Navy head football coach Brian Newberry met the media Thursday at Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland. Here's everything he had to say in advance of the Mids' Saturday matchup with 13th-ranked Notre Dame (2:30 p.m. EDT; NBC/Peacock). The questions were edited for brevity and clarity, but some of them asked by people with Irish accents were challenging to decipher.
Q: Can you talk about your travel to Ireland? When did you leave Annapolis and when did you get here?
Brian Newberry: “It was smooth. Everything's been great. We had a normal Wednesday practice, a little bit earlier practice than we typically do. Flew out at 8 o'clock last night, got in around 8:50 or so this morning, right on schedule. It was a great flight. It was smooth. I think our guys got some good rest on the plane. You're always concerned about the sleep, the hangover a little bit. But the thing about the military is they’re used to not that much sleep, so maybe that's an advantage for us, hopefully.”
Q: You have two guys on your team with ties to Ireland, with lots of family members that will be coming this weekend. What are those two players like?
BN: “Great kids. Awesome Kids. I didn't realize that they had 20 relatives over here. That's awesome. It should be a great homecoming for them. We’ve got great young men in our program, and those two certainly are outstanding as well.”
Q: It's the season opener. It's your debut as head coach. You’ve got 39,000 Americans here that crossed the pond to watch the game. Has that sunk in? How are you feeling?
BN: “Pretty awesome. It's the same thing you talk to your players about. You want them to enjoy this trip. You want to enjoy the venue and the pageantry of everything that’s going on, the opportunity play Notre Dame. At the same time, you’ve got to drown out the distractions and the noise, and I've got to do that as well. And so yeah, it hits you from time to time. And my main focus is on players and getting ready to play a game and try not to worry about everything else.”
Q: Do you consider yourself the underdog?
BN: “For sure. That's fair, and it's one thing about coaching at the Naval Academy — we usually are. And our kids have a chip on their shoulder and so do I. And I like being the underdog.”
Q: Northwestern was an underdog here last year against Nebraska and won. Do you take any sort of inspiration that this venue and surroundings can give you some sort of edge?
BN: “No, I don't think so. It's apples to oranges. No, I think our kids didn't come over here just to compete. They came over here with the expectation to win a game. That's the way that we prepared. And our kids believe that they can win. And they know that they’re underdogs. They understand that. We know there are certain things we need to do great in order to give ourselves a chance to win.
Q: “Our guys are super aware of that. We know that we're not going to look like Notre Dame out on the field, Saturday. But there are certain things that you can't really measure that our players have. And we talked about the intangibles and controlling things that we can control and being elite in those things. We're going to play harder than anybody in the country. We’ll be more disciplined than anybody in the country. And those are the things that will give us an advantage. And our kids are extremely close. They play for each other, very unselfish group. And they just want to win. That's really all we care about.”
BN: What's it like to coach this group, where they're giving their lives for their country? And what do you take away from coaching these individuals, where football is important, but there are other important things?
“I think I've got one of the best jobs in the country, and primarily because of the kind of young men that I get to coach. It's our job to inspire them, but to tell you the truth, they inspire us on a daily basis. Just, they’re great young men, and they're different. We're talking about different programming. And not only can they play Division I football, and not only were they admissible to the Naval Academy — which is not an easy place to get in school — what they've chosen is to take on a challenge and the privilege of serving their country. And that makes them unique.”
Q: Can you give us some insight into what it's like to coach when you only have so many minutes of a day, basically, and how do they grasp everything that you're trying to teach?
BN: “Well, they’re smart kids. Certainly, there's a lot of requirements for the Naval Academy. It's different. Academics are different. These guys have a full class load every day. They’ve got military obligations. We don't shy away from what we ask of them, either. We try to maximize every minute that we get with them. But the challenge to coach them is being extremely efficient with your time and what you're asking them to do.
“These guys love football. And when they come over to the football building — whether it's a meeting or lifting weights or practice — we really want that to be the best part of their day. And those guys look forward to coming over, and they give us everything that they've got. So yeah, we have to maximize our time and be smart about how we teach, how long we keep them in meetings and those kinds of things. But they’re bought-in. They love football. The Naval Academy is a special place. And it's challenging, and we encourage our guys to embrace that challenge and we don't coddle them and we don't make excuses for them. We don't feel sorry for them.
“We're smart about what we ask of them. But that's what makes them unique. That's what makes it special. That's what makes it different — the challenges and all the things that they have to do outside of being Division I football players, which is a full-time job.”
Q: The new-look offense this year, everyone always knows that it's going to be a triple option, but things are different this year. Do you feel like that is ready and in place to match up against Notre Dame?
BN: “I feel really good about where we're at and how that offense has evolved. It's been a work in progress. I had a vision of what I wanted it to look like. And really, [offensive coordinator] Grant Chesnut was a perfect fit. Not only did I work with him prior, he's brought an edge and a toughness to our offense along with something outside-the-box creativity in what we're doing. Really love our plan right now. I think what we're doing is giving our players a chance to be successful with what we're doing. And so I'm excited about where we're at.”
Q: In terms of preparation for this weekend, did you reach out to Northwestern and Nebraska [from the 2022 Ireland game] to get some advice?
BN: “Sure, our support staff had conversations with support staffs in those programs, trying to figure out logistically the best way to do things, how to structure the itinerary. But yeah, a lot of research went into that. I feel like the plan we rolled out was a good one and, like I said, things have gone really smooth so far.”
Q: What are your expectations and are you kind of afraid of the rivalry?
BN: “What we want our players to do is understand that they don't have to do anything miraculous. They don't have to do anything outside of themselves. They have to be the best version of themselves on Saturday. And so, it's really important that they understand that.
“Sometimes, you get in a big game like this, and you push a little bit — right? And you try to do too much. And when that happens, you do somebody else's job, you get out of place. And so, l think the big thing is that we talked about trust in our program a lot. And I think our guys trust each other. Like they understand that if you have 11 guys on the field at any given time and they’re doing their job as well as they can do it, then that gives us an opportunity to have success. And that's really all we’ve got to do.”
Q: Talk a little bit about your quarterback position. You have some experience back there, but maybe some new faces are going to see action as well on Saturday?
BN: “We have experience, which is great, and more so than [anytime] since I've been here in ‘19. Really pleased with Tai Lavatai and his progress. As you guys know, he tore an ACL last year and was limited in spring football and had a great recovery. I'd say he's moving better now than he did pre-ACL, which is kind of puzzling, but he's trained up. He's in good shape. He's got a great grasp on what we're doing offensively. He's really a calm, cool, collected type of quarterback, knows the system, runs the offense, makes good decisions, gets the ball where it needs to be. Excited about him.
“Blake Horvath, because of the injuries we had in the spring, was a young man who got a ton of reps and took advantage of them. We’re excited about him. He has an element athletically that's exciting. throws the ball well too. And then there’s Xavier Arline, who's played a lot of snaps for us, won a lot of games for us. We have three quarterbacks that I feel like we can win with. We're going to have Arline to do some different things besides play quarterback. Got to find a way to get him on the field. He's a dynamic athlete, really good ball skills. And so, you'll see him on the field — and maybe at quarterback, maybe at slot[back]. I feel good about the quarterback room — the experience and the depth. As you guys know, what we do offensively, having that depth is really important, having the ability to play one, two, potentially three quarterbacks. It's critical for us.”
Q: How does your defense match up against Notre Dame quarterback Sam Hartman and, specifically, the O-line as well?
BN: “You look on paper, it's a tough matchup. They’re a big, physical offense. They’ve got three really good players coming back for the O-line. They're talented everywhere across the board. I think the acquisition of Sam Hartman is huge for them. He's a really good player. We all know who he is. He's a winner. He's a leader. He adds a different element to their offense. I think he's just a few years younger than me. He has a way better beard than me. But you can't put a price tag on a guy like him, what he does. It sounds like he's really galvanized their football team, the offensive unit. Getting voted captain as a transfer is a huge deal there and sounds like they've all taken to him. He's a good football player. Really, really smart. He manages the game well. He gets the ball out quickly, reads defenses really well. So, it's certainly going to be a challenge.”
Q: What can we learn from last year's game, where they were two very different halves?
BN: I’m not trying to think about last year's game a whole lot. There are so many differences everywhere. We're a different football team. They're a different football team. I think what they're going to do offensively is going to be very different than what they did last year, particularly at the point where they were playing us . At that point, they were a ‘let's run the ball first’ football team, based on their personnel and who they were. That was their identity. Before they played us, they went out and pounded Clemson, running the football. And so, I think we're going to see a more balanced offense because of the ability that Sam Hartman has, the fact we've been pretty good at stopping the run. And I think they're going to try and take a look at what they feel like we've giving them.”
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