Navy has been a quality program for the last two decades. They develop, rather than re-stock and the unique challenge of a military commitment make the entire effort unique. They have some different dudes, and while previous coaches have simply said “we are better athletes” and leaned on that, no matter what, North Texas vs the Service Academies has been a challenge for the Mean Green. Two years ago, North Texas went to Annapolis with Eric Morris, Chandler Rogers, and were blitzed to (football) death. It flipped the game. Last year, North Texas’ offense was superior to the Blake Horvath offense but the underlying numbers suggested the game was a little closer than the 31-17 score.
Neal Brown called them “Innovative on both sides of the ball.” Drew Cronic has been praised across the coaching ranks for his evolution of the Navy Triple, by adding some spread things, and some other Wing-T things. We mentioned last year how Brian Newberry’s 3-4 base has evolved into a 4-2-5 hybrid. Football is innovation, but it is largely the same stuff repackaged over and over again.
Coach Brown mentioned first encountering the option-based offenses of Willie Fritz in the Sun Belt and changing his philosophy for defending it. Instead of a cram-week of preparation, he does it “year round” including here at North Texas. “We started in the summer after we had our base install.” On Mondays, the team does “just a five minute period. Different looks.”
It is a good plan, and we expect North Texas to defend the triple option with different looks. MidReport’s Mike James said that no one really plays base vs Navy and that makes sense. We expect more five-man looks along the line, but the real challenge will be in keeping eye-discipline. The UTSA defense were selling out to stop outside zone runs and got burned by leaking TEs.
North Texas is a little deeper this week, as Chase Canada and Anthony Benford are expected to be back. Navy isn’t going to throw the ball over the top a ton, but it never hurts to have depth.
Navy is aggressive. Neal Brown said “they will do cover-0” and its true. The Middies make up for their lack of top-end talent by simply being disciplined and playing with aggression. Sure, you could sit back and pick them apart. So they won’t let you, and will bring any number of similarly-sized guys at you.
They will stunt, and simulate blitzes and throw all kinds of junk. UTSA tried leaking their backs and using five-man protection and that was stuffed. They then kept their back in and that helped a bit. They needed QB scrambles, and rollouts and lots of things to work. Eventually they got their check-down game to hit some big ones, but the QB was hit a ton.
Expect Neal Brown to be well-aware of this, and protect his QB. The battle will be in Navy trying to limit Jahiem White touches and Neal Brown trying to get White in advantageous positions.
North Texas is good about using motion and formations to find openings, and Tayven Jackson has been good in hostile environments but Navy will bring tons of pressure and expect a sack or two. Recall that in 2023, Chandler Rogers and Adeyi were able to hit big plays. Big plays will be there. The question is if North Texas can sustain drives, can recover from negative plays (sacks, TFLs) and limit turnovers (sack-fumbles are the worst). Jackson has been good this season, but has shown an affinity for fumbling the ball. You know Newberry is highlighting that this week.
Navy is all but out of the league race, and while you can’t win the league in October, you can certainly lose it. North Texas is sitting in a good spot but only has played the two conference games. One was won by the hairs of a knee. This league has more parity than anyone wants to admit, so this is a huge game simply by being a game on the schedule.
Prediction: North Texas 41 - Navy 24
NT pulls away late after a tough first half of back-and-forth football.
GMG