The big news for Navy this week is that Trey Miller’s ankle is forcing him to sit out tonight’s game, meaning that Keenan Reynolds will get the start for the Mids at quarterback. He’ll be the first freshman to start at the position for Navy in 21 years, when Jim Kubiak was tossed the keys to George Chaump’s attempt at a west coast offense. On paper, Central Michigan is exactly the team that you’d want a freshman option quarterback to make his first start against. They’re giving up 40 points per game and are 114th in the nation in rushing defense. That’s worse than even Army, a defense that we’ve poked fun at once or twice on this blog. That’s on paper, though. We should know by now that having a statistically bad run defense doesn’t necessarily mean that they won’t be able to defend the option, as Army has demonstrated more than once. Still, it isn’t a good start.
NAVY 28, AIR FORCE 21
Remember back when Navy-Air Force games were where offenses went to die? Times have apparently changed. Air Force was able to roll up over 500 yards of offense on Saturday, while Navy ran for 285 yards and was 6-for-6 passing. This is the second year in a row that offense dominated the game, which is a far cry from the days where punts were plentiful and touchdowns were celebrated like overtime goals in the Stanley Cup. It’s a fascinating evolution to observe if you’re a football wonk. In past games, both defenses were so familiar with the offenses that they were lining up against that it seemed like they were sending representatives to the opposing huddle. What’s interesting is that as both offenses have schemed to adjust, they’ve arrived at similar answers.
TIME TO BREAK OLD HABITS
Perception can be a funny thing.
When you watch a team like Boise State or Houston rise in the polls, you can almost feel the regret from voters who rank them highly. They don’t want to. In their eyes, teams like that aren’t supposed to be any good. It’s a slow climb up the mountain if you aren’t a name-brand program, and the moment you slip up, those voters are all too eager to drop you off a cliff. Anything short of perfection, and these programs get little to no respect. History shapes our perception, making it harder for upstarts to prove their worth in the eyes of the public. The missteps of more established programs don’t cost them as much.
It’s a similar dynamic in the smaller ecosystem of service academy football, where Air Force was the dominant program for the better part of two decades. After beating Navy the last two years and winning the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy, fans and media alike were eager to hail the return of the old days. Don’t get me wrong; wins are wins, so if Air Force was called the better team those years, there isn’t much of an argument to be made against it. But because of that history and the perception that comes from it, people didn’t want to leave it at Air Force simply being the better team that year. No, this was a return to the old Air Force and the old Navy and the way things were in decades past. Navy beat Air Force for a record seven straight years, but like the Boises and Houstons in the polls, it took all of one game to tear down what those teams built. After two games, it was official: Air Force was superior once again. Troy Calhoun was the real deal. Navy was sliding back into mediocrity. Ken Niumatalolo couldn’t maintain what Paul Johnson had built. Everything was falling back into place.
Because of this, Navy’s problems this year were overblown while Air Force’s were overlooked. We all know the issues that the Mids have faced. There was the bad defense against Notre Dame, the turnovers, the penalties, and the lack of offensive production against San Jose State. We’ve heard about them non-stop, which is to be expected with a team that’s 1-3. But for some reason, Air Force got a free pass on their shortcomings. Navy was a disappointment last year, finishing 5-7. But Air Force underachieved too, going 7-6 with their most experienced team in a long time. They were only 2-2 going into Saturday, so they weren’t exactly setting the world on fire this year, either. While the teams that have defeated Navy are a combined 13-3 and include one program ranked in the top 10, Air Force lost to 1-5 UNLV. The Falcons have had every bit as much trouble fumbling the ball; until Saturday, they were just lucky enough to recover them. Air Force’s defense has had major issues, giving up 356 passing yards to Idaho State, and 292 passing yards in 3 quarters to Colorado State’s backup. Air Force was just as flawed as Navy going into Saturday. That Navy won shouldn’t be considered too much of an upset, but it was.
Nobody denies Navy’s problems from decades past. The record is there for all to see. Simply knowing the record, though, is not the same thing as understanding it. When talking about the reasons why Army failed in Conference USA, I mentioned that there was a struggle within the Army program over whether or not they were truly a legitimate Division I-A program. The truth is that the same could have been said about Navy to some extent after George Welsh left. The Mids were playing half of their schedule against James Madison, Lehigh, and Dartmouth, while playing South Carolina, Syracuse, and Pitt in the other half. Navy was trying to straddle two worlds, and the record reflected that. Air Force, on the other hand, was committed to playing top-level football. As a result, they got the lion’s share of top-level service academy players. They were a real I-A program. Navy was not. For all of his faults, this is the one thing that Charlie Weatherbie understood. His solution, unfortunately, was to remove all I-AA teams from the schedule and try to play as many BCS-caliber opponents as he could. Like most things under Weatherbie, that didn’t work either. But as the program moved on under a new coach and a new athletic director, it did so having learned from the mistakes of the past. Navy is now a committed Division I-A program, with the facilities, coaches, and recruiting that go along with it.
That’s why it’s wrong to base your expectations on the records of the past. The factors that led to those records have changed. Air Force built their reputation for service academy dominance against a Navy program that wasn’t dedicated to fielding a competitive Division I-A team. That is no longer the case, and the results reflect that. Since Navy jump-started its program in 2002, they have won 8 of 11 games against Air Force, and two of those losses were still close games. Troy Calhoun is 2-4 against Navy, and 2-3 against Ken Niumatalolo. Niumat has two wins over top 25 programs; Calhoun has none. Navy’s losing streak to Notre Dame is dead, and they’ve put together two 10-win seasons under two different head coaches in the last decade. While you can’t ignore last season’s losing record, you also shouldn’t be so quick to assume that it was anything more than an anomaly.
The point of all this is not to claim that Navy is superior. The point is that this Navy program is not the program of the past, and it’s time for perception to change. Service academy football is no longer made up of one program that knows what it’s doing while the other two are off finding themselves. Air Force should no longer be placed on a pedestal while everyone waits for Navy to fall off a cliff. It isn’t going to happen. It’s a new era of equality in service academy football, and we aren’t going back.
Big East before 2015?
Not to be overlooked from the weekend’s news is this report that Big East commissioner Mike Aresco intends to talk to Navy about joining earlier than the original 2015 target; an idea to which Chet Gladchuk responds, “SIR NO SIR.” I assume that Aresco’s interest in bringing Navy into the fold sooner than originally planned is related to television contract negotiations. However, considering everything with scheduling and television contracts that Navy had to rearrange just to make 2015 feasible, it’s no surprise that the Navy AD rejected the idea.
On top of the contractual hassles, putting the entry date in 2015 allows Navy to build up to Big East competition, both in facilities (as Gladchuk mentioned), and in giving Navy coaches a full recruiting cycle to sell themselves as a Big East program before playing a conference schedule. Joining any earlier is a bad idea if Navy wants to hit the ground running. I understand why Aresco might want it to happen sooner, but let’s hope this is the last we hear of it.
New Big East Power Rankings – Week 6
Twelve of the thirteen teams in the New Big East (NBE) played this week, and ten of them won. The only losses came in league play as Rutgers downed UConn and USF lost at Temple.
Congratulations are in order for Temple for their first Big East win in a very, very long time. Their least BE win? 34-24 over Syracuse on November 13th, 2004 – not too long before they were kicked out of the league. It’s been a long road back for the Owls, and as far as I can tell, this is the first time Temple has had a winning record in Big East Conference play since beating Boston College in September 1997.
Oh, and the NBE has more ranked teams than the ACC and B1G…combined. Five power conferences my Aunt Fanny.
This Week in Service Academy Football
Army (1-4): Beat Boston College, 34-31. Army had 595 yards of total offense– 516 on the ground– in winning their first game of the season. BC’s defense has been terrible all year, so despite the attention-grabbing numbers, Army’s offensive output shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. The real story from this game was the play of Army’s defense, which had been every bit as bad as BC’s. They weren’t exactly good in this game either, giving up 420 yards of offense (including a 99-yard TD run). But they were good enough. Army’s defense forced 6 punts, which is a huge win for them; as well as the Army offense is playing, they only need so many stops to be able to keep the team in the game. After Army was stopped on 4th & goal from the BC 1-yard line, the Army defense forced a 3 & out that got the ball back to the offense in great field position with 1:03 left to play. Three plays later, Trent Steelman ran 29 yards for the game winner.
Boston College is a bad football team, but the rest of Army’s schedule leading up to the Navy game isn’t exactly filled with the Monsters of the Midway. Kent State is surprising, Ball State’s offense is pretty good, and Rutgers is undefeated; still, Army should be able to move the ball on all of them. If they can get even mediocre effort out of their defense, they can head into the Navy game with a few more wins. If nothing else, the Boston College game showed that at least the winning template is there.
Air Force (2-3): Anyone catch the Air Force game this week? Did I miss anything?
Postgame Haiku, Vol. 61
You jerks aren’t allowed
Back onto the bandwagon.
Blue pants forever!
SAN JOSE STATE 12, NAVY 0
Sorry for being so late on this one. Real life has been time-consuming lately.
Wags weighed in on Navy football’s recent troubles, ending his piece with this bit:
Play-calling has also been an issue as the Midshipmen seem to get further away from their true identity with each passing week. It was understandable to throw the ball quite a bit after falling behind against Notre Dame and Penn State. Having Miller repeatedly drop back against a San Jose State squad that ranked fourth nationally in sacks made no sense. Offensive coordinator Ivin Jasper called for a pass on first down three times in the first half alone on Saturday and the results were predictable — two sacks and a quarterback hurry.
Navy needs to get back to doing what made it so successful during a run of eight straight winning seasons, which means running the read triple-option. Of course, that’s easier said than done if the line can’t block it and Miller can’t read it.
After reading this, and seeing other comments here about how the Navy offense is “losing its identity” and whatnot, I think we need a little bit of Navy offense 101.
New Big East Power Rankings – Week 5
Something was in the air this week, and I’m not talking about that fall crisp that has thankfully washed over most of the East Coast. For example:
• Washington State was within 4 of Oregon at the half.
• LSU trailed Towson and took some time to put the 1-AA team away
• West Virginia and Baylor agreed to play no defense and finished within a field goal of the D1-A scoring record set in that epic 2007 Navy-North Texas matchup.
• Georgia and Tennessee played in the highest scoring SEC contest…ever.
Point being, there were some struggles this weekend. And while those struggles certainly extended into our future conference, the cream of the conference rose to the occasion and won thier games. We enter the month of October with three undefeated teams – Louisville, Rutgers, and Cincinnati. The Coaches’ Poll has all of them ranked and adds in Boise State to give the New Big East 4 ranked teams. In the AP Poll, Cincinnati and Boise lead the “others receiving votes” category.
5 weeks into the season and we’ve pretty much defined three tiers of the conference. And for as nice at that top tier looks, the bottom tier is just as ugly. Navy, Houston, Memphis and SMU have combined for a grand total of one win over D1-A competition, thanks to Houston beating 1-win Rice this week. Yikes. As a reminder, these rankings aren’t a view of how the season will end, nor is it solely reflective of that week’s action.
This Week in Service Academy Football
Army (0-4):
Q: What do you get when you combine the 2011 Army offense with the 2012 Army defense?
A:
Air Force (2-2): Beat Colorado State, 42-21. Air Force took the kickoff and came out in a no-huddle, hurry-up offense on their first drive that had the Colorado State defense all kinds of confused. It paid off with a 52-yard run by Cody Getz on a simple toss sweep that the Rams just weren’t prepared for, which set up a touchdown on the next play. On Air Force’s second drive, CSU’s safeties bit hard on play action and left Drew Coleman all alone downfield, resulting in a 53-yard TD pass. Air Force’s third drive was a 16-play, 80-yard meat grinder. CSU starting quarterback Garrett Grayson injured himself on an option run on the ensuing possession, and that was pretty much the ballgame. Backup quarterback M.J. McPeek actually played pretty well, throwing for 292 yards and two TDs. It just wasn’t enough to overcome a miserable defensive performance.
The Birddog 