Notre Dame-Navy: A Challenging Week Of Preparation For The Irish
After eight seasons as Navy’s head coach, Ken Niumatalolo, a devout Mormon, was the No. 1 candidate last winter to become BYU’s head coach after Bronco Mendenhall accepted the Virginia job in December.
Niumatalolo interviewed for the position and “agonized” on whether to accept it (his son Va’a is a linebacker for the Cougars), but eventually decided to stay with Navy. In eight and a half seasons with the Midshipmen, his 73-39 career mark gives him the most career wins in the Academy’s history.
Equally impressive regarding the program is eight of his assistants have been with him all nine years at the Academy. Offensive coordinator Ivin Jasper has been in Annapolis each of the past 17 years, while defensive coordinator Dale Pehrson has been there 21 consecutive seasons.
This past winter, longtime defensive coordinator Buddy Green announced his retirement after 37 years of coaching, the last 14 at Navy. Hired to assist Pehrson with the line is Napoleon Sykes, who was on the 2010 Navy staff that helped defeat Notre Dame most recently.
Continuity can sometimes get stale, but at Navy it’s been a blessing that has created a winning culture.
After last season’s amazing 11-2 ride that enabled Navy to finish with its highest Associated Press ranking (No. 18) since 1963, the Midshipmen, per Phil Steele, had the second fewest starters returning in 2016 with eight (two on offense and six on defense). The only team listed with fewer on offense and defense was Ohio State with six (three on offense and three on defense).
Not only did Navy have to replace all-time NCAA touchdowns leader Keenan Reynolds at quarterback, but his replacement, Tago Smith, also was lost for the year with an injury in the opener. Yet here is Navy once again destined to win at least eight games for the 12th time in the last 13 years, highlighted this year by defeating then-No. 6 Houston (46-40), its first conquest of a top-10 ranked foe since 1984.
With its time-tested system, Navy consistently maximizes and goes beyond its talent level — neither its 2014 nor 2015 recruiting classes were in Rivals’ top 100, while the 2013 haul was No. 95 and this past February’s was No. 90 — to average eight or nine wins per season, making it more a "program" than just a team.
Notre Dame also has been averaging eight or nine wins per year since 2010, but has not actualized its full potential the way Navy has.
Augmenting the continuity with the coach staff is a triple-option attack that has never finished lower than No. 6 in rushing yards per game since 2002. With senior Will Worth at QB, Navy followed its upset of Houston with a 42-28 win over Memphis before scoring 45 more during last Friday’s defeat at South Florida (52-45).
Unless one is used to facing the option daily such as fellow military schools Air Force and Army, Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly said it’s often a matter of picking your poison when preparing for the Midshipmen, which has lost 38-34, 49-39 and 41-24 shootouts the past three years to Notre Dame.
Navy is a little below average by its standards in rushing yards per game with a 296.6 average. However, it is passing the ball better than ever the past 15 years. It averages only 13 passes per game, but it is completing 58.2 percent and 147.4 yards per game — notably 299 yards on 15-of-25 passing in last week’s loss at USF.
“There are some differences, in terms of fronts and coverages that we may play compared to what we did last year,” Kelly said. “I think we’ve got a pretty good sense of, at this point, the kind of system of defense we want to play against Navy. … There’s no system that is going to cover everything.
“In other words, you can't take away a particular play. I think there was some thought, ‘Take away the fullback.’ Well, they don’t care if you take away the fullback. That’s okay. They’ll run toss-sweep 47 times.”
• Fullback Chris High is the second leading rusher with 445 yards at a ridiculous 6.8 yards per carry between the tackles.
• Take away High — and Navy’s top three slot backs — Dishan Romine, Toneo Gulley and Darryl Bonner — average 8.7 yards per attempt among them while rushing for a combined 625 yards.
• Take away the fullback and the pitch … well, QB Worth is the top rusher with 618 yards and 13 touchdowns, notably 201 rushing yards in the win over Memphis.
• Crowd the line of scrimmage to stop it all, and Navy can beat you over the top, averaging 19.5 yards per completion, 11.3 per attempt, and throwing for 299 yards at USF.
“There’s not a specific thing that you take away as much as at times you’re going to have to fight through a block-on-block situation to make a play,” Kelly said. “It never becomes a math equation, where in a lot of the football that’s played, you can get an extra hat to a particular run play and outnumber them. You can’t do it against this offense. So don’t try. If you try to outnumber the dive or try to outnumber the quarterback in a particular defensive structure, they've got answers.
“That’s really the answer to how you defend this — you can’t have all the answers.”
Kelly said the first objective is to have a base plan on defense, but adding some wrinkles here and there are necessary because the last three opponents that tried virtually just one front against Navy eventually got burned.
“They’ve seen everything,” Kelly said. “It’s not like you're going to come up with a defensive structure that they haven’t seen before. So you’ve got to show them a few looks, you’ve got to move around a little bit.”
The Navy offense does plenty of moving around — unbalanced lines, receivers at tackle, tackle-eligible plays — even though its base appears the same.
“Navy is quite complicated [with formations],” Kelly said. “You could go back 15 years … they’ll pull out formations and really stress you from a formation standpoint, which changes a lot of the things you’re looking at. … They are not traditionally looking offensive sets that these guys are trained to see.
“There are late nights, and they are watching extra film. There is extra preparation for a team like this. This is a difficult week in preparation.”
Last but not least, the Irish defenders have to deal with the still legal cut blocks that can play mind games with them. The best solution there is being the hammer rather than the nail, per Kelly.
“It won’t be read and react,” Kelly said. “The best way not to get cut is to blow your guy up.”
It's all part of training to play the military.
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