The Temple Debrief
Everyone wants to feel normal again. That's true of just about everything in 2020, football included. To be blunt, Navy entered the season unprepared after no-contact practices in fall camp, and the question ever since has been when we'd see the "normal" Navy team. Or, for that matter, if we'd see it. Spring and fall practices are the foundation on which the rest of the season is built; you take care of the fundamentals up front so that you can focus on game prep from week to week. There's no precedent for building those fundamentals on the fly.
I don't think that Navy's 31-29 win over Temple is a return to "normal," necessarily. We don't know anything about Temple this year, and the Mids still have work to do. Still, there was something about Saturday night that felt that way. There was no quarterback speculation, the Brigade was in attendance, the offense was businesslike, and of course, Navy won.
If you glanced at the statistics before checking the score, you might not believe that to be the case. The Owls out-gained the Mids by over 100 yards, had seven more first downs, and scored on five of their seven possessions. However, Navy's win was no fluke. The Mids took control early, led all the way, and held on at the end. Nelson Smith set the pace with 120 rushing yards and two touchdowns, while Terrell Adams had nine tackles to lead a depleted Navy defense. John Marshall added seven tackles and had a crucial interception at the end of the first half.
If you're one who enjoys a methodical option offense, then Saturday night was one to savor. Navy had five drives of eight plays or more, including two of 15+. This is a departure from last year's Navy offense. It's not that the Mids were incapable of extended drives; it's just that with their ability to generate big plays, it was rarely necessary. The ability to control the clock and drain the life out of a game has benefits, but it requires flawless, consistent execution to pull off. It's a good sign that the Mids were able to do so; while they made a few mistakes, it was nothing that they were unable to overcome.
There were a couple of things that you might have noticed about Temple's defense right off the bat. The first is that they lined up in an odd front, which was a slight departure from their normal 4-man front. The second thing is that the secondary was lined up fairly deep, at least relative to Tulane’s and Air Force’s. Those defenses would often bring their safeties up to linebacker depth to stack the box. I asked Ken Niumatalolo about this, theorizing that perhaps it was the result of Dalen Morris' ability as a passer being something that teams want to guard against. He answered with a resounding maybe, pointing out that the Owls may have adopted BYU’s approach after watching that film.
Obviously, it was a much different result.
Navy got the ball to start the game and proceeded to march 75 yards on 17 plays. They found the most success with the triple option. Temple’s plan early on was to force Dalen to read his way outside; the dive key always took the fullback, and the pitch key either charged the quarterback or bit on the fullback as well.
After Navy moved the ball so effectively, the Owls mixed things up on their second drive. They had the playside ILB shoot the A-gap while the backside ILB looped behind him to cover the B-gap. The playside defensive end started to show a give read. Navy adjusted by forcing the ball outside. If they knew that the ILB would shoot the A-gap, they didn’t need to block him. Instead, they blocked the dive key to more or less manufacture a keep read. The play looked like it had a chance to pick up good yardage, but Dalen made one of his few mistakes on the evening with a bad pitch.
On the next play, though, the Mids ran a screen pass to CJ Williams that took them down to the Temple two-yard line to set up their second touchdown.
Navy went back to the triple on their third drive, and again, Dalen got pitch reads. The important thing to note here, though, is what was happening behind the play. The backside defensive end started squatting rather than running down the play from behind:
That set the DE up to be trapped.
Up to this point, the Mids either hadn’t used pre-snap motion, or they used twirl motion, with the slotback doing a reverse pivot at the snap. When Coach Jasper called the fullback trap, he had the slotback run in normal tail motion. The playside safety followed the slotback outside. Meanwhile, the ILBs, anticipating twirl motion, actually shifted away from the play. That opened up the middle of the field, along with Justin Self getting upfield and taking care of the other safety.
The key play on that drive was a wide receiver screen to Mychal Cooper that picked up a first down on fourth and six. What was remarkable about it was that Temple wasn’t in a bad position for it. They only rushed four, likely because they were burned by a screen pass on the previous drive. They had three defenders in a position to make the play, but Navy just happened to have three blockers to account for them.
The Mids had three first-half possessions and scored three touchdowns.
On their first drive of the second half, though, they went three and out. When they ran the triple option this time, the pitch key slow-played the quarterback. Dalen didn’t force him to commit one way or another. Instead, he pitched the ball early, which allowed the pitch key to track down the slotback.
The quarterback’s read should never be the one to make the tackle.
Jasper went back to the fullback trap to start the next drive, and he again looked to open up the middle of the field. This time, he had a slotback lined up wide on one side running an out pattern to draw one safety, and used twirl motion on the other side to draw the other.
On that play, notice how the defense reacts on either side of the formation. On the motion side, the outside linebacker heads straight for the quarterback, as he did in the first half. The Mids started running the fullback off tackle into the motion, knowing they wouldn’t have to block the OLB.
That was the first of four straight handoffs to the fullback, both off tackle and inside zone. Eventually, the OLB started playing the fullback. When he did, the Mids optioned off of him while still blocking down on the defensive end.
Navy went back to the fullback for the next three plays, with the last being Nelson Smith’s second touchdown run. Again, Jasper set up the touchdown using motion. On the first two plays, the slotback went into tail motion, and the linebackers and secondary followed. On the last play, the slotback used twirl motion. The linebackers went one way, the safety went the other way, and Smith had plenty of room to cut back against the grain.
On Navy’s last scoring drive, they started using the same off-tackle/option combination as the previous drive. The inside linebackers, though, started to figure out what was going on. Here, you can see the ILB recognize the option and get outside to make the tackle.
Jasper adjusted the option accordingly. Instead of having the playside tackle block the defensive end, he had the PST block the linebacker to keep him from getting outside. To block the DE, the playside guard pulled around to trap him. Unfortunately, neither player made their blocks, and the DE was able to string out the play.
Bijan Nichols drilled a 50-yard field goal two plays later.
Defensively, it was a mixed bag. Against the run, the Mids were fairly solid but had momentary lapses; 72 of the Owls’ 166 rushing yards came on four plays. Against the pass, the defense had some issues.
Navy was missing several of its best defenders on Saturday, and I think Coach Newberry adjusted his playcalling accordingly. The Mids never got to the quarterback, but that was in large part because they weren’t really trying; they only rushed three or four on almost every play, often without their normal sleight-of-hand to disguise who would be rushing. I don’t think Newberry wanted to put too much pressure on his depleted secondary by leaving them isolated. Also, when the Mids did look like they would be bringing more, Temple would leave the tight end and running back in pass protection.
The Owls’ bread and butter for most of the night was a two-man levels combination, with the outside receiver running a jerk route underneath and the inside receiver running either a post or a deep in route. This is normally used against a cover 2 zone to put pressure on the linebackers. If they play the shallow route, there is space for the deep in route between the LBs and the safety.
If the LB goes deep, the crossing route underneath becomes a good opportunity for yards after the catch.
The Mids also made a few mistakes, whether from inexperience or trying too hard to make a play. In the first example, the linebacker overruns his gap, giving the running back a cutback lane. In the second, both the safety and the cornerback cover the flat receiver. One of them was wrong.
Temple had a chance to tie the game after scoring a touchdown with 1:02 remaining. The Owls attempted a two-point conversion pass to the running back coming out of the backfield broken up by Terrell Adams. I’ve seen some criticism of the play call, but I don’t think that the running back was the receiver for which the play was designed.
The play that set up the potential game-tying touchdown was a double pass to the tight end. The TE was wide open on the play after delaying his release, looking like a blocker before heading downfield. I think they were trying to set up the TE on a delay again on the conversion attempt. This was one play where Navy actually did bring an extra rusher, and my guess is that the pressure forced the quarterback to throw before he wanted to.
I was concerned about the play of the defense during the game, but I am a little less so after watching it again. Given the number of missing players and the resulting conservative playcalling, I don’t think this was a representation of the best that Navy has to offer. However, if those missing players are out for an extended time, it will be an issue with some of the American’s more explosive offenses on the upcoming schedule.
There are still questions that remain for the Mids as they seek to make improvements on both sides of the ball. Nevertheless, it is better to sort these things out with a win under your belt.