Well, we have our answer. Navy and Maryland won’t be playing in 2010. Debbie Yow doesn’t want to wait any longer and needs to fill her schedule.

I know that a lot of people enjoyed the 2005 game, and it wouldn’t have killed me to see it happen again. I’m not going to lose any sleep over this, though. Yow went to the media and tried to coerce Navy into making a deal, and Chet didn’t bite. Good for him. If Yow’s methods are an indication of the respect that she has for the Naval Academy, I’d guess that the terms of the deal weren’t going to be very equitable, either. That’s complete speculation, obviously. Just a hunch.

Anyway, no word yet on any additions to Navy’s 2010 schedule. The last schedule that was published in the media guide indicated that there were still three games left to be added. Navy is usually somewhat tight-lipped about its schedules since they can change on a dime.

UPDATE: Amazing how things can change when someone bothers to tell both sides of the story.

More here.

AND YET THERE’S MORE: This story just won’t give up. So now Debbie Yow wants to talk again? Sounds like someone had a little bit of egg on her face after it was revealed that, after all that grandstanding, she had backed out of an agreement. If this game happens, we can call it the Bill Wagner Bowl.

Hands on hips. That’s always the sign that the defense is tired; between plays, the players put their hands on their hips. Two plays before Bobby Doyle tapped into his quarterback experience and delivered a perfect pass to Jarod Bryant for the game-tying touchdown, CSTV cameras panned over the Duke defense. Almost all of the Blue Devil defenders were standing with their hands on their hips. They were exhausted.

The hot Annapolis afternoon took its toll on players from both teams. The difference in the game was that Navy had the depth to replace players who were worn out by the heat. Bobby Doyle stepped in late in place of the injured Shun White and picked up a key first down before he threw the TD pass. Joey Bullen is the hero after booming two field goals and two deep kickoffs in place of Matt Harmon. Eric Kettani and Adam Ballard were a tag-team at fullback. The offensive and defensive lines were rotating guys through like it was grade-school volleyball. And then, of course, there was the jolt the offense received when Jarod Bryant came into the game to replace the “gassed” Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada.

Last week I wrote that Navy coaches were expecting Duke to come out and try to run the ball. The Duke coaching staff didn’t get the memo. Navy got almost no pressure on the quarterback, and as a result Thaddeus Lewis had a career day passing the ball, throwing for 428 yards and four touchdowns. All four of those touchdowns and more than half of those yards went to wide receiver Eron Riley, who averaged almost 40 yards per catch. Navy had no answer for the Duke passing game.

There’s a lot to go over, so let’s get started.

The defense stinks.

I don’t know what to say, so I will put this in pictures. Here is my pictoral essay on things that are more stout than the Navy defense:

Ok, ok, before I pile onto the defense too much, they deserve a lot of credit. On a day when players were dropping like flies, they fought hard through the whole game. In fact, their biggest plays– Nate Frazier’s sack, Tony Haberer’s fumble recovery, and Ketric Buffin’s interception– all came in the second half. “I think the biggest thing that sticks out in my mind about this game is that our kids didn’t quit,” PJ said in his postgame press conference. “They fought from start to finish and they kept playing. If you’ll do that, you’re going to always have a chance. You may not always win, but you’ll always have a chance if you keep fighting.”

The guys are playing hard. Now they need to play smart. To me, there’s one play you will all remember that perfectly illustrates the problem. In the third quarter, Duke got the ball in Navy territory after Navy couldn’t convert on a fake punt. They picked up a first down and moved the ball to the Navy 32 yard line. Then, a glorious thing happened; Nate Frazier stunted around from his NG position and sacked Thaddeus Lewis. On the next play, Lewis fumbled the snap, resulting in a 3rd and 20 for Duke. They only picked up 10 on the next play, leading to 4th and 10 from the Navy 32. Since they’re in that middle ground where they’re too close to punt but too far for a field goal, Duke goes for the first down. On that 4th down play, Lewis takes the snap in the shotgun. Kyle Bookhout is playing left DE and starts his rush outside. Not being able to get by the tackle, he spins inside and runs straight into a double-team. Meanwhile, now that the DE has spun inside, there’s nobody left with containment on the outside. Lewis sees this and cruises for an 11 yard run and a first down. That’s just a lack of discipline, and things like that are happening on every play. How many times does the defense bite on a fake, or get horribly out of position on a misdirection play? Again, the defense is playing hard. To play hard, though, does not mean to play recklessly.

The philosophy behind the Navy defense is to keep everything in front of them, but it seemed like more plays went over their heads in the Duke game than in the last two years combined. This is the third straight game where the defense has given up 475+ yards. It was a great win on Saturday, but things won’t always work out so well if the defense keeps this up. The first leg of the CIC Trophy round-robin is this week, so they better figure it out soon.

The offense does not stink.

In 2003 when Navy lost to Delaware, Blue Hens coach K.C. Keeler made it obvious in his halftime interview that he didn’t care about the Navy passing game. He was going to take all 11 guys he had on defense and bring them crashing down to stop the option. If the ball got thrown over their heads, too bad. Well, it did get thrown over their head once, as Craig Candeto hit a wide-open Eric Roberts for a long TD pass in the first quarter. Keeler didn’t care. He had decided that Navy would have to beat him through the air, and Navy couldn’t do it. Delaware walked out of there with a 21-17 win.

Duke took the same approach on Saturday. This year, though, Navy got the job done through the air. Navy’s 236 yards passing forced Duke to back off, which opened up some running room. The toss sweep worked a little better in the second half, with Reggie Campbell and Bobby Doyle combining to average 11 yards per carry. After a rough start for the offensive line, they were able to get enough push for the two fullbacks to combine for 100 yards. The two quarterbacks also combined to top 100 rushing yards. The offense limited the mental errors, with Kaipo’s interception being the only real screwup.

On the subject of quarterbacks…

Ok, everybody’s in love with Jarod Bryant right now. In fact, in the third quarter when Kaipo threw an incomplete pass to Reggie Campbell on a wheel route, a group of jerk Mids could clearly be heard starting a “Jarod Bryant” chant. Nice bilge, fellas.

Everyone needs to take a step back and look at the big picture. Jarod Bryant is succeeding because PJ is putting him into situations where he can succeed. He was the right player at the right time because his fresh legs made him nearly impossible to tackle to fading Duke defenders. “Jarod played really well, but also I think that in a game like that where everybody was tired– I mean our guys were tired too– and you put in a guy who’s fresh, all of a sudden he’s a lot quicker and a lot faster than everybody else,” remarked PJ. “We’ve got a lot of confidence in him. Coach Jasper and I talked about it. We felt like Kaipo was kind of winded. He had done nothing wrong. Gosh, he had moved the offense up and down the field and played well, but I thought Jarod might give us a little boost. We needed a little kick and he kind of gave us one.” Don’t underestimate the impact that a fresh-legged player can have late in the game. Jarod was the right player at the right time. That doesn’t mean that it’s time to make a switch.

Do those of you who want to bench Kaipo have any idea of how much of a juggernaut our offense is right now? We’re #1 in the country in rushing offense. We’re also #22 in total offense. Ahead of USC. Ahead of LSU. Ahead of Texas. Navy fans have talked for years about whether the offense of PJ’s Hawaii days would ever make an appearance in Annapolis. On Saturday, it did. Why on earth would anyone want to mess with that? The Navy offense is working. In this offense, no matter what you think you’ve seen, that means that the quarterback is working. Navy fans have also taken it as gospel that Bryant is the better passer between the two quarterbacks; after Saturday, I don’t think that’s a given.

Haven’t we learned anything by now? In 2002, Aaron Polanco stepped in for Craig Candeto against Boston College in the second half and moved the ball pretty well. People started to wonder if Polanco should start. Craig got hurt in the first series against Notre Dame, and Aaron did a good job filling in the rest of the game. With Craig out, the people who wanted Aaron to start got their wish the next week against UConn. That game ended up being probably the worst offensive performance in the history of Navy football. Not that it was all Aaron’s fault, but he obviously wasn’t the panacea that some people were making him out to be. Craig came back, led the offense to a good game against a bowl-bound Wake Forest team, then scrambled the record book against Army. The rest is history.

In 2004, people were wondering how the offense would be able to carry on without Candeto. Polanco proceeded to lead the team to its best season in 40 years.

In 2005, Lamar Owens got off to a rough start. He had to leave the Maryland game because of cramps. He was also having a tough time passing the ball. People started to question his heart. They went so far as hyperanalyzing his body language on the sideline and calling out his leadership ability. After a decent relief appearance against Stanford, these people called for junior Brian Hampton to start, saying that we would be better off having a two-year starter. Meanwhile, Lamar came back to lead Navy to an 8-2 record the rest of the way, including rolling up 51 points against Colorado State in the Poinsettia Bowl.

In 2006, Brian Hampton got off to a rough start against ECU. He missed a bunch of open receivers and had some of his pitches batted down. In week 2 against Massachussetts, the offense turned the ball over 6 times and the team barely squeaked out a 1-point win. People again started to panic and called for a quarterback change. The next week, Hampton led Navy to a 37-9 rout of Stanford, and all was well again…

…that is, until Hampton went down to injury against Rutgers. Kaipo came into the game and got crushed. Jarod Bryant came into the game after Kaipo and also got crushed, only some people seemed to think that he got crushed a little less. So when Kaipo was named the starter for the Notre Dame game the next week, people were already calling for Bryant instead. Kaipo played pretty well against Notre Dame, though, and went on to lead the team to wins in four of the last five games.

Maybe we should have figured this out by now.

I have read some calm and well-reasoned arguments as to why Jarod Bryant should start. I have also read everything from the ridiculous to the downright shameful. There is no reason why anyone should be questioning Kaipo’s heart simply because he ran out of steam on a sweltering afternoon. In case you didn’t notice, a lot of players came out of that game. As I said at the beginning of this rambling post, it was a game decided by more subs than just at quarterback. Maybe when you’ve played your ass off for three quarters on an afternoon like that, you can start questioning any of these kids’ dedication. Until then, you’d be better served keeping your mouth shut. You know who you are.

In the 1996 Aloha Bowl, Ben Fay came into the game in the 4th quarter in relief of an exhausted Chris McCoy. Fay provided the fresh legs that Navy needed to pull out a victory after a late Cal turnover. Sound familiar? Does anyone think that the ’96 team would have been better off if Fay had started all year? Now it’s 2007, and as the philosopher Robert Plant once said, the song remains the same. In the midst of all the wailing and gnashing of teeth that’s going on with fans, Navy’s offense is shaping up to be the best that we’ve had under Paul Johnson. Two straight games with 500+ yards of offense; some saying about fixing things that aren’t broken comes to mind.

We have two quarterbacks that the coaching staff has confidence in. In these marathon games, we know that we can have fresh legs on tap at the end. Embrace what we have. Don’t mess with success.

Birddog Game Balls

— Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada: Kaipo was 11-16 passing for 217 yards. With the success that Duke was having selling out against the option, only Kaipo’s arm kept Navy in the game in the first half. Now that Air Johnson is on film, everyone’s going to have to respect our ability to pass the rest of the year.

— Jarod Bryant: Jarod needs to submit a no-shave chit. Every good closer needs facial hair at some point. Or maybe we can play Hell’s Bells on the PA when he comes into the game. That is, if Chuck Atwater doesn’t mind. Jarod’s QB draw to start the game-winning drive was killer. It looked like old NFL Films highlights of Jim Brown running in the open field.

— Blake Carter: So who here plays Madden or NCAA Football on the Playstation or Xbox? You know what a “money play” is? That play you know you can pull out in a long-yardage situation to get a first down because the computer never stops it? Everyone has one or two go-to plays like that. On Saturday, Duke did too: that swing pass/bubble screen to the WR in the flat. It was good for 15 yards every time. That is, until Blake Carter entered the game. He blew up that play at least twice in the second half and pretty much single-handedly took it away from Duke. That made a HUGE difference.

— Joey Bullen: Duh.

6’8″, 310
6’5″, 285
6’4″, 285
6’6″, 290
6’6″, 280

Those are the heights and weights of the Duke offensive line. While they might not be the biggest in the country, they’re still big; plenty big enough to be a problem for the Navy defense. But that’s the story every week, isn’t it? Ten of the twelve teams on Navy’s schedule are virtually guaranteed to be bigger than the Mids each year, and even Army and Air Force have outweighed the Mids up front the last couple of years. Heck, Duke was bigger than Navy last year when Navy rushed for 435 yards and held Duke to only 113. Well, that was last year. Overcoming weight disadvantages with last year’s players is no guarantee that it will happen again with this year’s. Indeed, through three games, it hasn’t.

There are a lot of things that an offense can do schematically to overcome a size disadvantage. Navy’s A-backs are smaller than the average Division I-A running back, but they very rarely have to run between the tackles. In Paul Johnson’s offense, they get the ball in space to take advantage of their speed. Navy’s offensive linemen are also generally smaller than their counterparts on other teams. The Navy offense doesn’t ask the same things from its linemen, though. Rather than engage defensive linemen one on one, larger defensive tackles are frequently double-teamed while a defensive end goes unblocked as the quarterback’s give key. Most schools like tall offensive linemen, particularly tackles, because they can take bigger backward strides in pass protection to counter the speed of defensive ends and linebackers. At Navy, shorter offensive linemen are better suited for the cut-blocking that the triple option requires.

On the other side of the ball, though, there isn’t much you can do. If an offense wants to run the ball down your throat, there isn’t a scheme that will make up for a 235 lb. DE taking on a 310 lb. tackle. There are only so many ways a defense can line up. Since no scheme will solve this, the only way to limit the damage is through individual effort and sound fundamentals. Therein lies the problem.

As I have posted in earlier entries, effort and fundamentals haven’t exactly been the calling cards of the Navy defense this year. Well, fundamentals anyway. From what my untrained eye could tell, the effort level was better against Ball State than it was against Rutgers. At the very least, Coach Johnson hasn’t complained about effort in his press briefings so far this week. Fundamentals, on the other hand, are still being widely discussed. As was pointed out after the Ball State game, the defense has problems lining up correctly. All the effort in the world can’t make up for missed assignments. Missed assignments also compound the size disadvantage. Even if you’re getting pushed around, if you’re minding your gaps you’ll be in a position to make a tackle. It might be three yards downfield, but you’ll be there. When you line up incorrectly, not only will nobody be in the right spot to make the tackle, but the hole that the running back will have to run through will be huge. In a 3-4 defense, the linebackers are the playmakers. The defensive line’s job is to absorb blocks, leaving linebackers free to move from sideline to sideline. When you line up incorrectly, it leaves offensive linemen free to put a block on a linebacker who otherwise could have made a play.

After watching film of Ball State nearly doubling their season rushing total against Navy, first-year Duke offensive coordinator Peter Vaas has to be excited. Navy seems to be the cure for what ails opposing running games. Ball State was no rushing juggernaut coming into the Navy game, but 262 yards later their running game was back on track. The Duke coaching staff has to see this game as an opportunity to jumpstart their own ground game, which is in far worse shape than Ball State’s. Duke’s leading rusher, Justin Boyle, averages less than three yards per carry and has only 66 yards through 3 games. Their second-leading rusher, fullback (and Army transfer) Tielor Robinson, averages a more respectable 3.7 yards per carry. Unfortunately for the Blue Devils, he’s also out for the year. The Navy game is an opportunity for the Duke offense to gain some momentum and confidence in running the ball going into the meat of their ACC schedule.

At least, that’s what Paul Johnson is expecting from Duke on Saturday. Quarterback Thaddeus Lewis is developing into a really good player for the Blue Devils, but that isn’t the coach’s focus this week. “I hope we can limit them running the ball. For us to be successful we have to limit the rushing yards,” he said on Tuesday. “If they come in and pass for what they are passing for we can live with that. We have to limit the rushing yards.”

In other words, Navy’s defense can’t have a repeat of the Ball State game.

Since Navy coaches expect that Duke will have a similar offensive gameplan to Ball State, how do they prevent a similar result? The word of the week at practice has been “simplification.” What exactly does that entail? According to Sandra McKee this morning, Buddy Green has cut the number of defensive plays in half in order to give his young defense fewer assignments to remember. It seems to be working. If the defense is as athletic as Coach Johnson said at the beginning of the year, then just getting lined up correctly should be enough to allow them to make a few plays. Of course, having fewer plays in the defensive gameplan means that the Duke offense has fewer things to think about, but it’s probably best to deal with that issue when we come to it. It isn’t like the defense can get that much worse at this point.

Like Navy, Duke has a bit of a rebuilding effort this year on defense with only two seniors expected to start. Unlike Navy, some leaders have emerged on that defense. Michael Tauiliili is no surprise. Duke’s leading tackler the last two seasons, Tauiliili has picked up right where he left off. After missing Duke’s opener against Connecticut due to suspension, the junior middle linebacker returned to force turnovers in each of the last two games, including an interception on the second play of Duke’s win over Northwestern. Tauiliili was just as rangy against Navy last year, registering 13 tackles. While his performance is no surprise, Vincent Rey’s is. A sophomore who lines up at weakside linebacker, Rey is third in the ACC in tackles. He had 17 against Connecticut alone. Rey had 11 last week against Northwestern to go along with 4 pass breakups and two tackles for a loss, earning him ACC Player of the Week honors. Patrick Bailey plays a hybrid DE/LB position and is also in the ACC’s top 10 in tackles. With the emergence of Rey and the consistency of Tauiliili added on to the talent of preseason Lindy’s and Athlon All-ACC pick Vince Oghobaase, Duke has a better defense than people think.

Last year, the Duke game was where Navy fans got their first real look at Kaipo’s potential. He had is first career 100-yard rushing game and threw his first career touchdown pass while leading the offense to 435 rushing yards and 38 points. With that performance, chances are that Duke will line up differently this year. No matter how they line up, the key matchup will be Antron Harper against the 6’6″, 310-lb. Oghobaase. Antron hasn’t been 100% healthy yet this year, and he’s going to need everything his injured ankles can give him to move that mountain of a DT. The fullbacks also had a big game against Duke in 2006, with Adam Ballard running for 104 yards. Now that the offense finally established the FB last week, I don’t think they want to lose that momentum.

The importance of this game can’t be overstated. The confidence gained or lost from winning or losing will have a huge impact in the first leg of the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy battle next week. Win, and Navy is back on track. Lose, and you’re 1-3 with doubt creeping in and a likely 3-1 Air Force team coming to town. We hear Paul Johnson say all the time that the most important game of the season is the next one. This week, that couldn’t be more true.

Extra points:

— Navy better have solved its kicking issues after last week. Duke has already blocked three kicks this season: an extra point against UConn plus a punt and a field goal at Virginia (the latter coming from, once again, Vincent Rey). Duke’s special teams superlatives extend to kickoffs, where Jabari Marshall leads the ACC in return average at 28.5 yards (including a 94-yard TD vs. UConn). Duke kickoff coverage is #1 in the nation, allowing only 14.36 yards per return. Navy has also done well on kick coverage so far, ranking 8th nationally at 16.23 yards per return.

— And you thought Juicy Juice was bad… At some point during the game, you just know that Duke NG Ayanga Okpokowuruk will tackle Navy QB Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada. Thoughts and prayers go out to Bob Socci, Pete Medhurst, and their families.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is reality. Navy is not good. It might hurt to say it, but it’s hard to reach any other conclusion objectively. Could Navy be good eventually? Maybe, but right now the team has a host of problems. How can a team that rushed for almost 1/3 of a mile and scored 31 points still lose a football game? Through fumbles, special teams miscues, and a defense about as stout as the Maginot Line.

Once again, I’m going to talk to myself:

OK, so tell me about these problems.

The offense produced against Ball State. They had 521 yards rushing, scored 31 points, only had to punt once, and averaged eight yards per play. As productive as they were, though, they still weren’t flawless. Shun White fumbled a perfect pitch in the third quarter when he was looking upfield instead of at the ball. Jarod Bryant’s overtime fumble washed out his commendable second-half performance in relief of an injured Kaipo.

Bryant’s fumble was disastrous, but the game should never have reached that point. With two seconds left in the game, Matt Harmon put what should have been a chip shot, game winning field goal on a trajectory so low that his own linemen probably could have blocked it just by standing at attention. That was Harmon’s second blocked field goal of the game. Kicking a field goal is about as basic as it gets in football. Making the same mistake twice in one game is inexcusable.

Both of those problems are bad, but likely correctable. The offense needs some up-downs during practice to remind them to keep their heads in the game, and we might see a new kicker. The defense’s problems, though, run a lot deeper.  

I don’t know where to begin. I guess we’ll start with the big picture: Ball State had a ridiculous 539 yards of total offense. The Cardinals had a total of 293 rushing yards for the season coming into the game; against Navy, they nearly doubled that with 262. They converted 11 of 15 third downs. Once again, Navy did not record a sack, and still has only one through 3 games. Ketric Buffin and Darius Terry managed to make a couple of plays, but for the most part the front seven was silent.

The defense’s struggles put the offense in a bad position. In order for Navy to win, the offense now has to be perfect. Every time the offense doesn’t score, it could potentially cost the team the game. Every mistake the offense makes is amplified because the defense isn’t able to make a play of its own. Nobody, especially Navy, is going to have a successful season if they go into every game with the mindset of “last team with the ball wins.”

In his blog, Bill Wagner tells us that during a phone conversation he had with PJ (showoff), a little light has been shed on some of the defense’s issues.

“We need to simplify some stuff,” Johnson said. “We’re not getting lined up properly and we don’t understand what we’re supposed to do.”

Johnson said some coach-speak, technical mumbo jumbo about the Navy defense being in a “five technique when we were supposed to be in a down nine technique.” I have no idea what that means, other than the fact Navy’s defense was not in the formation it should have been based on the way Ball State lined up.

I have a feeling that Wagner does indeed know what this means, but feels that the details would just weigh down his post. I have no such discretion. PJ is referring to how the defensive line and down linebackers are supposed to line up across from the offensive line. These assignments are the fundamentals of pass rushing and gap control in the running game. For example, in the five technique that PJ is talking about, the lineman/LB is lined up on the outside eye of the tackle. His responsibility would be the C gap, between the tackle and tight end. In the nine technique, the lineman/LB is lined up on the outside eye of the tight end and is responsible for outside containment. Now, multiply missed assignments like this by each down lineman or LB and it’s obvious how there can be such wide running lanes for opposing RBs, and why opposing offensive lines have no problem handling our pass rush. Again, from Wagner:

Johnson said the film showed instances on Saturday when Navy left the area within five yards of the line of scrimmage (known as the box) completely wide open due to linemen slanting the wrong way and linebackers either getting blocked or running themselves out of the play.

It also makes it easy to understand what PJ meant earlier when he said that the defense was playing “street ball;” they’re just lining up wherever and trying to bull rush the OL rather than minding their assigned technique.

So tell the coaches to fix it! I’m so smart.

Well, it isn’t that easy. This isn’t one of those things that coaches can micromanage during a game. The coaches are teaching these things in practice, but during a game it’s the players’ responsibility to know where to line up when the defense is called. That’s why losing Sovie was so huge; lining everyone up correctly was his job. Nobody else has shown the ability to do that yet. You could say that the defense is young, and that’s true. But if the team is content with that, then it’s going to be a long year. That’s why PJ wants to, as he puts it, “simplify” the defense. If the players don’t know where they’re supposed to line up, then it’s time to call plays where they will. That’s apparently what PJ and Buddy have in store for practice this week.

Should I start talking quarterback controversy?

No. Jarod Bryant did step in and play well, with the obvious and catastrophic exception being the overtime fumble. He seemed to miss a couple of reads, but nothing out of the ordinary for the third game of the season. Bryant also had the benefit of PJ’s halftime adjustments. The offense moved the ball well in the second half, but it wasn’t Jarod Bryant that opened up the toss sweep or changed the blocking scheme to give the fullback room to rumble. That was PJ. Bryant managed the offense effectively, but the quarterback wasn’t the only change that was made in the second half.

Don’t forget that Kaipo was on his way to a career day before he got hurt, with 117 yards and two TDs in one half. The bulk of those yards came on a beautiful 80-yard TD run that showcased his deceptive speed. Before he was injured, I thought Kaipo had shown a lot of improvement in running with more strength. PJ called the midline option regularly in the first two quarters, and Kaipo gained good yards by putting his head down and fighting inside. He could get better, but he wasn’t tip-toeing anymore. He seemed to run with more authority. He wasn’t perfect; his passing was still awkward, and he took a bad sack that put us on the edge of field goal range. But he didn’t do anything to demonstrate why he shouldn’t start.

Assuming that Kaipo is healthy, he’ll start against Duke. The good thing is that we know we can be confident with either quarterback running the offense.

Should I start talking fullback controversy?

No. We knew both FBs were going to play. Ballard averaged 5 yards per carry and ran for 75 yards. He had a good day. PJ said last week, though, that if one of the fullbacks was hot, he wasn’t going to take him out. With a couple of great TD runs, Kettani was hot. I’m sure they’ll both play plenty next week.

Should I start talking kicker controversy?

Perhaps. Harmon is usually dependable, but his worm-burner FG attempts were costly. Maybe he’s changed his kicking technique to handle kicking off from the 30 instead of the 35 or something. I can’t think of any other explanation why his FGs would take such a low trajectory all of a sudden. But with proven big-game kicker Joey Bullen breathing down his neck and Kyle Delahooke turning heads in the JV game, Harmon might not have the chance to redeem himself. Don’t be surprised if Harmon handles kickoffs on Saturday, with Bullen taking the FGs. Pure conjecture on my part, of course; but what else is new?

So now what?

Well, the good news is that Wagner reports that both Kaipo and Irv Spencer should be healthy enough to play on Saturday. That’s a start, assuming they can get through a week of practice without aggravating their injuries.

All we can hope for now is that the defense will learn, and that the offense can stop making careless mistakes in order to pick up the slack until they do. Last week I told you that Ball State was a good football team, but they aren’t the 1995 Nebraska Cornhuskers. They have no business running for 262 yards against anybody. If that’s the kind of defense we’ll get all year, then we might as well start packing up the CIC Trophy, never mind a bowl bid. 

Along those lines, I hope that Navy fans understand just how special the past few seasons were. There has been a lot of talk around here of “next level” and “signature wins” and whatnot, while implying that seasons like ’03-’06 just won’t cut it for too long. I hope that everyone understands how much of a balancing act it is to succeed at USNA, and how little it takes to tip that balance.