American Postgame

On By MikeIn basketball, navy basketball, patriot leagueLeave a comment
Navy 77, American University 66   (Team Stats)
Team FG FG% 3FG 3FG% FT FT% REB DR OR AS TO BK ST PF
AMER 24-63 38.1 8-24 33.3 10-15 66.7 47 26 21 12 17 2 4 23
NAVY 22-57 38.6 9-26 34.6 24-27 88.9 31 21 10 10 8 5 9 19
Boxscore |  StatSheet.com

Navy bounced back after a very disappointing loss to Army, beating American at Bender Arena for the first time since the Eagles joined the Patriot League, 77-66.

It was an ugly game, with both teams shooting less than 40% from the floor. Navy was horribly, horribly outrebounded in the game; combine that with a 9-26 night from beyond the arc, and you have a game that not too long ago would have resulted in a Navy blowout loss. Not last night, though. Navy finally had an answer for a cold shooting night: team defense, taking care of the ball, and getting Greg Sprink to the free throw line. Sprink scored 36 points, including 17-18 from the line. Chris Harris pitched in 15. The two of them also combined for 6 steals. Navy had only 8 turnovers compared to American’s 17, helping to offset the extra posessions that AU got from their dominance on the glass.

Navy’s rebounding has cost them in the past, and will cost them again in the future. But taking care of the ball and finding a way to score when the 3-pointers aren’t falling makes this a much better basketball team.

Navy 77, American University 66   (Navy Player Stats)
Team
MIN
PTS
FG
FG%
3FG
3%
FT
FT%
R
DR
OR
AS
TO
B
S
PF
 
C. Harris (G) 38 15 5-11 45.5 3-9 33.3 2-2 100 3 2 1 3 2 0 2 3
G. Sprink (G) 36 36 8-18 44.4 3-7 42.9 17-18 94.4 3 3 0 2 2 0 4 4
A. Teague 26 5 1-6 16.7 1-6 16.7 2-4 50 5 5 0 0 0 0 1 2
R. Garcia (G) 25 7 2-4 50 1-1 100 2-2 100 4 2 2 1 1 2 1 0
K. Kina (G) 25 7 3-8 37.5 0-2 0 1-1 100 5 5 0 4 1 1 0 3
M. Veazey (C) 22 4 2-4 50 0-0 0 0-0 0 4 2 2 0 0 2 0 3
T. Topercer 12 3 1-2 50 1-1 100 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1
B. Richards 6 0 0-2 0 0-0 0 0-0 0 2 1 1 0 1 0 0 1
C. Colbert 4 0 0-2 0 0-0 0 0-0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1
B. Brigham 4 0 0-0 0 0-0 0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
D. Young 2 0 0-0 0 0-0 0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
TEAM:   200 77 22-57 38.6 9-26 34.6 24-27 88.9 31 21 10 10 8 5 9 19

Army Postgame

On By MikeIn army-navy, basketball, navy basketball, patriot league3 Comments
Army 69, Navy 67   (Team Stats)
Team FG FG% 3FG 3FG% FT FT% REB DR OR AS TO BK ST PF
NAVY 21-61 34.4 11-33 33.3 14-22 63.6 39 21 18 15 18 5 9 16
ARMY 26-57 45.6 5-13 38.5 12-15 80.0 38 25 13 15 20 7 9 20
Boxscore |  StatSheet.com

Army’s defensive plan was simple: stop Greg Sprink at all costs. Whenever Navy’s best player touched the ball, he was met with a double-team. Navy probably would have done a lot better if they employed a similar strategy with Jarell Brown. Brown, Army’s only real scoring threat, scored 35 points, including the game-winning basket, to lead Army to a 69-67 win over the Mids at Alumni Hall. The loss dropped Navy to 2-3 in the Patriot League and kept them from pulling within a game of conference leader Lafayette, who lost to Lehigh on Saturday night. The Leopards are now tied with Bucknell for the top spot in the league.

Army started the game with an 11-0 run as Navy came out and looked lost. Once the Mids settled down, though, they started to play some good basketball. If there is anything positive to take from this game, it’s that other players stepped up when Army went after Sprink. In the first half, Adam Teague’s 3-pointers and steals helped the Mids to dig out of their early deficit and actually take a lead into the half. In the second half, Mark Veazey came out on fire, scoring points underneath the basket, blocking shots, and making some tough rebounds. Chris Harris added 20 points and 5 assists, although he was only 5-18 from the field. And despite Army’s efforts, Sprink actually had a decent game statistically, scoring 20 himself while pulling down 6 rebounds. While Army’s defense couldn’t stop Greg Sprink from scoring, they did force him into 7 turnovers. Greg tried to fight through double-teams to force fouls and get to the free throw line, but too often he came in out of control and gave up the ball. Army’s defense, though, wasn’t the cause of his biggest gaffe of the night. Sprink took a pass after a steal at half-court and missed what appeared to be some kind of hot-dogging, rim-rocking, wide-open dunk attempt. Navy actually got the offensive rebound, but the Black Knights got a steal and wound up with a 3-point play on the other end. The resulting 5-point swing may have been the difference in the game.

I can sympathize with Greg Sprink. I can imagine what he was thinking. This was Navy’s biggest rival in an important Patriot League game, but you’d never have known that by listening to the crowd– especially the Brigade. They were dead. But if Greg could pull off that dunk, maybe he could have shot some excitement into the Mids. Maybe he could have brought the crowd into the game. And a play like that can be demoralizing for the other team; maybe it would have broken Army’s back. At the very least, maybe whipping the crowd into a frenzy would have forced Jim Crews to call a timeout or something. Unfortunately, none of those “maybes” were more important than the actual 2 points.

Even with that 5-point swing, it was still a tie game inside of a minute to play. Army had the ball, and everyone in the building– well, those who were paying attention to the game, anyway– knew who was going to get the ball. Why, then, did Billy Lange put Greg Sprink, with his four fouls, on Jarell Brown? Greg couldn’t contest Brown’s shot because if he fouled out, Navy would be without their best player in a potential game-winning or tying situation. And as Brown drove down the right side, nobody slid off of their man to help out. Brown’s game-winning shot was a way-too-easy layup.

Navy has had significant second-half leads in each of its three Patriot League losses. With Billy Lange’s 3-point-happy offense, Navy can race out ahead of anyone. Unfortunately, it also means that anyone can come back to beat Navy as soon as the shots stop falling. Playing up-tempo and shooting 3s might not be the best way to handle situations where you want to limit the other team’s posessions. I’m on board with the basics of Lange’s offense. I wasn’t at the beginning of the year, but Chris Harris has stepped up as a scoring threat to take pressure off of Greg Sprink. Now Lange has to draw something up to help his team hold on to the leads they build.

Players
MIN
PTS
Shooting
Rebounds
AS
ST
BK
TO
PF
FG
FG%
FT
FT%
3PT
3PT%
O
D
T
K. Kina (G) 22 1 0-6 0 1-2 50 0-4 0 1 1 2 1 0 0 6 4
C. Harris (G) 40 20 5-18 27.8 5-6 83.3 5-14 35.7 2 2 4 5 2 0 2 1
G. Sprink (G) 38 20 6-18 33.3 6-7 85.7 2-8 25 2 4 6 3 2 0 7 4
R. Garcia (G) 25 3 1-3 33.3 0-0 0 1-2 50 0 6 6 0 0 0 2 1
M. Veazey (C) 21 9 4-7 57.1 1-3 33.3 0-0 0 4 3 7 2 0 3 1 2
A. Teague 28 13 5-7 71.4 0-0 0 3-5 60 2 4 6 1 4 2 0 2
B. Richards 19 1 0-2 0 1-2 50 0-0 0 5 1 6 2 0 0 0 1
C. Colbert 7 0 0-0 0 0-2 0 0-0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1

Loose Change 1/25/08

On By MikeIn air farce, army, football, lacrosse, navy football, navy lacrosse, navy sports, patriot league, Paul Johnson6 Comments

Odds & ends you may have missed over the past week:

THE QUESTIONS! THEY BURN!

On By MikeIn lacrosse, navy lacrosse, patriot league3 Comments

Lacrosse already? That’s right. Don’t look now, but Navy’s first scrimmage is this weekend against UMBC. Time to start getting ready. Inside Lacrosse has presented their 10 Burning Questions for ’08, and there’s plenty of Navy talk in there. Make sure you read up.

Not content to rely on Inside Lacrosse, a team of our favorite lacrosse experts came together for their own discussion of the upcoming season. Joining me in this roundtable is Pete Medhurst, the Voice of Navy Lacrosse (and a blogger himself); Joe Miller, Pete’s co-host on the Navy Football tailgate show and radio play-by-play voice for Johns Hopkins lacrosse; and Christian Swezey, writer of all things lacrosse for The Washington Post.

The Birddog: To me, this looks like a really interesting season coming up. Hopkins is bringing back that midfield, Duke players are getting an extra year, and I think this might be the year that someone other than Navy finally wins the Patriot League. What do you think? What questions do you have about this season?

Miller: It should be interesting, especially with most of the top guys returning for Duke. I’m already looking forward to the trip down to Durham for the Hopkins-Duke game on April 5th. My questions for the upcoming season would be, can Gvozden step right in and replace Jesse at Hopkins? For Virginia, how will the much talked about freshman class perform? Plus they have to replace their GK Turner, but they do return their entire attack unit.  For Duke, I don’t know if there is much to wonder about. You know that they are extremely talented, but I thought last year their biggest question mark was their depth. It should improve this year. I understand they have had some injury concerns in fall ball but they should for the most part be ready to go.  Really the question marks don’t start for Duke until May. Can they handle the pressure of making it to another championship game after losing two straight?  For Navy, besides Mirabito and Daratsos who is going to score?But I would still put them as my Patriot League favorite. For Maryland, I’ve heard a lot of good things about their freshmen and they are going to need it. Young, Reed, and Catalino will have a lot of pressure on them to produce; will they?  It seems like the general consensus from everyone leading up to the season is that Hopkins, Virginia, and Duke are the top three teams, and a bunch of other teams will battle it out for that 4th spot. But it hardly ever seems to play out that way.

Swezey: What strikes me about this year is how many top teams are going to be better than they were last year. Johns Hopkins won the national title last year and there’s no question they have a chance to be a lot better this year. I agree with Joe that Gvodzen in goal is a concern; my best guess is he will be much more consistent than Jesse Schwartzman, but will he play as well in the big games? Schwartzman was such a good goalie in the playoffs; I believe he lost only one playoff game in his three years as a starter.

Duke won’t be better this year initially; it had too many injuries to top players in the fall. But the Blue Devils will be fantastic by April and May. Coach John Danowski’s philosophy has always been to be good in March, great in April and at your best in May. So he won’t rush people back for early-season games.

Virginia will be so much better than last year, especially at midfield. And Georgetown has everyone back.

I don’t know what to make of Navy, and I doubt I’m alone. They have talent; the guys we have been hearing about behind the scenes for a couple years (Higgins, the youngest Lennon, etc.) have to show up on offense. I can’t see any player scoring more than 20-25 goals this year. What Navy needs is eight guys to score one or two goals each in every game.

The rest of the Patriot League is really good, no question. What makes it so interesting is that Bucknell and Colgate are heavy on offense and Army and Navy are heavy on defense. It should make for some amazing matchups. The Army-Navy game this year might finish 4-3.

The Birddog: It’s funny about Schwartzman… At the beginning of the year, Hop fans can’t wait for him to graduate. By the end of the year, they don’t know what they’ll do without him!

With Navy I think it’s a question of how many 7-6 type games they can win.

Miller: The Schwartzman storyline was prevalent all of last season; he struggled at times and Gvozden replaced him and played well in his brief appearance. But give credit to Coach Pietramala for sticking by Schwartzman, because he was absolutely fantastic in the 4th Quarter of the National Championship game.  Gvozden was known as a pressure goalie in High School, a guy that would play his best at the most important time. Only time will tell how it does at the biggest stage.

I agree with Christian as far as some of the bigger teams maybe having improved during the off season. Don’t forget that Hopkins gets back Matt Dreenan; before he got hurt last season, he was everyone’s pick to have a break out season for the Jays.  Dreenan returns with Michael Evans, who BTW you could make a case he should’ve been the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, he was that good down the stretch.

Navy seems destined to play a ton of close games this year; my question is how much will it hurt to lose John Tillman?

Medhurst: We know the commodities that are JHU, Duke, and Virginia.

The stock that everbody is waiting for to skyrocket is Georgetown. Yes, they return everyone. Yes, this group is mega-hyped. Can they produce the results on the field?Sometimes you need a go-to guy. JHU has it. Duke has it. Who will emerge for Georgetown as THE guy, when the going gets tough against the big boys, that will get them a goal?

Navy has toughened its out of conference schedule with the Cornell test. The question for Navy is, will they score enough goals? Defensively they are fine.

The Patriot League schedule has Navy playing Bucknell and Colgate within a four-day period. In the past Navy has had the depth to withstand this. By then, they will have played enough games to know if they have the same depth. They have the league’s best coach and leader, and until they get beaten, my money is in their camp. Bucknell and Colgate have shown some improvement in the regular season of late. Now they must prove they can take the next step in the post-season. The Bison have tons of returning fragile talent; fragile in that they have had more injuries than anyone in the country the last couple of seasons. If they stay healthy, they will be a major factor.

The Birddog: Navy has their own injury issues, too, now that Nechanicky is lost for the year again.

I’m sure everyone expected an adjustment period after Dingman left, but this is a whole different deal without Tillman. With Richie running the offense, how conservative will he be? How conservative will he have to be? Georgetown isn’t the only team looking for a go-to guy… Mirabito was the team’s leading scorer last year, but that was because of how he dished the ball as much as his goal-scoring.

Stan Ross is as good of a defensive coach as we’re going to find. Plenty of returning talent on defense, too.

So there you go. A BIG thanks to the panel for their time and effort. The UMBC scrimmage is Saturday afternoon in Annapolis. The Mids will scrimmage Virginia the following week before opening the season at home against VMI on 2/9.

Holy Cross Postgame

On By MikeIn navy basketball, patriot league2 Comments
Navy 85, Holy Cross 74   (Team Stats)
Team FG FG% 3FG 3FG% FT FT% REB DR OR AS TO BK ST PF
HC 24-53 45.3 3-15 20.0 23-31 74.2 38 22 16 20 16 2 4 21
NAVY 26-60 43.3 13-29 44.8 20-23 87.0 24 13 11 19 8 3 11 23
Boxscore  |   StatSheet.com

Navy has played a few close games this season, only to see their opponent go on a late run to put the game out of reach. Last night, it was Navy that went on an 10-0 run and gave themselves a cushion that they never relinquished, beating Holy Cross for the first time in their last 18 tries, 85-74. Chris Harris had 29 points, Greg Sprink had 28, and Kaleo Kina dished out 7 assists to lead the Mids. Romeo Garcia chipped in 5 steals in a solid defensive effort. Navy was hopelessly outrebounded, but made up for it by shooting nearly 45% from 3-point range, compared only 20% for the Crusaders. Just as important for the Mids was going 20-23 at the free throw line and maximizing posessions, committing only 8 turnovers. Mark Veazey made a ridiculously athletic dunk on an offensive rebound that was unfortunately waved off due to goaltending basket interference, but it was still fun to look at.

Patriot League Standings:

#
Team
Conference
Overall
W
L
Pct
W
L
Pct
1 Lafayette 4 0 1 13 6 0.684
2 American University 3 1 0.75 11 8 0.579
2 Bucknell 3 1 0.75 8 10 0.444
4 Lehigh 2 2 0.5 9 9 0.5
4 Navy 2 2 0.5 9 10 0.474
6 Colgate 1 3 0.25 9 9 0.5
6 Army 1 3 0.25 8 10 0.444
8 Holy Cross 0 4 0 9 8 0.529

Lafayette is sitting at 4-0 after a convincing win over Bucknell last night. Holy Cross has lost back-to-back games to Army and Navy… What is this, 1999? All of a sudden, the Army game this weekend looks like a contest for far more than just bragging rights for Navy.

Stan Brock Sends The Congressional Bat Signal

On By MikeIn army, football16 Comments

Army coach Stan Brock had a Q&A recently with Sal Interdonato of the Times Herald-Record. Navy fans might be drawn to the last line where the coach proclaims that he is “very, very close” to winning the CIC Trophy. If he says so. I was more interested in this snippet:

Is there an area you’ve tried to focus your recruiting efforts on?

“I’ve tried to build this program through our prep school. So every year, we recruit a full team to our prep school. So we will have 50 kids down there and we will have a limited amount of kids come in directly. We’re not like USC, the big schools, who have a couple of needs. We really try to build depth. We have very little depth. So, you are always trying to get the best players you can get at all the positions.”

Fifty kids at the prep school? Really? How is this possible? This sounds remarkably similar to Air Force’s modus operandi in the 80s and 90s that almost got all three service academy prep schools shut down once Congress got wind of it. It might have been within the letter of the law at the time, but those bastards on Capitol Hill decided that a taxpayer-funded redshirt isn’t what the prep schools were designed for. Now I’m not even entirely sure that it’s still within the letter of the law, and I really don’t want to find out on 60 Minutes one day. I sure hope the Woops are treading lightly on this one.

I don’t know if Navy ever has a full team of recruited players at NAPS. We’ve always had a lot of walk-on types on the prep school team as long as I can remember– someone correct me if I’m wrong here. Navy players are sent to NAPS only if they need to strengthen their academics before enrolling at the Naval Academy. Coaches don’t even like sending kids to the prep school because there’s no obligation on their part to come to Annapolis afterwards; coaches from other schools can still recruit NAPSters.

Anyway, this looks like something to keep an eye on.

The State of Service Academy Football: Navy

On By MikeIn football, Ken Niumatalolo, navy football3 Comments

If there is a theme to this “State of Service Academy Football” series this year, it’s change.

Army dealt with a head coaching change last season, and a new offense– whatever it may be– is on the horizon for 2008.

Air Force had to replace a legend in 2007, and will head into spring practice with one of the youngest teams in school history.

And then there’s Navy. With five head coaching switches in the last 20 years, change isn’t exactly unusual at the Naval Academy. What’s unusual this time around are the circumstances; for the first time since George Welsh left for Virginia, a Navy coach moved on because someone else actually wanted him. And with six years of accomplishment at a school where accomplishing anything is extraordinarily difficult, it’s no surprise that someone finally bit the option bullet and went after Paul Johnson.

Biting that bullet probably became a whole lot easier after this season too, not that Johnson’s record as a head coach shouldn’t have been enough to get the attention of college football’s big names. With Navy’s defense taking an inexplicable nose dive, it was up to Johnson’s offense to come up big if Navy was to have any chance of winning. And great googly moogly did they ever. Navy became the first I-A team in history to lead the nation in rushing for three consecutive years. They were 22nd in total offense as well, and finished in the top 10 in scoring offense– all with players that most I-A schools wouldn’t even sniff at. Navy walked away with wins at Pitt and at Notre Dame, two teams that even in their worst years would never trade the talent on their roster for that of Navy’s. The Mids won their 5th straight Commander-In-Chief’s Trophy, went to their 5th straight bowl game, and was the victor in the highest-scoring game in I-A history. A few ADs finally figured it out. The 5 teams ranked directly behind (!) Navy in scoring offense in 2007 were LSU, Oregon, Arkansas, Texas, and Kentucky. Those are the kinds of names with which schools like Georgia Tech would like to be mentioned; and if Paul Johnson could do it at Navy, it’s difficult to comprehend the kind of carnage he’ll leave in his wake with access to ACC talent.

Difficult to comprehend, but imminent nevertheless as Johnson left for Georgia Tech after a week of barnstorming between Annapolis, Dallas, and Atlanta. Now that the inevitable has happened (I’m still amazed that it actually took 6 years), Navy is looking to regroup under new head coach Ken Niumatalolo.

The first question on every Navy fan’s mind is, “What’s going to change?” Niumat’s answer comes straight from the “ain’t broke and not gonna fix it” department. In a podcast with CSTV’s Greg Amsinger, Coach Niumat said that some things might evolve as it’s up to him to handle various situations in his own way over time, but he isn’t looking to do anything differently right off the bat. Of course, that’s not entirely true. The most obvious departure from Paul Johnson’s formula is that Niumatalolo won’t act as his own offensive coordinator. That honor falls to Ivin Jasper, the quarterbacks coach under Johnson who along with Niumatalolo was one of Johnson’s top two offensive assistants; and it’s in playcalling that we find the most immediate change under Niumatalolo.

While I was in San Diego for the Poinsettia Bowl, someone talked to me about what I thought was a very interesting point. How many games over the last 6 years did Navy win almost entirely because of Paul Johnson’s playcalling? Just look back at 2007, with plays like the two QB draws at the end of the Duke game, or bringing in the wide receivers tight to the formation against Notre Dame, or calling plays we’ve never seen before in the Northern Illinois game; Paul Johnson always seemed to know exactly what adjustments to make. That, and he had an incredible memory. Ask Coach Johnson why he made a particular adjustment in a game, and he would probably say something along the lines of, “Well, Middle Tennessee tried the same thing against us on defense back at Southern in ’86 and I didn’t really have an answer for it. But I saw it again when we played Middle Tennessee in ’93 and I was at Hawaii, and we were ready. I just did the same thing here.” Johnson’s memory for detail made him a sort of football savant. He knew what to do because in the 20+ years that he has been running this offense, he has seen every possible way a defense can line up against it.

But there’s the rub. Johnson has seen defenses line up against this offense for two decades. Ivin Jasper and Ken Niumatalolo have not. The two of them are as well-versed in the fundamentals of Paul Johnson’s offense as anyone other than maybe Mike Sewak, but do they have the same mastery of adjusting on the fly? Maybe, maybe not. Both have had the chance to run offenses on their own before; Niumatalolo replaced Johnson as Navy’s offensive coordinator in ’97, and Jasper ran the offenses at both NAPS and Indiana State. There’s no doubt that the two of them have picked up on some things, but 20 years of experience is hard to replace. It isn’t unreasonable to assume that there will be a learning curve as Niumat and Jasper take charge. That doesn’t have to mean disaster, of course; Navy was 7-4 in 1997, and Georgia Southern won two national championships in PJ’s first two years as offensive coordinator.

Other than the delegation of playcalling duties, the other obvious change is that there are four new assistant coaches on the staff and some reassignments of coaches who are returning. Jasper is not only the offensive coordinator, but he will retain his duties as the quarterbacks coach and coach the fullbacks as well. Jasper coached both positions at Georgia Southern and in his previous stint at Navy, so the move is a natural one. Chris Culton moves from fullbacks to the offensive line, a position he coached for Tim Stowers at Rhode Island. Niumatalolo will continue using two offensive line coaches, and Culton will be joined by another former Rhode Island offensive line coach, Ashley Ingram. Ingram spent last season as Bucknell’s offensive coordinator. Another I-AA offensive coordinator also joined Niumatalolo’s staff as Joe DuPaix left Cal Poly to coach the Navy slotbacks. Danny O’Rourke moves from defense to offense, replacing Brian Bohannon as the wide receivers coach. On the defensive side of the ball, Steve Johns fills the void left by O’Rourke at inside linebackers. Tony Grantham returns to Annapolis to join Keith Jones in coaching the outside linebackers. Justin Davis is now assisting with the defensive line.

DuPaix and Johns appear on the surface to be great hires. DuPaix’s offense led all of I-AA last year in total yardage, and he was considered to be a front-runner for the head coaching job at his alma mater, Southern Utah. But DuPaix’s biggest shoes to fill might not be in coaching players, but recruiting them. Bill Wagner makes the excellent point that DuPaix is taking over Todd Spencer’s recruiting area in Texas. Spencer had been recruiting Texas since Paul Johnson’s first stint in Annapolis and had built several contacts over those 11 years. Not coincidentally, the Navy roster is loaded with Texans every year. It will be up to DuPaix to make sure that things stay that way.

For Johns, recruiting is apparently right in his wheelhouse. Coach Niumatalolo was responsible for west coast recruiting under Johnson; now that he’s taken over as head coach, that area of responsibility will fall to Johns. Johns came to Navy from Grossmont Junior College, a national JUCO powerhouse. According to Wagner, Niumat feels that Johns’ time there, coupled with his six years as UNLV’s recruiting coordinator, has helped him build relationships with area high school coaches. While Navy hasn’t packed its roster with west coast players, they have had their share of impact players from the region– guys like Kaipo, John Chan, and Marco Nelson. It’s a valuable pipeline.

On the player side, the biggest losses are on the offensive line and Reggie Campbell. The core group of Kaipo, Eric Kettani, and Shun White are as good a returning group as the Mids have had for a while, but their performance in 2008 will depend on how well Navy can replace one of the best offensive lines ever to play in Annapolis. Anthony Gaskins returns after starting all year at guard, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him move to center in the spring. It could be one of many position changes as the coaches try to find the right mix of players up front. On defense, just about everyone returns. Irv Spencer won’t, obviously, but Clint Sovie will after missing most of 2007. Jeff Deliz will too. How effective Sovie and Deliz will be after their injuries is a big question mark. The defense as a whole played its best games at the end of the year, so it’s easy to be optimistic about how they’ll do next year. Maybe too easy.

The biggest obstacle facing Navy next year might be their schedule. With trips to Ball State, Duke, and Wake Forest, and a home game against Rutgers squeezed in the middle, it isn’t hard to imagine Navy being 1-4 going into the Air Force game. And even that game is on the road, followed up with home dates against a more mature Pitt team than last year and an SMU team that will now be coached by June Jones. All subject to change, of course… But as it stands right now, that’s no cakewalk. It’s possible that the team could be better next year but still end up with a worse record. Keep that in mind when you set your expectations. Navy should still win the Commander-In-Chief’s Trophy again next year assuming that everything keeps humming along under Niumatalolo the way they did under Johnson. But it’s reasonable to expect some growing pains.

2007 College Football Blogger Awards

On By MikeIn Uncategorized9 Comments

The announcement came on Rocky Top Talk this morning that the 2007 College Football Blogger Awards process is underway. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s a link to last year’s: 2006 Blogger Awards.

I haven’t exactly done much to try to integrate myself into the whole football blogger community, so I doubt what I say will carry much weight. Nevertheless, if you look at the awards from last year you’ll see that there is a category for “Best Mainstream Media Blog.” Navy fans, if you don’t nominate Bill Wagner’s Navy Sports Blog for this category then you deserve a lifetime of guilty feelings. It might not be the most regularly updated spot on the internet, but when the going gets tough, Wags gets blogging. When we were left wandering and confused as the biggest story of the year– Paul Johnson’s departure– was unfolding, Wagner’s blog was the one and only place on the web to get accurate news on the subject. When CBS Sportsline had PJ as a done deal at SMU, it was Wags who said “not so fast” and gave us the real details. When PJ made his second trip to Atlanta, it was Wags who warned us that this was it. When Johnson finally pulled the trigger, it was Wags who was there at the meeting when PJ told the players. And now as Coach Niumat takes over and rounds out his staff, it’s Wags who has filled us in on all of the new assistants. What more could anyone want from a blog?

To top it all off, Wagner’s blog gave us the greatest PJ one-liners of all time:

Whatever he thinks. I don’t go down to McDonald’s and start second-guessing his job so he ought to leave me alone.

If you could ever find one time that I said we won the game because of brilliant strategy I will kiss your butt at city dock and give you two days to draw a crowd. Find it and bring it to me. Tell that guy that if he wants to talk to me I live at (address redacted) I will be right there. Come ring my doorbell and I will be glad to talk to him.

If PJ goes on to a long and prosperous career at Georgia Tech, he should send Wags a thank-you note. Hopefully Coach Johnson got it all out of his system here. In Atlanta, he’d be crucified for saying stuff like this. But in Annapolis, it was part of what made him the best coach ever. If that’s not award-winning stuff, then the whole damn thing should be scrapped.

The details of the nomination process can be found at EDSBS. There is a nomination site here. Show some love to the local and give Wags a plug.

The State of Service Academy Football: Air Force

On By MikeIn air farce, football4 Comments

The Air Force Academy completed 50 years of major college football in 2006, having played their first NCAA season in 1957. For nearly half of those 50 years, Fisher DeBerry was their head football coach. Think about that for a second; DeBerry was Air Force football. He was the face of the school, the answer to any word association quiz when told “Air Force Academy.” Any tradition associated with the relatively young football program probably stems from some point during DeBerry’s tenure. At Air Force, he was a legend in his own time.

But even legends have their limits. The Air Force Academy as a whole has faced several allegations of religious intolerance in recent years, and DeBerry was caught up in the middle of it. In 2004, he was ordered to remove a banner that he had hung in the football team’s locker room which read in part, “I am a Christian first and last… I am a member of Team Jesus Christ.” DeBerry received “sensitivity training” as a result. A year later he was officially reprimanded for remarks he made following a loss to TCU in which he essentially blamed it on his team’s lack of black players:

It’s very obvious to me the other day that the other team had a lot more Afro-American players than we did, and they ran a lot faster than we did. It just seems to be that way, that Afro-American kids can run very, very well. That doesn’t mean that Caucasian kids and other descents can’t run, but it’s very obvious to me they run extremely well.

Their defense had 11 Afro-American kids on their team, and they were a very, very good defensive football team.

Proselytizing and reinforcement of stereotypes aside, DeBerry probably would have survived all of this if he was still winning. Air Force was 5-0 and ranked 25th in the Coaches’ Poll coming into their game at Navy in 2003. The Mids won that game, 28-25. It was a program-altering event for Air Force, who went on to lose 4 of their last 6 games to finish at 7-5– Fisher’s last winning season. After that loss to Navy, Air Force was 15-25 until DeBerry either retired or was forced out following the 2006 season.

I say “retired or forced out” because the story differs depending on who’s doing the talking. Officially, DeBerry retired. But according to rumor, he chose to quit rather than be forced to fire any of his assistants. One way or another, though, he was gone. Air Force athletic director Hans Mueh was then left with the unenviable task of replacing an institution. Fortunately for him, Air Force had essentially been grooming several potential successors over the years, as some Air Force graduates were allowed to begin coaching careers while on active duty. One of those graduates was Houston Texans offensive coordinator Troy Calhoun.

Calhoun played quarterback for Air Force and graduated in 1989. He spent his first two seasons after graduation as a GA on Fisher DeBerry’s staff. Calhoun returned to the Air Force Academy in 1993 and took over the role of recruiting coordinator as well as coaching the JV team’s offense. When fellow Air Force assistant Jim Grobe was named head coach at the University of Ohio in 1995, he brought Calhoun with him to be the quarterbacks coach. Calhoun added the title of offensive coordinator two years later, and had the same role after following Grobe to Wake Forest in 2001. In 2003, Calhoun started his NFL career with the Denver Broncos. Then, in December 2006, he accepted Mueh’s offer to replace Fisher DeBerry as head coach at Air Force.

The first question that everyone asked of Calhoun is what he planned to do with the Falcons’ offense. Ken Hatfield had installed the wishbone in Colorado Springs when he took over the Air Force job in 1979, and some form of the wishbone/ flexbone/ broken bone/ fishbone (whatever you want to call it) option offense had been in place ever since. Calhoun played in that same offense, but had moved away from it under Grobe and in his NFL career. Many (if not most) service academy fans believe that to win at a service academy you need to run an option-based offense, so it raised a few eyebrows when Calhoun’s comments after being hired appeared to indicate a shift away from that. Instead, Calhoun wanted more of a run-pass balance, and a running game that would have a feature back averaging about 20 carries a game:

I think you still have to run some option. It’s tough to defend, but we have to find ways to get more predetermined carries. You can find the guy who is a pretty darn good player and start to feed that guy the ball 20 to 22 times a game. And a good one only gets better. He starts to get into a little bit of a rhythm, feeling a knack for a cut or where a hole might start to open.

Then, ultimately on offense, you have to be balanced. Defenses are bigger, they move much better and because of that, they are going to clog up some spaces if you don’t make them work all 53-plus yards widthwise and go ahead and push the ceiling a little bit down the field. We’re going to be a balanced offense.

Armed with this new philosophy, Air Force quickly jumped to a 3-0 start at the beginning of the season. That 3-0 record, however, was more in spite of this new offense than because of it. The Falcons got a little lucky in their first few games. They played Utah the week after the Utes lost both quarterback Brian Johnson and running back Matt Asiata in their season opener at Oregon State, and still needed a goal-line stand at the end of the game to win. TCU made some baffling coaching blunders in the 4th quarter at Air Force after dominating through most of the game. And South Carolina State just stinks. Not surprisingly, the luck didn’t last. Air Force followed up their 3-0 start with double-digit losses to BYU and Navy.

To Troy Calhoun’s credit, he adjusted. While Air Force’s defense had been playing well all season, the offense wasn’t getting it done. Sometimes they just weren’t productive, while other times they gained a few yards but made critical mistakes in execution with turnovers and penalties. Basically, Calhoun had bitten off more than his offense could chew. Shaun Carney wasn’t quite the passer he was hyped up to be, he didn’t have anyone to really throw to, and the offensive line just wasn’t built for pass protection. Rather than insisting on the whole square peg in a round hole strategy, however, Troy Calhoun went back to doing what Air Force did best– running the football.

Calhoun’s rededication to the running game paid off. Air Force won 6 of their last 7 regular-season games by an average of nearly 20 points. They probably should have won the one game they lost, too, committing 5 turnovers to fall 34-31 at New Mexico. Going into the Navy game, Air Force was averaging 223 rushing yards per game, 11th in the country. By the end of the year, they were 2nd in the country with 299 yards per game. Calhoun’s revamped offense earned him Mountain West Coach of the Year honors, put Chad Hall in position to be named Mountain West Offensive Player of the Year, and gained the team a berth in the Armed Forces Bowl in Fort Worth (a 42-36 loss to Cal). They might have been lucky at the beginning of the year, but by the end of the year luck had nothing to do with it. With a new approach on offense and the best of the three service academy defenses, Air Force was playing good football.

At 9-4, Air Force had a better season than just about anyone could have predicted. The challenge now will be to maintain that success, and it doesn’t look promising in the short term. Of their 474 yards of offense they racked up against Navy, 430 were gained by seniors. The heart of the Air Force defense was their linebackers and secondary, and 6 of 8 starters are graduating from those units as well. High turnover is nothing new at service academies, as players usually have to be developed over 4 years and rarely make an impact as a freshman or a sophomore. But losing this particular class is more critical than usual. When Paul Johnson used to talk to the Foundation, he was very frank about how he was doing in recruiting against Air Force. In his first year, he didn’t win a single head-to-head recruiting battle with them. This group of graduating Air Force seniors are the last remnants of that recruiting class. Johnson won more and more recruits from Air Force as the years went on, eventually dominating them the way they used to dominate Navy. That means that Navy looks to be more talented relative to Air Force with each passing year until Calhoun has a chance for his own recruiting to take hold. Once that happens, it’s doubtful that either team could expect to rule head-to-head recruiting like they used to; but things will get worse for the Falcons before they get better.

Calhoun and Hans Mueh have more or less admitted that the immediate future for Air Force isn’t terribly bright. Before hiring Calhoun, Mueh warned him that he would have “thin senior classes for the 2008 and 2009 seasons.” Calhoun himself said that he expects it to be three years before he has the juniors and seniors that he wants, and that the next two Air Force teams might be two of the youngest in school history. Calhoun also said that he expects to use two quarterbacks next year, with Shea Smith splitting time with a yet-to-be-named player who is likely to become the quarterback of the future. It’s tough for young teams to win. For young service academy teams, with their already undersized and less-hearalded players taking on talented teams with redshirted, 22-year old men… Well, nothing’s impossible I suppose, but some things come pretty damn close.

Without having the kind of talent that Troy Calhoun needs to run the offense he originally envisioned, don’t expect Air Force to change much schematically next year. If there is a ray of hope for the Falcons, it’s in the trenches. Three of the five offensive linemen who started against California will return next season. Air Force won’t have the big-play scoring threat of Chad Hall next year, but they might be able to control the line of scrimmage well enough to put together a few long, clock-eating drives that will help the defense. I doubt it will be enough to get to 9-4, though.

Troy Calhoun’s first year replacing his old coach was a success. A repeat performance might take a little more time.