It was a long offseason for Navy fans desperate to move on from a disappointing 2023. Everyone wanted to know what the new offense would look like, how players would adjust, and what wrinkles would be added to the defense. However, you shouldn't let your desperation for a palate cleanser lead you to read too much into Saturday's result.

That's not to say there is no reason to be optimistic after the Mids' 49-21 win over Bucknell. It's not as if comfortable wins have been a regular occurrence lately. At the very least, this wasn't a repeat of last year's Wagner game. Navy rolled up 437 yards of offense, more than in any game last season. Blake Horvath looked comfortable running the show, and Navy's returning playmakers showed flashes of their potential in the new scheme. It was enough to leave you hungry for more.

But really, that's all it was: an appetizer, if appetizers were made from vanilla. While head coach Brian Newberry denied that he was determined to keep things basic in this game, he likely said that to avoid tipping his hand and out of respect to Bucknell. After kickoff, though, things couldn't have been simpler on either side of the ball. Defensively, there was almost no simulated pressure or blitzing. The zone coverage was straightforward. There was minimal effort to confuse the quarterback or the offensive line. On offense, we saw none of the shifting or motion that will soon be the norm. The formations were no different from any Navy offense of the last decade. For that matter, neither were the majority of the plays. If you were hoping to get a sense of the look and feel of the new offense or Drew Cronic as a playcaller, you came away disappointed.

With very few exceptions, Navy's entire running game consisted of only a handful of plays, all of which were staples of the old offense. The Mids ran the FB belly:

They ran inside zone, both under center and out of the shotgun:

They ran the QB sweep:

They ran the jet sweep:

And they ran the power read, popularly called "inverted veer":

The Mids also ran a couple of zone option plays out of the shotgun, but for the most part, that was it. It didn't matter how Bucknell lined up, either. The Bison mixed odd and even fronts, rotating between a 3-4, a 3-3 stack, and a 4-3 with the middle linebacker lining up almost at safety depth. Navy's run game didn't really change based on what Bucknell did, at least as far as I could tell.

None of those plays should look unfamiliar to you. This was undoubtedly by design, trying to put more of the same on film for Temple. That makes sense, and Navy took the same approach against Wagner last year. It helped them to catch Memphis off guard a little the following week, at least in the first half. If you can get away with it, why not hold your cards close?

Still, we did see a few new things, mainly in the passing game.

Early on, the Mids tried to take deep shots, but it didn't go so well. Bucknell's defensive backs gave Navy receivers big cushions, so nothing was open. Horvath threw an arm-punt interception, and the Mids had trouble dealing with the delayed blitz.

Here, Horvath should have seen that nothing was open deep and checked down to the fullback:

On this play, Daba Fofana should have picked up the blitz, but he missed his block:

The Mids had more success throwing underneath to take advantage of the DB playing 5-6 yards off the line.

They also handled the blitz in a few ways. One way was to use curl-flat patterns. If the linebacker blitzed, the curl would be open underneath. If those routes were covered, the flat should was open.

I think that was the first completion to a Navy tight end in almost 25 years.

With the offense running so much inside zone, play action was effective at thwarting the blitz as well. The offensive line here did a good job selling a running look without being downfield illegally. The linebackers were forced to play their gap assignments, keeping them away from the quarterback.

Again, the cornerback playing soft coverage helped.

The other concept that helped control the blitz was the waggle. The line drew the defense one way while the quarterback ran a naked bootleg the other way. This misdirection can also open up the drag route by the tight end.

If there is an open receiver, the quarterback throws it. If not, you have a runner in space with blockers in front of him.

The Mids also used misdirection by setting up a screen pass with play action off of the power read.

For the most part, that was it. So what do we make of it?

There is something to be said for only sticking to the basics and still scoring 49 points, regardless of the opponent. It'd be one thing if Cronic and P.J. Volker pulled out the good stuff, but by keeping things bland, the game became less about coaching wizardry and more about players executing the fundamentals. And for the most part, those players delivered. The same couldn't be said about the Wagner game, at least on offense. The improvement is a good sign.

However, there were still some things that didn't look so great and will be worth keeping an eye on next week:

-- Special teams: In his Monday press conference, Coach Newberry didn't sugarcoat his thoughts regarding special teams.

"Not up to standard," he said. "Really disappointing. That was the thing that was the most disappointing coming out of the game. It's something we take a lot of pride in around here. It was a bright spot for us last year. I think we probably spend as much time as anybody does on special teams. I was disappointed with the execution, and at times even, I hate to say it, the effort wasn't what it needs to be."

Navy's opening kickoff went out of bounds, they missed an extra point, and Bucknell had a few nice returns. In an AAC schedule where Navy's margin for error will be razor-thin, the Mids will have to improve here, and in a hurry.

-- Offensive line: The offensive line played well for the most part. However, there were a few indications that they are still a work in progress.

The offensive line is not used to playing backward, and sometimes it showed:

Navy also got flagged for chop blocks twice on Saturday. It isn't surprising to see some mixups from a line learning new techniques and assignments. Coach Newberry said after the game that only one of the penalties was the right call; the other was a low-low block that shouldn't have been flagged. Maybe so, but chop blocks were also a problem in the team's scrimmage at the end of camp. Against Bucknell, all's well that ends well. But these are drive killers against anyone else, and you can't afford to give the ball back to high-powered AAC offenses. This should be less of a problem as the line gains experience, but time is a luxury the Mids don't have.

-- Penalties: Newberry harped on pre-snap penalties all offseason, so seeing the defense jump offsides three times on Saturday was disappointing. One can understand being excited to finally hit someone new after going against your teammates since the spring, but again, Navy has no margin for error. There's a difference between effort penalties and discipline penalties, and good teams eliminate the latter.

-- Drops: Wide receiver was one of the biggest question marks since the spring. The position was thin due to injuries and Nathan Kent running track. There is no doubt that Navy's receivers have the speed to stretch the field, but there is more to the position than sprinting. After a couple of costly drops, including one that turned into an interception, one wonders how much the lack of practice has affected the group. Again, this should improve as the season wears on and the receivers get caught up on practice time. Still, it was noticeable on Saturday.

-- Slow mesh: Bucknell's offense usually tries to get the ball out of the backfield as quickly as possible, but against Navy, they had their greatest success on the ground when they slowed down a little. They occasionally utilized a slow mesh. It wasn't Wake Forest-levels of holding onto the ball, but it was long enough to read aggressive Navy defenders playing their run gaps. It didn't always work, but it is where their most significant gains came from.

Other teams, most notably Memphis, have used this against Navy in the past. With the Mids' scaled-back defense, it's difficult to tell whether this is a long-term concern. Either way, Bucknell apparently saw something they liked on film.

-- Effort: I rarely talk about this because I don't think a lack of effort is something you can honestly claim if you aren't on the sideline or in the locker room. However, Coach Newberry mentioned after the game that he thought the team let up in the third quarter after they got a big lead. The Mids can't afford these kinds of lapses. Something to keep in mind is that this is a team learning how to win. Navy hasn't had a winning season since 2019, so none of these players can speak about that from experience. I wouldn't say this is something to watch for because, again, it isn't something you can judge from a distance. But if Newberry mentioned it publicly, I'm sure it became a teaching moment in practice.

The old axiom is that when you win big like this, coaches still want something they can get mad about in the film room to keep their teams motivated. That's the takeaway from this game. It was an encouraging opener, but the Mids still have plenty to prove.

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