If you voted “no”
On the throwback uni poll,
LOL you’re wrong.

I had the opportunity to show a little appreciation for our fine stadium for Navysports.com, if you’re interested.

Saturday’s game against Western Kentucky University marks the 50th anniversary of the first game ever played at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium. The 1959 Navy team that beat William & Mary will be honored, and Navy will wearing absolutely killer-looking throwback uniforms. Fans will be treated to a vintage car show and commemorative posters of the occasion. It’s going to be quite an event. Of course, Navy games tend to be a bit of an event anyway, with the march-on and flyby and whatnot. WKU (they don’t like to be called “Western Kentucky”) head coach David Elson knows all about it.

“We are looking forward to going to Annapolis to play Navy. I’ve heard great things about the gameday experience up there. We have a lot of our fans making the trip so we look forward to trying to find a way to get our first win.”

This quote reminds me a little of Coach Niumatalolo’s pregame speech before last season’s opener against Towson.

Maybe it will feel a little circus-like this weekend as the Mids take on the Hilltoppers. Overcoming the distraction is just one more challenge for a pair of teams that could use a little bit of focus right now.

Elson’s squad enters the game with an 0-3 record that belies the program’s impressive I-AA history. WKU is the newest member of Division I-A, joining their basketball program in the Sun Belt Conference after having completed the second of two required transitional years in 2008. As a member of I-AA, the Hilltoppers had great success. Jack Harbaugh (Jim’s father) came to WKU as head coach in 1989, after spending two years as an assistant at Pitt. Harbaugh’s teams would win 91 games over the next 14 years, including seven straight winning seasons, four playoff berths, two conference titles, and the 2002 I-AA National Championship. The championship run is a story that could have come straight out of Hollywood; WKU was seeded 15th out of 16 teams, and beat #3 Western Illinois and #2 Georgia Southern on the way to a title game against #1 McNeese State– a team they lost to 38-13 earlier in the year. Harbaugh decided to go out on top, and retired after the ’02 season. He was replaced by Elson, who had been on Harbaugh’s staff since 1996 and had spent the last two seasons as defensive coordinator. The new head coach kept up the pace, beginning his tenure with 5 consecutive winning seasons and two playoff berths. The last of those winning season was a 7-5 campaign in 2007, the program’s first transition year after making the decision to jump to college football’s highest level.

The timing of the Hilltoppers’ move isn’t exactly the best. With the nation’s economy being what it is, most college athletic departments are doing just about anything they can to cut costs, whether it’s getting rid of media guides or taking buses to a few road games rather than chartering a flight. On the other hand, the move to I-A has forced WKU’s football budget to expand from $2.6 million in 2006 to $4.9 million this year, with 25 additional scholarships, increased coaching salaries, an expanded staff, and travel costs to pay for. A $50 million stadium renovation was also part of the I-A process, increasing the capacity of Houchens Industries-L.T. Smith Stadium from 17,500 to 23,500, plus adding new locker rooms, a club section, and a new scoreboard, among other things. To help offset the larger budget, WKU scheduled games on the road at Florida, Indiana, Virginia Tech, Alabama, Kentucky, and this year, Tennessee. With payouts like the $700K the Hilltoppers got from the Vols, games like these sure help the bottom line. They don’t do much for the team’s record, though. WKU went 2-10 last year, with both victories coming over I-AA oponents. After an 0-3 start to this season that included a 63-7 pasting in Knoxville and a 28-7 loss at home to I-AA Central Arkansas, WKU comes into Annapolis with an 11-game losing streak, the longest in the nation. That loss to Central Arkansas last week was especially tough. Nobody expected WKU to stroll into Knoxville and dropkick Tennessee, but there’s no doubt that they scheduled Central Arkansas with the intent of winning that game. They didn’t, and now the hecklers are coming out, taking coaches and players to task and even mocking the very decision to move to I-A in the first place. To their credit, the players say they don’t pay attention to these things. Any time the local paper is doing a story on what you think about the heaps of criticism you’re getting, though, you know things are probably looking bad.

Things probably won’t look too much better for WKU after this week. Life is hard when you only have 11 scholarship seniors; 57 of 85 scholarship players on the WKU roster are freshmen or sophomores. One of those freshmen is quarterback Kawaun Jakes. Adding injury to insult, starter Brandon Smith went out of the game last week with what is being described as a sprained shoulder. Although he’s still listed as first on the depth chart, and said after the game that he didn’t think the injury was too serious, Smith didn’t practice on Tuesday and has been described as “day-to-day.” If Smith isn’t able to play, Jakes will get his first career start. In relief of Smith, Jakes went 9-for-14 passing for 75 yards. Not earth-shattering, but respectable for a freshman stepping into a lousy situation. Enhancing the lousiness is an offensive line that was thought to be a strength of the team going into the season, but has been anything but. WKU has given up 13 sacks through 3 games, including 4 against Central Arkansas. The sack total is even more depressing when you consider that WKU’s quarterback are actually pretty decent runners. Smith actually leads the team in rushing, and had 102 yards on the ground in a 35-13 home loss to USF.

If the Hilltoppers have anything going for them this week, it’s that their coaching staff knows a thing or two about option football. Elson became quite familiar during his time on Harbaugh’s staff, when WKU was more or less an option team. From 1991 through Harbaugh’s final year in 2002, WKU ranked in the top ten in rushing offense each season, the only I-AA team to do so in that span. The 1997 team lead the nation, averaging 332 yards per game. The following year the Toppers rushed for 344.6 ypg and had the ninth-highest scoring offense, averaging 36 points per game. Elson’s defensive coordinator, Mike Dietzel, was Bob Sutton’s running backs coach when Army was running the option from 1995-1999. These guys know how Navy’s offense works, and should be able to craft a solid game plan. Whether a defense that features two freshmen and a sophomore on the line can execute that plan remains to be see.

For the Mids, this is a must-win game. If you’re sick of hearing that phrase, you’d better get used to it; with this year’s schedule, Navy can’t afford to drop what few games they’ll be favored in. Not only that, but with Air Force taking on a pretty terrible San Diego State team this week, they’re more than likely going to be 3-1 and have plenty of momentum heading into next week’s CIC Trophy opener in Annapolis. Navy does not want to be 1-3 and doubting themselves going into that game. The Mids also want to show that the Pitt game was not the kind of offensive performance we can expect from them the rest of the year. Quarterback Ricky Dobbs said that he was “disgusted” with his showing last Saturday, and I doubt he’s the only player to give himself assessment. Coach Niumatalolo called it “probably one of the worst performances we’ve had as a team for our program in a long time.” It will be important to him not only to win the game, but for the offense to redeem itself through its execution. Anything less, and it might be a sign of deeper issues.

After some of his Navy teams’ less-than-stellar performances, Paul Johnson used to say that things were never as good or as bad as they seemed during the game. It wasn’t until the coaches looked at film that they were able to diagnose the root cause of the team’s struggles, and maybe catch a few things they did right, too. After I watched Navy flounder through a 27-14 loss to Pittsburgh on Saturday, I was hoping that I would achieve similar enlightenment. It’s better to wait a couple of days to let the emotion die down and look at the game more objectively, right? So I popped in the DVD, sat in my La-Z-Boy, pressed play, and…

JOHNSON YOU DECEIVER WHY MUST YOU LIE. It turns out that sometimes things are every bit as bad as they seem. That’s unfortunate, because holy guacamole did things seem bad on Saturday. Statistically, the Pitt game ranks as one of the worst offensive performances of the last eight years. The Mids were held to only 218 total yards, with a mere 129 coming on the ground. The passing game was no better, with Ricky Dobbs going 6-for-22 and getting sacked six times. The loss drops Navy to 1-2.

Sometimes the worst part isn’t that you lose, it’s how you lose. I think we all knew that Pitt was going to be a challenging game, with little margin for error if the Mids if they wanted a chance to win. If you give it your best shot but the other guys are just better, there’s no shame in that. Hell, if you listened to some people after the Ohio State game you’d be surprised to discover that Navy didn’t actually win. But if you go out there and just suck eggs through cocktail straws… Well, that’s different. And with the bevy of mental mistakes unleashed by the Mids, I think it’s safe to say that the game ranked somewhere between “Subject of the Naval Safety Center Photo of the Week” and “Orb of Confusion” on the mental acuity scale. First, there were the special teams blunders: a missed 32-yard field goal from pretty darn close to the middle of the field, and Kyle Delahooke somehow misfiring on a punt and dropping the ball to the turf. Then, there were the penalties, including two false starts, a delay of game, and an illegal motion call when the team was attempting to run the hurry-up offense at the end of the first half. These aren’t mistakes of the “trying so hard to make a play that I went a little too far” variety. No, these are straight WTFers. And that’s just the easy stuff; once you start digging, it just gets more frustrating.

Part of the additional frustration comes from seeing that Coach Jasper had what looked like a pretty interesting game plan, if the Mids could have just executed it. You will recall that in last year’s game, Pitt used the middle linebacker to spy on the quarterback with great success, as the Mids consistently whiffed when trying to block him. They employed the same tactic this year, and Coach Jasper was ready for it. First, he ran out of twin WR sets for most of the game. This forced the Pitt defense to adjust their formation, shifting linebackers to the strong side of the field. The MLB was now lined up not in the middle of the formation, but more directly in front of the slotback assigned to block him and making him easier to get to. That was the other adjustment– using a slotback instead of a tackle to block the MLB. The thinking is that a more agile player might be harder for the MLB to sidestep. The playside tackle would instead block the backside linebacker’s inside-out pursuit.

It was screwed up from the beginning.

Let’s take a look. Here’s how the teams lined up on Navy’s second play:

You can see the quarterback’s keys; the dive key is the first down lineman outside of the B gap, and the pitch key is the first defender lined up outside of #1 and within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage. In this case, the pitch key is lined up over the inside wide receiver. Since he’s supposed to be left unblocked, the WR tries to block the run support safety. The slotback attempts to block the charging middle linebacker. Both miss. Ricky pitches the ball before he gets clobbered, but when you pitch off of a defender other than the pitch key, you risk either getting the pitch batted down, or getting the slotback creamed. On this play, it was the latter:

The same thing happened later in the half; this time, the pitch was dangerously close to getting returned the wrong way. Luckily, it ended up being a big gain instead:

Coach Jasper tried to give the slotbacks the chance to block the middle linebacker, but miss after miss forced Navy’s offensive coordinator to change tactics. The adjustment he made was to run a double option, using the fullback instead of the slotback to take out the linebacker. That’s exactly what Alexander Teich did. Unfortunately, the offensive line couldn’t do the same, and this play was stuffed like the others.

Undaunted, Coach Jasper turned to the midline option. With the playside slotback taking a more direct route to the linebacker, he was able to make the block. When Ricky was able to make the correct read, it was an effective play. When Ricky missed the read… not so much.

The aggressiveness of the middle linebacker enabled Coach Jasper to try some other things, too. Navy’s biggest play of the day came on a trap option, with the fullback becoming the pitch man. The play clicked because of an absolute textbook block by Osei Asante as he pulls to take out the defensive end. The play was attempted a few more times, but the pulling guards weren’t able to connect on their assignments.

With the Mids unable to execute any adjustment Jasper tried to make, he decided to come out in the second half with the bread & butter, getting back to basics. Ricky still struggled to make the right read on the give key:

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! The quarterback certainly wasn’t the only player missing his reads. Not giving up, Jasper dipped into last year’s game plan and tried the unbalanced line, with two tackles on the same side of the formation. In the first play, the tackle is supposed to block the middle linebacker. Instead, he ends up blocking the pitch key. The slotback runs right by the LB, since his assignment was to block the run support safety.

In the second play, we have a variation on the same theme. This time it’s the slotback that blocks the pitch key, while his assignment, the run support safety, blows up the play.

It was like this the whole game; a seemingly endless parade of mental miscues. At this point Coach Jasper decided to take his chances throwing the ball, which is a whole other ball of wax. Navy threw 22 passes in this game, but that stat is a tad misleading. The Mids only attempted four passes, including one sack, through the bulk of the first half. It wasn’t until they got the ball back about a minute before halftime that they really took to the air, with four more pass attempts (plus another sack) on that possession alone. Another 13 attempts came in the fourth quarter, as Coach Jasper attempted to climb out of a 3-score deficit. Contrary to what some people believe, with 17 of Ricky’s 22 pass attempts coming in hurry-up situations, the game plan was not to step onto Heinz Field and start chucking the ball left and right. That’s a good thing, too, considering that the offense has given up 8 sacks in the last two weeks. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

For all my bellyaching about the offense, I am yet again encouraged by the play of the defense. After games against three bowl teams from a year ago, including Ohio State and a Pitt team expected to contend for the Big East crown, Navy’s defense has given up a shade under 300 yards per game this season. That’s a 50 ypg improvement over the 2003 and 2004 defenses– which were the best since Buddy Green came to Annapolis– against far stronger competition. After the opening drive, Pitt’s average starting field position on their scoring drives was their own 43-yard line– including the field goals. When the Navy defense was given some room to work with, they came through. Dion Lewis, the latest Pitt running back to make waves as a freshman, was held to a mere 79 yards rushing after running for 190 a week earlier. Even more importantly, the renewed emphasis on third dows over the spring and fall practice periods appears to be paying off, as the Mids held Pitt to only 5 of 15 on third down conversions. Yes, the defense gave up some crucial pass plays, but that’s going to happen, especially against BCS-caliber teams. So far the defense is turning out to be everything we expected it to be, and maybe a little more.

(By the way, the new official Birddog’s Favorite Player is Blake Carter. If “Thou shalt not miss an open-field tackle” was one of the Ten Commandments, then Blake Carter would be Pope.)

If you think about it, though, the offense is turning out the way they were expected to as well. I think that after the performance against Ohio State, people forgot how green the offense really is. Now might be a good time to recalibrate your expectations. Ricky is starting as a junior at a position where most of his counterparts have been seniors. The exceptions were Craig Candeto in 2002, who spent half the season hearing calls from fans for Aaron Polanco to start; and, of course, Kaipo, who ran this offense in the womb. Ricky doesn’t have the same luxury of learning over time, and is himself surrounded by other young players. These guys are learning on the job; talented enough to nearly pull a gargantuan upset, but inexperienced enough to potentially turn any game into a stinker like we saw against Pitt. It isn’t time to panic; it’s just important to understand that there is a learning process here that has been compressed.

Man, that really sucked.
Seemed like the team left their brains
In Annapolis.

Some games are just good for the soul. For me, Pitt is one of those games. Like any other BCS school not named Notre Dame, I certainly don’t want to see Navy play them every year; it’s just not a smart thing for a service academy to do. But once in a while, it feels good to see the Mids take on some of their old Eastern Independent rivals like Pitt, Syracuse, and Boston College (who knows if we’ll ever see Navy play Penn State again). Pitt has appeared on the Navy schedule off and on since 1912, when the Mids fought back after falling victim to an early goal line stand and came from behind to win, 14-6. Indeed, the Mids and the Panthers have a long history of notable games. In 1963, Pitt was undefeated and ranked #3 in the country when they came to Annapolis to take on the #11 Midshipmen. Four interceptions propelled Navy to a 24-12 win; it would be Pitt’s only loss of the season. Pitt won the national championship in 1976. Along the way, Tony Dorsett became the all-time rushing leader during his 180-yard, 3 TD performance at Navy. A different Pitt running back, Craig “Ironhead” Heyward, willed the Panthers to another victory over Navy in a 10-6 slugfest in 1987. And of course there was the Mids coming out on top in a 48-45, two-overtime thriller twenty years later. That was a great win for Navy, and one that I think is a bit underappreciated by some newer fans that don’t yet have a feel for the history between the two schools.

While I might be giddy with nostalgia whenever I think of the Navy-Pitt series, Pitt’s coaches don’t appear to be as excited. Every once in a while we come across coaches, especially from BCS conferences, that talk a little too much about the cut blocks that are such an integral part of the Navy offense. Stanford did under Walt Harris for example, as did Tom O’Brien at Boston College. Dave Wannstedt is one of those coaches. Back in 2007, it was all about having his linemen wear shin guards during practice. Last year, Wannstedt spent his press conference talking about his players getting “chopped.” This year, Wannstedt has resumed the chop block talk:

“They do a lot of chopping and cut blocks on the perimeter,” said Wannstedt, whose Panthers (2-0) play Navy Saturday. “There is no soft way, there is no non-physical way to simulate it without getting out there in full speed with full pads, and so today we’ll be out there doing it.

“You take a chance [of injury to defensive linemen]. We’ve always had conversations about taking a risk with our players, but we’ve always come to the conclusion that for us to play effectively Saturday we need to see it, and so we take a little bit of chance by going full speed and doing chop blocks.”

DUDE, WE GET IT. You’d think that there would be something else to talk about after three years of playing Navy, but I guess not. Wannstedt has been a football coach for 35 years. When he played, he was an offensive lineman. He is aware of the difference between a cut block and a chop block. He knows what he’s doing by saying Navy “chops;” he’s 1) buttering up officials, and 2) telling his AD that he doesn’t want to play Navy anymore. They’re a dirty spread option team, after all.

Despite Wannstedt’s wishes, his Pitt team will face Navy at Heinz Field on Saturday. There’s no TV for the game, which is somewhat surprising for a game between Navy and a team considered to contend for the Big East crown. If you want to watch, you need access to ESPN360, plus a computer and internet connection with the heft to handle it. It sucks not to see the game, but you could do a lot worse than listening to Bob, Omar, and John.

The team lined up against the Mids on Saturday will be a lot different from the one that thumped them 42-21 a year ago. Pitt’s convincing victory came on the backs of its star players. LeSean McCoy ran for 156 and 3 touchdowns, while middle linebacker Scott McKillop led the defense with 9 tackles to help contain the Navy rushing attack to only 194 yards. McCoy is now in the NFL, which might make Navy fans optimistic about the Mids’ ability to improve their performance this time around. But McCoy wasn’t the only back that ran all over the place that afternoon; LaRod Stephens-Howling punched in two TDs of his own, and Conredge Collins– the fullback— averaged 5.6 yards per carry whenever Pitt’s coaches felt like giving McCoy a break. There was no questioning McCoy’s ability, but the reality was that it wasn’t McCoy’s overwhelming talent that did the Mids in. Pitt just manhandled Navy.

Although the Panthers have a new offensive coordinator in Frank Cignetti, there’s little doubt that they’ll try to do the same this year. The offensive line features three seniors and a redshirt junior, and averages 293 pounds. In two games against Buffalo and Youngstown State, the Panthers have continued to show a commitment to running the ball, averaging 30 carries and 3 TDs per contest. The main beneficiary of this dedication has been McCoy’s replacement, tailback Dion Lewis. A 5-8, 195 lb. freshman from Albany, Lewis is smaller than McCoy, but that hasn’t mattered. He ran for 129 yards and two TDs in his debut, then followed it up with 190 more yards last week. Lewis is also the team’s second-leading receiver, with 8 catches. While it’s hard to jump to conclusions after two games with Youngstown State and Buffalo, the Pitt running game appears to be picking up right where it left off.

The Navy defense, however, is not, at least not from where Pitt last saw them. The Mids’ run defense in its first two games has been an absolute revelation. Louisiana Tech, believe it or not, was a top 30 rushing team in 2008. Last week against Navy last, they had only 11 yards. Ohio State had a top-flight running back of their own that they were looking to replace. The Mids held the Buckeyes to a respectable 153 yards on the ground. Even better than respectable is the way that Navy forced Ohio State to get those yards; very few came by running between the tackles. Most of that yardage came when Ohio State started running the option with Terrelle Pryor in the second half. The threat of a running quarterback is one thing that Navy won’t have to worry about this week, which could potentially make Pitt a better matchup for the Mids. Even if Navy doesn’t completely shut down the Pitt offense– and let’s be real, they won’t– the Mids have shown that they at least won’t be steamrolled again.

Pitt’s domination in 2008 was not limited to their running game. The Panthers were just as effective with their run defense, holding Navy to 100 yards below their season average. The key to Pitt’s gameplan was McKillop, who Navy simply wasn’t able to block. From his middle linebacker position, he was able to spy on Jarod Bryant on any triple option play, getting more or less a free shot at the quarterback at or near the line of scrimmage. Coach Jasper tried to adjust, even moving an extra tackle to the play side just to block McKillop; but the Big East defensive player of the year just ran around him. While defensive coordinator Phil Bennett says he’ll have some “new wrinkles”for Navy this year, it’s unlikely that he’ll stray too far from something that worked so well a year ago– especially if Adam Gunn keeps playing like he has. Gunn, granted a sixth year of eligibility after missing nearly all of 2008 with a broken neck, clearly intends to make the most of his second chance at football life. He already has five sacks through two games and leads the team in tackles with 19. Whether he’s as difficult to block as McKillop remains to be seen.

If Pitt does more of the same this year, it will be once again up to the tackles to make that block. If they are unable to do so, expect to see similar adjustments; an extra tackle, counters, some double option with the fullback assigned to block the MLB, or maybe even taking Teich outside on a fullback option. The Panthers aren’t quite as big up the middle as they were last year, so running the QB/FB midline might be a good way to force the middle linebacker to stay home. Coach Jasper tried that in last year’s game, only to see his o-line get repeatedly shoved into the backfield. That’s also a trend that will need to be fixed if Navy intends to take advantage of that great arm that Dave Wannstedt keeps hearing about.

Any BCS team, especially conference title contenders like Pitt, are going to be a huge challenge for Navy. With the defense playing the way it has, though, I don’t think it would be a stretch for the Mids to have a shot in this game. Easier said than done, maybe, but doable all the same.

This is what awesome waiting to happen looks like.

Let me begin by apologizing for not writing anything last week. I drove up to Washington on Tuesday, and didn’t have internet access for the rest of the week. It wouldn’t have mattered even if I did, as busy as I was. Busy, but in a good way. I had a fantastic time, which included meeting quite a few readers. If you weren’t one of them, please don’t hold it against me. The one thing I learned from this trip is that I don’t visit Annapolis nearly as often as I should; with any luck we’ll be able to meet up on my next expedition to the far reaches of the Mid-Atlantic. To those I did meet, thank you. It’s hard to imagine a better time than the one I had.

My itinerary for the week included attending practice on Wednesday and Thursday. I’m always amazed at the coordination and efficiency of a Navy football practice. I’m sure it’s the same with most any Division I team, but I don’t attend their practices, so I’ll continue to be awestruck at Navy’s. Other than marveling at the organization of it all, though, I really have no idea what in the hell I’m looking at. I mean, sure, I can see what plays are being practiced, but when I read posts on message boards saying “great practice today!” I think to myself, how can you tell? I never can. Is that assessment based on how much the coaches yell? Dropped balls? Missed tackles? I don’t know. Every practice looks good to me. Despite my woefully untrained eye, the one thing I was sure of was that there would be no hangover from the Ohio State game. The coaches would have none of that. There was a very “business as usual” atmosphere; the coaches were upbeat, but there was no tolerance for mistakes. Louisiana Tech might win, I thought, but not because Navy wasn’t going to give them their best effort.

Six minutes into Saturday’s game, there was little doubt left in my mind that I was a complete idiot. After Phillip Livas returned a punt 85 yards for a touchdown, Louisiana Tech had a 14-0 lead before Navy even had a first down. The game had “letdown” written all over it. Fortunately, my judgement of the Navy coaches’ psychological prowess was eventually redeemed as the Mids scored on their next three possessions while completely stuffing the Bulldog offense, turning the 14-0 deficit into a 32-14 thumping before an underwhelming crowd of 29,102. Navy moves to 1-1 on the year, while Louisiana Tech fell to 0-2 heading into their home opener with Nicholls State. 

(My hope is that the overcast skies and apparent threat of rain kept the crowds away. My fear is that the 3:30 start time might have something to do with it. We know how fickle Navy fans can be. I guess we’ll find out.)

There was plenty to take from this game, both good and bad. We’ll start with the good. The most encouraging thing was clearly the play of the defense. Of Louisiana Tech’s 167 yards of offense, 74 came on the first drive. That was a dominating defensive performance, led by Craig Schaefer’s two late sacks, Chase Burge’s two batted passes, and Tyler Simmons and Ross Pospisil clogging up a Tech running game that was held to a mere 11 yards (due mostly to the sacks). The emergence of Tyler Simmons is particularly encouraging for the future, with much of the rest of the linebacker depth chart set to graduate after this season. Tackling was solid for the second straight week, as the secondary limited Louisiana Tech’s ability to gain yards after the catch and held them to only 8.7 yards per completion. After two games, you have to feel good about the ability of the Navy defense to carry the team if they have to.

Fortunately, that wasn’t really the case on Saturday. After starting the game with a rare 3 & out, the offense went on to rush for 290 yards on the way to putting 32 points on the scoreboard. That, despite Louisiana Tech coming out with a pretty solid defensive game plan. Bulldog defensive coordinator Tommy Spangler spent a decade as an assistant at Georgia Southern, and it showed. You can tell the difference when a coach actually understands how the Navy offense works. Spangler’s plan wasn’t to try to match scheme “gimmicks.” Instead, he chose to keep things simple, but work on confusing the quarterback and the offensive line. Knowing that the line’s blocking assignments change depending on whether they’re facing an odd or an even front, Spangler had his front seven alternate between the two frequently before the snap. He also tried to make reads difficult for Ricky Dobbs, utilizing the cross charge. The cross charge, you’ll recall, is when the dive key plays the quarterback, but the pitch key takes the fullback instead of the pitch man. The quarterback sees that his first read is playing him, so he gives the ball to the fullback, not knowing that the pitch key will be waiting.

It only took one possession for Ricky and Coach Jasper to adjust. The correct read on the cross charge is to pitch the ball, which forces a down lineman to try to chase down a speedy A-back from behind. Louisiana Tech stuck with the cross charge for most of the game, which is why Marcus Curry and the other slots accounted for the majority of Navy’s rushing yardage.

With the defensive end taking himself outside on his own, Coach Jasper also called the midline triple. Notice how the playside tackle disengages the end and blocks the run support safety.

Eventually, Louisiana Tech was forced to try a different tactic, and used the backside safety to follow the tail motion. Coach Jasper countered by throwing the ball over the top, since the corner on that side of the field would have no safety help. This pass was called back by a (correct) holding penalty, but the message was sent:

The holding call was just one problem among many for the offensive line. Pass protection, which was a pleasant surprise against Ohio State, regressed a bit last week. Louisiana Tech had some legit talent up front, and some of those breakdowns in pass protection were the result of Mids just getting beat one-on-one. One of Louisiana Tech’s two sacks was the result of what appeared to be confusion on Navy’s part regarding their assignments. Whatever the reason, this is a problem. Ricky did have his second consecutive 100-yard passing day, but if the Mids are going to make use of the pass, they’re going to have to protect their quarterback.

One other thing I noticed was that the timing on toss sweeps seem to be off. Take a look at these plays. Look at where the playside tackle is lined up, and where the slotback ends up catching the toss. In both examples, the toss is caught inside the tackle box:

This shouldn’t be happening. The goal of the toss sweep is to get the ball to the edge of the defense as soon as possible. The closer the ball is tossed to the middle of the formation, the easier it is for the defense to read the play and catch up to it. Compare those tosses to two random ones from the past:

On these, the slot catches the toss almost two yards past where the tackle lined up. That’s especially apparent on Karlos Whittaker’s run, since the midfield logo provides a good reference point. The timing of the play is dependent on the snap count, so maybe Ricky is a little too quick on the trigger.

Coming into the game, Louisiana Tech was a bit of an enigma. Somehow they managed to lose to Army last year, but they still won 8 games, including the Independence Bowl. They’ve been picked as a dark horse challenger to unseat Boise State at the top of the WAC. It will be hard for them to shake off an 0-2 start, but they’ll get a win against Nicholls State before heading into the conference schedule. I wouldn’t be surprised if this win turns out to be better than originally thought at the end of the season.

Editor’s note: On my trip to Annapolis last week, it became painfully obvious that I am very, very stupid for choosing to live anywhere else. Fortunately, there are those who do not share my imperfection. One of those people is Andy, who lives about as close to Gate 1 as my kitchen is to my driveway. He went to Friday’s JV game against perennial prep powerhouse Hargrave Military Academy, and took notes to share with the rest of us, which he posted here. He also really does live in his mother’s basement, which adds to his blogger cred.

JV Football Report

The JV squad took on Hargrave’s Post-Grad (PG) team this past Friday on Rip Miller Field. Before we talk about the game, let’s be sure we’re all on the same page. Navy’s JV squad is comprised of mostly plebes (there are 20 youngsters on the roster of 78). The JV team is also the scout team for the varsity practices. Translation: the offense rarely runs the spread option. Because of this, I won’t be offering up slams of reads or fumbles when looking at the offense. I’ll let you know what the highlights were and what players impressed.

Also, this is the first time I’ve watched a game with the intent of reporting on it afterward. That means I may (and by may I mean there is a 100% chance of it) make some mistakes or have misidentified a player. So any corrections are welcome.

Finally, Hargrave is essentially a BCS feeder program. The kids on their field are future SEC, ACC, etc. players. Last year Hargrave beat Navy’s JV team 32-4.

Ok, onto the meat of the report. Friday was a nasty day to play on Rip Miller. There was a constant light rain and a 15-20 mph wind blowing from land out to the bay. I also showed up midway through the 1st quarter, so I missed some action. Here’s what I saw:

Fullbacks
We rotated 3 different FB’s throughout the game. #15 Austin Beaty (Friendswood, TX) was the best performer of the bunch. He carried the majority of one scoring drive and had an 18 yard TD run of his own. #43 Jarred Mack (Houston, TX) had the 2nd most carries. He was a strong runner, busting some up the middle and at times carrying defenders with him. #40 Kevin Eckel (Haverford, PA) was in for a few plays and had one impressive run of over 10 yards.

Quarterbacks
#8 Tyler Lynch (Irving, TX) and #9 Gordy Law (Berwick, PA) both played admirably given the conditions. Saw one fumble on the QB/FB mesh. Given my viewing position, it was hard to tell if there were bad plays because of missed reads or because Hargrave was just that much bigger.

Slotbacks
Hargrave did a good job of shutting down the pitch lanes. #5 John Howell (Hatfield, PA) had a couple of good carries. He was also back for a lot of the punt and kick returns. Those were a mixed bag as well, with equal parts muffed and decent returns. Again, I can not stress enough how much of an impact the wind had on the kicking game.

Wide Receivers
Navy didn’t do much passing. There were two plays that stood out. #11 Brandon Turner (Renton, WA) had a 4 yard TD reception on 4th and goal. Navy sent him iso on the left side of the field with 3 receivers right and Lynch hit him on a short under slant. #89 Jonathan Gazaille (Grand Prarie, TX) took a pass to the flats at the line of scrimmage, put a move on his defender and busted a 10 yard gain for a 1st down. #19 Darian Hess (Largo, FL) had a great reception on 3rd and long, leaping above tight coverage to pull down a nice pass but landed on the line out of bounds.

Offensive Line
On the two scoring drives, they were able to open holes for the FB’s and protect the QB. There was a lot of backfield penetration on the day. Chalk that up to inexperience and an overwhelming size disadvantage. Given that I have no baseline for comparison, I can’t say much more than that.

Defensive Line
I noticed that most of the game we were running the same 3 guys on the line (at least every time I checked numbers). #72 Francis Archibald (Rye, NY) was at nose guard. But I think I wrote the wrong numbers down for our ends – I had #86 and #87, but according to the roster that’s a WR and an OLB. Regardless, the line had some good pressure, opening lanes for LB’s to get to the running backs and QB. Again, given the size difference and inexperience, I thought they performed very well.

Linebackers
Lots of LB’s made plays in the game. There were TFL’s, great open field tackles, tipped passes, etc. Here’s a quick list from my notes:
– #17 Keegan Wetzel (Palos Heights, ILL) had an interception in man coverage. The WR he was covering came back to the ball, but Wetzel got a great break and picked it off.
– #46 Andrew Sharp (State College, PA) had an interception in what looked to be zone coverage. He was sitting in the middle of the field and just read the QB’s eyes for a nice pick.
– #26 Josh Dowling-Fitzpatrick (Westerville, OH) and #42 Mason Graham (Brentwood, TN) combined for a pressure sack. Graham also got good penetration on another play to force an incompletion.
– #53 Craig Veech (Longwood, FL) had a great tipped pass at the line of scrimmage.

Defensive Backs
Hargrave had a great QB and WRs. Most of the damage was done in the air…had the wind not been so brutal, I think they would have been able to leverage this more against Navy’s squad. But as it was, we did have a few plays that stood out from our backs.
– #14 David Sperry (Las Vegas, NV) made a textbook open field tackle to stop what would have been a big gain.
– #4 Jordan Fraser (Chandler, AZ) had a great tackle for a loss on a safety blitz.

Kicking Game
Not much to take away here given the conditions. With the win we were great, against it not so much. We did try one FG with the wind…about 45 yards out from that had the distance but was pushed left. And of course I didn’t write down the number of who was kicking. I think it was the same kicker who converted our only PAT – #6 Scott Blasinsky (North Royalton, OH) – into the wind.

It was 12-7 at the half and the final was 18-13. Hargrave was relatively undisciplined and penalty prone. I wouldn’t be shocked if they had 100 yards of penalties or more, including 3 or 4 personal fouls (a couple of which were unsportsmanlike conduct). They won on sheer talent and size. Like I said, this is a team that rarely runs our offense except for these games, so try to look more at individual performances than the W/L column for this one.

If we can expect
The defense to play like this,
Houston here we come.