In all of college football, there might not be a coach who has spent more time trying to defend against the spread option than Bobby Johnson.
Bobby is sort of like the universe's equal and opposite reaction to Paul Johnson. Their careers have run almost in parallel, and they have frequently squared off against each other.
Bobby was the defensive coordinator at Furman when the Paladins faced Paul's Georgia Southern offense in the 1985 Division I-AA Championship Game. Paul left to become Hawaii's offensive coordinator in 1987, but Bobby stayed at Furman and faced the Eagles' option two more times, including in the 1988 I-AA title game. Bobby left for his own I-A coordinator job (at Clemson) in 1993 before returning to Furman a year later to take over as head coach. Four years after that, Paul returned as Georgia Southern's head coach. At this point, Furman and Georgia Southern were both members of the Southern Conference. The two coaches would face each other every year until 2001 when they departed for I-A head coaching jobs; Paul to Navy, and Bobby to Vanderbilt.
Leaving the Southern Conference didn't mean that the two were done with each other, though. They would meet three more times: twice while Paul was at Navy (2003, 2004), and once with Georgia Tech (2009). For the Navy program, those two matchups with Vanderbilt were important.
The 2003 game against Navy was Vanderbilt’s homecoming. The Mids were coming off of an upset of Air Force the week before, bringing their record to 3-2 and giving Navy fans a feeling that they might be witnessing a special season. The team, though, still had a lot to prove. They hadn’t won a game on the road, and they hadn’t won back-to-back games since 1999. The Mids also had yet to make waves on a national level; while Navy fans were excited to get the Air Force monkey off of their backs, that wasn’t a win that most people outside of the service academy sphere would notice. The country remained unconvinced, as evidenced by Vanderbilt being a 4.5-point favorite for the game despite entering with a 1-5 record. A win over an SEC team, even lowly Vanderbilt, would go a long way toward changing how Navy was perceived.
And it did. The Mids rolled up 502 yards of offense and controlled the ball for almost 37 minutes as they topped the Commodores, 37-27. At 4-2, a bowl game suddenly seemed very much within reach. Navy football was back on the map.
That doesn't mean that everyone bought into the idea of Navy football's resurgence, though. We had seen it all before. The '96 and '97 teams both finished with winning records, but that success didn't last. Quarterback Craig Candeto was a two-year starter, and he graduated. How could anyone be sure that 2003 wasn't also lightning in a bottle?
The 2004 team, then, started the season having to prove themselves all over again. They opened with a victory over Duke, then followed that up with a somewhat shaky performance against I-AA Northeastern, holding on for a 28-24 win. Perhaps the close call served as a wake-up call; when the Mids traveled to Tulsa for their next game, they put together one of their most complete performances in years, beating the Golden Hurricane 29-0.
That was Navy's first shutout in a decade, and it was the latest streak of futility from which the program was able to rid itself. It set up the opportunity to erase one more: Navy hadn't started as season 4-0 since 1979. In order to do so, the Mids would have to get by Bobby Johnson and Vanderbilt one more time.
It wouldn't be easy. Vanderbilt had its fair share of talent, led by Jay Cutler on offense and Jovan Haye on defense. That defense was well-coached too, reflecting Johnson's experience in defending the option. The Commodores held Navy to 190 rushing yards, far below the 310 yards per game that the Mids were averaging. Navy didn't help its own cause very much either. They had the ball deep in Vanderbilt territory twice in the first quarter, but came away with zero points after missed field goals. Navy also had a punt blocked in the second half, resulting in a safety.
Despite these miscues, Navy had two things working in its favor. The first was a defense that limited Vanderbilt to 3.3 yards per carry and forced two fumbles. The second was the arm of Aaron Polanco.
Paul Johnson had preached that his offense was perfectly capable of throwing the ball, and pointed out that he did so on occasion at Hawaii. It wasn't until a Mid out-dueled a future first-round draft pick, though, that the Navy faithful started to believe him. Polanco matched Cutler's 176 yards through the air and added another 84 on the ground to lead Navy to a 29-26 victory.
Navy showed that it didn't have to play a perfect game to beat an SEC opponent. They also proved that they could throw to win if they had to. As a result, they earned the program's first 4-0 start in 25 years.
