Navy 10, ECU 0: The Debrief

At the beginning of the season, I had high hopes for the Navy defense. Before the Notre Dame game, I said the Mids could have their best defense since the George Welsh years. If you're a long-time Navy fan, you know how high that sets the bar. But with almost all the starters returning from a unit that played so well a year ago-- they were third in the nation in run defense-- it seemed like a real possibility. Then Navy went out to Dublin and got blasted by Irish, and I looked like an idiot.

But today, I am redeemed. With their 10-0 win over East Carolina, Navy earned their third shutout of the season, a feat not accomplished since the 1978 Holiday Bowl campaign. More importantly, the Mids' earned their fifth win of the season to pull themselves back to .500 and keep their bowl hopes alive. Those hopes may be slim if Navy doesn't learn how to score points, but they are there nevertheless.

We'll get to the offense's problems soon enough. But first, that defense.

We can start with the obvious: ECU isn't good. Offensive coordinator Donnie Kirkpatrick lost his job after the game; getting shut out by Navy was apparently the last straw in what was already a dismal season. In modern college football, it takes a joint effort to create a shutout, and the Pirates did their part. But that doesn't diminish the effort of the defense. If you're reading this, you're probably already aware of Navy's "Get 6" goal for each game. In an analysis of years of football data, Brian Newberry found that if a defense gets six of these things in a game-- three and outs, turnovers, fourth-down stops, and defensive touchdowns-- they are overwhelmingly likely to win. Navy got their 6 in the first six ECU possessions of the game.

ECU was limited to 189 yards of offense. They ran only seven plays in Navy territory, and five of them came on a drive that started in Navy territory. They turned the ball over four times. Linebacker Colin Ramos was named AAC Defensive Player of the Week for the second week in a row. Dashaun Peele had an interception and two PBUs. It was a complete effort.

ECU had an opportunity for a big play early in the game, but they couldn't capitalize. Early on, Navy used cover 3 zone. Recognizing this, ECU ran a post-dig pattern. The post-dig is a good play to run in this situation because it's easy for the quarterback. If the deep safety stays deep, you throw to the dig route. If he steps up to play the dig route, you throw to the post. On this play, the safety plays the shorter route. Quarterback Alex Flinn makes the correct read and throws deep, but the pass was woefully off target.

After that, Navy changed up their defense, using a mix of cover 3, Tampa 2, man under, and quarters coverages. Flinn had difficulty recognizing them. Let's look at two plays from consecutive possessions. Here, the Mids drop into a Tampa 2.

On ECU's next drive, the defense looks like they're in a Tampa 2 again since nobody follows the motion receiver. However, after the snap, it's man coverage with a spy on the quarterback. Flinn doesn't know what to do.

That was basically the story of the game. More often than not, Flinn didn't know what to do against the changing looks the defense gave him. Most plays resulted in one of three things.

One, Flinn checked down to a safety valve for a minimal gain. Navy did a very good job tackling this week. In 24 completions, ECU's receivers had only 68 yards after the catch. In contrast, Navy had 92.

Two, Flinn tried to throw deep, but it was always into double coverage.

On seven pass attempts of 15 or more yards, Flinn was 0-7 with two interceptions.

Finally, when Flinn couldn't recognize the coverage and find an open receiver, Navy's defensive line was able to apply enough pressure to prevent him from waiting in the pocket for someone to get loose.

And that was the real key to Navy's defensive effort. The defensive line had another excellent performance. Navy rarely brought more than four rushers after the quarterback but ended up with three sacks and three hurries anyway. Like the UAB game, Navy's defense could have their cake and eat it too. They could get pressure on the quarterback without any tradeoffs in coverage. That is always a winning formula.

On the other hand, getting 276 yards of offense usually isn't.

ECU has a very good defense, and under coordinator Blake Harrell, they've also become a good option defense. In the preview, we discussed why. ECU doesn't just roll out one stunt against the option and wait for Navy to adjust to it before trying something else. They incorporate two or three into the game plan and change them almost every play. By the time Navy adjusts to one, they've moved on to another. Playcalling becomes a guessing game. Typically, when you find something that works, you want to run it until the defense stops it. Against ECU, that isn't possible.

Take a look at this play. Early on, the Mids ran the fullback off tackle on first down for a decent gain. The outside linebacker was left unblocked because he was stepping into the backfield in anticipation of being the pitch key on an option play. The fullback could run right by him.

But ECU didn't have the linebacker step into the backfield on every play. The next time the Mids ran off tackle, the OLB was left unblocked again, but he played the fullback.

Navy then tried to use the slotback to block the OLB. A receiver was brought in motion to block the playside safety, but that left the cornerback unblocked. Ideally, the CB would follow the receiver in case it's a pass play. Instead, the cornerback read the play and made the tackle.

Sometimes the OLB would squat, and the fullback could run past him.

But then sometimes he wouldn't squat, and the Mids were back to square one.

The Mids also tried running off tackle out of different formations. Here, they lined up with two tight ends and motioned a receiver inside to add an extra blocker, but for some reason, nobody blocked the OLB.

They had more success when they lined up with one back and one tight end. The first time they lined up this way, the OLB played outside like he expected to be a pitch key.

After that, he went back to playing the fullback.

All of this back-and-forth was just one play. Now imagine having to do this for every play you wanted to run. That was the challenge facing Navy. They couldn't just find something that worked and stuck with it, because the conditions that would've caused the play to work in the first place were constantly changing.

Fortunately, this was also the case against ECU last year, so the Navy coaches had a chance to account for it when they made their game plan. That plan had a few elements to it. We saw the Mids use a few new formations, maybe hoping to catch ECU off guard a little bit. Navy also tried to match ECU's unpredictability, lining up with a different look on almost every play. Finally, they tried to run plays where ECU's various stunts wouldn't have as much of an effect. Before the game, I guessed that would mean outside zone, the counter trey option we saw last week, and maybe some one-man passing routes designed to give Xavier Arline a chance to improvise. If Navy could run those plays well consistently, it would force ECU to change their approach and maybe allow Navy to run more triple.

Indeed, that ended up being a good chunk of the plan. The Mids ran a lot of outside zone:

They also ran the counter trey option again:

The passing game, however, didn't play out as I expected. When Navy passes, they usually face man coverage, and more often than not, a blitz. That's especially true on third down. ECU didn't do that, though, which is why Navy's attempts at screen passes looked so ugly. The defenders that Navy expected to be coming after the quarterback were instead sitting in coverage.

The Mids adjusted by bringing a wide receiver across the field on a drag route. The receivers on the opposite side of the formation didn't run pass routes; they blocked. But the play is legal since the ball is caught behind the line of scrimmage.

I suspect that ECU's zone coverage and lack of regular blitzing were the main reasons we didn't see more one-man route, pass/scramble plays. Those plays work better against man coverage because defenders turn their backs to the quarterback as they chase receivers down the field. Players in zone coverage can see the scrambling in front of them and react to it. However, we did see Navy run one of those plays, and it was their longest pass of the afternoon. Eli Heidenreich ran the same hitch & go route that got him to the end zone against Temple. Here, he ran his hitch right at the line to gain on third down, which helped to sell the fake. It resulted in a 49-yard gain.

The Mids also added a new wrinkle in the triple option. ECU isn't the only team that has started mixing in multiple stunts against Navy's option. One problem that Navy has seen against multiple teams, particularly those that use an odd front, is inside linebackers alternating between scraping and blitzing. The Mids would have the tackle use an outside release to stop the scrape, only to find that the ILB decided to blitz instead. Against ECU, Navy attempted to solve this by having the tackle read the ILB. If he scraped, the tackle would release outside. If he blitzed, the tackle would stay inside to block him.

If the quarterback got a pitch read, it worked well enough:

However, if the read was to give to the fullback, the play didn't go anywhere. Even if the ILB didn't blitz, he was still unblocked. It just ended up being a two-yard gain instead of a one-yard loss.

It was an interesting idea, but it looks like it needs a little more work before it's ready for prime time.

On the whole, Navy didn't have a bad plan, and the playcalling makes sense when you understand what the challenge was. So why was the offense so ineffective?

ECU gets some credit. The Mids should have scored more than ten points, but the Pirates were never going to let this become a shootout with their game plan. In fact, some of their stunts worked well against Navy's new plays. When ECU fired a cornerback, for example, it worked well against the counter trey option.

Still, Navy's biggest problem on the afternoon was their own execution, just as it had been all season.

To start with, Xavier Arline did not play a good game when it came to making his option reads. As good as he was at running the counter trey option against UAB, he struggled mightily against ECU. Here are a few of those missed reads. What's frustrating about them is that if you look at where the ball would go if he had made the correct read, there was big-play potential there.

I'm not sure why he struggled this week. UAB lined up in a 4-3 while ECU used an odd front, so maybe that contributed to the problem. That's just speculation, though.

Interestingly enough, even Navy's touchdown was a missed read. Both the defensive end and outside linebacker played outside to take the sweep. One of them-- looks like the linebacker-- was the read on the play. Alex Tecza somehow managed to turn the corner anyway, and the linebacker was more concerned with a possible wheel route.

The other problem that Navy had was the same problem that has plagued them for the last two years: awful perimeter blocking.

Let's take a look at these three plays. First, we have an outside zone pitch that went nowhere. Arline pitches off of the outside linebacker who had run into the backfield. But the motion slotback also blocks the OLB. The whole point of having a pitch key is to leave him unblocked. If you read an option key and block him, you lose the inherent numbers advantage of an option play. We see that here. The ball carrier wants to turn upfield, but can't because the safety is unblocked. Instead, he bounces outside, but the block is set up with inside leverage.

Next, we have a shotgun triple option. The playside slotback and tight end both block the same guy. One of them is wrong because the safety is once again left unblocked.

Finally, we have another zone option pitch. Arline makes the correct read, but the playside slotback completely whiffs on his block.

That's not all. Here, we have another outside zone run. On this play, the tight end has outside leverage on the defensive end. He should be the one blocking him, with the tackle looping around him to get upfield. Instead, the TE wanders upfield without touching anyone, leaving the tackle with poor leverage to attempt a block. The play gets strung out by the DE.

That's not all.

There are some plays where I can't tell if there is a problem with the scheme or if there are blown assignments. All year, playside safeties have been going unblocked, and at some point one has to wonder if it's intentional.

Let's take a look at the long Arline run that preceded the touchdown. It's a shotgun triple option. The defensive end is the first key, and Arline reads him correctly. Now, most option rules that I know of would say that the outside linebacker should be the pitch key. But on this play, the wide receiver blocks him. The slotback arcs out to block the cornerback, and the safety is left unblocked. The safety is reading the zone blocking of the offensive line, so he's late to react to Arline running out.

On that play, everything worked out, but it wouldn't have been hard for things to go very wrong. What if the linebacker blitzed? The receiver had no blocking angle to stop that. Would the receiver have to trade assignments on the fly with the slotbacks? That's a recipe for confusion. And what if the safety had done a better job reading the play? Was the safety supposed to be the pitch key? That would set up an awkward pitch relationship with the linebacker getting blocked right where the pitch would theoretically go.

But you don't have to take my word for it. It happened later in the game. Here's another shotgun triple option. Arline again makes his first read. This time, the safety reads the play and heads right for him. Arline pitches off of the safety. Instead of getting the ball in space, the slotback has the linebacker getting blocked right in front of him. The play gets strung out, and the safety-- the guy that's supposed to be read out of the play-- ends up having a shot at the tackle. The slotback somehow avoids that tackle, but not the second one.

Here's a counter trey option. The safety is completely unaccounted for, and makes the tackle.

I have no explanation for this. The problem didn't start with this game, either. This has been going on all season.

After the UAB game, I wrote that fans shouldn't read too much into what that game meant about the Navy offense. I didn't say that to be a hater. I said it because it was honest. It would've been lovely if I was wrong, but I'm not. There are deep-seated problems with the offense. These problems will not be solved just by picking the right quarterback. They are not solved just because Navy's settled on one quarterback. They aren't solved by calling the "good plays" or getting the ball to the slots more. They aren't solved by lining up in the shotgun, and they aren't solved by lining up under center. The issues are far more fundamental than that, and if they haven't been fixed at this point in the season, I doubt it'll happen before the spring. On the bright side, as flawed as they are, the Mids are still on the brink of making a bowl game.

Navy can only play with the offense they have. For now, that will have to do.