Sometimes I feel guilty waiting until Friday to put out the game previews. I didn’t usually write them so late in the week over the last two years, but this season I decided to change things up. It’s mostly because I’m lazy; procrastination just comes naturally to me. Then again, there is a practical reason to wait until the last minute as well. A lot can change over the course of a week. What you thought you knew on Monday can become a pile of useless goo by Friday. Such is the case with this week’s Navy-Wake Forest game, as Navy quarterback Ricky Dobbs was unable to practice all week and will not play on Saturday. Sophomore Kriss Proctor will get the start for the Mids.

After watching Ivin Jasper have to juggle three quarterbacks in 2008, the one thing Navy fans were looking forward to this year was a little bit of stability at the position. That hope was doomed before the season even started, as a crack in Ricky’s right kneecap that appeared while he was in high school was more or less a ticking time bomb that was re-injured against SMU. Well, “ticking time bomb” might be a bit melodramatic… Ricky did finish the game against SMU, after all. Nevertheless, he’s out this week, and maybe longer– I don’t think cracked kneecaps heal in a week. So in steps Proctor, bringing with him the dark, gray cumulonimbus of the unknown.

Well, not completely unknown. With his team up 42-7 after one drive in the second half against Rice, Coach Niumatalolo replaced Ricky with Proctor, and the offense didn’t miss a beat. Kriss finished with 82 yards and three TDs in less than one half of play, including the game’s longest run of 29 yards. Of course, all this came against Rice, which is not only a terrible team this year, but also didn’t have a very good defensive plan to take on the Navy offense. Proctor probably couldn’t have had an easier debut; on its own, there really isn’t that much we can tell about Proctor from the Rice game. Fortunately, there is context. Kriss didn’t come into the spring as the clear-cut #2 quarterback; it was a three-way battle between Proctor, Mike Stukel, and Kameron Smith. It didn’t take long for Proctor to rise to the top of the heap, though. With the advantage of having played in a similar option offense in high school, his option reads and feel for defenses came more naturally than the other two. Proctor’s high school background has led some, including Coach Jasper, to draw comparison between the last Chosen One of Navy quarterbacks, Kaipo. I’m not sure if those comments are just meant to be a confidence booster to his young sophomore, but I cringed a little when I read them. Kaipo has been described, and rightfully so, as the best option quarterback Navy’s ever had. I hope the comparison doesn’t lead to ridiculous expectations on the part of fans… Anything short of those expectations, and we end up with really annoying blog comments. And we can’t have that. With Wake Forest coming to Annapolis, let’s hope the comparison is valid– one thing Jim Grobe’s defenses have done as well as any Navy opponent is give the quarterback a variety of different reads and alignments to deal with.

If you’re sick of Wake Forest, I don’t think anyone would blame you. Familiarity breeds contempt, they say, and this will be Navy and Wake’s third meeting in a little more than a year. Navy beat then-#16 Wake in Winston-Salem last September, with the Demon Deacons winning the rematch in the Eaglebank Bowl two months later. This year’s Wake Forest team, though, is a lot different than the 2008 squad.

I’m not sure people truly realize just how good Wake Forest’s defense was last year. Four players from that defense were taken in last year’s NFL draft. Aaron Curry, who won the Butkus Award as the nation’s top linebacker, was the #4 overall selection. Curry was also the fastest linebacker at the NFL combine. The second-fastest linebacker at the combine was fellow Deac Stanley Arnoux, who was drafted in the fourth round by the Saints. Two picks earlier, the Saints took Wake Forest safety Chip Vaughn. Alphonso Smith was named a first-team All-American by the Associated Press and taken in the second round by the Denver Broncos. That’s a once-in-a-lifetime defense for most schools, and it showed. Wake Forest was 16th in total defense last year, giving up less than 297 yards and only 18 points per game while leading the nation with 37 takeaways. Not surprisingly, removing four NFL-caliber players from one defense has taken its toll. Through seven games, Wake has averaged 364 yards and 24 points per game; significant increases over a year ago. Without last year’s stud linebackers, the two leading tacklers on the team– Cyhl Quarles and Brandon Ghee– are both in the secondary.

Offensively, Wake Forest is a bit of a mystery. While teams always know what they’re going to get when they play Navy, Wake has found itself in a bit of an identity crisis for the last two years. The loss to Navy was a turning point of sorts for the 2008 squad. Up until that game, the offense was geared toward making the most of Riley Skinner’s arm. But after throwing 4 interceptions against the Mids, Jim Grobe seemed to favor the running game. In the four weeks up to and including the Navy game, Wake Forest averaged only 85 yards per game on the ground. After losing to Navy, they averaged 138 yards per game, capped off with 239 rushing yards in the rematch with the Mids. The dedication to the running game has carried over into 2009, as the Deacs actually employed wishbone and wing-T plays and formations in their season opener, a 24-21 loss to Baylor. They continued to run the ball, with 383 yards in wins over Stanford and Elon over the next two weeks. Then came Boston College. Facing a 24-10 deficit in the fourth quarter, Wake Forest started throwing again, tying the game with 11 seconds to play before falling in overtime. Skinner threw for 361 yards the following week against North Carolina State, and followed that up with 360 more yards in a win against Maryland. It appeared that Wake Forest was back to being a passing team again.

That came to a screeching halt last week at Clemson, where the senior quarterback threw for only 97 yards and two interceptions in a 38-3 blowout loss. A glimpse at the differing defensive schemes between the Terps and the Tigers might explain why. Riley Skinner has always completed a high percentage of his passes– 67% for his career, a rate he is matching in 2009. It’s an impressive statistic, but like all statistics it needs to be placed in context. The Wake Forest passing offense is one of those “extension of the running game” schemes; short, controlled passing, with plenty of screens and swing passes. When Maryland blitzed on almost every play, it played right into Wake Forest’s hands. Clemson, on the other hand, blitzed very little. They relied on their front four to get pressure on Skinner, and had one linebacker spying on the quarterback to keep him from scrambling for yardage while everyone else was in coverage. With all the short routes covered, Skinner was sacked 5 times and completed only 11 of his 24 pass attempts. Can Navy’s 4-man rush do the same thing? It’s a tall task; Clemson averages nearly 3 sacks per game compared to Navy’s 1. The end result might look very similar to the SMU game; no sacks, but just enough to keep the offense within striking distance.

Wake Forest is a small, private school– the kind of school that one would think Navy would match up well against. History, however, disagrees. Of the nine games that the two schools have played against each other since 1991, Navy has won only two of them. You can’t underestimate their talent. They’ll be especially motivated this week, since the Navy game is almost a must-win for bowl eligibility given the difficulty of the remainder of their schedule. The Deacs have lost their last 5 games on the road, but Navy is without their rocket-armed quarterback. If you know how this one’s going to turn out, you’re one step ahead of me.

“These kids are unbelievable. Just when you think they can’t one-up themselves, they pull out another big win. Our kids are very resilient. Our kids are fighters. Even when the odds are stacked against them, they continue to plug away.”

Ken Niumatalolo summed things up nicely following Saturday’s dramatic 38-35 comeback win over SMU in Dallas. The old Navy football cliche of “these kids will never give up” certainly rang true, as the Mids overcame a 21-7 halftime deficit. Vince Murray led the way on the ground with 141 yards and 2 TDs. Ricky Dobbs added 89 yards and 2 TDs of his own. Ram Vela and Tyler Simmons paced the defense with 7 tackles apiece. SMU running back Shawnbrey McNeal led the Mustangs with 131 yards rushing, while Bo Levi Mitchell completed only 19 of 41 passing attempts for 200 yards.

What would turn into a miserable first half started out well enough. The Navy defense held SMU’s run and shoot to a 3 & out on their first possession. The Mids took over at midfield, and six plays later had a 7-0 lead. On the Mustangs’ second drive they turned to their own ground game, marching 79 yards on ten plays, seven of which were running plays. Now tied at 7, the Mids started their second possession in good field position after the SMU kickoff went out of bounds. They were able to move the ball once again, driving to the SMU 27 before facing a 4th & 1. It was there that everything sort of went to hell.

Coach Niumatalolo decided to go for it, as he often does– usually successfully. Not this time, though. Ricky was stopped for no gain, and Navy turned the ball over on downs. When the offense got the ball back after an SMU punt, they were backed up to their own 11-yard line. Two straight false start penalties killed this drive, forcing Navy to punt and giving SMU the ball at midfield. Five plays later, it was 14-7 SMU. Yet another Navy penalty on the ensuing kickoff forced the Mids to start the next drive from their own 7. On the first play of the drive, Pete Fleps hit Bobby Doyle, forcing a fumble that was recovered by SMU in the end zone. It was a tie game 16 seconds earlier; now, it was 21-7 SMU.

It could have been worse. With the Mids unable to move the ball for the remainder of the second quarter, SMU’s next two drives started at the Navy 40 and their own 42, respectively. But good defense from Navy– and less than accurate passing from Bo Levi Mitchell– kept SMU from doing any more damage. Once again, the Navy defense was able to carry the load while the offense got its act together. Mercifully, the half ended.

It’s not as if SMU was doing anything unusual to stop the Navy offense. As suspected, the whole 4-man front, same-schemes-as-last-year crap was a total smokescreen. SMU came out with a 5-man front. On the first drive, they even looked a little bit like Air Force. Scheme-wise, anyway. The safeties played in a cover 2, with the playside safety stepping up in run support. At first, the pitch key also stepped into the backfield to cover the pitch.

This forced the quarterback inside, where he was met by a linebacker. That’s where SMU’s plan differed a bit. They had both inside linebackers dancing back and forth around the line of scrimmage on almost every play. Only one of them usually blitzed. The other would key on the quarterback. Coach Jasper called the counter option, with the pulling guard blocking the linebacker spying on the QB. On the first play, the WR blocks the run support safety. The playside A-back, Cory Finnerty, gets just enough of a cut on the cornerback to spring Marcus Curry. The second play in the clip is the same play, run during the doldrums of the second quarter. Here, the pulling guard misses the linebacker, and the play is blown up.

It was that kind of self-destruction that kept the Navy offense from gaining any momentum in the second quarter. The execution was much better after halftime. Here, you can see the playside tackle release outside of the give key to block the inside-out linebacker pursuit. The other inside linebacker gets caught up in traffic and can’t reach the pitch. The playside A-back blocks the run support safety. Notice in the second play how confused the pitch key looks.

As the second half progressed, the playside DE would vary between inside and outside techniques when lined up on the tackle. To counter this, Coach Jasper made a really cool blocking adjustment. He ran the triple option, but had the fullback run off tackle. The outside LB that was once the pitch key became the give key (#1), while the cornerback went unblocked as the pitch key (#2). The wide receiver would block the run support, while the playside A-back took care of linebacker pursuit.

Subtle changes and better execution helped the Mids generate 301 of their 399 yards of total offense in the second half.

Defensively, I think this was a better game than it might appear at first glance, with 35 points sitting on the scoreboard. Obviously, the defense wasn’t responsible for 7 of those points. They did give up 376 yards, but that is about average for SMU. Buddy Green’s game plan took away most of SMU’s short passing game, forcing them to either throw long– which Bo Levi Mitchell wasn’t able to do with any accuracy– or run. The Mustangs were able to run the ball a bit, thanks to Miami transfer Shawnbrey McNeal. But McNeal only had 15 carries. Consistently running the ball just isn’t what SMU’s offense was designed to do. If you’re forcing June Jones to run the ball, then you’ve won the battle.

Some stream of consciousness stuff–

— Matt Mike Walsh was dominating at nose guard against Rice, but had a much tougher go of things against a legitimate all-conference contender like SMU’s Mitch Enright. Hopefully one of the regular nose guards will be available to play against Wake Forest and their senior-laden group.

— The maturation of Vince Murray continues to happen right before our eyes. Murray’s career-high 141 yards rushing were highlighted by a 52-yard scamper in the second half off of a designed handoff. Take a lok at these plays. In the first, the playside guard was unable to lay a block on the linebacker, and the play looked like something out of the Air Force game. On the second play, the guard makes that block. With the safety keying on the motion slotback, it vacates the middle of the field, and Murray runs wild. It’s the third play that’s my favorite, though. Here, Murray keeps his head up and is able to cut back to avoid traffic and make his way to the end zone.

— The flag for a face mask was picked up at the end of Murray’s long run. Just one of several ridiculous calls by the officials on the day. After the whistle on this kickoff, an SMU player executes a throw on Bo Snelson that would be good enough to validate Judo class. The call? Personal foul on Snelson.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

— I’m fairly confident that the television broadcast was produced by the Hebron High School A/V club. Holy crap. I’ve seen better television productions of Slamball broadcasts. I can tolerate clueless homers in the booth up to a point, but when you’re cutting away from game action to show Bill the Goat in the front lean & rest, then you suck.

Another pet peeve… I own an HDTV, bought back when Navy signed their deal for home games to be shown on HDNet. The best part of owning an HDTV to me isn’t the clear picture– it’s the wide screen. It allows me to see all 11 players on each side of the ball. Now, there was obviously nothing remotely high definition about Saturday’s television coverage. Still, an unfortunate trend in football games recently, HD or not, has been to zoom in so tightly to the ball that you can’t see what is happening away from it. This wasn’t unique to this game; it has been a problem with CBS College Sports, too. There is so much more to football than just the ballcarrier. Good broadcasts try to make you feel like you’re at the game, not make you feel like you’re at the game with a telescope.

— Speaking of the horrible TV coverage, it’s time to retire another cliche. No more references to the lack of “quick strike” ability of the Navy offense, please. All 5 of Navy’s scoring drives in regulation took less than 4 minutes. The old myth of “just get up by a couple scores early on this offense and they can’t play catch-up” that people use as “analysis” gets disproven over and over again. Between Temple and Notre Dame last year, and Ohio State, Louisiana Tech, and SMU this year, Navy has shown a remarkable ability to put themselves in a position to win after falling behind. Then again, people still think this is the three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust wishbone. Because they’re idiots.

A tale of two halves.
The first was an epic fail.
Second? Poetry.

I’m so mad at June Jones right now.

This week was shaping up so nicely for me. I finished the writeup for the Rice game on Monday night instead of Tuesday, so I was already ahead of the curve. By Tuesday night I was just about done with the SMU preview, too. Everything was all laid out. I wrote all about how this year’s SMU game would be nothing like last year’s 34-7 Navy win. There was no way that there would be anything to take from that game, right? I mean, the game was played in a monsoon, with winds gusting to 36 mph. The wind kept Jones from being able to unleash his full playbook on the Mids. Bo Levi Mitchell finished with only 157 yards passing, 56 of those yards coming on one play. That wasn’t even a long pass either; it was more of a catch-and-run. Forcing the defense to cover the entire field is what makes the run and shoot work, and the wind made that impossible. With the weekend forecast for Dallas calling for clear skies and light winds, the SMU offense figures to look a lot different compared to a year ago.

Two days ago, I thought their defense would, too. Navy didn’t even attempt a pass against the Mustangs in 2008. They didn’t have to. The Mids ran for 404 yards, 224 of them coming from Ricky Dobbs. The Navy QB tacked on 4 TDs as well, and he didn’t even play the whole game; Jarod Bryant was the starter. Bryant was on his way to a monster game himself, running for 50 yards on only 6 carries before leaving the game for the second time due to injury. Ricky carried the ball 42 times, and SMU didn’t stop him. With that kind of a beating, defensive coordinator Tom Mason would be sure to scrap last year’s Navy game plan and go with something else, right? Besides, SMU switched from a 4-3 to a 3-4 this year, so there isn’t any reason to even bother looking at last year’s game, is there?

Then I hopped onto the internet Wednesday morning and read this:

The Mustangs defense will adjust to a four-man front this week in preparation for Navy’s triple-option, defensive coordinator Tom Mason said.

and this:

SMU will also revert back to some of the schemes it used in last year’s 34-7 loss at Navy, with new wrinkles designed to better limit quarterback Ricky Dobbs. Dobbs ran for 224 yards and four touchdowns against the Mustangs last season.

Part of me thinks that this has to be some kind of trick. There’s no way that SMU will revert to the same defensive plan that led to last year’s thumping, is there? Apparently, that’s exactly what is going to happen, so now I have to scrap everything I already wrote and hit the DVD player. Way to kill my family time, SMU. I’m not sure this revelation is all that helpful to the Navy coaches, either, since it could easily just be an attempt to spread misinformation.

It won’t take us long to find out. The coaches weren’t really sure how SMU was going to line up going into last year’s game, either. In situations like that, it’s common for Coach Jasper to call a designed handoff to the fullback on the game’s first play. He’ll send a slotback in tail motion to make it look like the triple option, but it’s really just his way of seeing the defense’s game plan. That’s how he started the game last year, which you can see on the first play on the clip. SMU used a variation of the same free-safety-takes-the-pitch-man defense we see all the time. In this case, with the corners playing tight in man coverage, it was really a cover 1 look as opposed to a cover 3. After seeing that, Jasper started calling the triple option. The corners were in tight coverage on the wide receivers and not playing run support, so Coach Jasper let his receivers run them out of the play. The playside A-back would load from the linebacker to the safety. What that means is that he’d first look to block the first linebacker out of the count. If the LB was playing the fullback dive, he’d move on to block the safety instead. With the safety blocked, the pitch was wide open.

Now, pay special attention to that last play. The really unusual part about SMU’s defense last year was that they used their outside linebackers to match up man-to-man with the slotbacks (personnel-wise, one of them was a safety, but where he was lined up made him a de facto LB). Eventually, SMU started occasionally firing their corners in run support. When that happened, Coach Jasper changed the blocking scheme. Now, the wide receiver would block the safety, while the playside A-back would arc block the cornerback.

The man coverage on the slotbacks is why Ricky Dobbs had so many carries in last year’s game. When the playside slotback went out to make his block, the man covering him would follow right along. Of course, the LB covering the slotback was also the quarterback’s pitch key, so when he kept running outside to cover his man, he was basically giving Ricky the read to keep the ball. So Ricky did. A lot.

This coverage scheme opened up opportunities for misdirection, too. The linebacker following the tail motion resulted in a numbers advantage on the vacated side of the field. Coach Jasper used the fullback blocking the inside-out linebacker pursuit, which left a lot of space outside for Ricky to run.

Once in a while, SMU would switch from a 4-man front to a 5-man front. Whenever they did, Jarod and Ricky would audible to the midline option:

The question now is what “wrinkles” the SMU staff intends to add “to better limit quarterback Ricky Dobbs,” and how to do it without opening up other plays. I’m not sure that’s possible in this defensive scheme. Don’t be surprised if, unlike last year’s contest, Coach Jasper airs it out a bit if he once again finds himself playing against cover 1 with the safety dedicated to run support. I don’t know if June Jones and defensive coordinator Tom Mason really do intend to use the same basic defense as last year, but we should hope that they do.

It’s hard to imagine that SMU would want to imitate anything from their dreadful 1-11 campaign of 2008, especially considering how well the 2009 season has gone so far. SMU is 3-2 and off to their first 2-0 start in conference play since receiving the Death Penalty in 1987– a span of three different conference memberships (Southwest, WAC, and Conference USA). The three wins are more than they had in their last two seasons combined. It hasn’t always been pretty– the Mustangs lost to a horrible Washington State team and were outgained by Stephen F. Austin in their opener, 460-355– but when you’re coming off of back-to-back one-win seasons, pretty is the farthest thing from your mind.

As the quarterback of one of only a pair of I-A schools that feature the pure run & shoot, it’s no surprise that Bo Levi Mitchell is among the nation’s top passers, averaging nearly 300 yards per game through the air. That’s up from the 238 yards per game he averaged last year, but Mitchell isn’t really throwing that much better…  He’s just throwing that much more. Like last season, he’s completing about 58% of his passes, and with 10 interceptions he’s well on his way to matching the 23 he threw in 2008.  He’s completing passes at about the same rate, but he’s had more opportunities to throw, completing 25 passes per game. That’s up from a little more than 19 per game a year ago, and it’s thanks mostly to the SMU defense. The unit, led by standout linebackers Chase Kennemer and Navy transfer Pete Fleps, is definitely better this year, although I wouldn’t exactly call giving up 391 yards per game good. They do, however, lead the country in interceptions with 13, and have forced 19 turnovers overall. When you average almost 4 turnovers per game, you give your quarterback more chances to throw the ball. Mitchell’s favorite target is wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders. A 5-11, 180-pound senior, Sanders is already SMU’s all-time leader in receiving yards and TD catches, and needs just one more catch to tie the SMU career mark in receptions as well. He had 18 catches for 178 yards against Washington State, and leads all of I-A in punt return average. He is as legitimate a threat as you’ll find anywhere.

Navy is favored for a reason, but this is going to be a different game than last week. Rice was a downtrodden, defeated team. After beating perennial Conference USA contender East Carolina on Saturday, SMU has to feel like they’ve turned a corner. They are going to be confident, and the Mids are going to get their best shot.

The Gansz Trophy

Saturday’s game will be an emotional one, especially for SMU. The teams will be playing for the newly-created Gansz Trophy honoring Frank Gansz, the SMU special teams coach that passed away on April 27. Gansz was sort of the football version of this guy. A 1960 graduate of the Naval Academy, he didn’t letter, but was a member of the first team to play at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in 1959. Upon graduation, he received a commission in the Air Force, where he served for seven years. After leaving the Air Force, Gansz spent 38 years roaming the sideline. He coached at all three service academies, was the head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, and won a Super Bowl ring coaching special teams with the St. Louis Rams. He retired in 2001, but came out of retirement last year to coach with June Jones at SMU.

A traveling trophy series with SMU is a great idea for a lot of reasons. A regular series enhances Navy’s visibility and coverage in Texas, a key recruiting state. It’s also one less date on the schedule that Navy has to fill– a task that is becoming more difficult as the Mids are more successful. The current series ends in 2011 and resumes from 2015-2018, with additional dates in the works. Plus, if SMU improves under June Jones they way many people expect them to, this could become a marquee game on the Navy schedule, and one of the better non-BCS matchups every year.

I doubt we’ll see any people leaving comments on Wagner’s blog this week complaining about Navy’s offense.

The Mids cranked out 537 total yards, including 471 on the ground, to dismantle the Rice Owls on Saturday, 63-14. Fourteen players carried the ball for Ivin Jasper’s offense, led by Ricky Dobbs’ 104 yards and 4 touchdowns. Reserves got most of the carries in the second half, and #2 QB Kriss Proctor made the most of his playing time with 83 yards and 3 TDs of his own. Rice remains winless, while Navy moves to 4-2 and one step closer to a return trip to Houston for the Texas Bowl.

I probably should have seen this coming. Even in 2008, when Rice was a 10-game Texas Bowl winner, their defense still couldn’t handle the triple option. Army ran for 461 yards on the Owls last year, and Army’s offense was terrible. I’m not sure if it was that game or David Bailiff’s earlier experience with Georgia Southern and Cal Poly that tipped him off, but Ken Niumatalolo knew exactly what was coming. In his radio interview with Bob Socci before the game, Coach Niumat mentioned that Rice would be looking to force the ball outside, counting on the free safety to make the stop. Hmmm… Now where have we seen this before? Coach Jasper tested this on Navy’s first play from scrimmage, faking the toss sweep and throwing deep over the middle to Marcus Curry. The safety bit on the fake just enough to allow Curry to get behind him for a 51-yard gain. After the game, Bailiff commented on his defensive plan: “Every adjustment we made, everything we did, nothing worked. We will put the film on.”

Coach, at Rice, you never end a sentence with a preposition! But when he does put the film on, he’ll see that the defense did exactly what it was designed to do. Rice safety Andrew Sendejo had 17 tackles, more than twice as many as the next closest Owl. Rice switched between odd and even fronts, but the one constant was Sendejo following the tail motion and making a beeline for the pitch:

You can see in the clip how the tackle tried to make the block, but couldn’t. Over the course of the game, Coach Jasper went after the safety in a few ways. In the tight formation, he used the playside wide receiver to block the safety. This left the cornerback unblocked, but he was lined up so deep in the cover 3 that he couldn’t make the tackle until the ball carrier was already nine yards downfield. Next, he continued to use the tackle to block the safety, but instead of releasing inside of the quarterback’s read key, he had him release outside in order to give him a clearer path to his assignment. It worked well enough. Finally, he had the slotback take the safety, and Mike Stukel laid a textbook cut that carved a path for Ricky to get to the end zone.

Coach Jasper did other things too. There was the pass to open the game, of course. The counter option had some success as well. He also tinkered with the trips formation. Take a look at this next clip. In the first play, the tackle releases inside and isn’t able to get to the next level of the defense. The playside linebacker and safety are both unblocked; one takes the quarterback, the other takes the pitch, and the play is blown up. The second play is the same, only this time the safety is blocked by the wide receiver. The tackle arc blocks the cornerback, and Bobby Doyle runs for a first down:

Despite the considerable output, it was hardly a flawless performance by the offense. There were missed blocks, mixed assignments, and missed reads, although they still turned into 2-3 yard gains against the Rice defense. On the flip side, there were also some immediate improvements in the wake of the Air Force game. In the next clip, you’ll see Ricky make a tough– and correct– read against a mesh charge. You’ll also see Vince Murray make two great runs. In the first, Murray makes a nifty move to take advantage of his blockers and find some open field. The second play is a designed handoff to the fullback. Instead of trying to plow through an unblocked linebacker, Vince runs around him. Against Air Force, that play is a 2-yard gain. This week, it’s a touchdown.

Perhaps an Air Force linebacker makes that play. Still, you have to appreciate the progress.

The pyroclastic flow of offensive destruction is the most eye-popping item from the Rice game, but don’t let it overshadow another excellent performance by the Navy defense. The Mids are 29th in the country against the run after holding Rice to 21 rushing yards. Of course, 2009 Rice isn’t exactly 2004 Rice when it comes to running the ball, but after performances against Ohio State, Pitt, and Air Force, it’s clear that this ranking is no fluke. Naturally, Navy’s remaining schedule features four of the country’s top 16 passing offenses. Figures. Fortunately, the Mids got a good tune-up for these games on Saturday from a pass-happy Rice team and their sophomore quarterback.

Rice has high hopes for quarterback Nick Fanuzzi. The transfer from Alabama appeared to be turning a corner when, earlier this year, Rice actually outgained Oklahoma State in a 41-24 loss. A shoulder injury forced him to miss the last two games, but he was back in action against Navy. Fanuzzi finished with 242 yards passing and 2 TDs, including a pretty incredible toss to Patrick Randolph at the end of the first half. But the Mids were able to pick off two of Fanuzzi’s passes, and neither of Rice’s drives that started in Navy territory resulted in a score.

Fanuzzi could have blamed those fizzled drives on being rusty after being hurt for two weeks, and I don’t think anyone would have blamed him. To his credit, he didn’t:

“I felt great after this week of practice. I was confident with what I could do with my arm. I’m not putting how I played based on my shoulder hurting, that’s not the case today. I think we just had missed opportunities and we’ve just got to fix them and look forward to next week. I felt prepared, I thought we were ready to go out and play Navy this week, but I give them all the credit. They played a great game offensively and defensively. We’ve just to keep grinding.”

One of Fanuzzi’s two interceptions went to Ram Vela, who had a stellar game. On top of the interception, Ram also led the team with 5 tackles, two of which were made behind the line of scrimmage. Kevin Edwards grabbed the other interception and broke up another pass. Perhaps the most impressive performance of the day came from Michael Walsh, who filled in at nose guard while Jordan Stephens, Chase Burge, and Shane Bothel were out with injuries. Walsh usually plays defensive end, and at 251 pounds, is a bit undersized when compared to other nose guards. Someone forgot to tell him that on Saturday. Walsh consistently drew double-teams, but was still able to push himself into the backfield and even knocked down a pass. Rice’s sophomore linemen had their hands full– sometimes literally– with the Navy senior. Like the offense, Buddy Green was able to rotate in several reserves, with players like John Angelo, Max Blue, and Mason Graham making plays in the second half.

My favorite defensive play came in the first quarter, with Navy up 14-0. What looked like an option run in one direction became a pass to the tight end running in the other direction:

Clint Sovie didn’t overpursue the option look. Instead, he recognized the play action, recovered, and held the play to a minimal gain. One or two years ago, this kind of misdirection would’ve resulted in a big gain. Now, the Navy defense is much more disciplined.

As exciting as it was to see the offense explode the way it did, I’m not sure how much there is to learn from this game. When a team full of freshmen and sophomores carries out a mediocre game plan that the other side is prepared for, obliteration happens. By the end of it, Coach Jasper had to be thinking to himself, “We run the option, and our backups are in the game! How are we supposed to keep from running up the score? Pass?” But hey, there’s nothing like a good blowout to cleanse the soul. Just don’t let it go to your head.

Rice versus Navy:
Great seats still available
For blowout central.

The more you have invested in a game, the more difficult it is to move on afterward. Here we are, still e-yelling at each other about the offense almost a week after the Air Force game… And we’re just fans. Imagine how hard it must be for the people who actually invest time and effort preparing for it. (No, remembering to set your DVR doesn’t count as “effort”). No matter how physically and emotionally drained they might be, the players have to suit up, focus, and start practice again on Monday. So it goes for the Navy football team as they enter another crucial stretch in the schedule.

On paper, Rice and SMU would seem to be two of the less daunting teams the Mids have to face this year, entering the weekend with a combined record of 2-7. Not that there’s any team that Navy can chalk up as an automatic win, obviously, but one would figure that the Mids would have a better chance against the Owls and Mustangs than they would with some of the other luminaries on the schedule. Then again, each game isn’t played in a vacuum; they’re played as part of a larger season, and timing doesn’t exactly favor the Mids. Navy is following up a physically and mentally exhausting rivalry win with a pair of long road trips back and forth from Texas, in a season where the Mids have yet to win on the road. When placed in that context, the next two weeks figure to be as challenging as any other. First on the docket in Navy’s Texas two-step is Rice.

Playing in Texas helps Navy’s recruiting efforts, and as such Rice has been a regular on Navy schedules since the ’90s. The two teams last met in 2005, when Matt Hall ran for 91 yards and 2 TDs to lead Navy to a 41-9 victory. It’s hard to imagine a program being so different after only four years; no team in the country has had a more roller coaster existence than Rice. The story actually begins a year earlier, when the future of Rice football and the entire athletics program came into question. I started following the situation when a Rice message board linked a piece I wrote for Scout.com regarding the role athletics play in fulfilling the Naval Academy’s mission. While Rice and the Naval Academy don’t share the same mission, they do face many of the same pressures and misconceptions regarding athletics and the benefits they bring to the school. In April of 2004, the Rice faculty commissioned a study that concluded that a de-emphasis of athletics, including an end to the football program, would be best for the school. In response to this report, the Board of Trustees commissioned a study of their own by McKinsey & Co. to examine its findings and make a recommendation to the Board; options on the table included doing away with football, dropping to Division III, or dissolving the athletic department altogether. When word of these studies were leaked to Rice fans and alumni, their reaction was immediate. Rallies and a massive letter-writing campaign organized by a newly formed “Friends of Rice Athletics” group overwhelmed the Board of Trustees. Bobby May, the Rice AD at the time, talked about the campaign’s effectiveness:

“The Board was totally taken aback; it was knocked off balance by the efforts of those who took the time to write – not just because of the volume, but because of the quality and the logic of the response.”

The other side was overwhelmed, outworked, disarmed and outclassed. One Board member remarked that the work of the Friends of Rice Athletics, and those who wrote, was far better than that put forth by McKinsey.”

With that, Rice football had new life. Rather than drop the program, the school launched a renewed effort to make it better. Rice left the WAC in 2005 in favor of Conference USA. As a member of the C-USA, Rice is able to play most of their games in Texas, maintain some of its old Southwest Conference rivalries, and compete in a West division that consists primarily of private schools (Rice, Tulsa, SMU, and Tulane). It’s a win for the program. In 2006, one of the more underappreciated old venues in college football, Rice Stadium, underwent renovations that included a new playing surface and a modern scoreboard. The most significant changes, though, have come on the field. Ken Hatfield, who had coached on South Main for 12 years, resigned after a 1-10 season in 2005. Hatfield had strayed a bit from his pure wishbone roots, but still employed a running offense based on wishbone power running principles. His replacement was Tulsa defensive coordinator Todd Graham, who hired Major Applewhite to be his offensive coordinator. Graham said at the time,

“We want to spread the field and throw the football, and every quarterback and receiver in this state will be interested in Rice with Major as our offensive coordinator.”

Sounds great, but probably not the easiest transition after running the wishbone. Not surprisingly, the team got off to a 1-5 start. Soon, though, Applewhite found his answer in a pair of sophomores: quarterback Chase Clement and wide receiver Jarett Dillard. A last-second pass from Clement to Dillard lifted Rice to a dramatic 34-33 win over UAB and sparked a six-game winning streak that put Rice at 7-5 and gave them their first Bowl berth in 45 years. Although the Owls lost in the New Orleans Bowl, the program appeared to be headed in the right direction. It was… Until Graham’s former employer came calling. Steve Kragthorpe left to take the Louisville job, and Graham returned to Tulsa to take his place after only a year at Rice. This time Rice tuned to the I-AA ranks to find their new coach, hiring David Bailiff away from Texas State. Bailiff was a former defensive coordinator at TCU, and led Texas State to an 11-3 record and a berth in the I-AA semifinals. Year one of the Bailiff era wasn’t exactly the stuff of dreams. Rice fell back into despair, finishing 3-9 and giving up a ridiculous 42 points per game. Year two, on the other hand, couldn’t have gone much better. The Clement-Dillard combo led Rice to a 10-win season, including a win in the Texas Bowl– Rice’s first bowl victory since 1954.

By the looks of the 2009 season, you’d never guess that the 2008 season was one of the most successful in Rice history. The graduation of Clement and Dillard have returned the sine wave of Rice football back to the trough, as the Owls enter the Navy game at 0-5 and giving up 40.6 points per game. A lot of that has to do with playing Oklahoma State and Texas Tech, of course, and in fact the team is coming off of its best defensive performance of the season against a prolific Tulsa offense. Of course, when a 27-10 loss is your best game of the season, you’ve probably seen better days. The constant turnover has hurt Rice recruiting, leading to some thin classes and forcing them to start younger players. Four of Bailiff’s five starters on the offensive line are sophomores, and the defensive two-deep features 15 freshmen or sophomores. Only eight seniors were listed on the depth chart last week against Tulsa. The few upperclassmen they have, though, include some talented players, particularly on defense. Scott Solomon, a 6-3, 265-lb. defensive end, had three sacks last week and is fifth all-time in that category in Rice history. Preseason all-conference safety Andrew Sendejo is a dual threat, having led the team in tackles for two consecutive years and sitting sixth in the country in punt return average. Still, it hasn’t been enough to overcome youth and injury, with the Owls playing three different quarterbacks this year.

Not that there’s no reason for hope, though. Bailiff has seen the spread option before. Actually, he’s had a bit of success against it; his 2005 playoff run included wins over both Georgia Southern and Cal Poly. The defense is coming off of its best performance of the season, and injured quarterback Nick Fanuzzi is set to return. Fanuzzi led the Owls on three TD drives against Oklahoma State, but missed the last two games with a shoulder injury. Does all this, plus hitting a soft spot on the Navy schedule, have the makings of an upset? Probably not. But Rice will spread out the Navy defense, and their 4-2-5 scheme on defense will give the Mids a look they haven’t seen yet this year. There’s no rest for a weary Navy squad.

Two Fridays ago, the NAPS squad traveled to Annapolis to take on Navy’s JV Football team. The weather conditions were much more favorable for the 2:30 kickoff than they were two weeks prior vs. Hargrave. Temps were in the upper 70’s, skies were blue, and the wind was a non-factor most of the day.

Continue reading “DOWN ON THE FARM: JV VS. NAPS” →