Before the season started, I appeared on the TigerSportsReport podcast to discuss expectations for the upcoming Navy season and the state of the American Athletic Conference. Host Bryan Moss asked me an interesting question: Who is Navy's biggest rival within the conference?
I'm not sure there's a clear answer. Navy plays SMU for the Gansz Trophy, but while it has sentimental value, it isn't really a basis for a rivalry. The Mids have a lengthy history with Tulane, and those games have been a lot like service academy games on the field. One could have made an argument for Houston once upon a time. The more I think about it, though, the more I think the correct answer is Memphis.
It's not a natural rivalry. There's no real connection between the schools or their respective alumni. There is no geographic proximity. Instead, it has become something like the Virginia Tech-Miami rivalry in the old Big East. It just always feels like a big game. Other than 2017, every game in the series played at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium has been in prime time. It is almost always played either at the beginning of the season or in the middle. That makes it either a launching pad or a turning point. In 2015, Navy's win over the #15 Tigers catapulted them into the national spotlight. In 2017, Memphis returned the favor, getting a win over the #25 Mids that put the Tigers in the top 25 on the way to a West Division title. The 2018 game featured Malcom Perry's heroics. The 2019 game was a prime-time matchup of two teams that would go on to win 23 games between them. Whether or not you call it a rivalry, this game gets circled on the schedule.
Sadly, Navy hasn't held up their end of the big-game bargain the last few years, something that head coach Brian Newberry was quick to remind people of after Saturday's win over Wagner. The first-year head coach pointed out that he has yet to beat Memphis since coming to Annapolis. That he had this fact at the top of his mind immediately following his first career win tells us how much this game means to him personally, but it's also a huge game for his program.
In a sense, this is Navy's true season opener. Playing Notre Dame and Wagner as your first two games is sort of like throwing out the highest and lowest scores in Olympic diving. The real measure of where Navy stands as a program will come against their peers: the other service academies and conference opponents. While the Mids might have played a stinker in Dublin, they now have the chance to redeem themselves in prime time against the first team they will play that truly affects their goals.
It's a second chance to make a first impression.
This is also a big game for Memphis, but for the opposite reason. The Tigers aren't looking to make a first impression but to make a leap forward. This is year four for head coach Ryan Silverfield, and it's make-or-break time. By this point, his predecessors had the Tigers firing on all cylinders. Justin Fuente inherited a two-win team, but his teams won 19 games over years three and four of his tenure. By his fourth season, Mike Norvell had Memphis playing in the Cotton Bowl.
But despite inheriting a stronger program, Silverfield has yet to match those achievements. Memphis played .500 ball during their last two regular seasons while finishing 3-5 in the conference both years, and the timing couldn't have been worse. If the Tigers were playing at the level of Norvell's or Fuente's best teams over that span, might they be headed to the Big 12 instead of one of Houston, Cincinnati, or UCF? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, the pressure is on, especially now that those three teams are out of the picture.
So why hasn't Memphis played to their potential? The transfer portal probably has something to do with it. Ideally, for coaches not named Deion Sanders, the best use of the transfer portal is to shore up one or two weak spots and maybe add some depth. You still want to have your core of home-grown players to provide continuity and maintain the program's culture. At Memphis, though, the transfer portal has been more of a revolving door.
That has been especially true at the skill positions. Running back Rodrigues Clark, the team's leading rusher in 2020, announced he was entering the portal after only one game last year. The team's second-leading rusher in 2022, Asa Martin, is now at Troy. The Tigers have to replace their top four receivers from last year; three of them left via the portal. The defense has to contend with the loss of Cam Jackson, a 6-6 340-pound defensive tackle who started all 13 games for Memphis in 2023. He transferred to Florida. Memphis brought in 26 transfers of their own this year to replace these losses and others. They have 32 transfers on the roster, including JUCOs. Other schools have even more, but it's unlikely that their transfers will be counted on to make the same immediate impact. Thirteen players on Memphis' two-deep offensive depth chart are transfers, either of the Division I or JUCO variety. On defense, it's 15.
So far, the plan seems to be working, albeit against overmatched competition. Memphis opened the season by rolling up 551 yards of offense in a 56-14 rout of Bethune-Cookman. Last week, the Tigers dispatched Arkansas State 37-3 on the road. After playing Navy, Memphis will take on Missouri and Boise State. Then they get conference favorite Tulane at home on a Friday night on ESPN. If the Tigers can figure out a way to be 5-0 heading into that game, that stadium will be absolutely bonkers. First things first, though.
If there's a reason why things are moving along relatively smoothly so far, it's because Memphis has one key player who hasn't succumbed to the allure of the transfer portal: quarterback Seth Henigan. The 6-3 junior started every game last season and 11 as a freshman, throwing for 6,486 career yards coming into 2023. He has picked up where he left off, completing 74% of his throws through the season's first two games. Henigan has performed exceptionally well against Navy; last year's 415 yards in Annapolis were a season high. Henigan is an intelligent, capable quarterback with just enough running ability to make the RPO a credible threat. He ran for 61 yards against ECU his freshman year. Last season, he had four games of 40+ rushing yards, including a 69-yard performance against UCF.
Against Navy, his ability to generate big plays has made Henigan especially dangerous. Last year, five Memphis receivers had catches of 25 yards or more, including plays of 79, 50, and 41 yards. Only one of those five receivers is still on the team, leaving Henigan to find a new crop of big-play receivers. So far this season, the team's leading pass-catcher is Roc Taylor, a 6-3 wideout with nine catches for 90 yards. Running back Blake Watson, a fifth-year senior who was Old Dominion's leading rusher the last two years, also has nine catches out of the backfield. Memphis hasn't felt the need to take too many shots downfield thus far, but when they have, Toledo transfer DeMeer Blankumsee (7 catches for 122 yards) and Missouri transfer Tauskie Dove (31.4 yards per catch) have been the primary beneficiaries. Redshirt senior Joe Scates, who had the 79-yard touchdown against Navy a year ago, is also back for another year.
The Mids will have to walk a bit of a tightrope to stop the Memphis offense. They have to bring enough pressure on Henigan that he can't ride the mesh on the RPO forever. At the same time, they can't lose containment and allow Henigan to keep the sticks moving with his legs. And if they do bring pressure, they had better get to Henigan, because he has as much of a history of making big plays against Navy as anyone in the country. There is nothing like having a selection of the finest poisons from which to pick.
Defensively, Memphis has made tremendous strides under coordinator Matt Barnes. In 2021, the Tigers were 89th in the country in rushing defense, giving up 167 yards per game on the ground. Last year, they only gave up 122 per game, good for third in the conference and 28th nationally. The trend continued last week against Arkansas State, with the Tigers allowing only 64 rushing yards and 2.1 yards per carry. Statistically, the unit is led by linebacker Chandler Martin, with 11 tackles. Martin is a transfer from East Tennessee State, where he was a first-team all-SoCon selection in 2022. Fellow linebacker Cincir Evans, a fifth-year senior, has eight tackles. After a pair of blowout victories, though, the starters haven't had to play very much.
Barnes is a little unusual in that he tailors his defense to his personnel. He actually lists 12 positions on the depth chart; depending on his players and the team he's facing, he could go with 3-4 linemen, 3-4 linebackers, and 4-5 defensive backs in any game. In his press conference this week, he mentioned that he's used more of a four-man front so far this season. But that doesn't necessarily mean he will against Navy.
Indeed, last year, the Tigers alternated between a 5-1 (like Wagner) and a 3-4/5-2, walking the extra safety up to linebacker level. The secondary played man defense on the receivers and slotbacks. The goal of all this was to outnumber the offense on the perimeter. A lot of Navy's playcalling on the afternoon revolved around using motion to run defenders away from the play or bringing extra blockers to the point of attack.
Against the Memphis 5-1, the Mids took a similar approach as they did last week. Here, the Mids ran a double option with the fullback as a lead blocker. The playside slotback took the scraping linebacker. The fullback blocked the cornerback, while the wide receiver was responsible for the playside safety. The middle safety got caught up in traffic and ran himself out of the play.
You'll notice that the player who made the tackle was the backside safety, who followed the pitch man across from the other side of the field. That man defense set up the touchdown pass.
When Navy drops back to pass, the fullback usually stays behind in pass protection. Memphis' linebackers didn't account for him when he ran out of the backfield, and the defensive backs were drawn away from the middle of the field by the wheel-corner combination routes on either side of the formation. Nobody was covering the middle of the field.
That was the Mids' only touchdown of the day. They managed only 215 yards on the ground. There were a few reasons for that. One reason was that the Mids had a lot of unforced errors, with turnovers, whiffed blocks, and busted plays. Memphis also had a standout performance from their nose guard. On this play, Navy ran an inside zone, and they did everything right. The offensive line got to the second level and set up a clear running lane. If Daba Fofana hadn't been tripped up at the line of scrimmage, he could have had a big gain. Instead, the nose guard made a tremendous play. The center and guard didn't even do a bad job here; the guard's job was to get in front of the NG, and he did so. It was just an athletic play by the defender, who used his hands to beat the cut block.
Thankfully, that nose guard now resides in Gainesville.
But perhaps the most important part of Memphis' defense was a smart use of stunts.
In the past, there was a pattern to Navy games, where defenses adjusted from series to series, and the offense responded. Memphis, however, changed the stunts they used from play to play. This made it difficult for Navy to gain any consistency; they frequently lined up expecting one stunt only to have Memphis execute a different one.
That's what happened here. After a chop block penalty set up a second and long, the Mids gave themselves a chance with a well-executed fullback trap. The defensive end was trapped running upfield, and Anton Hall blasted through the arm tackle of the inside linebacker to give the offense a reasonable third-down situation.
On the next play, the Mids lined up in the heavy formation and ran the triple to the strong side. The guard and inside tackle double-teamed the DT. The extra tackle looped outside, expecting the ILB to scrape outside. However, the ILB didn't scrape. He ended up being unblocked and met the fullback at the line of scrimmage. Tai Lavatai made the correct read, although it didn't look like it in real time.
There were similar examples all afternoon.
The question now is how much any of this still applies. Navy is still running an option offense, but it's a different option offense. Speculating how the new offense will handle these situations is impossible. Regardless of what the new offense looks like, though, a few things are indisputable. Navy's offensive line will have to handle an athletic Memphis front. The Mids cannot make mental errors that take them off schedule, and they must sustain drives to keep the ball out of Henigan's hands.
It is easy to dismiss Navy's first two outings as aberrations. Both the Notre Dame and Wagner games were played in unusual circumstances. Tomorrow, though, there is no more speculation. There will be no first-game jitters, no overseas travel, and no monkey business with the game plan. No more wondering whether or not we're looking at the "real Navy." It's time to find out what Navy football is going to be.
