Navy 27, North Texas 24: The Debrief
Sometimes, stats lie.
The Navy defense gave up 206 rushing yards, including touchdown runs of 75 and 47 yards. North Texas quarterback Chandler Rogers completed 69% of his passes while throwing for 267 yards and another touchdown. The Mean Green averaged almost 7 yards per play. Meanwhile, the Navy offense had their best rushing performance of the season, running for 331 yards. Tai Lavatai connected on two big pass plays, including a 26-yard touchdown to Nathan Kent that was as good a throw and catch as you will see at any level. Blake Horvath ran for 88 yards, easily the most by a Navy quarterback this season. Alex Tecza ran for 137 yards in another standout performance.
Reading that, you might have thought that the Navy defense had a bad day while the Navy offense had a great one. The truth is a little more complicated.
Navy's offense did finally top the 300-yard mark on the ground, and it would have been a real disappointment if they couldn't do so against the worst run defense in the country. However, they also made drive-killing mistakes, especially regarding penalties. The Mids had opportunities to take control of the game in the second half but couldn't. The game shouldn't have been close. Instead, it came down to the wire.
Conversely, Navy's defense was a fine illustration of the object of the game of football. It isn't about stats; it's about winning. While the Mids gave up a lot of yards, they also made plays that got themselves off the field. Navy's defense had a school-record eight sacks, held UNT to 2-11 on third down, forced two turnovers, and made a goal-line stand to set the tone early on. All of this came against the conference's top offense and an offensive line that was only giving up 1.5 sacks per game entering the contest.
Both units had their ups and downs, but the combined effort was just enough to tip the balance of the game in Navy's favor.
We'll start with the defense, which had an interesting game plan and some standout performances. Luke Pirris was named the American's defensive player of the week for his efforts, including nine tackles, a game-changing sack, and a forced fumble. He wasn't alone. Mbiti Williams switched back to cornerback for most of the game and has nine tackles and two pass breakups, while Clay Cromwell had two sacks.
Not everything shows up on the stat sheet, though. One of the things that caught my eye was the play of the defensive line, particularly against the run. The offensive line is the strength of UNT's team, but Navy did more than hold their own against them. Here, you can see both Donald Berniard and Cromwell getting double-teamed, with both holding their ground. The OL's inability to get movement out of them made the running lane hard to squeeze through and freed up the linebackers.
Navy's run defense was stout... until it wasn't. North Texas ran the ball 36 times for 206 yards. That entire total came on seven carries. They lost 53 yards on sacks. The rest consisted of 21 carries for 51 yards.
I wrote in the preview that I wouldn't be surprised to see Navy line up with three safeties for this game, and they did, although sometimes it was more like 2 1/2 safeties. Rayuan Lane often lined up at the second level, more like a deep middle linebacker.
This allowed the Mids to use his range as he made plays from sideline to sideline and rushed the quarterback.
While the three-safety personnel was mostly effective, it also might have contributed to some of Navy's problems against the run. In the preview, we talked about Navy's use of unconventional run fits. With a few players moving around to different positions, they might have been confused about their assignments. This play shows how the inside linebacker covers an outside gap while the safety rotates to cover the A gap. However, it appears the safety covered the wrong A gap; the defensive end ran a stunt to the same gap. The other A gap was uncovered, and that's where the ball went.
It seemed that UNT might have done a bit of self-scouting as well. In the preview, I mentioned that Rogers is a capable runner but hasn't been asked to run much. That changed on Saturday. On this play, you can see that the gap is covered, but the defender goes straight for the running back. I suspect that's what he thought he should do based on film.
The opposite problem occurred later in the game. Here, two defenders are going for the quarterback, thinking it's a pass. The running back ran right by them. In hindsight, the fact that the receivers were split so wide was probably a tipoff that there was a run up the middle coming.
One thing that the Mids didn't struggle with was the RPO. North Texas started running it in the second half, but it didn't get them much. The idea is that the quarterback reads an outside linebacker, and if the linebacker stays outside in coverage, then the defense won't have enough players in the box to stop the run. But the offensive line could not get movement from the Navy defensive line, which kept them from coming off their double teams and getting to the second level. The linebackers were left free to make the tackle.
But the biggest story of the game for the Navy defense was their ability to pressure the quarterback. The Mids had a school-record eight sacks, with five coming in the second half. UNT had difficulty with Navy's simulated pressure, especially when they needed points in the fourth quarter. Two Navy sacks ultimately clinched the game for the Mids.
The first of those sacks belonged to Pirris, who forced a fumble that the Mids recovered and turned into points. On this play, UNT is lined up in an empty backfield. The Mids show pressure, so the quarterback has to account for six rushers despite having only five blockers. His target is the receiver at the top of the screen, running a short hook pattern. He changes his pass protection to slide in the direction of the throw. His job is to get rid of the ball before the backside pressure gets to him. He does not.
On UNT's last drive, the Mids ran a cornerback blitz. Defensive coordinator PJ Volker hadn't called that all game, so North Texas didn't recognize it. It's a bold call in that situation. Sending a corner on a blitz means leaving a receiver one-on-one with a safety, which is usually considered a favorable matchup. It helps, though, when the "safety" assigned to the receiver is Mbiti Williams, who spent most of the game playing cornerback himself.
While Navy's defense made mistakes, they also made big plays when they needed them most.
The offense also made some big plays when they weren't shooting themselves in the foot with penalties.
Running the quarterback was the priority early in the game. The Mids hadn't done many designed QB runs this year, so they probably wanted to catch the defense off guard. They ran plays normally intended for the fullback, like the pin and pull and the QB trap. Running them with the quarterback allowed them to use the fullback as an extra blocker. It had modest success.
The Mids also tried to correct one of their issues against USF. You'll recall that the Mids had difficulty accounting for the safety in that game. Against North Texas, they tinkered with leaving the safety unblocked on purpose and using him as the pitch read. It was an interesting idea, but it mostly led to the play getting strung out because the read took too long to make.
After that early tinkering, the Mids settled in and adjusted to what UNT was doing defensively.
The Mean Green are a base 3-3-5 team, but it wasn't clear how they would line up against the option. They ended up going with a 3-4. There were two parts to their plan that drove Navy's playcalling for most of the afternoon. The first was that they were extremely aggressive in trying to run the play down from the backside, as you can see here:
That's something that Navy has seen a lot of over the years. In the past, they'd run a reverse or two against it, but I suspect that offensive coordinator Grant Chesnut is saving some of his spicier plays for the Air Force game.
What was a little more unusual about the UNT defense was that they lined up in a bear front. A bear front is where you have a zero technique (NG over the center) and two three techniques (outside shoulder of the guard). The outside linebackers were lined up outside the tackles.
It was a weird plan, and not a terribly effective one. I think the idea was to clog the middle and make predicting where the ball would go easier. They'd blitz the inside linebackers if the fullback ran through the B gap, and if Navy ran outside, all that pursuit would string out the play.
Early on, Navy ran the triple against it, with the outside linebacker as the quarterback's dive key. The dive key being so far outside made for an awkward read. Sometimes, even when the quarterback made the correct read, the OLB still made the tackle, but 4-5 yards downfield.
Because the inside linebacker was consistently blitzing the B gap, the Mids also ran a double option using that ILB as the pitch key.
For most of the game, though, Navy didn't run the option. Typically, when a team is overpursuing the way UNT was, your playcalling is about two things. First, you find plays you can run consistently into the pursuit while staying on schedule. That gives the defense a reason to keep overpursuing. Then, when you've set it up, you run misdirection for big gains.
On Saturday, the Mids more or less did the same thing.
First, they ran the pin-and-pull with the fullback. The bear front made it easy to seal off the defensive line, while the pulling guard helped with the blitzing ILB.
The bear front also made it easier to get out ahead of the defense. With the defensive line all lined up inside the A gap, there was little risk in pulling the playside guard and tackle outside to get blockers in front of the pursuit. They did this with the toss sweep:
They also used the jet sweep:
Eventually, the defense recognized what was happening:
After that, the Mids still ran sweeps but changed the formation and the ball carrier. They lined up in the shotgun and ran the fullback instead of a slotback in motion. It's the same play, but the defense was slow to recognize it, so it worked.
As the Mids continued to find reasonable success running outside, the inside linebacker stopped blitzing and instead started cheating outside more. At that point, the Mids started running off tackle, cutting inside the ILB sliding outside.
What's interesting is that Navy ran very little true misdirection in the game. The one real misdirection play was a counter option that Lavatai kept for a decent gain.
The Mids also looked for ways to create cutback lanes against the pursuit. They tried to run the outside zone in the third quarter, but with Lavatai unable to find that cutback lane, he pitched the ball. It didn't really work.
What did work was running inverted veer. The jet sweeps got the defense to bite on the motion of the slotback while the quarterback ran behind them.
The Mids' most successful plays weren't even by design; the fullbacks just kept their legs churning when they ran into the pile and ran behind the defense.
Lavatai also made some key plays in the passing game. The touchdown pass to Kent was spectacular, but just as important was the third-down play that preceded it. Lavatai dropped back to pass, sidestepped the rush, and picked up 20 yards on a scramble. Scrambling might not be the same as throwing the ball, but it's still part of the passing game. The Mids face a lot of man defense, so when receivers take off downfield, defenders have their backs to the quarterback. A quarterback who can evade the rush can pick up a lot of yards, and a 20-yard scramble is as good as a 20-yard pass. Knowing that your quarterback can scramble like this makes it easier to call pass plays.
Lavatai also made a tremendous throw to Brandon Chatman that set up another touchdown. This was a 3-man levels play, which was a favorite of June Jones at Hawaii. Three receivers run out patterns at different depths. The tight end draws the cornerback forward, which left Chatman one-on-one with the safety. The safety still has to respect the possibility of a vertical route. When Chatman breaks outside, Lavatai has to deliver the ball before the safety can react and before Chatman reaches the sideline. He does it perfectly.
What was most frustrating about the offense's performance was that they had more than one chance to put the game away but failed to do so. Sometimes, it was penalties that killed the drive. Sometimes, it was UNT making a play. As the Mids were driving in North Texas territory with a little more than two minutes remaining, they faced a third and one. They called a pin-and-pull play, which had worked consistently all afternoon. That was when UNT was lined up in a bear front, though. On this play, they changed it up. You can see that they shifted toward the field, maybe anticipating what was coming. Now, the nose guard wasn't lined up over the center; he was lined up over the guard. When the guard started pulling at the snap, the nose guard shot the gap.
The Mids were forced to punt it away, but the defense finished the job.
The Mids won't always get to play the lowest-ranked run defense in the country, so there's a lot of work that still needs to be done. Still, it's better to fix your problems after a win than a loss. North Texas is one of the most prolific offenses in the country, but the Mids played their game and came out on top.