The Navy Blitz, Volume 3: The Mids Avoid the Trap; Handle UAB for First Road Win

Welcome to the third edition of The Navy Blitz! 

Today, we will break down the Mids’ convincing win over the University of Alabama-Birmingham. The offense put up another 40+ point performance, while the defense returned to form and managed to contain one of the conference's more talented quarterbacks. 

We'll also take a look at Navy's offensive resurgence by the numbers. And trust me, some of what you learn will totally blow you away. So stick around!  We've got a lot of ground to cover as we take a look at how the Mids avoided a trap to pick up their first road win of the season. 

Related Links:

• Navy Takes Down UAB, 41-18
• Navy-UAB Highlights

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Music is provided courtesy of Audio Jungle. Artists featured in order:

• Seven In Music (Intro)
• Cinematic Alex (Closeout Music)

Chapters

• 0:14 The Navy Blitz Intro
• 1:06 Previewing the UAB Blazers
• 4:23 Game Break Down
• 8:27 Why the Mids Are So Hard to Stop
• 11:25 The NUmbers Comparison (Wow!)
• 14:24 Quick Air Force Preview and Show Credits

Transcript

Karl: 0:14

Hi everybody. My name is Karl Darden and I'd like to welcome and thank all of you for joining us today on Navy Sports Central. I'm your host and this is the official podcast of the Navy Sports Nation where we take a deeper dive into Navy sports Coming up. In this third edition of the Navy Blitz we will break down the mids convincing win over the University of Alabama Birmingham. First I'll look at the history between the two teams, including last year's contest, and we'll also talk about how the Blazers look so far this season. And finally we'll get into the game itself. The Navy defense bounced back from a tough afternoon last week against Memphis. Defense bounced back from a tough afternoon last week against Memphis. So we'll talk about what they did to keep the Blazers off balance for most of the game, and meanwhile the offense continues its strong performance, led by junior quarterback Blake Horvath. Among other things, I'll point out one aspect of the Navy wing tee attack that has been the key to their offensive output these first four games. So please don't go anywhere. All right, it's great to have you guys with us. Thanks so much for dropping in. I really appreciate you taking the time. You know, after last week's big win over. Memphis.

Karl: 1:14

Navy's first road contest against Alabama-Birmingham had all the markings of a classic trap game. They just knocked off the team favored to win the conference and in the process the offense put up 56 points that featured three touchdowns resulting from explosive plays, and it was one of the most impressive offensive performances in quite a while. But looking ahead to UAB, my superstitious nature was on full alert. I don't mind telling you that I felt like the Blazers were much better than their record showed. They played Arkansas tough in their previous game and in fact they led by 14 early in the contest. And even though they ended up losing by 10, UAB showed that they could hang with the Razorbacks for long stretches on both sides of the ball. It turns out that the Blazers' pass defense is pretty good. They were ranked third in the country going into the Navy game, so the Mids would definitely have to account for that. But the Blazers' run defense was a little suspect, so my guess was that Coach Kronick would look for different ways to take advantage.

Karl: 2:12

On offense, uab is led by their quarterback, Jake Zeno. Now, he doesn't necessarily pile up a bunch of yards, but he is extremely accurate. So far this year he has completed over 70% of his passes and that ranks him at number 14 in the country. This is a guy who had a chance to go to some other Power 5 schools, but he decided to stay in Birmingham and he has really matured. Zeno makes really good decisions with the ball and he can run with it at any time. The Blazers also underwent a significant upgrade on the offensive line by bringing in several transfers, so you had to think that the passing game would be more of a factor than last year, when the Mids came away with a 31-6 win.

Karl: 2:40

Now that game, which happened to be the first meeting between the two teams, was closer than the score indicated. The mids were hanging on to a 10-6 lead entering the fourth quarter and at the time they were right in the middle of an 80-yard drive that would eventually chew up nearly 13 minutes of game clock. They pushed the lead to 17-6 on a dabble for a final touchdown and on their very next possession, xavier Arline scored from 50 yards out with about four minutes left. The mid's final touchdown was a defensive score. It came on a 97-yard pick six by Rayuan Lane, and except for the fact that it was 11 yards longer than the one he had last week. It looked almost exactly the same. He read the quarterback's eyes and jumped the route from the inside, and then, once he caught it, he broke for the sidelines and it was pretty much clear sailing from there. So that does it for the brief history between the two teams.

Karl: 3:24

Now let's see how the Blazers have done so far this year. Uab got off to a 1-2 start. They beat Alcorn State to open the season, and then there was this really bad loss at Louisiana- Monroe. I'm not really sure what happened there, but there wasn't much of anything that went right for the Blazers in that game. And, like I said, even though they lost to Arkansas, uab did do some things against the Razorbacks. That really had me concerned. And with that in the back of my mind, I remembered another scenario where the Mids had just won a big game and then they came out completely flat the following week against a team they should have easily beaten, and you guys may remember this too.

Karl: 3:54

Back in 2010, the Mids rolled over Notre Dame 35-17, and that game still ranks in my personal top five of the best Navy games I've ever watched. In fact, I still pull up the YouTube highlights occasionally. And then the very next week the Mids lost to a very mediocre Duke team at home. They dug themselves a pretty deep hole thanks to the running attack getting completely shut down. I swear they didn't even look like the same team that took apart the Irish. By the time the offense woke up in the fourth quarter and started playing, it was way too late and they ended up losing 34 to 31. So I'm not gonna lie, this UAB game made me a little bit nervous, but, as we saw, I was just worried over nothing. The team put together a solid performance to move to 4-0 on the season. So let's take a look at how the mids picked up their first win on the road.

Karl: 4:37

We can start with the defense. You remember that last week against Memphis, coach Newberry was really focused on not giving up the explosive plays. So the defense played a little bit more conservatively, especially when the lead reached 19 points. The bad news was that the Tigers took advantage by running the ball when the mids rushed three and dropped eight into coverage, and if you put that together with a handful of missed tackles, that 19-point lead got cut to five in less than seven minutes. Against the Blazers, the defense returned to form.

Karl: 5:03

Now Jake Zeno is not the kind of guy who slings it all over the field, even though he does have the arm to do it. Last week against Arkansas he was 23 of 32 for 235 yards Good numbers, but not necessarily eye-popping compared to what some college quarterbacks are putting up these days. But Zeno did toss three touchdowns in the process, so there was no doubt he knew how to get his team into the end zone. Coach Volker's plan was to make Zeno feel the pressure early, and on the Blazers' very first possession he was sacked by Landon Robinson and UAB turned it over on downs. That's what got things rolling for the defense. They went on to sack Zeno two more times, both courtesy of Justin Reid, and on top of that they registered eight tackles for a loss. Reid got three of them and Colin Ramos was right behind him with two. Rayon Lane led the team with 12 tackles overall.

Karl: 5:46

I think the mids' pass defense was pretty good, just like it was in last year's UAB game. The longest play was a 67-yarder in the fourth quarter, and that was the result of a busted coverage. If you take that play away, zeno was 13-21 for only 135 yards. So I'd say that the defense was pretty successful, executing Coach Volker's game plan. Oh and, by the way, I did want to mention that long pass that Zeno completed in the fourth quarter. Now, I don't know exactly what happened on the coverage there, but the one thing I do remember was Rayon Lane just getting on his horse and running that receiver down from the other side of the field and he actually punched the ball loose, forcing a fumble, but it went out of bounds and the Blazers retained possession, but still you got to admire that kind of Offensively.

Karl: 6:27

The plan was to send a message starting with the very first drive. The one thing that the Mids had not yet done this season was score on their very first possession, and it only took them seven plays to address that issue. There was a pass interference call that got the Mids to the UAB 25, and then, two plays later, Horvath scored from 20 yards out, making a couple of defenders miss along the way, to put the Mids on the board first, and then, after forcing a UAB punt, the Navy offense took over on their own 14-yard line. Now, what I liked about this drive was that they took almost eight minutes to score, and that makes it their longest drive of the season in terms of time and when Alex Tecza scored from the six, the Mids chalked up another touchdown in the red zone.

Karl: 7:04

Now, if you happened to see Navy's first offensive play last week against Memphis, you had to figure that their third touchdown in Saturday's game was bound to happen eventually. After missing a wide-open Nathan Kent in the Tigers game, there was no way Horvath was going to let that happen two times in a row. He took the snap from his own 23-yard line on the second play of the drive. As he went back to throw he saw Kent get behind his defender and he launched a beautiful pass that traveled at least 50 yards in the air. Kent caught it in stride and his sprinter speed did the rest, because seconds later he was in the end zone and Navy had a 21-3 lead at halftime. So I think it's fair to say that Blake Horvath more than made up for missing Nathan Kent last week on that pass against Memphis. And like I said before, horvath can definitely make the long throws. It's just a matter of consistency and that pass he delivered to Kent was one of the best I've ever seen him make.

Karl: 7:50

Navy's fourth touchdown of the game was another lightning strike on a perfectly executed screen pass. Horvath did a nice job selling the play to the right, before coming back to the left with a nice throw to Heidenreich. It looked like it was going to be just a modest gain at first, that is until Navy guard Ben Purvis basically separated the UAB defender from his cleats. Heidenreich proceeded to outrun everybody to the end zone, giving the mids yet another touchdown on an explosive play. Daba Fofana's 16-yard run gave them their third of the game, so the offense has scored at least two touchdowns on explosive plays in each of their first four contests.

Karl: 8:20

It's pretty clear that with the versatility of the Wing T offense, this group of playmakers can score from just about anywhere on the field. So let's stay with that thought for a minute. What is the biggest reason why the Mids have been so successful executing this offense? I think the first thing to acknowledge is that Coach Cronic knows the types of players he has and he's coached them up to the point where they fit the system really well. But schematically, it's because the offense has been able to Wing-T's main the main objective, and that is to attack the perimeter. The UAB game provides us with a really good example of what I mean.

Karl: 8:53

I went back through all eight of the Mids' possessions to find out how many of their total yards, either rushing or passing, came on the perimeter. So let me go ahead and define that. First, for the running plays, I'm referring to any gains that happen outside the tackles. Now there were a couple of runs by Horvath where he started to turn up field around the midline. If he broke it to the outside I counted that as an attack on the perimeter. If he stayed between the hash marks it wasn't included. And for passing plays I counted anything out in the flat but not down the sidelines, in other words not down the field.

Karl: 9:22

So here are the final numbers the mids had 452 yards of total offense and 234 of them came on their perimeter. That's just a little over half, and it was that success on the perimeter that allowed Coach Kronach to really mix things up. The UAB defense couldn't consistently shut anything down on the outside, so they always had to be aware of that threat and that allowed the offense to attack in other places. If you look at Dabo Fofana's 16 yard touchdown run up the middle, it worked, partly because of the success the Mids were having running to the outside On the play. The two snipes started in motion to the right and two of the UAB linebackers went with them, leaving the middle of the field open After the left side of the offensive line sealed off their guys. Fofana only had to break one tackle once he got past the line of scrimmage, and he did that with no problem. So the Navy offense's ability to get some big yards on the perimeter really helped open up the rest of the field.

Karl: 10:11

Horvath had another efficient day throwing the ball too. He was 9 of 11 for 225 yards, and his two best passes of the day were the touchdown to Nathan Kent and the 23-yarder to Heidenreich, where he dropped it in right over the top of a defender from across the field, and that's what led to the Mids last touchdown. Before I move on to this last piece, I did want to share one comment that Blake Horvath had in response to something Bill Wagner from the Capital Gazette mentioned. Wags told him that it's believed to be the first time in Navy football history that a quarterback has completed two touchdown passes of 70 yards or more in the same game. You'll recall that the one to Kent was for 77 yards and Heidenreich's catch and run went for 74. So here was Horvath's response, and I think it gives you a pretty good idea of what this Navy team is all about. He said and I'm going to go ahead and quote here so I don't mess it up but he said all the credit goes to Nathan Kent, eli Heidenreich and the offensive line. When you're throwing to an Olympic caliber sprinter and have all day to throw on the first one and on the second pass, I threw it one yard to Eli and he did the rest, with the help of Purvis, destroying the guy. They made my job easy. I mean, I think the main thing we're seeing here and I've heard it in other interviews too is that, no matter what, these players are always passing along the credit to the next guy. I mean, they realize it's going to take all of them working together to be successful, so that's pretty cool to see.

Karl: 11:25

Okay, I wanted to finish things up by sharing some numbers that compare how this Navy team has been performing so far this season compared to last year. Some of them are just updates to what you may have already heard me mention already, but I've also got some new metrics that I think are really going to get your attention. We'll start with an update on the red zone stats and then we'll dig a little deeper. The mids got to the red zone three times in the UAB game and they scored touchdowns every single time. So now they're a perfect 14 for 14 in the red zone on the season and even though there are a handful of schools that have had more trips inside the 20-yard line, navy is the only one to come away with a touchdown every time. All the other teams have at least one field goal. But check this out those 14 red zone touchdowns the Mids have scored in four games matches the number they scored all of last year. That's pretty wild. And here's some more touchdown numbers for you.

Karl: 12:12

In 2023, the team scored 27 touchdowns. 16 of those came on the ground and they got 10 more through the year, and that last one was the Rayon Lane pick six I mentioned earlier. Now, after four games, the Mids have already matched that number of rushing touchdowns, and they're only two touchdown passes away from the 10 they put up last year. That's pretty impressive any way you look at it. Of course, all of this means lots more points on the board and as a team, navy has scored 184 points through four games. It took them 10 games to hit that number last season.

Karl: 12:40

Now I don't expect the team to keep piling up points like this the rest of the year. They do have several tough games left on the schedule. But think about this for a minute After four games in 2023, the mids were averaging 20 points per contest. Things got a little tougher as the season wore on and they finished the year at 17.7 points per game. So how does that compare to the first four games of 2024? Well, it turns out that the team is averaging 25 points a game by halftime. Okay, by halftime. I mean, are you kidding me? That's just an incredible turnaround. Again, it's not likely that the mids can keep this up when you look at the teams they still have left to play.

Karl: 13:16

But here's my point. This kind of offensive production means the defense doesn't have the same kind of pressure on them that they did last year. Remember, if an opponent put up 20 points, the chances were that the mids were going to wind up on the wrong end of that score. They only had one win where the team they played had more than 20 points, and that was against North Texas. Navy won that one 27-24. Looking at the defense's get six goal hitting that number usually meant a win, but it wasn't a guarantee.

Karl: 13:38

Last year's Memphis game is a good example. The defense forced four three and out possessions and got two turnovers, but still lost by four. On the other hand, there was only one win out of the five that Navy got last year where the defense didn't reach their get six goal, and that was against North Texas, where they got five. Against UAB, saturday, the defense only got three, and that includes the interception by Justin Ross right at the end In the Memphis game. Last week, the Mids got five. So that's two consecutive games where not getting six didn't keep the team from winning. Of course, I'd prefer to see them exceed that number every time, but as productive as this offense is, the chances of the team winning without the defense getting six are much better. So those are just a few numbers to show you how much improved this Navy team is over last year. I really like the way they've maintained their focus and right now the big thing is just to stay healthy.

Karl: 14:24

So next week the Mids have Air Force on the road. That's going to be a tough one, because they haven't won there since 2012, when Kenan Reynolds was a freshman. The Falcons are 1-3 so far this year, but we all know that records don't matter in rivalry games like this. Navy will be looking to snap a four-game losing streak and the offense hasn't done much during that time, only putting up 26 points. But this is a new year and I am confident that Coach Cronic and Coach Volker will come up with a game plan that will give the team a really good shot at winning for the first time since 2019. It's just a matter of the mids going out there and executing it. That's going to do it for this edition of the Navy Blitz.

Karl: 14:58

Thank you all so much for joining us. Remember, if you want to get your thoughts out there on any of these games, feel free to text the show directly and I'll share your comments on the next podcast. Let's be sure to send every ounce of positive energy this week to the mids as they prepare for Air Force. Of course, that game represents the first leg of the Commander-in-Chief's trophy, which Navy has not won in five years. 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.