Paul Johnson did a lot of things for the Navy football program. The most visible improvement was in his offense, but there are people who will tell you that the most important change he made was in attitude. Johnson went to battle with what he called the “country club” mentality on the football team, and the roster ended up shrinking because of it. Kind of like a less dramatic “Junction Boys” phenomenon. Johnson also made several requests of athletic department and school leadership to help facilitate his changes. Johnson’s approach to the game and direction of the program were every bit as important to Navy’s revival as his spread option wizardry.

In many ways, the same can be said of David Cutcliffe at Duke. Not the spread option part, obviously. But Cutcliffe also has a reputation as a master of offense. And in the same fashion as the first days of Johnson’s tenure at Navy, change is already underway. Like Johnson, Cutcliffe has used conditioning as a sort of symbol of the new team attitude, and even challenged his team to lose weight. And for once, the Duke administration appears to be on board with the football program, too. Back in May, the university approved a strategic plan to improve all sports, with football as a centerpiece. The plan includes a facilities upgrade (to include an indoor practice facility and stadium renovations), an increase in pay for assistant coaches, and easing up a bit on the OOC schedule. Sound familiar? It should. Duke used programs like Navy– an academically challenging school with recent success on the football field– as models in how to set their own course for success. Long the butt of jokes in the ACC and college football in general not only for their lack of wins but also for their administration’s apparent apathy (paging John Feinstein), Duke finally appears serious about playing competitive football.

That’s all fine and dandy, but future plans for stadium renovations don’t mean squadoosh when it comes to Saturday’s game. David Cutcliffe, however, does. Cutcliffe has a reputation for knowing how to run an offense. A long-time assistant at Tennessee, he was their offensive coordinator during the Volunteers’ national championship season in 1998. When Tommy Tuberville left Ole Miss to take the Auburn job, the Rebels turned to Cutcliffe to replace him. Cutcliffe won 60% of his games at Ole Miss, the highest percentage of anyone in school history who coached at least four seasons. But after Eli Manning’s senior year, the Rebels finished with a 4-7 record. Cutcliffe became the victim of an itchy trigger finger and was let go. Phil Fulmer was more than happy to bring him back onto his staff at Tennessee.

Cutcliffe would seem to be the perfect fit at Duke, who has brought in a fair amount of talent here & there but never seemed to have the coaching oomph to bring it all together. Not sold on Duke’s talent? Only three quarterbacks in ACC history (Philip Rivers, Drew Weatherford, and Charlie Whitehurst) have thrown for more yards than Thaddeus Lewis to start their careers. And Duke wasn’t nearly as good as those NC State, FSU, and Clemson teams. Lewis has gone five straight games without throwing an interception, and is second only to the older Weatherford in touchdown passes among active ACC quarterbacks. Deep-threat wide receiver Eron Riley averaged a ridiculous 20.8 yards per catch last season to go along with 9 touchdowns. Second-team All-ACC a year ago, he could probably start for any ACC team. The Blue Devils may have found another receiver to take advantage of defenses concentratin on Riley, as freshman Johnny Williams caught 11 passes for 135 yards last week against Northwestern. On defense, linebackers Michael Tauiliili and Vincent Rey are both considered pro prospects, as is DT Vince Oghobaase.

Unlike Johnson’s first year at Navy, Cutcliffe has some legitimate playmakers to work with from the start. Can Duke win right away? Maybe, maybe not… But if the ACC is as lackluster as advertised, would it really be much of a stretch? Nobody looks unbeatable in this league. Either way, the players certainly think they can win. And if they want to win six games to reach the magical land of bowl eligibility with a schedule that includes Miami, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, and Clemson, then there’s no doubt that they view Navy as a game they must– and should– win.

It might be a little early to call it a “must-win” game for Navy, but not by much. 1-1 coming into the Duke game, the Mids have Rutgers and Wake Forest following this weekend’s contest– two difficult matchups. Lose to Duke, and there’s a real chance of being 1-4 going into the Air Force game. No, I’m not giving up on those games or the season or any other wailing and gnashing of teeth, but it’s important to be real. You may scoff because it seems trite, but don’t underestimate momentum. You do NOT want to be on a four-game losing streak going into the first game of the CIC Trophy series.

The big question for Navy this week is how Kaipo will perform. He’s practiced all week, but he’s out of shape. It probably won’t be a factor early on, but it’s going to be a hot day in Durham, and tired people are more prone to mistakes and sloppiness. There’s no doubt in my mind that kaipo at 85-90% is better for the offense than Jarod Bryant at 100%; he won’t run as well, but Ivin Jasper will have more of the playbook at his disposal. Well, assuming that the offensive line plays better, anyway. If not, they could stick Gary in at quarterback and it probably wouldn’t matter.

Nor will it matter if the defense doesn’t play better. Cutcliffe is going to throw the ball, and Lewis and Riley showed last year that they can carry the load if they’re asked to. It only took two weeks under Cutcliffe for Thaddeus Lewis to set his career high in completions with 24, breaking his previous best of 23 that he set last year in Annapolis. Duke’s offensive line isn’t as massive as they were last year (perhaps a byproduct of Cutcliffe’s goal of a leaner, meaner team), so perhaps the defensive line can make a few plays. Perhaps… If anyone knows that size isn’t everything on the offensive line, it’s us, and the Blue Devils have only given up two sacks so far. But if there is one mistake that Duke has shown a tendency to make, it’s fumbling (4 in two games). If this year’s game is anything like last year’s, turnovers will be even more crucial than usual.

OK, so nothing I’ve said is all that profound, but with a new coaching staff in Durham it’s kind of hard to predict how they’ll line up. I’m pretty sure that the book on Navy is to spread out the Mids’ defense, and I expect every team left on the schedule not named “Army” will be doing that. Offensively, I always like seeing Navy go against defensive coordinators who come from the NFL (as both of Duke’s listed D-coordinators do) because I hope that they’ve forgotten everything they once knew about stopping the option. I have no stats to back up my optimism, but I keep telling myself that.

Anyway, hope for a happy haiku.

I’m going to start with a lonely bit of good news, since I’m afraid I’ll forget to mention it after I finish talking about the game. Seriously, after the Chargers lost yesterday, not even Hole In The Wall could save my weekend. Anyway, on the pregame show Friday night, Chet announced that he is wrapping up a ten-year extension to Navy’s TV contract with CBS College Sports. Ten years! Not only is it good news, but the length of the extension is a pretty good indicator that the partnership has been beneficial for CBS, too. Interestingly, Chet mentioned that he was aware of CBS’s intent to acquire CSTV back when he signed the original contract. I’m sure that was a big factor in choosing CSTV over ESPN at the time. He also said that he’s close to signing a 10-year extension with CBS for the Notre Dame game as well. An extension for the Army-Navy contract is also in the works with CBS, but isn’t quite as close to being finalized.

Speaking of TV, ESPN’s broadcast of the game was terrible. How many times did we miss a play because they were showing Kaipo walking around on the sideline, or drag racing corvettes, or some random coach in the coaches’ box, or some animated graphic that took too long to get off the screen? Now I’m going to have to wait for the NAAA 2008 highlight DVD to see the entirety of Eric Kettani’s big run. Come on, ESPN. Nothing you’re showing is more important than the game on the field.

Anyway, enough putting off the misery.

In her 1969 book, On Death and Dying, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross described how people deal with loss and bad news by introducing the now-famous “Five Stages of Grief.” Those five stages are:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

Congratulations, Navy fans. By now, you’ve probably moved from the “denial” stage to the “anger” stage. That’s progress. Unfortunately, it’s more progress than the Navy defense has made since last year (ZING). Anyway, let’s take a look at the things we were all in denial about before the season, or maybe even after the Towson game.

1) Jarod Bryant is ready to run the offense.

No, no he isn’t. I was very much in denial on this one. Hey, he had all spring and most of fall practice as the #1 guy. He looked good in the spring game, which I know isn’t all that important, but it’s something. And in general, Navy quarterbacks make a lot of improvement between their junior and senior years. Yeah, well, so much for generalities. We didn’t see much in the Towson game. I mean, sure, he looked like he missed a couple of option reads, but it’s rare for any quarterback to be perfect. But against Ball State, the offense was basically in shackles. After unsuccessfully trying a few triple option plays in the first quarter, the offense reverted to the proverbial phone booth. It looked remarkably similar to last year’s Northern Illinois game, although I’m not going to go back and count each play this time. I don’t need to. When the quarterback is getting 31 carries, and when one individual A-back is getting 13, then you know you aren’t looking at a genuine option offense. The ball just wouldn’t be distributed that way if you were. Unfortunately, Ball State’s offense is a wee bit better than NIU’s, and the Mids couldn’t match them.

(Side note: in the question of “was Coach Niumat right to kick field goals instead of going for the first down,” the answer is clearly YES. Navy was able to come back and take the lead in the third quarter even after all those field goals, so isn’t like they took the Mids out of the game. Don’t be second-guessing. Be happy that Matt Harmon can hit a 49-yard field goal with leg to spare.)

But if Jarod struggles with the offense, then why was he so effective last year coming in to relieve Kaipo? For a couple reasons. Fresh legs vs. a tired defense, obviously. But more importantly, the plays called to suit Jarod just work better as a mid-game adjustment to throw off a defense rather than something to be used for an entire game. It works a lot better coming out of the blue than it does as something that can be planned for and adjusted to.

There’s no question that Jarod can run. But the offense just isn’t as effective when he’s under center.

2) The offensive line is fine.

But let’s not turn this into a Jarod Bryant dogpile, now. While he didn’t have a great game, he wasn’t alone. The offensive line struggled. There were a lot of position changes on the line in the offseason. They never realy seemed to come together during the fall scrimmages, reaching their nadir in the infamous “no-score” scrimmage. The Towson game didn’t present many problems, but Ball State sure did. The Cardinals were one of the smaller defensive fronts that Navy will face this year, and they got great penetration into the Navy backfield the whole game. This forces the quarterback to take an arc instead of a straight line parallel to the line of scrimmage when running the option, which throws off timing. Smaller defensive lines seem to have more success doing this– Rutgers comes to mind. But Ball State’s defense is not Rutgers.

Maybe this isn’t fair, since I’m comparing this line to last year’s, which was phenomenal and the best I can remember at Navy. Regardless, though, things probably aren’t going to get any easier the rest of the year.

3) The defense is better!

But let’s be real. Even with all their problems, the offense still put up 23 points and 346 yards rushing. That isn’t a bad game statistically. On the other hand, the defense was horrible. i don’t know what to say. We’ve heard that things would be better this season, now that the Mids are free of injury and are a year older and wiser. If that’s the case, we’ve yet to see any evidence of it. The tackling that appeared to be improved in the Towson game was apparently only better BECAUSE it was the Towson game. Against Ball State, tackling was terrible. And everyone wanted to see tighter coverage in the passing game. We did… for about three plays. One pump fake and one touchdown later, it didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore.

It would be one thing if Ball State just “out-athleted” Navy, but they didn’t. Not that I’m saying that they couldn’t, but they didn’t have to. Receivers were so wide open, they didn’t have to be any good to catch passes. Meanwhile, Ball State averaged 5.6 yards per rush, too. They did come up with a couple of interceptions, but that isn’t enough. You can’t rely on that. There’s no reason why Navy’s defense can’t be as good as Air Force’s or even Army’s. They don’t have to be the Steel Curtain, but maybe they could force a punt once in a while. If there isn’t serious improvement here, it’s going to be a long season. Especially if Kaipo isn’t healthy.

I’m probably not saying anything you haven’t already thought to yourself.

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.