So I’m here on the first official Birddog road trip, in sunny (and sort of chilly) San Diego. My flight left Jacksonville at 6 on Saturday morning. A quick layover in Atlanta, and I was off. I’m staying with a friend (and fellow ’99er). I went out with a few of his friends last night. Today, it was the Chargers-Lions game followed up with dinner at my sister’s house. Pictures after the jump.
There’s a game in a week?
Sure enough. Time, tide, formation, and bowl games wait for no one, and my $500 plane tickets aren’t refundable. It only felt like the world stopped turning when Paul Johnson left. In reality, we’re one week away from the end of another great Navy football season.
When most schools hire a new football coach, fans usually have to wait 9 months or so to get to see him in action. Navy fans don’t even have to wait two weeks. Well, sort of. He might be the new coach, but Ken Niumatalolo’s theme at practice this week has been not to fix what isn’t broken. And with a week left in the season, it would certainly seem like a bad time to reinvent the wheel. If Niumat has changes in mind about how he’s going to run things, it will likely be spring before we see them.
The team’s routine won’t change, but that doesn’t mean everything will be business as usual when Navy takes on Utah in the third Poinsettia Bowl. Ivin Jasper will be putting together his first gameplan as Navy’s offensive coordinator, and will be calling his first game. It’s a real “X” factor. I was talking to my father on the phone last night, and as upset as he was over Paul Johnson’s departure, he was just as upset that Johnson wouldn’t be coaching in San Diego. I’m sure he isn’t the only Navy fan to feel that way. It isn’t how I feel, though. I’m excited to see what Jasper puts together. I’m glad we have what might be a sneak preview of next year. When Ken Niumatalolo was named head coach, I was selfishly excited because I figured I could take a look at Navy games from ’97 and ’98 and compare those offenses to Johnson’s Navy offenses to see if there might be some subtle differences. That way I’d have all sorts of neat things to write about. But with Jasper at the controls, I don’t have anything with which to compare the last few years’ worth of offenses. (WANTED: Film of the 1998 Indiana State Sycamores football season. Seriously.) Coach Johnson used to say that bowl games should be fun. Some coaches treat them like a second spring practice, while PJ viewed them as rewards. You could tell in the way he coached those games that he liked to have a little bit of fun himself, putting plays in the game plan that looked straight out of the playground. There was Air McCoy in the Aloha Bowl, slotback passes in the Emerald Bowl, the Reggie Campbell show in the first Poinsettia Bowl, and Kaipo lining up at wide receiver in the stack formation in the Meineke Car Care Bowl. Does Ivin Jasper have something similar up his sleeve? Or will he prefer to keep things simple? Against a defense that is in the top 10 nationally in stopping 3rd down conversions (28.8%), it might be wiser to come out of the gates a little bit like we did against Northern Illinois and concentrate on creating 3rd & short for our offense.
Whatever Jasper pulls out of his hat, Utah seems to think they’re ready for it. And why wouldn’t they? The Utes have a top 15 defense, are ranked 3rd in the nation in scoring defense (15.5 ppg), and have surrendered an average of only 7.5 points over their last 4 games. Utah’s defense had four defenders make All-Mountain West first or second team, with senior defensive end Martail Burnett leading the way. Burnett ranks in the top 5 in the Mountain West in both sacks (7) and tackles for loss (14). His partner at the other DE position, Paul Kruger, registered 53 tackles on his way to being named a second-team Freshman All-American by the Sporting News.
Yet despite the accolades and lofty rankings, Air Force still managed to run for 334 yards on Utah. And they did it by running the same offense that they ran last year– with a heavy dose of triple option. What gives? Maybe not as much as the statistics would suggest. Air Force only put together one really long scoring drive in that game. On their first touchdown, they started their drive at midfield. Their second touchdown was on a 3-play drive set up by a 53-yard Shaun Carney run. Perhaps the loss early in the game of DT Gabe Long, described in the team’s media notes as Utah’s “best run defender,” was too much to overcome. It’s hard to imagine one player making that much of a difference, but maybe he could have helped to prevent Carney’s long run. Either way, I don’t take much solace in Air Force’s performance against Utah. In case you’re wondering, Long is being called questionable for the Poinsettia Bowl after getting hurt again against BYU.
On the other side of the ball, it’s the story of two teams that have been born again hard. Navy’s defense, rocked by injuries, shook off a string of miserable games to put together their best performances of the year against Northern Illinois and Army. Similarly hurt by the injury bug, Utah has won 7 of their last 8 games thanks in large part to an offense that has found some consistency after being shut out at UNLV. The Ute offense struggled to find its identity after quarterback Brian Johnson went down in the season opener at Oregon State with a shoulder injury. Since he returned to the starting lineup, Utah is 7-1 with their lone loss coming in the regular season finale versus Brigham Young. The injury has limited Johnson’s big-play ability, as he doesn’t have nearly the same arm strength that he used to. To compensate, Utah has turned into an efficient, ball-control offense. Johnson has completed 65% of his passes for over 1,600 yards. In the last 8 games, Johnson has averaged 17-26 passing for 178 yards per game. Efficient, if unspectacular. With limited arm strength, Johnson threw for only 9 touchdowns over the same span, and hasn’t completed a pass for over 30 yards since the San Diego State game back on October 13. The wide receivers’ loss, though, has been the running back’s gain. San Diego’s own Darrell Mack (6-0, 219) has averaged 113 rushing yards per game since Johnson’s return. He had a run of 5 straight 100-yard games, and would have had 6 if he had more carries in Utah’s 50-0 atom bomb on Wyoming (Mack had 14 carries for 97 yards). He runs behind a very good offensive line, anchored by all-conference selections Robert Conley and Zane Beadles, plus talented center Kyle Gunther. Efficient quarterback + big, fast running back + big, talented offensive line… Sounds like the formula for a lot of bad games for the Navy defense this year. We’ll see just how much they’ve improved.
Navy has had quite a bit of success against the Mountain West conference lately. The Mids have defeated the MWC runners-up in 3 of the last 4 years (New Mexico 2004, Colorado State 2005, Air Force 2007). But this will be Navy’s first game in that stretch against one of the conference’s “big three” of BYU, TCU, and Utah. After a bad start, Utah is back on track and playing the way people thought they would at the beginning of the year. A win here, and Ken Niumatalolo’s debut would be as impressive as any game in the post-Weatherbie era of Navy football.
Poinsettia Bowl coverage: My flight leaves for San Diego tomorrow morning. Depending on my internet connection, I’ll be posting about the stuff I’m doing all week, including the basketball game and the pregame luncheon. I’ll be posting about all the fun I’m having to try to convince you people to go to the next bowl game. Remember, Navy is attractive to bowl games because we have sold a lot of tickets over the last 5 years. When that dries up, so will the bowl games!
One question answered: Ken Niumatalolo has made his first outside hire to his staff, naming Cal Poly offensive cordinator Joe DuPaix as the new slotbacks coach. DuPaix installed a Navy-ish type of spread option offense last year for the Mustangs that was the most prolific in I-AA, averaging 487 yards per game. DuPaix comes on the recommendation of Poly head coach Rich Ellerson, who knows Niumat from the time they both spent at Hawaii. Welcome aboard, coach. (WANTED: Film of the 2007 Cal Poly Mustangs football season.)
Next year: The Navy Times adds a little bit to Christian Swezey’s notes on the proposed Congressional Bowl.
What a whirlwind couple of days. Every time I’d sit down to write something, a new piece of news would break that would make my work out of date. And trying to separate rumors from facts was enough to keep me awake at night. Here’s a tip for the future: anyone who has “sources” for “inside information” isn’t going to post what they’ve learned on a message board. At least not if they want to keep those sources. Of course, I already knew this. But I still lost sleep over the whole thing. In the end, Paul Johnson left, and in his place stepped his #1 protégé, Ken Niumatalolo.
The announcement of Johnson’s successor came so quickly that I didn’t have a chance to finish my post endorsing Niumatalolo for the job. I think every Navy fan that wasn’t fooling themselves knew that Paul Johnson’s departure was going to happen eventually. Our hope was that Ken Niumatalolo would still be here when that day finally came. And for good reason– Niumatalolo is the right man for the job.
He is the right choice for the long term. It can’t be overstated how difficult it is to win at the Naval Academy. Navy hadn’t won a Commander in Chief’s Trophy since 1981 until Paul Johnson and his staff showed up. It would be foolish to alter a winning formula. Ken played for Paul Johnson. He entered the coaching profession because of Paul Johnson. He has run the offense on his own, without Paul Johnson. And when he wasn’t coaching with Johnson, he was with John Robinson. That’s one hell of a pedigree. It would be unfair to expect him to be Paul Johnson, but it would be unwise to pick an apple from a different tree. There are no guarantees that Niumat will match Paul Johnson’s success, but he deserves the chance to try. For his sake and for ours.
Niumat is also right for the short term. By making the decision quickly, Chet Gladchuk shows confidence in his new coach; confidence that is reassuring to the mids, and to recruits waiting for I-Day. It also helps for the Poinsettia Bowl. Now the mids aren’t just playing (and practicing) to beat Utah; they’re playing to make a good impression on their new coach. Chet deserves a lot of credit for pulling the trigger on this rather than dragging everyone, especially the team, through a dog & pony show.
Hiring Niumat right away was a tremendous relief for other reasons, too. I am afraid of who we might have ended up with if we ventured out too far. Chet made it very clear in the press conference announcing Niumat’s hiring: he was going after a triple option coach one way or another.
“Fundamentally, at Navy it’s going to be the triple option. That’s all there is to it,” Mr. Gladchuk said. “That is something I felt really strongly about. It’s an offense that has been really successful for us and given us that edge. If you look at who’s out there that can run the triple option, I consider Kenny one of the masters.”
I sort of figured that, and it made me nervous. You see, I am one of those freakish people that doesn’t believe that you need to run the triple option to win at a service academy (GASP). Don’t get me wrong; I love the triple option. Anyone who’s been reading this blog for any length of time knows that. But there’s more than one way to win. The key to winning at a service academy, in my opinion, is to be different. When you run a different kind of offense, you can recruit a different kind of player. Anything that expands the recruiting pool is a good thing, whether it’s the triple option or some other kind of unconventional offense.
My fear, then, was that we would look for option coaches instead of good coaches. Remember, Elliot Uzelac ran the option. Bob Sutton ran the option. Charlie Weatherbie continued to run option-ish offenses after PJ and Niumat left. They all got canned. Systems aren’t what win games; coaches are. Running a particular offensive system is one thing; knowing how to adjust within that system, recruiting for that system, and organizational skills are another. To say that the cause of Paul Johnson’s success is simply his offense would be a gross oversimplification, and doesn’t give the man enough credit. Fortunately, in Ken Niumatalolo we appear to get the best of both worlds. Time will tell.
The first order of business for Coach Niumatalolo is to assemble his staff. He was asked at the press conference if he intended to call the plays on offense like his predecessor, and he gave the somewhat surprising answer that it would depend on what his staff would look like. Yesterday, we found out why; according to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, quarterbacks coach Ivin Jasper is staying at Navy and will be promoted to offensive coordinator. This is huge news. When Paul Johnson was the offensive coordinator at Hawaii and Navy, he sat up in the press box to get a better view of how defenses were adjusting to his play calling. When he became head coach, he had an assistant sitting in the press box watching the defense, allowing PJ to call plays from the sideline. There are only so many assistant coaches out there who really understand this offense. If Johnson took the entire staff with him to Georgia Tech, it might have been difficult to find someone new to put upstairs and tell Niumatalolo the information he needed to call the play from the sideline. But with Jasper staying, he will presumably call plays from the press box himself.
For Jasper, it’s a smart career move. If Johnson wins at Georgia Tech– and he will– then his offense is going to be in demand. Johnson calls his own plays, which means the only coordinator available to teams who want to copy Georgia Tech would be Ivin Jasper. We still haven’t heard any official announcement about Jasper’s new role and whether or not he’d still coach the quarterbacks. But the paper says that it came straight from Niumat himself, so hopefully we’ll get that word soon. There’s more good news in Bill Wagner’s blog as it appears that Buddy Green is also staying, with possibly all of the defensive coaches sticking around with him. Keeping this many assistants around is a big deal, particularly for recruiting. Nothing is official yet, but it would seem that things are going about as well as we could have hoped in this situation.
According to Wagner, Jeff Monken (slotbacks), Brian Bohannon (wide receivers), and Todd Spencer (offensive line) are likely to follow Paul Johnson to Georgia Tech. I think that fullbacks coach Chris Culton is a possibility too, although that is pure conjecture on my part and not the result of any inside knowledge. (You may be asking yourself how Todd Spencer and Niumatalolo both coached the offensive line– Niumat coached interior linemen while Spencer coached the tackles.) In theory, offensive assistants would be more difficult to find than defensive assistants, given the unique nature of the Navy offense. That might be true at some positions (offensive line) more than others (wide receivers). The best bet for offensive line coach might be NAPS head coach Mark Williams. Williams was an All-American guard for Paul Johnson at Georgia Southern, served as a graduate assistant for Tim Stowers at Rhode Island, then returned to Georgia Southern as the offensive line coach for Mike Sewak. Sewak himself could very well be joining Johnson at Georgia Tech. There are several Georgia Southern connections out there, such as Stowers himself or Brent Davis & Bob Bodine at VMI. But unlike most other Johnson assistants, Ken Niumatalolo never coached at Georgia Southern. Does he go a different route? And do we even structure our assistants the same way? It will be interesting to see who turns up in Annapolis.
It was disappointing to see Paul Johnson leave, but at the same time it’s exciting to see how Ken Niumatalolo will shape Navy football. After-practice press briefings, the bowl game, spring practice… I find myself looking forward to them even more now because I’m not completely sure of what to expect. Navy has changed coaches quite a few times over the last 25 years, and there’s always excitement and optimism associated with the event. But this time there’s a little bit of nervousness mixed in there because for once, we actually have something to lose.
The nadir of my life as a Navy football fan– and probably the same for many of you– was the 2001 Georgia Tech game. My ship was the visit ship on the Yard that weekend, and I was excited to show off the Navy football experience to my division. They were a really great bunch, and we had spent a lot of time together on cruise sitting in the EM shop and talking college football. I bought them all tickets to the game, and after tailgating with my sponsor we claimed a spot on the hill to watch. It was a great day… Up until kickoff, anyway. Three hours or so later, as Damarius Bilbo ran a bootleg in from the 6 yard line to give the Yellow Jackets a 70-7 lead with 32 seconds left in the game, EM1 Shaw (now Chief Warrant Officer Shaw) turned to me with a smile and said, “Don’t worry, Mr. James. They had to put the game out of reach!”
I was absolutely miserable, and I wasn’t alone. The consensus at the postgame tailgate was that with a new athletic director in charge, we were watching Charlie Weatherbie’s last season in Annapolis. It was depressing; not just because of the losses, but because I liked Charlie Weatherbie. It isn’t like I knew him or anything. It’s just that he was the coach when I was a mid, and most of the best times I had at USNA involved the football, basketball, and lacrosse teams. I had nothing but fond memories of weird pep rallies and the Aloha Bowl when it came to Weatherbie. As the team languished through an 0-10 season, I had a hard time understanding how so much could go so wrong so quickly.
“So Much, So Wrong, So Quickly” would be a good name for a book on the history of Navy football for the two decades between 1981-2001. George Welsh’s last season in Annapolis was a fun one, with wins over Syracuse, Georgia Tech, and Air Force, and a comeback that fell just short in the Liberty Bowl against Ohio State. West Virginia offensive coordinator Gary Tranquill, who had coached Navy’s quarterbacks and receivers under Welsh from 1973-76, was hired to replace Welsh after he left to take the Virginia job in 1982. In the first game of the ’82 season, Tranquill beat his old boss, 30-16, in Annapolis.
It was all downhill from there.
Four different coaches tried to replicate Welsh’s success at Navy over the next 20 years. None of them succeeded. In 1996, however, there was a glimmer of hope. Navy went 9-3, including an Aloha Bowl win over California. When Charlie Weatherbie was unable to generate any kind of momentum from that season, Chet Gladchuk turned to someone else from that team to try to capture lightning in a bottle again: Paul Johnson. Johnson had gone on to win two national championships at Georgia Southern since leaving Navy after the ’96 season, and seemed like obvious choice… If he’d take the job. Chet wouldn’t take no for an answer. Paul didn’t like hearing that he couldn’t win at Navy. It was a match made in heaven. On December 9, 2001, Paul Johnson was named as the 36th head football coach at the U.S. Naval Academy.
Six years later, I’m finalizing plans for my trip to San Diego to see Navy’s 5th-straight bowl game. The superintendent of USNA at the time, VADM John Ryan, said of Johnson’s hiring, “I believe years from now people will point to December 9, 2001, as the day the Naval Academy turned around its football program.” How right he was. Five bowl games, five CIC Trophies, a 10-win season, a top 25 ranking, and a victory over Notre Dame later, and I’d say things have turned around. When you consider that it was fairly common for people to say that Navy should drop to I-AA, our success has been borderline miraculous.
Unfortunately, I can’t help but wonder if December 7, 2007, is what people will look back to as the day the Naval Academy’s football program went straight back into the toilet.
That’s pretty damn pessimistic, I know. But it’s a pessimism born from the respect I have for Paul Johnson. Navy is one of the hardest coaching jobs in all of college football, if not the hardest. The academic restrictions, military commitment, lack of redshirting, and school administration that can change on a dime would make most coaches want to schedule Navy, but never coach there. But as we already know, Paul Johnson isn’t most coaches. It was a special feeling to truly believe that Navy– Navy— had the best college football coach in America. And not just because of partisan chest-thumping, either. I felt that way because of what I saw with my own eyes. Unfortunately, it’s knowing that it took the best coach in football to even get to this point that makes me nervous about Ken Niumatalolo’s ability to maintain what we have. If anyone can, it’s Niumat; but it takes a special coach to win at Navy. Continuing at the level we’ve grown accustomed to is no guarantee. Paul Johnson leaving isn’t the end of the world… But it’s a distinct possibility.
I’ve written a lot about Johnson’s offense. It’s his trademark, and the first thing that comes to mind when his name is mentioned. Yet when you hear his players and other people associated with the program talk about him, they talk about so much more than just Xs and Os. They talk about his attitude. His demand for perfection. His one-liners. His recruiting. And then, oh by the way, he’s an offensive genius. Paul Johnson is a complete coach if there ever was one.
I know the temptation to be bitter is there, but if you didn’t see this coming then you haven’t been paying attention. Back in July, Johnson told CSTV that, “it’s intriguing to think that you’d have a chance sometime maybe to win a championship where it might be a little easier.” And that certainly wasn’t the first time he said something along those lines. So why the shock?
It comes down to something that I like to call the “logic of the faithful.” It’s a form of denial. When the rumor of a job opportunity comes up, fans start listing all the reasons why they think their job is better than school X.
“Duke is a coach’s graveyard! He won’t go there”
“Georgia Tech? They’re only the second-best team in their own state! They can’t get recruits away from Georgia!”
“SMU? That isn’t a step up from Navy! Nobody wins there!”
“Navy is special! He has it good here! Why would he throw that away?”
What people either fail or refuse to realize is that no matter what you say about these other schools, the same (or worse) was said about Navy when Johnson became the coach here. None of the options that he had in front of him were worse than the Navy job he took over. Coaching graveyard? Impossible recruiting? An 0-10 team that didn’t seem like a step up from a I-AA powerhouse? Check, check, check. But Coach Johnson didn’t see that. Instead, he saw what was possible and how to achieve it. And when people told him that he couldn’t do it, it made him mad enough to try. The same attitude that brought him to Navy is what is taking him to Georgia Tech. Johnson wants to win championships, and he wants to prove that his offense can do it. He sees that potential in Georgia Tech.
We’ve all made hard career decisions. It’s no different for Paul. I am extremely thankful for everything he did at Navy. No matter how bitter you might feel, all Paul Johnson did was make the Naval Academy a better place, and the Navy job more desirable on the college football landscape. He inherited a program doomed for failure, and has left it as a program expecting to win. If someone told you in 2001, after having gone 1-20 over the last two seasons, that a new coach would take us to 5 bowl games and 5 CIC Trophies before leaving 6 years later… Would you have taken it? You know you would. You know that the program needed a miracle in 2002. We got our miracle. His name is Paul Johnson. And now, as he tosses the keys to Ken Niumatalolo and goes on to pursue his dream, we owe him nothing but thanks.
I hope he reaches his goal of winning championships. And do any of you really doubt that he will?
Ken Niumatalolo is our new head football coach.
With Navy’s 6th straight win in the series, we’ve reached a new frontier in Army-Navy history. Until now, neither team had ever been able to string together this many consecutive victories. It isn’t the first big streak, though. Army won 5 straight from 1992-1996, and that was part of a longer trend as the Cadets (not the Black Knights back then) were 9-2 against Navy from ’86-’96. That followed a stretch from 1973-1985 where Navy had the upper hand, going 10-2-1 against Army. The Mids had two other 5-game win streaks; from 1959-1963, and from 1939-1943. Army didn’t lose a game to Navy from 1922-1933, although there were two ties over that span (including the 1926 “Game of the Century”). So while a winning streak this long is unprecedented, streaks in general aren’t unusual in the rivalry.
Unlike most of these other streaks, though, the wave that Navy is currently riding comes at a time where TV money dominates college football. Army and Navy are not immune to the need for cash to remain competitive, and one of their biggest sources of revenue is the Army-Navy Game. Does Navy’s winning streak make the Army-Navy Game less desirable to broadcasters? One could argue that Army’s winning streak from ’92-’96 came in the same TV money era, but those were all close, exciting, competitive games (Army won by an average of 2 points per game over that span). The average score during Navy’s current run is 40-12. Will the lopsided results of the last 6 years have an adverse financial impact on the Navy football program?
CBS outbid ABC for the rights to broadcast Army-Navy at the end of Army’s 5-year run, and that 10-year contract expires after next year. They bent over backwards to win back then, too. I mean, really, is there any other reason why you’d see Army-Navy basketball on CBS each year? It’s part of the Army-Navy football package. CBS made the bid for a good reason; back when they won it, Army-Navy was the only game in town. At least the only college football game, anyway. This was before conference championship games; Army-Navy’s main TV competition was college basketball. Since football is king in this country, it wasn’t much competition at all. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1989:
The Army-Navy football game has no implications on the national championship, but it’s the one game CBS can count on every year for a solid rating, even when the competition is a pair of basketball games including ranked teams. Judging by the overnight Nielsen ratings, Army-Navy blew away the basketball with a 7.7 national rating (9.8 locally) to 3.3 for ABC’s doubleheader between Duke-Michigan and North Carolina-Iowa and 2.7 for Oklahoma-Nevada Las Vegas on NBC.
Compare that to this year’s ratings, courtesy of Sports Media Watch:
College football ratings
8.3: BCS Selection Show (Sun., 12/2, 7:45 PM FOX); down 12% from ’06.
7.3: Big 12 Championship Game, OK/Miss (Sat., 12/1, 8 PM ABC); up 74% from ’06.
6.0: SEC Championship Game, LSU/TN (Sat., 12/1, 4 PM CBS); up 28% from ’06.
4.2: ACC Championship Game, VT/BC (Sat., 12/1, 1 PM ABC); up 5% from ’06.
3.8: USC/UCLA (Sat., 12/1, 4:30 PM ABC); down 54% from ’06.
2.4: Army/Navy (Sat., 12/1, 12 PM CBS); down 8% from ’06.
I can’t find a link, unfortunately, but I read last year that the ratings for the 2006 edition of Army-Navy were down 20% from 2005. The 2005 game was a big one, if you’ll remember. Army came in on a 4-game winning streak, including a win over Air Force. Navy was 6-4. Army played what many claimed was a tougher schedule, and there was a lot of talk about how Army had “caught up” to Navy and that the Black Knights were going to put up a better fight. There was a decent amout of hype surrounding that game. But the people who tuned in ended up seeing another Navy blowout. When 2006 rolled around, viewers apparently weren’t going to be fooled again. And that might be a problem when we take bids on the game next year.
There is a certain core group that will watch Army-Navy no matter what. People like the pomp & circumstance that surrounds the game. A lot of these types might not watch another college football game. But that group isn’t very big. College football fans appreciate a good rivalry, because they know that there will be drama when the game is close. It makes the game appealing even if both teams come into the game with losing records. But when the game isn’t close, those fans tune out. And lately, fans have been tuning out the 
Army-Navy Game. Fewer viewers mean less ad revenue. Maybe I’m imagining things, but I really felt like there were fewer commercials during the game this year. And half of those commercials came from one company (Jeep). If advertisers aren’t buying time during the game, then the game is worth less to broadcasters. If the game is worth less, then bids won’t be as high. And that goes straight to NAAA’s bottom line. (By the way, the Subway ad with the ref explaining a blown call and how he was going to do a “make-up call” in the second half was hilarious.)
Navy’s success is paying dividends in season ticket sales, bowl games, and CSTV. But if we don’t want Army-Navy to dry up, then Army needs to get better soon.
Future sites: The other big part of the future of the game is where it will be played. After its second trip to Baltimore in 7 years, the game returns to Philadelphia in 2008 and 2009. Cities will soon start bidding for the next round of games beginning with 2010. Last time around, 16 cities from Miami to Boston to Seattle to San Antonio explored the possibility of hosting Army-Navy. The cost of transporting 8,000 midshipmen and cadets, though, limited the number of candidates with a relistic shot at winning. Nevertheless, I expect roughly the same number of cities to at least explore the possibility of bringing Army-Navy to town.
I believe that the game belongs in Philadelphia. I think that being associated with a single city adds to the name-brand recognition of the game, like a bowl game. Being located halfway between Annapolis and West Point makes obvious sense for season ticket holders at both schools for whom the Army-Navy game is the crown jewel of their ticket packages. The only thing that would change my mind is if Philadelphia started taking the game for granted again. Any more cardiologists’ conventions booking up all the hotel rooms or stadium railing held up by duct tape, and it’d be time to shop around. But the city really poured it on with their bid last time, and it certainly seems unlikely that they’d make the same kinds of mistakes again.
I know a lot of people want Army-Navy to be a sort of college football roadshow, moving to a different site around the country every few years or so. It is, after all, the “nation’s rivalry.” I can understand the sentiment, but I don’t agree with it. We talk a lot about the value of playing a “national schedule” so as to promote the Naval Academy in different parts of the country. But it isn’t really the games themselves that promote Navy; it’s the week of media coverage leading up to the game. When Navy goes to, say, Durham to play Duke, there might be 15-20,000 people actually at the game. But there are probably 100-200,000 people who will read the area’s newspapers. And when a visiting team comes to town, that means that the paper will be writing about them for a week. That’s where the value of playing a national schedule comes in. It’s so people in North Carolina and Texas and wherever can read about Zerbin Singleton, Antron Harper & co. Local media exposure helps to tell the Naval Academy story. But the Army-Navy game draws national media attention no matter where it’s played, so there’s little to be gained by moving it. The value of shipping the game around, in terms of exposure, certainly doesn’t outweigh the costs. And while both Army and Navy have fans and graduates all over the place, it’s a much simpler process for those folks to take a trip to the game than it is to move the game to them. The 1983 game at the Rose Bowl was allegedly a financial disaster.
Those of you who enjoyed the game in Baltimore, don’t hold your breath about seeing it there again anytime soon. Then again, a lot of attitudes can change in two years.
The recurring theme for Navy football in 2007 has been the dominance of the offense coupled with the struggles of the defense and special teams. In the one-game season that is the Army-Navy game, however, the opposite was true. Navy’s defense turned in its best performance of the year, and perhaps the best performance in the Paul Johnson era, as Navy thumped Army 38-3. As you’ve no doubt heard, the win is Navy’s 6th in a row over Army, the first time in the 108-year old series that one team has been able to string that many victories together. That Navy won by 35 is no surprise, given the recent history of the rivalry. How they won, though, was.
Do you remember the 2005 Army-Navy Game? The Mids got off to a slow start in that game, too. Army actually took a 3-0 lead into the 2nd quarter, having kicked a field goal with 26 seconds left at the end of the 1st. On the next drive, though, Reggie Campbell took a pitch from Lamar Owens at midfield and blasted past the entire Army defense on the way to the end zone. The speed difference was so obvious between the two teams on that play that, despite the slow start, I knew that there was no way Army was going to win. The speed difference was amplified on the first play of the 4th quarter, as Adam Ballard– a fullback, remember– outran Army’s defensive backs on a 67-yard touchdown run of his own. On Saturday, as I watched Zerbin Singleton pull away from the Army secondary on his 38-yard touchdown run, I had the same feeling that I did in 2005. It’s an article of faith for Army fans that their players are just like Navy’s, and that if they ran the option they’d be just as good. It isn’t true. Navy is better, and it isn’t just the offense. Winning the game by 35 points, even when the offense had its least productive day of the season, tells us something.
During practice last week, Buddy Green had a message for his players. Play well against Army, he said, and people will forget the rest of the season. The defense responded. Navy gave up a scant 217 yards of offense and forced two fumbles. The stat of the day was Army converting only 1 of 12 3rd-down opportunities. Of Navy’s 38 points, 24 were set up by the defense or special teams. Reggie had a 98-yard kickoff return. Shun White ran in a toss sweep for a TD after Michael Walsh forced a fumble that was recovered by Irv Spencer inside the Army 10 yard line. A blocked punt in the 4th quarter gave Navy the ball inside the Army 10 again, and set up Jarod Bryant’s 1-yard TD plunge. And Joey Bullen kicked a career-long 51-yard field goal to end the first half, which was set up by a brilliant punt return, again by Reggie Campbell. It was a tremendous performance from the defense and special teams. It feels really good to be able to say that, too, after the criticism (however justified) that those units have received all year.
I’m trying to decide where this defensive performance ranks among others during Buddy Green’s tenure as defensive coordinator. I really think it’s #1. There have been other memorable games for the defense; shutting out Tulsa in 2004, the big plays in the Emerald Bowl, the Stanford & Temple games last year, putting the clamps on Rice a couple of times… But I think this one was better. First, it’s the biggest game of the year. Yes, Army’s offense isn’t good, but it’s still the Army-Navy Game. This is still the one that matters the most. Second, unlike most of those other games, the offense didn’t have a great day. It was the defense that carried the team. The only other game among those I listed where you can say that is the 14-13 win over Rice in 2004. But this was done on the big stage, in the most important game. That’s what sets it apart for me.
So what was it with the offense anyway? Did they just have a bad day, or has John Mumford solved the puzzle of PJ’s offense? I watched the game again yesterday trying to figure out what Army did, and I really couldn’t see anything unusual schematically. Army did do two things that really slowed the running game down. They shed blocks as well as any team we’ve faced this year. They also had their safeties overcommit to the run. I mean really commit. Jordan Murray had 16 tackles. Usually, seeing that would be an invitation for PJ to throw it over their heads. But with the weather being what it was– cold and windy– and the defense playing as well as they were, I think Coach Johnson just decided not to bother with it. PJ said after the game that the weather wasn’t very conducive to passing, and Kaipo only had 5 attempts on the day. Only one of those attempts was a real home run swing. As lights-out as the defense was, I think PJ figured the only way that Army would get into the game was if they generated some turnovers. Throwing the ball on a windy day like that would have made turnovers a real possibility, so he just played things close to the vest. The good news is that Navy walked out of there with a dominating win, and didn’t have to put anything special on film to do it.
A disturbing backstory to the game was the conduct of some Army players on the field. You might have read this article from Bill Wagner where Adam Ballard talks about guys twisting his legs at the bottom of the pile. Other than seeing Adam get up angrily after a few tackles, that was hard to see on TV. What wasn’t hard to see, though, was Jeremy Trimble’s hit on Ram Vela after Army’s first play from scrimmage. Do you remember when Virginia tackle Brad Butler took a shot at Boston College DE Mathias Kiwanuka a couple of years ago? It looked like that; a shot at Vela’s knees from behind & to the side, and after the play was over. I have never wished to have my computer fixed as much as I do right now, just so I could capture the video and show it to you. If you recorded the game, look at the bottom of the screen on Army’s first play. It might be the dirtiest play in the history of the Army-Navy Game. Not that it’s a series known for dirty plays or anything, but that just makes it more shameful. Seriously, watch the tape. This isn’t hyperbole.
But no amount of shadiness was going to put Army over the top on Saturday. In the end, Navy sang their alma mater last, conducted by a seemingly reluctant Reggie Campbell. Hearing the Brigade chant his name, and more or less force him to the conductor’s podium, is a memory that I will never forget from this game. To see the Brigade connect with a player like that, and the team as a whole, is something that would have been almost unimaginable when I was at USNA. It’s a change for the better.
Birddog Game Balls
— Reggie Campbell: Duh. But really, how much are we going to miss Reggie? What a special player. He is now second only to Napoleon McCallum among Navy’s all-time leaders in all-purpose yardage. Think about that for a second.
— Michael Walsh: No player has improved more over the course of the season than Michael Walsh. He had yet another solid game against Army, with 8 tackles (2 for a loss) and a forced fumble that would set up a touchdown. Walsh has become Navy’s best defensive lineman. He’s only a junior, too.
— Joey Bullen: Death. Taxes. Huge Joey Bullen field goals in big games. It’s science.
Reggie Campbell shines
For five straight years, Navy wins
CIC Trophy
The Army-Navy game is today. It’s one of the most celebrated days of the year. But today is also December 1; 14 years ago today, Alton Grizzard was killed. Please take a moment today to remember him.
I remember the first time I saw Alton Grizzard. I was 10 years old, and I had just moved from San Diego to Virginia Beach. We finally lived close enough to Annapolis to get to a Navy game. So I was with my father at my first Navy game, and Navy’s offense took the field. My father started to chuckle. I asked him why he was laughing, and he said something about one of the linebackers being lost. Alton definitely looked like a linebacker with that big ol’ neck roll he wore. That neck roll was a symbol of the toughness that he brought to the quarterback position and a sign of things to come.
What are your favorite Alton Grizzard memories?
The Birddog 