In a game preview, we normally like to look at coaching matchups, player matchups, trends, statistics… all of the usual things that would give us a sense of how the football game will go. This week, though, all of that feels secondary to a larger question of where Navy stands in terms of their overall readiness for the season.
It makes for a strange situation. General preparation is something that we would ordinarily take for granted, but there is nothing ordinary about 2020 and the age of COVID-19. After the Mids’ season-opening thrashing at the hands of BYU, Ken Niumatalolo’s precautionary measure to avoid contact in practice leading up to the game was highly scrutinized to the point that it became national news. Navy’s lack of preparation was evident in the missed tackles, missed blocks, and missed reads, and they paid the price on the scoreboard.
To his credit, the Navy head coach accepted full responsibility for the loss after the game. Niumatalolo acknowledged that avoiding contact was no way to prepare a football team, but also explained that this was not a football decision. He cited concerns with contact tracing potentially sidelining large numbers of players on his team or forcing him to scrap practice altogether. Ultimately, though, his primary concern was safety.
"My first thought was, keep our guys safe, and try our best to mitigate the other part,” Niumatalolo said. “I was hoping we could do that, kind of crossing our fingers, knowing that's a bad formula for getting a team ready. Or I could have went, you know what, we're going to practice like normal and whatever happens, happens, and I didn't want to go that route.”
Niumatalolo made this decision in August. Back then, midshipmen were returning to Annapolis from all over the country, there were positive cases in the Brigade, and coronavirus testing wasn’t as widely available. That's not the case today, with the American Athletic Conference mandating testing three times per week. The increase in testing makes it more likely to catch any potential infections early, before a player has a chance to spread it to others on the team. That has given Niumatalolo the confidence to start blocking and tackling in practice.
The question for Navy now becomes how long it will take to catch up to the rest of the country. In a normal year, the team would go full contact during fall camp but back off as week-to-week game preparation began. Instead, Navy will be hitting in practice for the foreseeable future. The Mids had an off week, which gave them a chance to focus on themselves a bit. But how much “me time” do they need to gain the form it’ll take to compete? Asked the question directly, Niumatalolo replied, “I don’t know.”
On the plus side for Navy, Niumatalolo is seeing progress, as are coordinators Ivin Jasper and Brian Newberry. All three coaches spoke highly of the strides the team has made in their revamped practices. Niumatalolo even mentioned that he’s had to keep player emotions in check; they’ve been so amped up that it has led to late hits and tackles out of bounds— things that lead to penalties. There isn’t much doubt that Navy will perform better against Tulane than they did in their opener. But will they be ready? That’s a different standard, and it’s a tough question to answer when facing a team that traditionally plays the Mids very well.
That team, of course, is Tulane, who enters tomorrow’s contest at 1-0 with a win over South Alabama. Niumatalolo has likened games against the Green Wave to those against the service academies, since both teams have a good feel for option football. That familiarity has led to some close contests, with the average margin of victory over the last four in the series being just over three points.
We've long discussed the nip-and-tuck nature of these games, and earlier this week, Niumatalolo similarly described them as "feast or famine." The games aren't necessarily low scoring, but it's still difficult for both offenses to move the ball consistently. Instead, what you see is a lot of punts, with the occasional big play mixed in at opportune times. The team that is able to hit more of those big plays is the one that will come out on top.
Tulane's defense against Navy each year features a combination of aggression and discipline. They have been consistent in following motion and the apparent flow of the play, which would open most defenses up to misdirection. However, they are also so well-coached that their players recognize those plays and aren't fooled.
Early in last year's game, we saw that Tulane intended to do more of the same, with both the safeties and inside linebackers following the motion before the snap.
In general, defenses that bite so hard on motion like that are vulnerable to misdirection. It's a well that you can drink from only so many times, though. One of the problems with relying on misdirection is that its effectiveness is diminished the more it is used. When defenses come to expect it, they won't be fooled by it. To keep the defense honest, it is important to find other ways to move the ball, even if they are only used sparingly.
Last year, Navy was able to get the ball to the perimeter with effective outside-in blocking, getting better angles on defenders by using different spread formations and motioning a slotback toward his block before the play.
Having both slotbacks on the same side of the formation on the fullback toss allowed Navy to use one of them as a lead blocker, which helped with numbers.
Because Navy was able to move the ball in the same direction of the tail motion, Tulane had a reason to stay aggressive. That set up the Mids' misdirection plays. Navy ran a variety of plays where they motioned one way, then ran the other way:
The difference for the Mids that day, and what created a lot of their big gains, was how they combined multiple elements of misdirection on the same play. They did this by using pre-snap motion in one direction but running the fullback trap in the opposite direction. The secondary would follow the motion, but the linebackers were put in a pickle; should they follow the motion, or should they follow the pulling guard? They were forced to guess. The secondary abandoned the middle of the field by following the pre-snap motion, so when the linebackers guessed wrong, it led to huge plays up the middle.
Navy was able to run this play out of a variety of formations, which just added to the confusion in the back seven. They even ran option plays using the same look.
Earlier this week, Niumatalolo stated that he expected the Green Wave to use the same basic defense this year, but with a couple of adjustments. Navy will be forced to adjust in return, but their ability to do so could be hampered by their uncertainty at quarterback.
Nobody on the Navy team covered themselves in glory against BYU, but even considering the circumstances, Ivin Jasper seemed disappointed in the performance of starting quarterback Dalen Morris. With the introduction of contact at practice, evaluations have begun anew, and the veteran offensive coordinator isn't expected to reveal tomorrow's starter until kickoff. Morris is still in the mix, as are sophomore Maasai Maynor and freshmen Xavier Arline and Tai Lavatai. Each of them brings something different to the table. Lavatai is the biggest, at 6-2, 220, and played at NAPS last year. Morris is the most experienced. Maynor is the same size as Morris and has a strong arm.
It's Arline, though, that has been the subject of the most speculation. He's the smallest of the group, listed at 5-9, 165. He's also the fastest and the most nimble. Comparisons to Malcolm Perry are inevitable, and while it is unfair for an untested plebe to have to shoulder such a burden, it is at least accurate in terms of style. The coaches, then, are faced with a tough decision. Is Arline the most capable of delivering the big plays that will be necessary? Would they be more able to make adjustments and run the offense with Morris? Do they play both? Neither? And with Tulane's defense and Navy's preparation, does it even matter?
Like I said at the beginning, it's a strange situation.
For their part, Tulane had a few offseason questions of their own offensively. The Green Wave lost a lot of pieces on offense, including quarterback Justin McMillan and receivers Darnell Mooney and Jalen McClesky. Running back Corey Dauphine, expected to provide much of Tulane's big-play punch, was sadly lost to a season-ending injury in preseason practice. It will be up to a lot of unproven pieces to match the output of last year's productive offense (33.1 points and 449.3 yards per game). After one week, though, we may have a few answers. Tulane opened their season with a 27-24 win at South Alabama in a game that played out much like their 2019 matchup with Navy. After the Jaguars built a 24-6 lead halfway through the third quarter, the Green Wave came storming back, capping off their comeback with a 16-yard touchdown run from Amare Jones with 3:18 left to play. Tulane gave up 321 passing yards but only 65 on the ground, almost all of which came in the first half.
At quarterback was Keon Howard, a senior transfer who had an up-and-down career at Southern Miss. Howard was spotty throwing the ball, completing only 14 of 30 passes for 191 yards. However, he didn't do anything to lose the game, either, throwing no interceptions and taking only one sack. Because the game never quite got out of reach, Tulane could stick to their game plan of running the ball, eventually wearing down the South Alabama defense. Jones had 124 all-purpose yards, including the game-winning touchdown, while redshirt freshman Tyjae Spears racked up 105 yards on only 11 carries.
Navy was worn down by Tulane last year, even when things were "normal." In bizarro 2020, with BYU's 301 rushing yards against the Mids in the opener, the Wave's ability to run the ball has to be of utmost concern. Willie Fritz's team isn't as experienced as the Cougars were up front; the right side of the line is new, and they will play two freshmen regularly. However, many of Navy's problems were of their own making, with poor tackling, poor alignment, and the inability to shed blocks. With the Mids likely to be inconsistent on offense, their run defense will have to be far more stout this week if they want to be within striking distance in the fourth quarter.
If Navy is even in a position to have to make adjustments in this game, that would be an improvement. There is no adjustment for just getting beaten by the guy lined up in front of you, and there was plenty of that against BYU. Nobody wants to talk about moral victories, but it's also a long season; regardless of the outcome, a marked improvement by the Mids would give hope that things can return to normal with another two weeks of practice ahead of the next game. And if Navy can somehow pull this off, the last two weeks will be studied as a master class in how to prepare a football team.
Here's hoping.
