Comedian Daniel Tosh tells a joke about the rest of the world hating Americans. In America, he says, there is a game show called Survivor where people make a game about surviving in a place where people already live!

I think of this joke every time I see a college football program try to claim that they are "New York's Team!" Syracuse does it. Rutgers does it. The Big Ten as a whole has tried to plant their collective flag in the Big Apple. Even Army has dabbled in the idea. But none of these programs are actually in New York. City, that is. Three Division I programs are: Columbia in Manhattan, Fordham in The Bronx, and Wagner College, Navy's opponent on Saturday, in Staten Island.

I know, I know. FCS teams don't count to the common fan. Still, it does seem insulting, like an American visiting Dublin and telling everyone that he's Irish because his last name is Murphy and his great-grandfather was from Cork. There isn't much that the true New York programs can do to stop this football imperialism outside of carving their own names for themselves. For a program like Wagner, earning their first-ever win over an FBS program would go a long way toward accomplishing just that.

Not that Wagner doesn't already have a respectable football history. The Seahawks were a successful Division III program for years and won the 1987 national championship. They took the leap to Division I-AA in 1993 and didn't miss a beat, rolling to three more winning seasons as an independent. They joined the NEC in 1996, and over the next 19 years, they had 11 winning seasons. They made their first trip to the I-AA playoffs in 2012 and won a share of the NEC title in 2012 and 2014.

All of this was done under the guidance of head coach Walt Hameline, who retired after that 2014 season (he retained his job as AD). Since Hameline's retirement, though, success has been hard to come by. His successor, Jason Houghtaling, had one winning season in five years against two one-win campaigns. After he was let go, Hameline picked Tom Masella as his replacement.

On paper, Masella looks like a perfect fit. He knows NEC football, New York football, and Wagner football in particular. Masella played for Wagner and started his coaching career there. He was the head coach at Central Connecticut State for two years, and his teams won a share of the NEC title in both. He went on to coach Fordham, where he led the Rams to only their second-ever FCS playoff appearance. Masella later returned to Wagner, where he was the offensive coordinator for the Seahawks' 2012 playoff team. You couldn't create a better coaching candidate for Wagner if you grew one in a lab.

Unfortunately, it has been a bumpy ride so far. Masella inherited a team that had just finished a 1-11 season, so he was already in store for a rebuild. Then the pandemic hit. Wagner didn't play football that fall and only played two games during the 2021 FCS spring season. The following year, the Seahawks went winless. Last year, they secured the only win of Masella's tenure so far: a 37-26 victory over LIU. Wagner went 1-23 in Masella's first three seasons at the helm.

This year, though, there might be reason for optimism. Wagner's defense is more experienced than they have been recently, with seven seniors and a junior in the starting lineup. Both of last year's leading rushers, Rickey Spruill and Zachary Palmer-Smith, are back this year. Perhaps most importantly, the Seahawks have a new quarterback in Steven Krajewski.

Krajewski is a grad transfer who spent last season at Georgia State. In 2021, though, he played in 11 games at UConn, throwing for 1,217 yards and seven touchdowns for the Huskies. Admittedly, those numbers aren't exactly spectacular, but nothing about UConn was good that year. It's sort of beside the point, anyway. The NEC doesn't utilize the full FCS complement of 63 scholarships, capping their schools at 45. Any FBS transfer at quarterback, even one from a dismal UConn team, can make an enormous impact. Coupled with new offensive coordinator Stephen Matos, who came to Staten Island from Lance Leipold's Kansas staff, Masella hopes to give his offense a little more pop this season.

That ambition got off to a rough start last week as the Seahawks fell to Fordham, 46-16. However, some of the underlying numbers were encouraging. Krajewski had the most prolific game of his career, throwing for 334 yards and two touchdowns. He also had a top target emerge from an unproven wide receiver corps, as junior Trevor Shorter brought in 5 passes for 131 yards and a touchdown, including catches of 47 and 53 yards. While the result was disappointing, the most important thing for Wagner is to get back to being competitive in the NEC. If they can keep producing numbers like that, they will be.

Of course, the Seahawks aren't playing an NEC team on Saturday. Instead, they'll face a Naval Academy team eager to put the loss to Notre Dame behind them. Against the Mids, some things that might slide against NEC competition are more likely to be a problem.

One of those issues is at offensive line, where the Seahawks will start two sophomores and a freshman. That's a little misleading, since one of those sophomores, center Brady Anderson, got starting experience last year due to an injury to Antonio Williams. He played well enough to secure the starting job this year, allowing Williams to move to tackle. Still, the Seahawks gave up three sacks against Fordham and were held to 88 rushing yards. Those figures aren't likely to improve against a veteran and athletic Navy front.

There are also questions at wide receiver. All-conference wideout Naiem Simmons transferred to USF, which left the two running backs as the team's leading returning receivers. Shorter stood out against Fordham, but none of them have much of a track record. Guenson Alexis was a quarterback two years ago. Mark Didio is another UConn transfer, although he didn't have any catches there. Eight players caught a pass last week, which is a positive sign. But against Navy, it will be difficult to give Krajewski enough time to spread the ball around and get downfield.

Defensively, Wagner runs a true 3-3-5 stack defense, which is a rarity these days. The last time Navy faced a true 3-3-5 was against San Diego State; the Mids have faced other teams that ran a 3-3-5 as their base defense but lined up differently against the option. Against Fordham, the Wagner defense looked like it would be effective against the run early on. The Seahawks would still rush four, but they could disguise where the fourth rusher was coming from. At times, they looked a little like Navy; Fordham's offensive line had a hard time picking up the fourth rusher, and he often found himself in a position to make a stop in the backfield. Many of Fordham's running plays were slow-developing out of the shotgun, though, which isn't likely to be the case with Navy.

While the bulk of Wagner's defense has experience, the exception is up front. Of the six defensive linemen on the two-deep, two are sophomores, and three are freshmen. Two of those freshmen are at nose guard, including the mountainous Najae Hallenbeck at 6'6" and 330 pounds. The key for Navy will be getting Hallenbeck to move. As long as the offensive line can get movement from the nose guard, running inside zone plays should be effective. Despite early struggles, Fordham eventually piled up 191 rushing yards. Wagner often has as few as five defenders inside the tackle box against the Rams. Obviously, that won't be the case against Navy, but that shouldn't change the Mids' approach.

While Wagner is an improving team, Navy is going to win this game, and it shouldn't be close. Navy doesn't win recruiting battles against most teams on their schedule, but they do against Wagner (although it should be noted that Wagner safety Mo Vanderwiel was originally a verbal commit to Navy). Winning is hard; you should take wins however you can get them… most of the time. This week, style points matter.

Navy faced Lehigh early in the 2018 season, and while the Mids cruised to a 51-21 victory, there were still signs that not all was well. The Mountain Hawks averaged 6.2 yards per carry. Perry completed only two of nine passes and threw an interception. The Mids committed eight penalties. The problems that manifested themselves against Lehigh were still problems against other teams that, unlike the Mountain Hawks, were able to make the Midshipmen pay.

Navy's defense is coming off of a dismal performance against Notre Dame. They are also breaking in a new offense. The goal, as always, is to win. However, how Navy wins is also important. The schedule is only going to get more difficult after this. If the record is going to change, the Mids have to show that their old habits have, too.