Reversal of Fortune: Navy Football Erases Four Years of Frustration vs. Air Force in Convincing Fashion

This is the official podcast of the Navy Sports Nation , where we take a deeper dive into Navy sports , with the focus obviously being on football . The Mids have a bye week that came just at the right time on the schedule .

After a dominating but very physical win over Air Force , the team has a chance to rest up and recover before starting a stretch of five straight games that includes Notre Dame and Tulane , and all but one of them are away from Navy Marine Corps Stadium . But first things first .

After a quick sports update , we will take a closer look at that game against the Falcons in our deep dive segment , and we'll also have our question of the day and check in with our athletes on the mid-watch . So sit tight , we're just getting started . All right , it's great to have you guys with us . Thanks so much for dropping in .

I really appreciate you taking the time For this sports update . I wanted to start things off by talking about the Navy water polo team . This is a group of guys that we don't talk a whole lot about , but trust me , their matches I've watched a lot of them on ESPN Plus and they're pretty exciting .

Trust me , their matches I've watched a lot of them on ESPN Plus and they're pretty exciting . But anyway , the mids are currently 11-5 with a 2-2 conference record so far this year . One of their non-conference wins was a 19-18 thriller over Air Force about a month ago . It was a tight game from start to finish .

In fact it ended up going into overtime and that's when freshman center Maddox Geraghy scored his fifth goal of the game to seal the win . It also meant that Navy can hang on to the Freedom Vase for another year . That's the hardwood that's up for grabs when these two teams play each other every season .

The Mids won their most recent outing against Mercyhurst to even up their conference record . In that game 13 different players scored , and leading them all were Quinn Bartlett and Henry Williams , with three goals apiece . One thing I didn't realize is how many games these guys play . After 16 games , the team is barely halfway through the season .

They've got 13 left to go , plus the playoffs . Last year ended with a tough loss to Fordham in a conference championship game . So the clear goal here is to get back there and see what they can do about bringing home the trophy . Okay , now let's move on to men's and women's cross country .

Both teams have wrapped up their invitational seasons and all that remains before the Patriot League Championships is their star meet against Army . That will take place on October 19th at noon . Last year the men came away with a win at West Point , but the women weren't able to make it a sweep .

This year could be pretty tough as well , because , from what I remember about the outdoor track season last spring , the Army women have a fair amount of depth at the middle to long distances . Now , in the most recent Invitational for the men up in Bethlehem , Pennsylvania , senior Murphy Smith led the team by finishing fifth overall in the field of 374 runners .

Smith ran the 8K course in a time of 23 minutes 33.2 seconds . That was good enough to earn him Patriot League Athlete of the Week honors . His teammate Patrick Gandini picked up Rookie of the Week for his efforts . Gandini rounded out the top five for Navy with a time of 24 minutes 36.8 seconds for the 8K race .

That's a season's best for him and it helped lock down the fourth place finish for the mids out of 44 teams . The women finished exactly in the middle of a 42-team field . In the same meet , senior Alex Wercinski was the top runner for the mids , finishing 70th out of 371 competitors . Her time over the 6k course was 21 minutes 10.1 seconds .

So I know it seems like it's kind of a short season for cross country , but remember , just about all those runners are going to be rolling right into indoor track and that gets going really , really soon . Okay , I also wanted to give a quick shout out to the Navy Rifle Team . They are 2-1 on the year so far , with a couple of wins over VMI .

The team is led by sophomore Isabella Baldwin , who's coming off an All-American freshman season . Baldwin scored a team-high 587 points in the small-bore competition . She also led the mids in the air rifle with 596 points , giving her an aggregate score of 1,183 .

Senior Marleigh Duncan was right behind her with 1,179 total points and , for the men , parker Haydin returned , after missing last season , to post a score of 578 in the small bore and 593 in the air rifle . That was good for a total of 1171 , and that's a strong score for not having shot competitively in over a year .

Next up for the mids will be Nebraska , ole Miss and Memphis . That match will take place on the weekend of October 19th and 20th . Okay , that gets you caught up on some of the other fall sports teams in action , and I will be mentioning a few more of those in my posts on the Navy Sports Nation group Facebook page over the next couple of weeks .

As for today , we have just started to scratch the surface in this episode , so please stay with us . Our deep dive segment is next .

Prior to this last Navy Air Force football game , it had been five years since the Mids last beat the Falcons , and that was in Annapolis . They took a 21-9 lead into the fourth quarter , but after missing a field goal , air Force ended up getting one of their own . Then a fumble in the three and out possession led to two Falcon touchdowns .

Suddenly , the mids were down 25-21 with just over three minutes to go , and a field goal wasn't going to cut it . They needed to get into the end zone . They were staring a pretty crushing loss right in the face after being in control of the game for three quarters , but the Mids didn't flinch .

That was a record-setting offense in 2019 , and they overcame a potentially drive-killing holding penalty and connected on two key pass plays to get into the red zone . After that , Malcolm Perry got just the yardage he needed on a fourth and one from the 15 , and he scored two plays later . The Mids now led 28-25 with 23 seconds left .

Air Force couldn't move the ball on their last possession , though , and on 4th and 10 , they fumbled the attempted lateral , and linebacker Tony Brown took it in for the touchdown . The final score was 34-25 . From that point forward , navy lost four in a row to Air Force , and it hasn't been pretty either .

During that stretch from 2020-2023 , the Mids were outscored 93 to 26 , including a 40 to 7 thumping in Colorado Springs four years ago . In the following year , the Navy defense kept the team in the game for basically three quarters , but they were on the field way too long . I think .

Air Force had like a seven or eight , maybe even nine minute advantage in time of possession , so the Navy defense just ran out of gas . Eventually , air Force tacked on nine points on a safety and a touchdown in the fourth quarter to close things out , and the final score was 23-3 .

Two years ago , the Navy defense played another outstanding game , but the offense really struggled , and even though they managed to tie it at 10 in the fourth quarter , the Falcons tacked on a field goal late in the game to win it 13-10 . Now , last year was really ugly .

Once again , the defense played great , except for one play that came on a 94-yard touchdown pass that gave Air Force their early lead . Their offense never saw the end zone again after that . The Falcons' only other score came on a pick six . The only problem , though , was that the Navy offense was non-existent .

Air Force completely shut everything down , holding them in to just 124 total yards . Only a meaningless touchdown with less than a minute to go in the game prevented a shutout , and the final score was 17-6 . Now , as painful as it was for me to do that recap , I thought it was necessary .

So you guys would have the right context as we break down the mids big win this past Saturday . These are two completely different teams compared to last year . Now I will get into what happened with Air Force later on in this segment , but we all know the reason for Navy's big improvement .

It all came down to getting the right guy for their offensive coordinator . Some of you may have heard recently that Coach Newberry actually wanted to hire Drew Kronick when he took over as head coach following the 2022 season , but the timing just wasn't right .

On his end and after the offense took a step backwards last season , despite showing some flashes of solid play and nice execution , newberry decided to move on from Coach Chestnut and he took another shot at bringing Coach Kronick to Annapolis .

In this case , the second time was a charm , so let's go ahead and take a look at a couple of things going into this game . The Mids were favored by nine points . That seemed reasonable to me . I knew the Falcons were having trouble scoring in their first few games and I thought the Navy offense was more than capable of putting up at least 21 points .

The bottom line was as long as the team came ready to play , I expected them to win easily , and I would say that the result was even better than anticipated . That's been the case with pretty much all the games so far . One of the reasons is that Coach Cronic constantly looks for ways to use all of his offensive weapons .

Obviously , one of them is Blake Horvath , but in this hybrid wing tee offense , horvath operates a lot like a point guard . Whether it's a traditional option , play being run or something else Coach Cronic has called , based on what he's seeing . Defensively , the goal is to get the ball into the hands of the playmakers .

Both Eli Heidenreich and Brandon Chatman are dynamic runners who happen to be really good receivers too , and Alex Tecza and Daba Fofana are capable of taking it to the house from just about anywhere on the field .

Just like Horvath , the tight ends are being used very strategically and , of course , we've seen what Nathan Kent can do once he gets his hands on the ball . So when you have a quarterback who's very comfortable in the system and has a whole bunch of weapons at his disposal , the outcome is usually going to be a pretty good one .

Here's another reason for the Mets' terrific improvement on offense , and it has to do with both coaching and mindset . First of all , the two coaches who haven't gotten enough credit this year are Jay Guillermo and Tommy Laurendine . Both of them coach the offensive linemen , and you know what I'm going to go ahead and throw in Matt Gonzalez's name too .

He's the team's strength and conditioning coach . All three of these coaches are responsible for the consistent offensive play . When Coach Cronic first arrived , he was asked about what he thought the biggest challenge would be for the offense as they learned the new system .

Kronick said it was teaching the offensive lineman the proper footwork and the correct blocking angles that his version of the wing tee required . It's pretty clear that Coach Guillermo and Coach Laurendine have been successful there , but that's been magnified by the fact that the offensive line has been pretty dominant physically .

In the Memphis game the broadcast team made several references to how the O-line was just pushing the Tigers defensive lineman all over the place , and I heard the same thing in the Air Force game . That all comes down . They've developed a program that makes sure the team is physically ready to play every game and recover in time for the next one .

Now I want to talk about the mindset part . We've all heard the phrase play for the guy next to you plenty of times , but while that's pretty easy to say , it's usually a little tougher identifying specific examples during the game .

But not this season , and if you want to know just where to look , the offensive line would be a good place to start , especially during an explosive play . I'm going to use Navy's second touchdown in the Air Force game as an example . That was the one where Nathan Kent scored on a reverse from 34 yards out on the fourth and two .

First of all , that play was perfectly executed . By the time Kent got the ball , the entire Falcon defense was on the left side of the field . But there was one Navy player who got downfield really fast and that was the left tackle , Connor McMahon .

He briefly teamed up with Ben Purvis on a block right there at the line and then he released and sprinted downfield towards the goal line , looking to clear the way for Kent in case he needed it . I'll put a link to the highlights in the show notes so you can see it . The play starts at about the 118 mark .

You can see at the end of the play that McMahon sort of nudges an Air Force defender out of the way at about the two-yard line . But Kent was going to score regardless . There's no way that the defensive back was going to bring him down in the open field a couple of yards short of the goal line . But when you watch the play , focus on what Kent does .

After he scores . He turns around and points right at Connor McMahon as if to say , hey , thanks for hustling all the way downfield to make sure I got in , and then they celebrate together . That's not the first time one or more Navy teammates have been right there with the ball carrier as he reaches the end zone on an explosive play .

The linemen and receivers take pride in getting down the field and delivering one more block to get their guy across the goal line . It is really cool to see everyone doing their part and celebrating the team's success together . Besides a touchdown by Kent , horvath and Teske each had two behind some really good blocking by the offensive line .

Heidenreich had 100 yards rushing and he also picked up 101 yards receiving , and to tell you the truth , I don't think that's ever happened in the triple option era . So that's a pretty significant accomplishment . Now on defense , coach Volkert called another excellent game .

He was bringing pressure from all kinds of different angles to keep the Air Force offense off balance pretty much every possession . Kyle Jacob led the team with 10 tackles , while Jackson Campbell had two sacks to go along with two tackles for a loss . The Mids seemed to be a step ahead all day .

They registered three three-and-out possessions , turned the Falcons over on downs twice and tacked on an interception by Deshaun Peel . So the defense got their six points for this game and we know that this almost always results in a win . This time it was a pretty convincing one .

Now , on Monday , I mentioned on our group Facebook page that Navy's 34 points were eight more than they put up in the previous four games combined . It's also the most they've scored in Colorado Springs since 1978 , when they won 37-8 . So what's the reason for Air Force taking such a significant step back this year ?

I think the answer to that lies in the fact that , for the past few years anyway , they stopped being a developmental program , and it all had to do with an academy policy that many , including me , thought that the Falcons used to game the system during the pandemic . It's called the turnback policy .

The purpose is to allow cadets who experience a hardship to take a semester off to deal with it and then return to the academy . I don't have any issue with the policy itself . I guess I just have a problem with how it was applied this time .

So when the pandemic hit in 2020 , the Mountain West Conference canceled their fall football schedule , and when that happened , 36 members of the football team used the turnback program to skip that semester .

It was tacked on to their final semester , which gave them the opportunity to graduate in December , and that in turn , gave them another year of eligibility for football . Then the Mountain West did a 180 and decided to play an abbreviated six-game schedule . With that reduced squad , the Falcons ended up going 3-3 .

Now , to be fair , the 36 players in the turnback program were not part of the 2020 squad , so it wasn't like it was a true redshirt season where they could be practicing with the team and sitting in on meetings , but , seriously , there's no way that those players still weren't connected to the team .

I'm pretty sure they followed the equivalent of an off-season program , which included strength and conditioning as well as staying up to speed on the offensive and defensive schemes that they used , and when they came back for the following season , these players had matured one more year without having to deal with the wear and tear on their bodies .

The Falcons went 10-3 in each of their next two seasons , and then last year , they won their first eight , before losing their next four in a row to close out the year . They did win their bowl game , though . So in the three years following the pandemic , Air Force had a record of 29-10 , with three bowl wins , but all that came with a pretty heavy price .

The younger players in the program weren't getting developed at the same rate as they otherwise might have been . That's because of the players who had entered the turnback program staying an extra season . The Falcons had a ton of players with lots of experience those last couple of years and they were getting the lion's share of the snaps .

Now just about all those guys are gone and as a result , air Force has one of the least experienced teams in the country and they'll need to manage their way through that . Meanwhile , navy's program is on pretty solid footing .

There's no turnback program at the academy , so when they lost some key players through the transfer portal a couple years ago , it was just basically the next man up . These players took their lumps at first , but now they have the benefit of all that experience . Most of their playmakers this year are underclassmen .

Horvath , heidenreich , chapman , kent and Teske are all juniors , and so are Landon Robinson , kendall Whiteside , luke Pierce and Jackson Campbell on defense . At the end of the day , it all boils down to staying true to the developmental nature of the program . To me , it seems like Air Force took advantage of an existing policy to reap some quick rewards .

Sure , they won some extra games , but they only came away with one CIC trophy during that period , and now they have a pretty decent mountain to climb to get everything back on track . Okay , we're going to go ahead and take a short break now , but before we do that , I did want to give you all a couple of ways to stay up to date on Navy sports .

The first is to join the Navy Sports Nation group Facebook page . I've got a link to that in the show notes . Just click on it , answer a couple of questions and you'll be good to go this podcast right now . It can be Apple Podcasts , spotify , iheartradio , it doesn't matter .

Once you do that , every episode will be downloaded to your directory when it's released and you can listen to it whenever you're ready . So please consider becoming a member of our group and you can actually tap that follow button right now to show your support for the podcast . I'm looking forward to having you join us . We'll be right back .

Thanks for staying with us on Navy Sports Central . Karl Darden , here with you and as we finish this deep dive segment , I wanted to spend some time doing a little exercise comparing how much this Navy football team has improved compared to last year , and I'm going to call it with this game . Now .

Ideally , it probably makes more sense to do this after the sixth game , since that would mark the halfway point in the season . But five games is close enough for you all to see the difference , so let's go ahead and get started . With this game against Air Force , the Mids have scored 218 points . They only scored 212 all of last season .

The team is currently averaging just over 43 points per game , compared to just over 17 in 2023 . They are ranked 7th in the country in scoring offense , compared to 125th a year ago . By the way , that improvement of over 25 points per game ranks as the best across all of Division I . With this game , the Navy offense continues to be perfect in the red zone .

They are 18 for 18 and every score has been a touchdown . That compares to just 14 all of last year . And , by the way , that 18 for 18 , with all of them being touchdowns ranks first in the FBS . With this game , the team ranks second in the country with 303 rushing yards per game .

This is over 100 yards more compared to last year , and the 21 touchdowns they've scored on the ground is already five more than the 16 they put up all of last season . With this game , the mids are averaging 8.2 yards per play , which ranks first among all FBS teams . Last season , they were all the way down at 118th , with just 4.6 yards per play .

With this game , the Navy offense continues to maintain their high standards with respect to ball security . They've only put the ball on the ground once and they got that one back . They're ranked sixth in the country in fewest fumbles per game . In 2023 , they were at 115th .

Now let me go ahead and throw in one for the defense , because the defense was pretty good last year , but I did want to find one metric that applied to them . With this game , the Navy defense added another turnover to their total and so far this year , they have a turnover margin of plus 1.8 , which ranks them third in the country .

This is a stat where the team ranked pretty high last year , finishing seventh overall , so the defense has even managed to improve on this number over the first five games . So there you go . Those are a handful of stats that show the huge improvement in Navy football year over year , and I think the Mids will continue to get better .

If they can steer clear of any significant injuries , this team could rank among the best ever . Okay , that takes care of our deep dive for this episode , but stick around because we still have our question of the day segment by going back to

our last one , which actually was in episode 67 . That was a little over a month ago , and that one had to do with , uh , navy's opening game of season . So here's the question Since 2002 , what is the most number of years in a row that Navy has won their first football game of the season , either at home or on the road ?

Is it A 3 , b 4 , c 5 , or D 6 ? And for this one , everyone who answered went with either four there were 60% of you who chose that answer or five 40% picked that one , so the correct answer was actually A three years . And the mids have done that on three different occasions in the last 23 years . The first was from 2002 to 2004 .

And you'll recall that 2002 was Paul Johnson's first year as the head coach . Now , interestingly enough , they won their very first game of the year against SMU and the mids just absolutely hammered them . Now , remember , in the previous year Navy had not won a single game the entire season , so they're riding a pretty long losing streak .

They came into the game 10 and a half point underdogs and gave the Mustangs a 38-7 beatdown , but then they lost their next what 9 ? Before they thrashed Army 58-12 in the last game of the season . So it was kind of a bookend year and , of course , after that the team just took off . The next time was from 2006 to 2008 .

And remember that Coach Johnson left after that 2007 season , so that 08 win was Coach Ken's very first one as a head coach . And then , finally , the last time was from 2015 to 2017 . So that's our recap . Now let's go ahead and take a look at this episode's question .

Blake Horvath has opened a season with five consecutive games where he's passed for 100 yards or more In the last 23 years . What is the record for the most number of games in a season where a Navy quarterback has had 100 or more passing yards ? Is it A 5 , b 6 , c 7 , or D 8 ?

You can take your time on that one and get back to me either by texting the show or responding to the poll question on the group Facebook page . So I'm looking forward to seeing what you have for me there . Okay , it is time to check in with our athletes on the mid-watch , so let's go ahead and start with the women .

You'll recall that we are tracking senior midfielder Amanda Graziano from the soccer team . The mids are currently 8-6-1 overall and 2-1-1 in the conference . Meanwhile , graciano is their leading points producer . She's got four goals and six assists to give her a total of 14 points overall . Remember , for statistical purposes a goal counts as two points .

Three of those assists came in a 4-3 win over Loyola a couple of weeks ago . Graziano delivered a perfectly placed corner kick to the front of the goal that Alexa Riddle headed in for Navy's first score of the game , and it was about a month ago that Graziano scored on a pretty cool free kick .

After being fouled , she made her attempt from about 18 yards out . The rest of the players were lined up about halfway between Graziano and the goal , but there was a break in the line and Graziano decided to go low . When she kicked it , the ball curved right through the gap and found the back of the net just inside the left post . It was a terrific shot .

I'm going to go ahead and put a link in the show notes for you , because you really got to check it out . It was pretty cool . Anyway , the mids have five more conference games , including the star match against Army , and that's going to be played on October 19th on the road .

That's going to be a tough one and I'm thinking that Graziano's got to play a pretty pivotal role if the mids are going to win . Now let's jump over to the men . We are following two guys named Luke , and both of them happen to play on the sprint football team .

First we have Luke Wagner , who is a senior , and he was actually listed as a running back at the beginning of the season , but now he's playing quarterback . And it looks like Luke O'Connell , who's a sophomore and at the beginning of the year was playing quarterback , is now playing running back . So basically they've just switched roles .

The mids are the three-time defending college sprint football league champions , but they're only two and one . After a disappointing loss to Army last week in the star game , the offense just really couldn't get anything going . There was a couple of costly turnovers and I don't know . It just wasn't their day .

So they've got four games left and they're probably going to have to win all of them to get back into the championship game , where they'll most likely just face Army again . I mean , that's the way it's been for the last God knows how many years . In any case , luke Wagner is second on the team in rushing , averaging about six yards per carry .

He's got 149 yards through the first three games and his best game throwing the ball was against Cornell . He passed for 144 yards and a touchdown and led the Mids to a 49-0 win . The change to running back means less touches for Luke O'Connell , since the team is pretty deep at that position .

So far this season , the Darien Connecticut native has only seen action in the Cornell game . He did make the most of it though , picking up 32 yards on just two carries , including one touchdown . Now we'll see how things go over these last four games .

The nice thing is , with O'Connell just being a sophomore , he's got two more years to make a significant impact . That's going to do it for this edition of Navy Sports Central . Thank you all so much for joining us Now .

If you like what you've heard , please be sure to hit that follow button wherever you get your podcasts , and remember to get the word to all the other Navy fans out there . Our question of the day continues to be a show favorite . You can get in on that by joining the Navy Sports Nation group Facebook page and giving your answer to this week's question .

You can also respond by sending us a text . All you need to do is click on the link in the show notes . And just a quick reminder the views expressed on Navy Sports Central are my own and do not reflect those of the US Naval Academy or Navy Athletics . By the way , the music used in Navy Sports Central comes to you courtesy of Audio Jungle .

This is a great site for purchasing the rights to use the music from thousands of artists around the world , and those featured in the podcast will be credited in our show notes . Talk to you soon , everybody . Until next time , this is Karl Darden . Go Navy Beat Army . Thank you .