CROSSING OVER

The scene: a television studio in Burbank, California. The audience listens in amazement as psychic John Edward relays messages from the other side.

JOHN EDWARD: …and so, Steve, Larry says that just because he’s dead, don’t think you don’t still owe him that 20 bucks.

STEVE: God dammit.

JOHN EDWARD: Larry says that can be arranged.

STEVE: *slinks away*

The audience claps.

Postgame Haiku, Vol. 28

HAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHA

GAME WEEK: NOTRE DAME

It’s Notre Dame week, but you might not have noticed.

There was a time when the week before the Notre Dame game was a bit crazy for Navy fans. Prior to Navy’s TV deals with HDNet and CSTV/CBS College Sports, the Notre Dame game was one of only a handful of chances that Navy fans across the country had to see the Mids play. Everyone would get all riled up telling each other that this would finally be the year that the losing streak to the Irish would end. National media outlets that usually paid no attention to Navy would swoop down on Annapolis and start asking questions about the streak and 1963 and Roger Staubach and every other recycled storyline you can think of. Nervous anticipation ran wild. Two years ago, the streak finally did end, mercifully. That just set up a new angle for last year. Can Navy do it again? Will Notre Dame get revenge? A different verse of the same song, for the most part. The same anxious buzz accompanied the week preceding the game.

This year, though, feels downright… normal. There’s no streak to talk about. The Irish won last year’s contest, so there’s no “revenge” on the line. There’s a bit more media attention on the Mids this week, but not overwhelmingly so– certainly not to the extent of years past. It’s not that Notre Dame isn’t a big game. It’s just that the hoopla that defined the rivalry for generations no longer applies, and that’s fine by me. As much as I enjoy the series with Notre Dame and recognize its importance to the Navy program, I’ve always sort of hated the week leading up to the game. It’s not that the media attention was bad, even if they just repeated the same theme year after year. Media exposure is a big reason why the Naval Academy schedules Notre Dame in the first place. No, I dreaded Notre Dame week each year because it always tends to bring out the worst in Navy fans.

TEMPLE 27, NAVY 24

Something that is frequently discussed among Navy fans– at least those of you unfortunate enough to have wandered onto this dark and confused slice of the internet– is the idea of a “complete game.” Navy has done a whole lot of winning over the last several years, but sometimes it seems as if one particular unit carried the others to victory. Perhaps the defense won the game in a low-scoring slugfest. Maybe the offense would win a shootout. Then again, there are games like Air Force last year where Navy’s special teams kicked four field goals and blocked two punts to lead the Mids to the win. Rare is the glorious afternoon where all three units play at the top of their respective games, making the Mids look as if they could give the Washington Redskins a run for their money. Those are the games we live for.

The corollary to that, of course, is that sometimes we’re going to see complete losses– games where something goes wrong in all three phases. Saturday’s 27-24 loss to Temple could be described in such a way. Not that you can’t point to good things on both sides of the ball. Vince Murray rushed for 115 yards. The defense finally forced a couple of turnovers. Special teams almost had a banner day, with Joe Buckley nailing his lone field goal attempt, David Wright scooping up a botched punt for a touchdown, and Craig Schaefer recovering a fumbled punt return to set up another Navy touchdown. But as they giveth, they also taketh away, and in the end the game that people remember will look a lot different from the picture painted by those superlatives.

APOLOGIES

The Temple recap is taking a while. It’s a long one.

Postgame Haiku, Vol. 27

Hey Ausiello,
Write another e-mail to
Graham Watson this week.

GAME WEEK ADDENDUM

I regrettably direct your attention to this post on the blog, “Temple Football Forever.” It was brought to my attention earlier this week, and at the time I didn’t give it much thought. Dumb stuff posted on the internet is hardly a new phenomenon, after all, and I’m not one for blog-on-blog e-beef. That changed, though, when the guy edited his original post to include a link to a comment made here after last year’s game. If he’s going to involve my site as part of his spectacle of stupid, then it warrants a response. Contrary to the loquacious nature of most of my posts here, I’ll keep it short. (Crap, I’m failing already.)

If you’re anything like me, then your general appearance after reading such profound literature looked something like this:

I mean, it’s understandable that a Temple fan might be a tad bitter about his team’s collapse in last year’s game. But this? This is a manifesto for the maladjusted. I’m not sure what the best part is. We have:

1. The complete lack of understanding of the nature of college football scheduling, leading to tin foil hat-worthy conspiracy theories. Buyout terms are included as part of a contract, not paid when terms are violated, and are exercised fairly often. That’s no help in the quest for victimhood, though.
2. The idea that Navy, who needed the scheduling change in part to be able to play in front of 100,000 Ohio State fans, sought to change the schedule so as to avoid playing in front of 17,000 Temple fans.
3. The e-hit he puts out on some random Navy fan he apparently thinks is a fixture in Annapolis.

The Middies have a fan who blows whistles when Navy ballcarriers are seemingly stopped, yet the fan never gets kicked out of the stadium and game officials feign deafness around him.

Seriously? This is a regular occurrence? This fan sits at Navy games, looks for Navy players in distress, and blows whistles when they’re in trouble? Really? I mean, that would be awesome if it was true. That’s sort of like a superhero. That would mean that there’s a Navy fan that actually cares about the outcome of the game more than the length of TV timeouts. I hope one day to meet this person.

The pièce de résistance of the post is the author’s description of the effect this mythical superfan had on the game. Here is the play in question… Be sure to watch the whole thing, because you need to hear the ref explain the penalty flag:

OK, so let’s break down what our Lone Gunman said, and compare it to reality:

He’s the guy who blew a whistle three times while Temple defenders stopped a ballcarrier on fourth and goal, only to see the guy get off the ground and run into the end zone with the officials signaling touchdown and Temple coaches yelling, “what the fu*k?”

Let’s say there was a whistle from someone in the stands. I’m not sure if there was or not, let alone one blown three times, but we’ll go ahead and assume that there was. So who is it that got up off the ground, exactly? Eric Kettani is the fullback that received the pitch and ran it into the end zone. He was never on the ground, and was hardly even touched. Ricky Dobbs is the quarterback, but he isn’t who scored. He didn’t touch the ground either, at least not while he had the ball (more on that in a sec). This was the only 4th & goal of the game, so our esteemed blogger isn’t referring to another play. If you think he might’ve simply mixed up the down & distance, he didn’t. Here’s every play Navy ran in regulation, so you can see for yourself if you’re so inclined.

Then, we have this gem:

Temple players stopped tackling the Navy guy for fear of being called for a penalty, only to see the Navy guy score after the whistle.

I don’t get it. Did the guy get up off the ground? Or was he never down in the first place, since the Temple players stopped tackling him? Clearly the first description of this play was just made up in the dude’s head, so we’ll press on with the second. According to this guy, Temple players stopped tackling Ricky Dobbs after hearing a whistle, “for fear of being called for a penalty.” In reality, not only did they not stop, but they actually were called for a penalty! And for throwing Ricky to the ground!

Watch the video again. Can you point to anyone that looks like he heard a whistle to you? Anyone who stopped playing? Hell, Navy players have good hearing, what with all the DOD medical requirements and such. Do any Navy players looked like they stopped playing, or is it a special whistle only Temple players can hear?

To recap: nobody was ever on the ground, and not only did Temple defenders not lay off the quarterback, but they were flagged for throwing him down. Reality bites. Don’t drink and blog, kids.

GAME WEEK: TEMPLE

DOBBS WATCH ‘09

I don’t presume to speak for all Navy fans, but if there was one thing we were all hoping at the beginning of this season, it was for an end to the weekly quarterback injury shuffle. So much for that. While Ricky Dobbs was able to participate in some light drills in practice this week, the coaches were reluctant to have him go full speed. Instead, they’re targeting next week’s trip to South Bend for Ricky’s return, which means for the second week in a row, Ivin Jasper will be tossing the keys of his offense to Kriss Proctor.

I’ve seen a lot of chatter this week about how this is a great idea, since Notre Dame is a more important game than Temple. Really? I couldn’t disagree more… Not about the part that it’s a good idea, but about to the relative importance of the two games. Notre Dame is more critical to play from a big-picture perspective, considering the financial, visibility, and recruiting benefits, but the program sees these benefits whether the team beats Notre Dame or not. Navy will probably never be favored to beat Notre Dame without a fundamental change in the framework of college football; the Irish just have a completely different kind of program. Temple, on the other hand, is more of a fair fight. Taking care of business against comparable opposition makes it possible for Navy to schedule “reach” games like Notre Dame and Ohio State without jeopardizing their annual goals of a winning season and a bowl berth. Given a choice, I’d much, much rather have Navy closer to 100% against Temple than Notre Dame. Navy isn’t the kind of team than can afford to put anything less than their best lineup on the field every week.

The question, then, is whether Ricky at 75% is better than Kriss Proctor at 100%. After the sophomore did an admirable job running the offense against Wake Forest, the answer would seem to be “no.” It’s not that Proctor played a mistake-free game, but his mistakes were of the variety that can be corrected over the course of a week– stuff like dropping back too deep on QB draws and not holding onto the damn ball. When it came to recognizing defensive alignments, checking to the right plays, and reading his keys, Proctor was fine. Not perfect, obviously, but neither is Ricky. This confidence in Kriss’ ability allows the coaches to take their time with Ricky instead of rushing him back before he’s ready, making his injury a nagging problem for the rest of the year. A repeat of the 2008 QB-go-round is something nobody wants. Dobbs will be dressed for the game, but only as an emergency backup. If a repeat of last year’s 4th-quarter masterpiece is to take place, it will be by the hand of a different artist.

Of course, one would hope that this year’s contest doesn’t come down to last-minute heroics. With both teams showing significant improvement this season, though, one can’t rule out the possibility. As a program, everything seems to finally be coming together for Temple. The Owls were once the punching bag of the Big East, compiling a record of 30-124 in the 14 years they were a member of the conference. The school was paid about $2 million per year by the Big East, thanks mostly to bowl and television revenue. The annual ballet of futility that was Temple football, without any apparent plan to improve the situation, gave Big East presidents the impression that the school was just using the conference for cash rather than making an effort to improve the overall product. Feeding that impression was the fact that Temple was the Big East’s lone football-only member, with its other sports– most notably basketball– remaining in the Atlantic 10. In an effort to consolidate money and improve the on-field product, the league’s school presidents decided that 2004 would be Temple’s last in the Big East. The problem, though, is that they made this decision in 2001. Temple head coach Bobby Wallace was now the captain of a ship without a rudder, unable to tell recruits about the long-term future of the program. Nobody wants to commit to uncertainty. To compensate, Wallace was forced to rely on players that weren’t concerned with the long term– junior college transfers. Wallace only had to sell them on two years in most cases rather than four, and could offer immediate playing time. From 2002-2005, Wallace brought in 45 JUCO transfers, more than half of the 86 total recruits he signed during that period. It worked to a limited extent; it isn’t as if the Owls were completely devoid of talent. It’s no way to build a program, though. As a group, JUCO transfers drop out of school at a higher rate than other recruits. Temple was not immune to this phenomenon, and was in fact penalized last year by the NCAA for low APR scores. On a more fundamental level, the importance of having players in your system for 4+ years cannot be understated. Navy fans have seen this first hand, not only at our own school, but in opponents like Wake Forest. Wallace resigned after the 2005 season.

Temple chose Virginia defensive coordinator Al Golden to lead the Temple football charge into its new MAC home. Golden, who became the second-youngest head football coach in Division I-A, was seen as the energetic spark that the program needed to recruit the kind of players needed to build a program. It took a few years, but it would appear that the move to a new coach and a new conference have been a success. A traditionally Midwestern league, the MAC isn’t the most natural fit geographically for Temple, and is made up of mostly rural and suburban schools that don’t look much like Temple’s downtown Philadelphia campus. What it offers, though, is a chance for the Owls to compete against athletic departments and budgets that are much more comparable to their own. After suffering through a 1-11 debacle in Golden’s first year, Temple has gradually improved each season, and now sits at 5-2 for the first time since Wayne Hardin coached the team in 1981. That record includes a 4-0 mark in the conference, putting Temple on track for a berth in the MAC championship game and the potential for the program’s first conference title since 1967, when they were still in the NCAA’s small-college division.

The Owls are led by running back Bernard Pierce. Representative of the kind of player with which Temple is trying to build their program, 6-0, 212-pound freshman is in the top 15 in the nation in rushing, averaging 109 yards per game. After struggling through season-opening losses to Villanova and Penn State, Golden decided to put the offense on Pierce’s shoulders. He responded with 116 yards on 20 carries against last year’s MAC champ, Buffalo. Temple hasn’t lost since, and extended their winning streak to 5 games with a 40-24 pounding of Toledo last week. Pierce carried the ball 40 times, gained 212 yards, and scored three touchdowns. He is the alpha and omega of the Temple offense, and stopping him will be a challenge for the Mids. It’s a challenge they’ve risen to once before. Pierce is the third-leading rusher in the country among freshmen. Leading that category is Pitt’s Dion Lewis, who the Mids were able to hold to only 79 yards. In fact, after the first drive of the game, Lewis was a non-factor. Unfortunately, quarterback Bill Stull was, completing 17 of 24 passes for 245 yards and a touchdown in leading the Panthers to a win. Navy’s game plan will undoubtedly be to force Temple QB Vaughn Charlton to do the same. After throwing for 317 yards in the loss to Villanova, Charlton hasn’t thrown nearly as much since then, averaging only 128 ypg and completing a mere 51% of his passes during the winning streak. Stopping the run and forcing the pass sounds like a good idea, but it’s a lot easier said than done. While the Mids were able to stop Lewis, Pitt’s straight-ahead, north-south running attack is a lot different from Temple’s 3-receiver, spread-out scheme that uses more zone blocking. Western Kentucky and SMU both had some success running the ball against the Mids with a similar philosophy. On the other hand, they also brought other weapons to the table; WKU with the legs of QB Kawaun Jakes, and SMU with the run & shoot passing game. For Temple, it’s Pierce or bust.

Pierce gets the headlines, but Temple’s defense is no slouch. They’re 33rd nationally, allowing a shade over 319 yards per game, and 15th against the run. Navy were able to move the ball well enough last year, gaining 293 yards on the ground and averaging 5 yards per carry. Like the Wake Forest game, Navy was hampered by a slew of little things; Temple simply prevented the big play, didn’t overpursue, and waited for the Mids to make a mistake. Usually, the offense complied. The majority of the game was spent running to the strong side of either the heavy formation or the unbalanced line, with the extra blocker helping the tackle block the middle linebacker. You’ll recall that several of Navy’s opponents that lined up in a 4-3 (Duke and Pitt, for example) liked to pinch the playside tackle to allow the MLB to get to the quarterback. Temple never really tried to, though, and it worked. Well, for 51 minutes, anyway. One wonders if Golden is confident enough with last year’s game plan to try it again. With improved play from both tackles making extra blockers less necessary in 2009, he’ll face a different look from Ivin Jasper this year.

This is a big game for both teams. For Temple, it’s simple; win, and they’re bowl-eligible, guaranteeing their first .500 or better season in a quarter century. On the cusp of their first bowl in 30 years and being in serious contention for a conference title can mean a significant boost in attendance, too, increasing revenue for a cash-strapped athletic department and putting them on the radar screen of mainstream Philadelphia sports. NO PRESSURE, GUYS. For Navy, one loss could turn into two pretty quickly with a trip to Notre Dame next week. With a 6-2 record, the Mids have a shot at a 10-win regular season; lose to Temple, and they’ll have to go through South Bend to get it. Not that beating Notre Dame is impossible, but you’d rather not have to.

NAVY 13, WAKE FOREST 10

Toward the end of last year as it became apparent that Navy would face Wake Forest in the Eaglebank Bowl, I kind of got the feeling that the Demon Deacons didn’t mind the matchup. There were plenty of stories in Washington and Annapolis newspapers about Navy’s efforts to avoid a rematch, even analyzing what recourse the school might have available under the terms of the bowl contract. Not so on the Wake side; everything out of Winston-Salem seemed to indicate that the Deacs were just happy to be there. That’s usually the case with rematches; the team that lost the first game always wants that shot at redemption. After Wake Forest fell to Navy at home last September, there’s no doubt that Jim Grobe’s squad was looking for exactly that. The Deacs, after all, won the ACC in 2006, finished 9-4 with a Meineke Car Care Bowl win in 2007, and came into their contest with Navy at 3-0 and ranked #16 in both polls, having taken out Florida State the week before. After struggling throughout most of its history, the program had every reason to now consider itself a regular ACC contender and top 25 team. So when Navy walked out of Groves Stadium with a win, it wasn’t just a setback to Wake; it was an embarrassment. Forget that Navy is a perennial bowl team that just beat Rutgers the week before. Serious contenders for the ACC crown aren’t supposed to lose to service academies, right? Riley Skinner apparently doesn’t think so, which is why “It’s tough to take losing to this team two years in a row.”

Wake Forest did win the rematch at RFK, 29-19. Whether they got the redemption they were seeking, though, is a matter for some debate. Navy was ahead for most of the game, and took a 19-14 lead into the 4th quarter; while Wake was the better team that day, they were not so much better as to demonstrate that the result of the first contest was a fluke. So when I read John Feinstein’s comments describing Saturday’s 13-10 Navy victory over Wake as “about one step short of miraculous,” I’m not completely sure I agree.

He’s right in a macro sense. Every once in a while we’ll see a Keenan Little-type of guy that has an offer to Wake Forest, but chooses Navy for the Aerospace Engineering. That isn’t exactly the norm, though; Navy doesn’t beat Wake Forest for very many recruits. Results over the years have reflected this, as Saturday’s win is only Navy’s third in ten tries against Wake Forest since 1991. With three starters out due to injury, including the team’s two leading rushers, history certainly did not favor the Mids. It doesn’t hurt to be reminded of this, if for no other reason than to help us savor the win that much more. On the other hand, in the limited scope of the Ken Niumatalolo era, the win becomes less of a miracle and more of an affirmation of what we already know: that Navy is a good football team.

A homecoming crowd of 31,907 passed through the gates of Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, but only a handful remained after the monsoon started in the second quarter. Those that did witnessed yet another tremendous defensive performance. Buddy Green’s crew held Wake Forest to 308 total yards and allowed the Deacs to enter Navy territory only three times. A lot of people seem mystified that Wake was so dedicated to running the ball, but I’m not sure why. I guess it depends on your point of view. Wake fans see the game plan in the context of this season, where Riley Skinner had a string of 4 consecutive games of 280+ yards passing before being shut down against Clemson. If Skinner is the strength of this offense, they say, then why didn’t offensive coordinator Steed Lobotzke use him more? Well, because running the ball is what worked the last time. The biggest difference between Navy and Wake Forest’s first and second meetings in 2008 was Lobotzke’s shift to the ground game in the Eaglebank Bowl. The Deacs ran for 239 yards while throwing only 11 passes that day, as opposed to 43 yards rushing and 40 passes in the first meeting.

There is a template for stopping Riley Skinner. Don’t blitz; rush 3 or 4 guys, leaving one or two LBs/linemen back to cover anything that might sneak out of the backfield. Focus on covering shorter routes, and force Skinner to make a bad throw downfield. That was the plan that Buddy used in the first game, and it led to four interceptions. That’s what Clemson did to Wake Forest two weeks ago. And that’s what Navy did on Saturday:

The difference for Navy this year is that the defense is that much better against the run, thanks mostly to its veteran linebacking corps. Tony Haberer and Ross Pospisil led the charge, registering 8 tackles apiece. One could argue that the weather played a large factor as well, but if that’s the case it just makes Buddy’s game plan even better. Cover the passes that Skinner could make, don’t worry as much about the passes that the wind will knock down, and don’t leave yourself vulnerable to screen passes by blitzing. I’m sure it was frustrating for some people to watch since it seemed like Skinner had all day to throw, but there’s no arguing with results; the Wake Forest senior completed only 13 of 25 passes for 173 yards.

Navy’s offense didn’t appear to be in for a much better day, with Ricky Dobbs, Marcus Curry, and Mike Schupp all missing the game due to injury. The story of the game was supposed to be how well Kriss Proctor filled in for Ricky, but by the time the final whistle blew, Vince Murray had stolen the show. The sophomore junior fullback is a completely different player now than he was a month ago, keeping his pads down and his head up, reading the defense, and hitting the holes his blockers create for him. Murray finished the game with 27 carries for a career-best 173 yards. The offensive line also deserves a great deal of credit. Boo Robinson is one of the best defensive tackles in the country, and at 6-2, 295, he is projected to go as high as the fourth round of next year’s NFL draft. He was a non-factor in this game, as was fellow senior DT John Russell, thanks to Curtis Bass, David Hong, and Osei Asante.

One play that Murray was able to take particular advantage of was the FB trap. Usually the trap play has been run using twirl motion, but over the last few weeks Coach Jasper has run it using counter option motion.

The blocking is the same; all that has changed is the motion in the backfield. It’s been very successful. I’m not sure why the switch was made, although I have my guesses. The counter option isn’t always the most graceful of plays. It’s designed to get the ball to the perimeter, but the quarterback frequently finds himself forced back inside by linebackers that diagnose the play and aren’t fooled by the counter motion. Take a look at the first play in the video. By running the FB trap using this motion, the fullback can take advantage of the space vacated by overzealous middle linebackers. By forcing the linebacker to respect the possibility of a fullback dive, it’s eventually going to make the counter option itself more effective. In the meantime, the middle of the field has become Vince Murray’s playground.

Not to be overlooked is the welcome return of Alex Teich. Alex ripped off a 31-yard run of his own, although it was clear that he wasn’t close to running at full speed yet. Teich is already averaging 5 yards per carry for the year. As he gets healthier, Navy’s fullback tandem will be even tougher to stop.

Defensively, I was a little surprised at how Wake Forest lined up. The Deacs put four men on the line of scrimmage, with three linebackers. They almost always rotated the linebackers so that they cheated to one side of the formation. This created a numbers advantage to the opposite side, and the Mids spent most of the game running away from the cheating LB:

Sometimes it was two linemen in the count, sometimes it was a lineman and the cornerback– but always a numbers advantage. It’s not like the Wake Forest staff is unaware of how the option works; half of them came from the Air Force Academy. The only reason I can think of why they’d line up this way is that by doing so, they’d know which way the play is going to be run, giving their linebackers a head start before the play even began. I *think* this is how they lined up in the Eaglebank Bowl, but I couldn’t really tell– the television camera angle at RFK was very shallow. Regardless, without last year’s stars it wasn’t terribly effective, as the Mids pounded out 338 yards on the ground.

The Wake secondary spent most of the game in a cover 2 or cover 4, with nobody stepping up to show run support. There were a few exceptions, though, where one of the defensive backs would enter the count. When that happened, Kriss just audibled and ran the play the opposite way.

On the first play, check out the block that Jeff Battipaglia threw to spring Kriss. I suppose the best way to maintain a block is to make a guy have to climb over you. Awesome. On the second play, notice that both the corner and safety from the same side of the field are stepping up in run support. For all the talk of how much the weather might have limited Wake’s offense, it did just as much damage to Navy’s. The wide receiver is completely uncovered on that play, but the Wake staff apparently didn’t feel like Navy was ever going to put the ball in the air. And they ultimately didn’t, even though they tried to.

So if the defensive game plan was so crummy, why didn’t the Mids score more points? For starters, with two teams determined to run the ball, the clock didn’t stop much. This was a very quick game. Navy only had 10 possessions. Throw out the drives focused on running out the clock at the end of each half, and that’s 8 possessions. Navy scored on three of them, and would have scored on a fourth if it wasn’t for Proctor’s fumble inside the Wake 5. The other 4 drives ended with a bad chop block penalty, sacks, or the occasional missed read by Proctor (not that there were too many of them).

Navy is now 6-2, the team’s best start since 2004. One more win, and the Texas Bowl is secured.

Extra Points

– I’m having a hard time deciding which was more awesome: Joe Buckley’s 50-yarder, or the 41-yarder into the wind?

– Someone at CBS College Sports is listening. They did a MUCH better job with the camera work this week, avoiding the unnecessary zoom in favor of getting all 22 players into the shot as much as possible. Hope = restored. Now, about the “red zone” graphic…

Postgame Haiku, Vol. 26

As the saying goes,
Defense wins championships…
And beats Wake Forest.