorado, rented a U-Haul, loaded it up, and after a few days driving toward the sunrise on I-70, brought the trophy to its new caretakers. One of my favorite images in Navy history came from Craig Candeto and Eddie Carthan bringing the fruit of the team’s hard work to the locker room for the first time:

The trophy has remained in Annapolis ever since. Keeping it there is the football program’s top priority, but not because of rivalries or bragging rights or any other chest-thumping hoopla. The reason is much more matter-of-fact: it is important because the other service academies are Navy’s primary competition in just about everything. These are the schools that are most like USNA. They are who the coaches recruit against. The competition between them is the only apples-to-apples gauge for how the program is doing. After holding on to the trophy for seven years, it’s safe to say that the Navy program is doing pretty well. The road to making it eight years begins Saturday when Navy goes to Colorado Springs to take on Air Force once again.

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GAME WEEK: LOUISIANA TECH

On By MikeIn navy football5 Comments

You aren’t supposed to be looking forward to bye weeks after only two games, but there’s no doubt that Navy could use the time off. To put it mildly, the Mids are banged up. Ricky Dobbs was already coming off of offseason knee surgery; now he can add ankle and groin injuries to his list of maladies. He’ll play tomorrow, but Kriss Proctor is taking snaps with the first team in practice just in case. Other players aren’t so fortunate. Wide receiver Mike Schupp suffered an ACL tear against Maryland when his knee apparently took issue with playing on FieldTurf; he won’t be back until the Army game, if at all. Matt Molloy took a knee to the head in the same game and left with a concussion. It isn’t the first time he’s had his bell rung, and there’s a good chance that we may have seen the last of him. Emmett Merchant also sustained a concussion against Georgia Southern, and will most likely sit out this week. At this pace I fully expect Max Blue to be carted off the field on Saturday to have his “spare ribs” and “bread basket” removed, hopefully without lighting up his nose.

Unfortunately, the Mids have one more game to play before they can limp into their off week. The walking wounded head off to Ruston, LA to face Louisiana Tech in their home opener. It’ll be a different Bulldog team than the one they faced a year ago in Annapolis, as Derek Dooley left Louisiana Tech to become the head coach at Tennessee. His replacement is Sonny Dykes. Dykes come to Louisiana Tech from Arizona, where he worked under Mike Stoops as offensive coordinator. Prior to that he coached under Mike Leach at Texas Tech and Hal Mumme at Kentucky where he was heavily influenced by their “Air Raid” spread offense. Joining Dykes on the Louisiana Tech staff is offensive coodinator Tony Franklin, who coached with Dykes at Kentucky. Franklin is known as a bit of a spread offense guru after his offense put Troy on the map in 2007 with a 41-23 upset of Oklahoma State. Troy would average 453 yards and 35 points per game that season, including an average of 30 points in the three games the Trojans played against SEC competition. Franklin’s success against SEC defenses with Troy’s talent made him an attractive hire for Tommy Tuberville at Auburn, who hired him to install that offense in all of 8 days prior to the Tigers’ Chick-Fil-A Bowl matchup with Clemson. Auburn won that game, and racked up 423 yards of offense in the process. It was all downhill from there for Franklin, though, and Auburn’s failure to move the ball the following season led to Franklin’s firing in less than a year. He rebounded in 2009, with his offense leading Middle Tennessee State to a 10-3 record and a win in the New Orleans Bowl.

Franklin and Dykes are both known for their dynamic offenses, but they’ve had a hard time recreating their past success through two games this season. Grambling held Louisiana Tech to 196 passing yards in week 1, while Texas A&M outgained them 565-269 last week. Part of the problem for the Bulldogs is that they can’t seem to settle on a quarterback. Steven Ensminger was named the starter a week into fall practice, but struggled after that and came down with the stomach flu before the Grambling game. He was replaced by last year’s starter, Ross Jenkins. Jenkins went 15-for-19 passing, but couldn’t get the ball downfield, throwing for only 101 yards. He was replaced by freshman Colby Cameron in the second half, and Cameron started last week against Texas A&M as well. He split time with junior college transfer Tarik Hakmi, who wasn’t even on the depth chart at the beginning of the season; Cameron was the “passer,” while Hakmi was the “runner.” Cameron was named the starter again earlier this week, but it’s a virtual certainty that we’ll see more than one QB from Louisiana Tech tomorrow.

No matter who plays quarterback, his job is going to be to get the ball to wide receover Phillip Livas. Navy fans will remember Livas from his 85-yard punt return for a touchdown in last year’s game. He was second team all-WAC as a kick returner last season, and had a 100-yard return for a touchdown against Utah State. Livas is a force on special teams, but the challenge for Louisiana Tech has always been to find ways to get the ball to him on offense. He was hobbled by turf toe for a large portion of 2009, and at 5-8, 180, he isn’t exactly the biggest downfield target. To offset this, Tech likes to find other ways to get him the ball. Specifically, they will use Livas in the Wildcat and employ him on end-arounds and reverses in the running game. This presents a challenge to a Navy defense that wasn’t the most disciplined against Maryland. Louisiana Tech won’t be able to base their entire offense off of these plays, but if the Mids are out of position like they were against Maryland, the Bulldogs will get enough big gains to generate some points.

On defense, Louisiana Tech is coached by Tommy Spangler, who spent 10 years as an assistant at Georgia Southern and has seen plenty of spread option football. Spangler is a holdover from last year’s staff– for a recap on his defensive game plan against Navy and what Coach Jasper did to adjust, click here. Personnel-wise, Spangler uses sort of a hybrid 4-3 or 4-2-5, with an extra defensive back that can double as a weakside linebacker depending on the situation.

After a lackluster offensive performance against Georgia Southern, the Mids will be anxious to redeem themselves. Hopefully they won’t be so anxious that they try to do too much and make mistakes. The bye week will be a welcome relief for a hobbled Navy team no matter what, but there’s a huge difference between coming in at 2-1 and coming in at 1-2. Navy is the better team, but they were supposed to be the better team the last two weeks, too. It’s time to start playing like it.

GAME WEEK: MARYLAND

On By MikeIn football, navy football7 Comments
...LIKE TYLER SIMMONS.

When I was at the Naval Academy, I had a friend who thought that George Welsh was overrated. He didn’t understand how a team could produce so much NFL talent, yet only manage to go 7-4 every year. I can only imagine what he’d think of Ralph Friedgen, who turns out a ton of NFL talent but has had 4 losing seasons in the last 6 years. That wasn’t always the case; the Maryland alum took over at his alma mater in 2001 and promptly led the Terrapins to three straight 10+ win seasons and an ACC title. Friedgen hasn’t been able to maintain that kind of success, though, and the prevailing theme of the Maryland offseason was the embattled coach’s job security. It didn’t help that former Maryland AD Debbie Yow made it known that she expected at least a 7-5 season out of the football team in 2010. Yow has since departed to take the AD job at North Carolina State, but that probably doens’t do much to comfort Friedgen. New athletic directors tend to have itchy trigger fingers; if they’re going to be held accountable for their football program’s success, they’re going to at least have their own hand-picked guy in charge. (Yesterday, it was announced that Maryland hired Army’s Kevin Anderson to replace Yow.) 

It’s against this backdrop that Maryland heads into tomorrow’s game against Navy. Coming off of last year’s 2-10 debacle, the Terps are a 6-point underdog to the Mids, which belies the considerable talent that they have on their roster. At 6-3, 250, middle linebacker Alex Wujciak is a monster in the middle, piling up 131 tackles to earn a second all-conference selection. Standout middle linebackers have had some success against the Navy offense; Pitt’s Scott McKillop comes to mind. Fellow linebacker Adrien Moten also returns after leading the team in sacks and tackles for loss a year ago. Up front, nose tackle A.J. Francis was a freshman all-American in 2009. On offense, junior receiver Torrey Smith returns after an all-ACC season where he was 6th in the nation in all-purpose yards. Maryland also has considerable depth at running back, led by Da’Rel Scott. Scott missed most of last year with a broken wrist, but in 2008 he ran for 1,133 yards and was named first-team all-ACC. 

Still, 2-10 teams are 2-10 for a reason, and Maryland has their fair share of problems. First and foremost is how to improve an offensive line that gave up 36 sacks last year (110th in the country) and was 105th in the country in rushing offense, only getting 3.1 yards per carry. The defense didn’t fare much better, giving up a horrible 31 points per game and a mediocre 150 yards per game on the ground. Maryland has to improve upon this performance with a team that features only 8 seniors on its offensive and defensive 2-deep roster. That’s no easy task.

Fortunately for Coach Friedgen’s future employment prospects, he has a new tool in his box: quarterback Jamarr Robinson. Robinson played most of the last month of the season and had a few admirable performances, including a 129-yard rushing game against Virginia Tech. With his speed and mobility, Robinson is a throwback to the quarterbacks of Friedgen’s more successful days in College Park. The offensive coordinator in those days was Charlie Taaffe, the former head coach of The Citadel who ran the wishbone both in Charleston and as offensive coordinator for Jim Young at Army. Taaffe wasn’t running the wishbone at Maryland, but with quarterbacks like Shaun Hill and Scott McBrien, he incorporated option elements into his offense. Specifically, he called shotgun zone option plays in one and two-back sets. Nobody would have accused Maryland of being an “option team,” but the quarterback’s mobility and the threat of the option opened up the rest of the offense. It’s something that Maryland has gotten away from in the past few years with more traditional pocket passers like Chris Turner and Sam Hollenbach, but could be making a comeback with Robinson. Zone running and option plays are something that the Navy defense has struggled with, and Maryland looks ready to take advantage of that with Robinson and their depth at running back.

A wildcard in the game is Maryland’s injury problems at tight end. Fall camp was particularly hard on the tight ends, with Devonte Campbell, Lansford Watson, and Notre Dame transfer Will Yeatman all out of the lineup for the Navy game. That leaves sophomore Matt Furstenburg and redshirt freshman Dave Stinebaugh as the only TEs left at the coaches’ disposal. It wouldn’t be a very big deal for a lot of teams, but tight end is an important part of the Maryland offense, used not only as targets in the passing game, but to force the defense to defend additional gaps in the running game. The Terps also like to use a variety of formations to exploit defenses, something Friedgen wrote about in a 2006 article for the American Football Coaches’ Association: 

We attempt to gain advantage through the use of formations, shifts, or motion. Formations are like weapons with which we can attack defenses. Knowing how a particular formation stresses a defense is invaluable when trying to gain an advantage. Some formations can outflank a defense or make it adjust and open up other areas. Other formations force a defense to expand and take defenders out of the box. Reducing a defensive front might create an advantage for an offense that runs the football. If the defense won’t reduce, the advantage is in throwing the football.

Shifting and motion might force a defense to adjust if the offense can make the defense think. It might make the defense a little less aggressive. Some defensive adjustments might give the offense an advantage. If we determine standard adjustment in coverage or in defensive fronts, we try to incorporate them into our game plan. If the defense plays the field or the boundary and tries to keep their adjustments to a minimum, we have simplified the defense, and that can make it vulnerable.

Words from the man himself.

Maryland might have been 2-10 a year ago, but it’s unlikely that they’ll be quite so bad again this year. The question is just how much better the Terps will be. They’re a big, athletic BCS-conference team that runs the ball in ways that the Mids have struggled to defend in the past; but they’re also young, and playing against a Navy offense that requires discipline to defend. Both teams will be able to run the ball, which will make the game quick and possibly low-scoring. Hopefully, Navy’s more experienced team can make fewer mistakes and pull out the win.

DON BROWN AND THE SPREAD OPTION

On By MikeIn football, navy football19 Comments

Maryland defensive coordinator Don Brown is no stranger to the spread option, having faced it several times both as the head coach of Northeastern and at UMass as the defensive coordinator and head coach. His first meeting against Paul Johnson was in the 1998 I-AA championship game. UMass won, although with a 55-43 final score it’s tough to argue that defense had anything to do with it. UMass and Georgia Southern met again in the playoffs the following year, and this time Johnson got the upper hand in a 38-21 quarterfinal victory. GSU piled on 470 rushing yards that day, including 333 from Adrian Peterson alone. In his 4 years at Northeastern, Brown was 2-2 against Tim Stowers’ Rhode Island teams, including another 42-39 shootout. As head coach of UMass, Brown was 3-2 against some pretty bad Rhody teams. His success against spread option offenses has been sort of hit-or-miss.

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