What's next for the Navy offense?

Immediately following the end of the Army-Navy Game, I tweeted that this would be a crucial offseason for Navy football. That wasn’t a comment that came out of nowhere. Talking to people around the program throughout the season, it was clear that change would happen, even if I didn’t know what that change would be.

This week, we found out. Ashley Ingram, who has turned down multiple head coaching opportunities in the past, finally took the plunge and left Annapolis for the top job at Carson-Newman. Then, on Friday, the news broke that offensive coordinator Grant Chesnut will not return next season.

While the change in offensive coordinators is at the front of everyone’s mind, the loss of Ingram can’t be overstated. He was considered the top recruiter on the staff, and was single-handedly responsible for turning Tennessee into a pipeline state for Navy. He was an invaluable asset to the offensive staff, having served as a coordinator himself at Bucknell. His constantly evolving job titles were an indication of not only the respect his peers have for him but also of how in-demand he was as a prospective head coach. From offensive line coach to run game coordinator to assistant head coach, every new title was a sign that someone else offered him a head coaching job.

Still, while Ingram’s departure is unfortunate, it was also inevitable. He was going to be a head coach at some point, even if that point came sooner than expected. Chesnut’s dismissal, on the other hand, was sudden.

In the statement announcing Chesnut’s dismissal, head coach Brian Newberry stated his decision was based on the offense’s lack of productivity. There’s no arguing that. Navy averaged less than 18 points and 200 rushing yards per game, which was almost as bad as the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. Navy made a coaching change last year primarily because the offense wasn’t getting the job done anymore. I don’t think anyone expected Navy to set the world on fire in their first season with a new offense, but the one thing they couldn’t be is worse. They had to show there was something to build on for the future, but the product on the field was far from convincing.

But that allegedly wasn’t the only issue. Sources close to the program have indicated that personality clashes were also a contributing factor in the head coach’s decision. It's necessary to mention this because it raises an important question about how Newberry felt about the direction of the offense. Would this move have been made if there were no chemistry issues? Did he see enough to make him believe that there was something to build on for next year? Is Chesnut's dismissal a statement on Navy's stance on option offenses in general?

Before we get into the future, let's do a post-mortem on the past. Based on what shows up in my Tweetdeck columns, Keenan Reynolds summed up the prevailing Navy fan view of the 2023 offense:

I'm in the minority, but I can't entirely agree with a lot of this. At least, I disagree with the implication that these were the root causes of the offense's problems. The offense had issues, but I see what Reynolds mentions as the product of those issues, not the problems themselves. Let's get into them one at a time.

1. Identity: There was a four-game stretch from Wagner to North Texas where Navy averaged 279 yards per game on the ground and 5.6 yards per carry. Nobody questioned the offense's identity then. That's because they had one. They were an option team that tried to throw defenses off by constantly changing formations and motions.

The problem is that it wasn't working. Even when the numbers looked decent, it was deceiving. Navy's offense was wildly inconsistent. The Mids ran for 299 yards against Memphis, but 177 came on only six plays. On the other 44 running plays, they averaged 2.8 yards. Against USF, Navy ran for 240 yards. Again, over half of that came on only six carries. On the other 42 runs, they averaged 2.7 yards. It led to the seemingly incongruous statistical anomaly where Navy was among the nation's leaders in both scoring drives under one minute and three-and-outs.

The identity talk started after Blake Horvath and Tai Lavatai were injured. The offense changed without them. Against Charlotte and Air Force, the offense was "what can our freshman quarterback handle," which I think is understandable. Xavier Arline started after that, and the Mids went back to being predominantly under center against Temple. But it was a disaster; they ran for only 144 yards. Arline, who had spent most of the season preparing to be a slotback, had difficulty making reads on the triple, while the offense had no answer for Temple's linebackers. It was then that the offense really changed gears. The next game, UAB, saw the introduction of the shotgun counter trey option as a base play of the offense, and for one game, it worked. But that was the only time. They used the same look the rest of the way, and it never came close to working again.

This is why I am unconvinced by talk about the offense's identity. The offense wasn't working all that great in the first place, and circumstances changed with all the injuries. If you keep doing the same thing regardless of whether or not it's working, you don't get credit for sticking to your identity. You get called predictable. If you stick with the same play calling even if your quarterbacks are struggling with it, you aren't consistent; you're stubborn. When it comes to Navy, some fans complain about "identity" every time they see a quarterback drop back to pass, while others ask why they aren't seeing all the short passes they thought they were promised. "Identity" is just too ambiguous a term the way it's usually used.

Now, in the triple option world, identity does mean something specific, and we've talked about it extensively here over the last several years. If you want to run the option successfully, you have to commit to it. Everything you add to the offense that isn't rooted in the option takes away from the time you spend practicing the option. Add too much, and your ability to run the option becomes degraded. But that's not what happened at Navy. More on that later.

2. Quarterback shuffle: The entire quarterback situation makes more sense if you understand that the coaches wanted Horvath to start from the beginning.

Horvath is the only quarterback who fully participated in spring practice. He was at the top of the depth chart as fall camp opened and stayed there until the week before the opener. However, once we reached that point, we started hearing more about how good Lavatai looked. While Horvath was the better runner, he just wasn't ready at the start of the season. The plan was obviously to start Lavatai and work Horvath in where they could to accelerate his development. When both got hurt, Braxton Woodson-- who many fans wanted to start anyway-- had to play. But Woodson wasn't ready for prime time, so Arline stepped in.

This wasn't an inability to settle on a quarterback. The coaches did settle on a quarterback: Horvath. But he was injured as soon as he was ready to be the starter.

3. Getting the ball to playmakers: Alex Tecza was averaging over 8 yards per carry after the Charlotte game. In Navy's boom-or-bust offense over the first half of the season, he was the primary boom, with a 62-yard touchdown run against the 49ers and a 75-yarder in the Memphis game. Naturally, everyone wants to see more of those, but it's not as simple as getting Tecza more carries.

When a player has a high average per carry like that, he's being put in positions to succeed. That's especially true in an option offense where the ball carrier is often not predetermined. The beauty of the option is that when it's executed correctly, the right player always gets the ball. That was the case on Tecza's long runs-- they were option plays. They weren't decisions to give him the ball in the huddle. Getting him the ball more wouldn't have the same effect as plays where Tecza only got the ball when he was supposed to.

But you don't have to take my word for it. Tecza's largest number of carries in a game didn't come at the beginning of the season. It came at the end, when he had 24 carries against East Carolina. The result? Navy rushed for only 174 yards, went three-and-out five times, and scored a whopping ten points. Navy didn't have a problem with getting Tecza enough carries. They had a problem with running the option.

So if these things weren't the root cause of Navy's offensive problems, what were? I've mentioned all of this at one point or another during the season, but it'll help to put it all in one place. Here's how I see it:

—Perimeter blocking: The slotbacks had a rough year. They're the ones who were affected by the cut blocking rule change, and they did not adjust well. I'm not sure what they were taught, but they often didn't actually block; they stood in front of a defender and waited for him to do something, seemingly hoping to get in his way. And that's when they went to the correct assignment. Too often, they did not. I don't know if this is what they were taught to do, or if this was just a product of being the youngest position on the team, but when the slotbacks can't block for each other, it takes away the most explosive element of the triple option.

—Scheme: Navy's perimeter woes weren't all due to poor blocking, though. The Mids used several new formations and motions intended to catch defenses off guard. The playside safety was often left unblocked, and I'm not sure why. Sometimes, it was a missed assignment, but it happened often enough to be clearly intentional. That safety almost always blew up the play. Was the idea that the different formations and motions might confuse him or get him running the wrong way? Were they hoping to get a two-for-one block from the wide receiver? That rarely works with a well-coached defense. Sometimes, the slotbacks would block a backside safety or linebacker instead. It was as if the offense was more concerned sometimes with backside defenders than the ones right in front of the ball. Whatever the reasoning, it didn't work.

Those two things were the biggest problems for the offense. Once defenses had some film on Navy's new offense and knew what to prepare for, they no longer worried about the pitch. They just stacked the box, knowing they could track down the pitch if needed. They only started backing off some after Arline threw so well in the Temple game, although it didn't make much of a difference with the injuries on the offensive line.

These were the biggest issues, and if they were fixed, it probably would have been enough to put Navy in a bowl game. However, other problems still would have kept the Mids from playing to their potential.

—Playcalling: When I talk about playcalling, I don't mean situational judgment calls. Coaches call some plays based on how they see the game shaping up and when they want to take calculated risks. If they think it's the right time to take a shot downfield, I'll rarely criticize that. Instead, I'm talking more about the playcalling system.

Triple option football is series football; you run the option, the defense adjusts, you adjust back, and the cycle continues. But it didn't seem like that's how plays were called this year. Everything seemed more herky-jerky, like the goal wasn't to out-adjust the defense but to constantly change the look they were getting, hoping it would confuse them. Sometimes, it worked, which is why we saw more big plays than last year. More often, it did not, which is why we also saw so many three-and-outs.

—Tackle play: This isn't about how the tackles played as much as it is what they were asked to do. Rather than fire off the line, the playside tackle was often tasked with reading a linebacker to see if he would scrape or play the fullback. The problem with this is that it slows the tackle down, which makes him less effective both ways. While the blocking rules have made the slotbacks' jobs harder, they didn't affect the line. This seemed like an overly complicated solution to a problem that already had a few decades' worth of answers.

—Overly physical practices: Navy emphasized hitting in practice, and one could argue that it paid off. The line was a bright spot for the offense in the first half of the season. However, the staff didn't change their approach even after injuries started piling up. Players, especially on the offensive line, didn't have a chance to recover, even with an extra bye week. By the end of the season, the line was barely hanging on.

—Quarterback play: The quarterbacks were a hot topic for most of the season, but they got a disproportionate share of the blame for the offense's struggles. The quarterbacks caused none of the problems listed above, and none were solved when the quarterbacks changed. However, after Lavatai and Horvath were hurt, the experience level at the position dropped off considerably. Lavatai was a multi-year starter, while Horvath at least had a full spring and fall camp in the new offense. Woodson, on the other hand, was a freshman. And while Arline had plenty of games at quarterback under his belt, he missed most of spring practice and was practicing at slotback most of the season. Arline had difficulty making option reads, particularly after the UAB game. There were a lot of missed opportunities because of it.

With the margin for error at a service academy being so slim, that was too much to overcome. The question now is where Navy goes from here.

When Chet Gladchuk met with the media to discuss the head coaching search, he said running an option offense was a prerequisite for consideration. That was only a year ago. Is it still the case? I am as big an advocate for the triple option as you will find, but I hope not. I know conventional wisdom says you must run the option to win at a service academy, and history supports that assumption. I respect that opinion. But you're not hiring a scheme; you're hiring a man. The best available option coach may not be the best man for the job, and limiting yourself to one scheme stifles innovation. Fans should keep an open mind.

With that said, I do think the triple option is still the best choice both for Navy and for Newberry.

It's fair to question whether a double-slot spread option is still viable after the cut blocking rule change. Ken Niumatalolo lost his job at Navy, and neither of Paul Johnson's other head coaching apostles (Jeff Monken and Brian Bohannon) ran the offense last year. However, that isn't necessarily because it won't work anymore. Monken, for example, might have been tired of getting passed up by Illinois and Kansas because of the "option coach" stigma. Most of the coaches I know and trust insist the triple option can be as effective as ever. At his introductory press conference at Carson-Newman, Ashley Ingram said he intended to model his program's offense on the Navy offenses from 2008-2015. I think that says something about the direction of the Navy offense since then, and maybe going from New Option to the original formula is just what the Mids need.

It would certainly be their best shot at winning right away. Navy's roster is built to run the option. While Chesnut's offense introduced new formations and terminology, the fundamental skills taught were triple option skills. That's especially important for the offensive line, but it applies everywhere. Sticking with the option would mean that last year, as difficult as it was, could still be part of a foundation for the future.

I realize what I just said is the definition of the sunk cost fallacy, but it has to be a consideration for Newberry. Navy is about to have their third offensive coordinator in three seasons. That is untenable at a developmental program like Navy. Service academies win when they are loaded with seniors who have been trained to do their jobs over four years. An entirely new offense would mean the program would be starting from scratch. Newberry already lost one year; he may not have the kind of time it would take to roll out something radically different.

But if the option is the best path for Navy, the problem becomes who to run it. Ingram and Ivin Jasper would be the two best candidates, but one just took a head coaching job while the other (unfairly) took the fall for the team's struggles in 2021. Does that whole episode take Jasper out of contention for the offensive coordinator job now? If it does, then who else is there? You aren't just looking for someone to call plays. You're looking for someone who will recruit in the NIL age, handle media scrutiny, and fit the culture of the school and program. That isn't just any guy who runs the option.

I'm not going to campaign for any one coach. Like I said, it's important to have an open mind. However, if the intention is to continue to run the option, and Jasper isn't at least given serious consideration for the job, then it is a failure of common sense.

Last year was a missed opportunity for Navy. The Mids were good enough on defense that the offense didn't have to be perfect to win. If they were even average, Navy could have won eight games. The defense won't return as many starters in 2024, so even more will be asked of the offense this season. The best way to hit the ground running is to run the option, but this isn't just a one-year decision.