6 Thoughts on a Thursday

Navy is undefeated. They’re ranked in the top-25 for the first time in a long time. Their average margin of victory this season is four touchdowns.

I think it’s fair to say they have a pretty good football team. It’s also fair to say that we have no idea how good they are because they have played a remarkably easy schedule.

That’s a strange thing for a program who is halfway through their season. Navy is 6-0 and has played only one team ranked in the top-60 in the F+ rankings (combined FEI and SP+ rankings). That would be Memphis, who is 59th. They also happen to be the only team who had anything close to a competitive game with Navy.

Memphis was down by five in the fourth quarter and driving to take the lead before throwing a pick-six to essentially end the game.

Here’s the rest of Navy’s schedule:

Bucknell (268th in Bill Connelly’s all division SP+ rankings)

Temple (123rd in F+)

UAB (125th)

Air Force (120th)

Charlotte (118th)

I guess we could say that they got really lucky with how easy it is this season and there is some luck involved with Air Force struggling. It’s not that with the other teams, though. This is just what the AAC is as a conference these days.

Navy and Memphis are two of four AAC teams in the top-60 of F+ along with Tulane and Army. Everyone else is 85th or lower. They have nine teams in the conference who are 99th or lower.

That’s a far cry from when they tried to portray themselves as the sixth power conference. They had a legitimate claim to that as recently as 2021 when Cincinnati, Houston, SMU, and UCF were still in it.

Cincinnati finished sixth in F+ that season. The other three were all in the top-60. There were bad teams in the AAC as well, but some of the decent teams like Tulsa (70th in 2021, 124th today) and East Carolina (67th in ‘21, 101st today) have trended in the wrong direction. While there is always the possibility that a new coaching hire could rejuvenate a program like UAB, it’s a lot more difficult to build a program at in a lower level conference these days because there’s always the danger of losing good players to power conference schools without a way to replace them.

It’s a good story to see both Army and Navy undefeated at this point of the season. It also could be fool’s gold because of who they’ve beaten. There’s also the fact that doing this well could mean that some of their best players might be pursued by bigger programs and enticed to leave after the season.

The transfer portal has provided more parity at the top of college football. It wasn’t culture that brought quarterback Diego Pavia to Vanderbilt to help them beat Alabama for the first time in forever. Pavia also gets to play at a bigger program, earn some NIL dollars, and maybe put himself on the radar to get an NFL shot. It’s a win for Vandy and a win for the kid.

The bad part about it is that Pavia leaves a program like New Mexico State and they go from winning 10 games to being terrible. The lower tier programs are the ones who feel it.

That’s the thing about the transfer portal. Traditionalists want to paint it as one way, but there’s good and bad that comes with it. Yet somehow the portal and NIL have taken most of the heat from average college football fans for how the sport has changed while realignment rarely gets mentioned as being much worse for the sport than anything that has to do with transfers and NIL.

There has been nothing good that has come out of conference realignment in the last decade. Every single domino that has fallen has led to making things worse for the people who are below the top of the food chain.

The transfer portal can lead to second chances when players bounce down a level and smaller conference teams can benefit from that. Smaller conference teams get nothing that helps them when their conference gets raided. Realignment isn’t relegation where a bad year might force a program to fight its way back up to the big leagues.

Navy should win more games now that their conference has gone from frisky mid-major to whatever you want to call it now, but they’re now forced to play a lower level of football now than they were a couple of years ago. I don’t see that as a good thing.

2. I’m not someone who likes to seek out arguments on Twitter (it’s still Twitter to me), but sometimes I see takes that are so bad that I’m forced to step away from my phone and not engage.

This one really had me starting a draft before deciding to walk away.

Fortunately I have this column if I ever want to go off on something like this.

“It’s a commitment to Culture and Long Term Development.”

Shoutout to Jon Crisp in the comments for calling this out because this has definitely been the approach at Army and Navy for a very long time. This didn’t help Niumatalolo keep his job or help Army win last year with the same head coach, Jeff Monken.

“They haven’t gotten mixed up in NIL and the Transfer Portal.”

Well, this was definitely not by choice. They also play in a league that has been raided by power conference programs with their top teams leaving and top players bouncing from the teams who are left to go play at bigger programs. They’ve benefited from this in terms of their competition getting weaker.

There are two primary reasons for Army and Navy doing as well as they are this season compared to previous years.

The first is the schedule. Army played Syracuse, Boston College, and LSU last season and also faced some very strong Group of 5 opponents as well. This year they are in the same boat as Navy (no pun intended) playing against the malnourished AAC.

The second is that they both made changes with their offensive play-callers. Navy brought in Drew Cronic, who was the head coach at Mercer. Army promoted Cody Worley, who was on the staff and took over the role during last season.

They have tweaked things. Army has moved back towards the offense they had more success with prior to the 2023 season and Navy has added more modern elements to their offense.

ESPN’s Bill Connelly wrote a piece a couple of weeks ago that included Navy’s percentages of pre-snap motion, rollouts, and play-action that have increased significantly under Cronic:

Navy pct. of snaps with motion: 50.9% in 2023, 76.2% in 2024

Navy pct. of dropbacks with rollouts: 6.8% in 2023, 19.7% in 2024

Navy pct. of dropbacks with play action: 20.9% in 2023, 38.2% in 2024

It wasn’t culture that helped make these offenses become way better. They made smart hires at offensive coordinator and have reaped the rewards from that. It hasn’t hurt that they are taking advantage of beating up on bad teams as well.

3. Navy’s offense is first in havoc rate allowed. They’ve only given up 13 tackles for loss all season. Their receivers have only nine contested targets, primarily because they have had players running open in the play-action passing game.

It helps that they’ve played three defenses that are ranked 121st, 129th, and 131st in havoc rate, but they have things humming on offense and have executed really well.

Notre Dame is 26th in havoc rate and they’ve managed that while going up against Texas A&M (4th in havoc allowed), Louisville (33rd), and Georgia Tech (20th). The Irish have a lot of playmakers on defense and creating those negative plays is going to be critical to slowing down Navy’s offense.

It’s inevitable that Navy will hit some explosives. Georgia Tech had one in the third quarter that went for 60, but it resulted in no points because Jaiden Ausberry’s tackle for loss was followed up by a Rylie Mills sack. Those are the kind of sequences Notre Dame has had all season and will have to have against a Navy offense that has been close to automatic in the red zone. They’ve scored 22 touchdowns on 23 trips to the red zone.

4. Thomas Harper was Notre Dame’s starting nickel last season and he ended up playing only 12 snaps against Navy. I don’t see that happening with Jordan Clark this year.

Whether he is playing safety or getting reps at outside corner, he’s someone who should play a significant role on Saturday. (TaRiq Bracy played outside corner for Notre Dame against Navy in 2022)

This won’t be a matchup where we’ll see Notre Dame’s base defense and we’ll see different personnel groupings because of it. Guys will be playing roles that are different. It’s going to be interesting to see how the staff decides to mix and match their linebackers and defensive backs.

This could be a game where we see more Clark outside, more of Rod Heard than a typical week, and I’m not quite sure how they’re going to choose to deploy the linebackers.

Maybe this is a game where we see less Leonard Moore than last week because of the challenges of a freshman seeing this offense for the first time. However, it wouldn’t shock me if he ended up as a key player this week. He’s played the run really well and has the best PFF run defense grade in the country for FBS corners with 200+ snaps.

5. As long as I can remember, part of the core philosophy of Navy football had to do with winning the time of possession.

The more Navy’s offense possessed the football, the less opportunities there would be for Navy’s opponent to score. Shortening the game would, hypothetically, even the playing field between Navy and the more talented teams they play from week to week.

It’s a whole new world now for Navy. They are 85th in time of possession per game. Take out their game against FCS Bucknell and they drop down to 97th.

A lot of this has to do with Navy wanting to be more explosive throwing the football. They are that with 21 passing plays of 20+ yards in their first six games. They had 18 during the entire 2023 season.

More explosive plays means less plays, which means less time of possession. It also means more points, which seems a lot more important than having 15 play drives that end in field goals.

Watching ND-Navy games felt like trying to force kids to eat vegetables. Most people don’t enjoy watching these games every season regardless of outcome because of the style of game Navy wanted to play.

Their offense will be more challenging for Notre Dame to defend now that they are much better at throwing the football, but the game might actually be…entertaining?

That seems entirely possible this year and hopefully it stays that way for as long as they remain on Notre Dame’s schedule.

6. That’s a lot of stuff that is mostly about Navy’s offense. That matchup versus Notre Dame’s defense is the one everyone will be focusing on.

The Irish offense is still going to have to be able to put up a good amount of points up on the board, though. They’ll have to do it by exposing the weaknesses of Navy’s defense.

Navy is 84th in EPA per rush and 105th in rushing success rating. Memphis, the only real offense they played all season, ran the ball really well on them and averaged 7.2 yards per carry. They had eight rushes of 10+ yards and their backs and quarterbacks forced 15 missed tackles in that game.

The Irish weren’t able to close out their game running the ball against Georgia Tech, but that GT run defense has been light years better than Navy’s. Navy also doesn’t have a 6-6 333 Zeke Biggers on their roster.

Notre Dame is eighth in the country in EPA per rush. They also have athletes who have cooked some of these same Navy defensive backs in coverage. Jayden Thomas had three catches for 80 yards vs S Rayaun Lane in 2022. Jaden Greathouse had a big play touchdown vs Lane and another touchdown versus CB Mbiti Williams last season.

I think we’ll see Notre Dame’s offense go off in this game. And as good as the Xs and Os have been for Navy’s offense to help them ascend on that side of the ball, they still have the same kind of Jimmys and Joes on defense who have to tackle Jeremiyah Love, Jadarian Price, and Riley Leonard.

I don’t see that ending well for them. This is a game where rushing for 250 yards should be an expectation.

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