Every year, as Army-Navy approaches, friends and family contact me to talk about the game. After we go back and forth a bit, the conversation usually ends with them asking, "So, are you going this year?" When I told them I wasn't going to make it to Landover, I was surprised how many people gave me the same response. "Well, it's probably not the year to go if you're a Navy fan, anyway."
I was shocked at how many people in general gave Navy no chance to win. I understand that Army was 11-1 and won the conference, but it's not like Navy was a bad football team. Army was rightfully favored, but some of the predictions I saw thought it'd be an Army blowout. Some analysts thought Navy might cover the spread, but nobody gave them a chance to actually win the game. Advanced stats loved Army. So did the media, and while the bro machine at Barstool is one thing, Pat Forde calling Army "The Toughest Program in America" is another. Their offensive line won the Joe Moore Award. Jeff Monken won the Buddy Teevens Award and seems to have developed something of a personality cult. There was a lot of hype around Army, and while it wasn't entirely undeserved, it felt over-the-top.
Despite all the hype and the accolades, I never saw Army as a team that Navy couldn't match up against. The Mids were still 8-3, and their win over Memphis was better than any that Army had this season. Army was more consistent, but Navy had shown a higher upside. And while one could have pointed to the Rice and Tulane games as data points in Army's favor, it was another game-- Air Force-- that I couldn't get out of my head.
As far back as spring practice, I wrote about the potential for Navy's new offense to change the nature of the service academy games. We saw that when Navy played Air Force back in October. The Mids had averaged 6.5 points and 169 yards per game against the Falcons over the last four years. This year, they won 34-7 while rolling up 463 yards. This was a complete departure from what we've seen in the Navy-Air Force series. But when Army played Air Force, it felt like a typical matchup between the two. It was low-scoring, and while they won, Army was limited to 255 total yards. Granted, Bryson Daily didn't play in that game, so it was hard to draw too many conclusions from it. But it was a big reason why I felt good about Navy's chances on Saturday. Navy's new offense had already exceeded expectations for service academy games. The burden of proof was on Army to show that theirs would do the same.
It did not. Navy won, 31-13, and out-gained the Black Knights 378-178. Daily, who was the conference player of the year, threw three interceptions and ran for only 52 yards. He didn't have a run longer than five yards. As a team, Army only had one run longer than ten yards. In contrast, Navy had seven, while Blake Horvath had 302 total yards and four touchdowns. Navy out-rushed Army and their Joe Moore Award, 271-113.
One of the most eye-opening things about the game was that it seemed almost routine for Navy's offense. In the past, Navy would roll out a completely new look in this game to give Army something they weren't prepared for. On Saturday, they just did the same thing they do every week. They ran a few scripted plays in the first series to see the defense's plan, then called plays based on what they saw. Army, on the other hand, was put in unfamiliar situations right from the start. Outside of the Notre Dame game, Army had only trailed for 5:48 all season-- 3-0 in the first quarter against North Texas. But with Navy scoring on their opening possession, the Army offense was in a 7-0 hole and playing from behind right from the start. They never climbed out.
Navy's defense is usually stout against the run because they like to use unconventional run fits. Offensive linemen get confused about who they should block. They aren't the only team that does this, but most defenses are hesitant to do so against Army because the Black Knights fire off the line so quickly. Teams don't want to risk a defensive lineman being caught out of position in a slow-developing stunt. Navy, however, had no such hesitation. The Mids used a combination of stunts and late stemming to throw off the offensive line and get into the backfield.
Here is a good example of both. Army is basically running a quarterback sneak here, the play Navy used to call "Solid Rebel." This is as fast-hitting a play as there is in football. Everyone knew what was coming, but Navy ran a line stunt against it anyway. We'll look at the play twice. The first time, you can see the stunt that allowed Justin Reed to shoot through the B gap untouched. On the second replay, look at the center and guard. The center basically blocks the guard instead of a defender. Someone mixed up their assignment.
We saw this throughout the first half. Here are two more plays. On the first, Reed again shoots into the backfield unblocked after late stemming. On the second, two players block Griffen Willis, but nobody takes Luke Pirris stunting inside.
On this play, Army lined up with an unbalanced line, putting both tackles on the same side of the line. They tried to run power by pulling a guard to the strong side as well. Landon Robinson saw the pull and shot through the gap. The backside tight end should have blocked him, but he appeared confused on his assignment.
One reason why the stunts were so effective was because P.J. Volker mixed them up. Army would adjust to one stunt only to find that Navy wasn't using it on the next play. Here, you can see Pirris shoot the C gap while Colin Ramos scraped outside. Army adjusted to this by running an inverted veer on the next play. If Pirris shot the gap again, that would be a give read on the sweep, with a lead blocker to account for the scrape. If Pirris didn't shoot the gap, it would be a keep read for the quarterback, with a big hole up the middle left by the scraping linebacker. Only this time, Navy didn't use that stunt. Pirris stepped upfield, showing a keep read. But Daily couldn't run downhill since Ramos didn't scrape. Instead, he had to run into traffic.
We saw a variation on this later in the game. On this play, the defensive line was shaded to the strong side of the formation, giving the defensive end a good angle to attack the C gap. Both Kenny McShan and Kyle Jacob played outside, which gave the jet sweep nowhere to run.
Navy changed things up a little bit in the second half. They still tried to confuse the offensive line, but in addition to stemming and stunting, they also used sheer numbers. They often used run blitzes or lined up with more defenders on the line of scrimmage than Army had blockers. This created many one-on-one blocking situations, and when they couldn't double up on Landon Robinson, Army had a hard time keeping him away from the ball.
Even when Army succeeded in getting Navy's linebackers to run the wrong way, their offensive line wasn't able to open a hole for Daily to get to the second level.
Another crucial element of Navy's defense was the secondary's involvement in the run game. Like last year, Army's secondary was focused on not giving up the play action pass. Navy's wasn't nearly as concerned. All four secondary defenders made big plays near the line of scrimmage.
The defense just wasn't worried about the deep ball. Navy was called for pass interference twice, but I suspect that was part of the plan: prevent a disaster play and stop them on the next set of downs. Daily has had a lot of success through the air this season, but his biggest throws came from play-action where the receiver was running wide open. Those passes were often designed to get one specific receiver open. When Army tried to run those plays against Navy, they were covered. Daily tried to force those throws anyway, and it didn't go well.
Army did manage to get their intended receiver open twice, but Daily couldn't hit him.
Army's inability to force Navy to respect the passing game took away another play that had been a big part of Army's offense during the season: the draw play. Daily had been deadly on draws all year, but Navy's defense was never fooled.
Most of Army's opponents simplified their game plans against Army's power. Not only did Navy not change what they do, they attacked Army in ways the Black Knights hadn't seen all year. Army's offense couldn't simply steamroll their way past Navy, and they couldn't execute when they tried to adjust.
In contrast, Navy's offense adjusted to what Army was doing on their very first series. The Mids usually run plays on their first possession designed to see the defense's plan more than to move the ball. When they did so here, they saw how the inside linebackers were keying on the offensive linemen for their gap assignments.
They also saw that the secondary was playing straight man coverage on the snipes and receivers.
These two elements are what drove most of Navy's playcalling all afternoon.
The first big gain came two plays after picking up a first down on that jet sweep. The Mids faced third and long and called a fullback screen. They lined up in a trips formation to get the secondary on one side of the field before running the play to the other side. The counter action of the quarterback and the twirl motion of the snipe made the inside linebackers think, which gave the line enough time to set up their blocks.
From there, Navy's run game focused on how the inside linebackers were reading the offensive linemen. They had a set of plays with a pulling guard and a set of plays without one. We'll start with the former.
When Navy used a pulling guard, an inside linebacker would follow that guard, assuming that he was about to become a lead blocker for the ball carrier. That makes sense since the most common plays for Navy with a pulling guard are the fullback trap and the counter option. Against ECU, they started running a play that looked like a counter option but was instead a designed quarterback keeper with the fullback as a lead blocker. They ran the same thing here.
The quarterback faked like he was running the counter option outside. The outside linebacker read the play as a counter option, so he either stepped into the backfield or stayed outside as the would-be pitch read. Navy always ran the play to the tight end side. The tight end's job was to block the linebacker following the pull, and they carried out this task with great enthusiasm. The pulling guard and fullback traded assignments between the OLB and the other ILB based who had the better blocking angle in the formation they ran the play out of.
Eventually, the OLB started reading the play and attacked inside.
When that happened, Navy ran the quarterback outside.
Once the linebackers had to respect outside runs again, Navy returned to the same quarterback counter concept, but instead of blocking the inside linebackers, they ran behind them. On the first play here, the Mids ran to the tight end side again, but this time, the guard pulled the other way. The linebackers followed, but the play went behind them. The second play was set up like before, but the linebackers overpursued, and Horvath ran behind them again.
Navy also tried to get the ball carrier behind the pursuing ILBs by having the offensive line flow one way to get the ILBs to follow, then running the ball against the grain. First, they ran a designed zone cutback to the backside. They then ran the power read, with Horvath cutting behind the linebackers who were following the jet sweep. Finally, they ran a jet sweep/midline option to the backside. The safety actually came up in run support here, but Horvath had enough space to make a move to avoid the tackle.
Ironically, Army's emphasis on stopping explosive plays ended up creating them. The Black Knights showed a lot of respect for the Navy passing game and did a pretty good job in coverage most of the afternoon. But by doing so, they opened themselves up to other things. On this play, the Mids ran a waggle, with Horvath rolling out. All the receivers ran routes to the rollout side of the field. Army was in man coverage and gave the receivers a generous cushion. Because of this, there was nobody on the backside when Horvath decided to scramble.
That run set up the next play. Navy then called an RPO. This is the same play they used against ECU when Nathan Kent scored on a post route. Here, it's Brandon Chatman scoring on a wheel route. Horvath had just gained 20 yards, so the outside linebacker had a conflict between stepping up to stop the quarterback or dropping into coverage. Anything he chose was wrong.
I wish the camera had zoomed out more to see what the safeties were doing on that play because, with both snipes on the same side of the formation, both safeties should have been, too. But the closest DB to Chatman as he ran to the end zone was the cornerback who peeled off the post route. Someone messed up.
The combination of man defense and a big cushion set up Horvath's other passing touchdown as well. Eli Heidenreich just ran a simple 10-yard out, but because Chatman motioned to the other side of the field, he was in single coverage. Nobody else was on that side of the field when the cornerback missed the tackle.
Army almost lost last year's game for similar reasons. Their defensive backs consistently gave Navy's receivers a cushion even as the Mids passed their way down the field at the end. Still, it was enough in the end. And this year, Army tried more or less the same thing; they wanted their secondary to prevent the big play while figuring that the front seven would be enough to stop Navy's running game. It was not. Last year's Army defense was no match for this year's Navy offense.
There has been a lot of ex post facto rationalizing from Army fans over the last week, complaining about their team being tired (or "complimenting" Navy by saying they looked "fresh") and having only a week to prepare. Even Jeff Monken tiptoed around this in his press conference. If they honestly believe that, then it's good news for Navy. The Mids had a bye week, just like Army did against Air Force. I doubt they attributed that win to anything other than their own greatness, though. If Army coaches think the problem this year was just a lack of energy or focus from being worn out and playing the Friday before, and they decide to use the same game plan next year, they will get the same result.
In the preview, I said it felt like the first game in a new era of Army-Navy. Afterward, there's no doubt. This rivalry is unmatched for tension, pageantry, and drama, but the teams' similarities have also made it somewhat formulaic. That is no longer the case. Navy's new offense has changed how service academy games are played, and they have the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy to prove it.
The season isn't over yet, but as of Saturday, it is already an unqualified success.
