It'd be an understatement to say that Navy's 35-0 thrashing at the hands of Tulane was a letdown. But we knew beforehand that this would be a difficult game. Tulane was favored for a reason. The real disappointment isn't that Navy lost. It's how they lost. The Mids had only 113 total yards. They didn't convert a third down until the fourth quarter. They turned the ball over twice and only ran 46 plays. They shot themselves in the foot with penalties. And the frosting on that garbage cupcake was Blake Horvath having to leave the game due to injury. After suffering through four seasons of inept offense, Saturday felt like someone punched a bruise.

One thing we discussed in the preview was that Navy couldn't afford for this to turn into a service academy game for the offense, with Tulane defensive coordinator Greg Gasparato having been the co-DC at Army in 2020. One of the defining elements of service academy games is how well they defend the option on an individual level. Players know how to use their hands to beat cut blocks. They know how to beat blocking angles. They aren't fooled by misdirection. And in this case, the players who'd be doing these things are some of the most talented in the country. As it turns out, that's what happened.

In the preview, we guessed that Tulane would line up in an odd front, and other than a couple of plays here and there, they did. Their plan was to play man defense in the secondary and to have the inside linebackers rotate with motion or the direction of the play.

We've seen this kind of plan a lot this year, so by now, you probably know what to expect. The offense runs plays to keep the linebackers moving in the direction of the play, which sets up counters and misdirection. And that's what happened here.

A few different plays were run toward the linebackers, but the two that were used the most were running the quarterback off tackle and the outside zone. With the QB off tackle, the offense brought as many blockers as possible to the perimeter to meet the aggressive linebackers.

With the outside zone, the quarterback could either make a cut behind the linebackers or pitch off of them.

With the linebackers following the flow of the play, the offense could then run other plays designed to go behind them. The power read was the most successful at this. The linebackers would follow the jet sweep, but if the quarterback got a keep read, the ball would go behind the LBs.

They also tried some crazy motions to make the LBs think and slow them down at the snap.

Navy had plenty of answers that worked on a whiteboard. The problem is that the game isn't played with dry-erase markers. On the field, Tulane's players were both skilled and well-prepared.

In the preview, we talked about how good Tulane's defensive line is. That was on full display in this game. They had the strength to beat double teams on the outside zone, and the speed to chase plays down from behind.

The same could be said for the linebackers. Here, the Mids were running the quarterback off tackle again, but the outside linebacker muscled his way into the backfield.

The offense tried to run the counter trey option to get the linebackers running the wrong way, but the defense was prepared for it. On the backside, the outside linebacker shot into the backfield to disrupt the play long enough for the inside linebacker to recover and force the runner into the heart of the defense.

It wasn't just the linebackers, either. On the opening drive, Navy tried to run the Wing-T sally play. The playside offensive linemen tried to influence the ILBs with their down blocks while the ball went the other way. But the cornerback on the play side was playing man defense on the tight end. When he read that the tight end was blocking, he came up in run support.

The Mids also tried to run some triple option, both under center and in the shotgun. When they made the right reads, they dropped the pitch and couldn't maintain their blocks.

Or they just made the wrong read.

Mixups were a problem in the passing game, too. The Mids tried to run a crossing pattern against the rotation of the linebackers, and they had a receiver open since his man had to run through traffic to cover him. But nobody thought to block the outside linebacker, who went untouched to the quarterback on a delayed blitz.

Sometimes Tulane got lucky. When Navy had some success with the outside zone, they tried to follow that up with the same look, but with the backside snipe getting a direct handoff. The idea is that the ball would go behind the ILBs, but the backside ILB shot the A gap, probably in an attempt to run the quarterback down from behind. It put him right in the path of the snipe.

After the game, there has been a lot of talk in my Twitter feed about playcalling. If you look at Tulane's defense, it's very similar to the plan Memphis used, and Navy ran many of the same plays. In the preview, I speculated that maybe this would be a game to use some more Wing-T-specific elements, but I don't think that would have made any difference. Navy's problem wasn't that they didn't have playcalling answers for Tulane's plan. Their problem was that Tulane's players were talented and well-coached.

I've also seen a lot of talk about Braxton Woodson's performance. And to be fair, Coach Newberry said after the game that he needs more out of his #2 quarterback. But if you're a coach or a player, that's the only approach you can take to the situation. If you're a fan, you should have a different perspective. It is unfair and foolish for anyone to give up on Woodson already. Yes, he missed a couple of option reads. But he's also only a sophomore. Some of the best Navy quarterbacks of the last 20 years didn't look so hot as sophomores. People were calling for Kaipo to be benched for half the 2006 season, and now Navy fans remember him as a triple option master. Hell, some people complaining about Woodson were complaining about Horvath last year, talking about fumbles and passing and just not having "it." How do you feel about that assessment now? If you're a fan of a developmental program, you should expect players to need development. A different quarterback wasn't solving most of the issues we saw anyway.

Defensively, it isn't easy to assess Navy's performance. I was impressed early on at how gung-ho the game plan was. This wasn't like the Memphis game, where they were so afraid of giving up the big play that they couldn't stop the run. The Mids attacked the run, and early on, it worked. But there were also missed opportunities to get off the field on some third-down plays. They were on the field so much that by the end of the game, they were just worn down. Tulane scored 52 on Temple, 45 on USF, and 71 on UAB. Navy holding them to 7 points per quarter through the first three quarters is pretty good, considering how little Navy's offense kept possession.

There's no denying how disappointing this game was for Navy. There was a lot of buildup and excitement, only for the team to lay an egg. The game was a convincing demonstration of the level the Mids must attain if they want to reach their championship goals. It's the thinnest of silver linings, but at least now they have a benchmark.

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