The Navy Blitz, Volume 4: Climbing Out of the Quicksand

Get ready for another edition of the Navy Blitz!

Today's installment covers the Mids' two tough losses to Notre Dame and Rice. And with their conference championship game hopes slipping away, Navy's season was definitely at a crossroads.

The team bounced back in strong fashion with a commanding 28-7 win over South Florida. Blake Horvath, Eli Heidenreich and Brandon Chatman all showcased their talent with some terrific playmaking.  and the defense delivers a masterclass in pressure and crucial stops. 

The spotlight turns to a pivotal showdown against Tulane, with Navy's eyes set on a championship game berth, something that hasn't happened since 2016.  

Related Links:

• Navy - South Florida Highlights
• Blake Horvath in the Spotlight!

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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
• 1:12 Navy - Notre Dame Recap
• 2:21 "The Replacements" Revisited
• 4:12 The Longest Day
• 7:13 Taming the Bulls in Tampa
• 11:11 Tulane Preview
• 12:46 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. In our fourth edition of the Navy Blitz, we will actually be covering the Mids' last three games, and the main reason for this is because it's very tough for me to talk about one of their losses, let alone two, without ending on a positive note. So we'll take a quick and I do mean quick look at what went wrong against Notre Dame. After that we'll talk about why I knew the Mids were in trouble against Rice before the game even started. And finally I'll break down the South Florida game and talk about how the team managed to turn things around and get back into the win column. The Mids have just three opponents left and still have an outside chance at the American Conference title game. So please stay with us and I'll tell you exactly what needs to happen. All right, it's great to have you guys with us. Thanks so much for dropping in. I really appreciate you taking the time. All right, let's go ahead and get into this Notre Dame game before I change my mind, and I'm telling you right now, this is not going to be easy for me.

Karl: 1:20

After their convincing win over Charlotte, the Mids got ready to play the Irish, which is easily one of the big marquee games on their schedule. Even better, it would be played in the Meadowlands, a venue where they tend to play very well In 2010,. The team put together one of the best games I've ever seen them play and absolutely rolled Notre Dame 35-17. That was Brian Kelly's first year as head coach, which made it even better. Anyway, the Mids went into this year's game with a lot of confidence. Better Anyway, the Mids went into this year's game with a lot of confidence and, even though they were double-digit underdogs, I believe they could be competitive against the Irish as long as they didn't beat themselves. In fact, I used those very words when I posted to the Navy Sports Nation group Facebook page on game day. The exact quote was regardless of the outcome, I hope the Mids play their best and don't beat themselves. They've got a better than average chance if they can do that. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. The offense simply could not hold onto the ball After only one fumble all season, one which they recovered. The Navy offense turned it over six times, which led to 20 Notre Dame points, and it probably should have been 24, because there was a missed extra point and also a missed field goal that got mixed up in there.

Karl: 2:21

When I saw how quickly things unraveled after Horvath scored to make it 14-7, all I could think about was a scene from the movie the Replacements. Now, I'm betting that most of you are familiar with this movie that starred Gene Hackman and Keanu Reeves. I'm not saying it was one of the best Hollywoods ever turned out, but I did think it was pretty entertaining. This film was kind of a fictionalized account of the 1987 NFL players' strike. The league owners figured they could save their season by using replacement players. The main team in the movie was the Washington Sentinels. It was made up of former players with varying degrees of experience cops, guys doing time, bouncers, shipyard workers and even a compulsive gambler.

Karl: 2:59

Anyway, there's this one scene that takes place after the Sentinels blow an opportunity to win their first game. Coach Jimmy McGinty, who's played by Gene Hackman, has the team in the locker room and his goal is to get them talking about their fears, and after a few players raise their hands and start going off about spiders and bees and other such nonsense. Coach McGinty is getting a little bit impatient. Finally, he says is there anyone here who's afraid of anything besides insects? And that's when Shane Falco, who is played by Keanu Reeves, raises his hand. He's the team's quarterback who basically cracked under the pressure in their first loss and he just says one word quicksand. And when he's asked what he means, falco says okay, you're out there playing and you think everything is going fine, and then one thing goes wrong, and then another, and then another. You try to fight back, but the harder you fight, the deeper you sink until you can't move, you can't breathe because you're in over your head like quicksand. Now I know that might be a little overly dramatic, but seriously, I immediately thought of that scene when everything started going sideways for the mids against the Irish. It was just a tough afternoon all the way around.

Karl: 4:06

When the dust settled, the mids were on the wrong end of a 52-14 score. Now they had to put that game in their rearview mirror and get ready for another one on the road against Rice. This was a team that was better than their 2-5 record, partly because they picked up EJ Warner through the transfer portal in the spring. And if you're paying attention, yes, that's the same EJ Warner who played for Temple last year Kurt Warner's kid and all he did was shred the Navy defense for over 400 yards and four touchdowns. The Owls defeated the Mids 32-18. And, by the way, how weird is it that Warner transferred to a school with the same nickname? And here's another fun fact for you there are only three teams in Division One football that have an owl as their mascot, and all three of them are in the American Conference Temple Rice, and the third team is Florida Atlantic.

Karl: 4:55

Okay, I'm getting a little off topic here. The Navy Rice game was on ESPN2. So I go to tune it in. And there was this weather delay. It turns out there were some major thunderstorms in the area, no big deal. It's Texas and that happens even in the fall. And by the way, in case you are wondering about the rules, whenever lightning is observed, the NCAA rules state that teams cannot resume play until more than 40 minutes after the last sound of thunder and last flash of lightning. And it's got to be more than six miles away. So I'm thinking, okay, no problem, it shouldn't be too long before they get started. Yeah right, that delay lasted over five hours and at one point they did actually start the game, but less than three minutes in it was suspended again, and that's when my superstitious nature started to get the best of me.

Karl: 5:39

This game had all the indications of an upset. Navy was on the road after an embarrassing loss and this weather delay had to be tough to handle mentally. Now I get it. Rice was also dealing with the same set of conditions, but they were the home team. You know they're on their own home turf, they were in familiar surroundings, so I don't think they're all that stressed, and on top of that they weren't even favored to win, so there wasn't a whole lot of pressure on them. In short, the game was a disaster. Horvath threw an interception on Navy's first offensive play, rice scored and followed that up with another quick touchdown and before you know it, navy had spotted the Owls' 14 points. And that actually turned out to be the difference in the game. It was 17-7 at halftime, but the best the offense could do in the second half was put up one fourth quarter field goal and the final score was 24-10. Statistically, the Mids were held to 140 yards rushing. They actually had 80 yards more than that against Notre Dame. It was just an ugly loss, and it put a serious dent in their chances of getting to the American Conference title game. Of course, now, my superstitious nature was just running wild.

Karl: 6:41

In 2017, the Mids won their first five games. Then they dropped six of their last seven, including a second straight against Army. The season did end on a positive note, though, because the Mids blew out Virginia 49-7 in their bowl game. Now, the big difference between 2016 and this year was that back then, the season went off the rails because the mids were just decimated by injuries. That hasn't been a big issue this year, you know, knock on wood. So, whatever the problem was, the coaching staff needed to fix it, and they didn't have a whole lot of time to do it either.

Karl: 7:13

Next up for the mids was South Florida, and they were another dangerous team on Navy's schedule. The Bulls were coming off two straight wins against Alabama, birmingham and Florida Atlantic, and it looked like their offense was starting to find a rhythm too, because they put up a total of 79 points in those two games. As far as the Navy coaching staff goes, they continue to emphasize the team's start fast, finish strong mindset against South Florida, and when the Mids took the field at Raymond James Stadium, they managed to do just that. The Bulls won the toss and chose to defer. So Horvath and the offense had a chance to make a statement right away, and it only took them four plays to do it.

Karl: 7:49

After picking up a quick first down, the Mids had the ball first and 10 from their own 40. And that's when Eli Heidenreich took a pitch from Horvath, turned the corner and outran everybody for a 60-yard touchdown. The guy that sprung him was his fellow snipe, Brandon Chatman. I mean, you talk about putting your body on the line. Chapman had the responsibility of blocking South Florida linebacker Jhalyn Shuler, who, by the way, is 6'3" 220. Chapman is 5'9" 167, so he's giving up 6 inches and 53 pounds, and all I can say is you know this, kid Chatman, he's got no fear. The law of gross tonnage definitely went out there and Shuler just bowled him over, but he really got tangled up with him in the process and that gave Heidenreich the time he needed to run past him and after that he was off to the races.

Karl: 8:35

Chapman got a touchdown of his own on the mids next series. After a Kyle Jacob interception, the offense took over on their own 21 and slowly worked their way down the field. Nearly seven minutes later they earned the Bulls 20, and that's when Horvath took a snap out of the shotgun and pitched it to Chapman on the near side. Again, the downfield blocking was excellent and Chatman sprinted around the right side and into the end zone. In fact I'm not even sure anybody touched him. So less than one quarter into the game Navy was already up 14 to nothing, and it's just what the team needed.

Karl: 9:05

From there the defense really started to make its presence felt. Here's a recap of what happened. The next six times South Florida got the ball Punt. Then they turned to Grover on downs, punt, punt, punt, interception, and the four punts were all three and outs. So that satisfied the defense's. Get six metric right there.

Karl: 9:23

Following the interception, horvath was looking to get the offense in position to get a field goal before the half. But on first and 10 from the Bulls 38, coach Cronin came up with a perfect play. So Horvath went back to pass and Alex Teska looked like he was going to stay back and block one of the pass rushers, but he released and looped behind the linebacker and From there Teska had a decision to make. When he caught the ball, there were only seven seconds left on the clock and the Mids had two timeouts left so he could have gone down to give the team a chance to kick a field goal. But when he turned towards the goal line, teska had three receivers blocking in front of him. He just needed to get past one guy, which he did, and from there he cut back behind a couple of blocks by Chapman and tight end Jake Norris. Teska ended up crossing the goal line with two seconds to spare and the Mids had a commanding 21-0 lead at halftime.

Karl: 10:12

The second half proved just as frustrating for the Bulls. They punted the ball twice, turned it over on downs and fumbled it away. They did wind up scoring a touchdown to keep the Navy defense from pitching a shutout, but it was really just a dominating performance all the way around. On offense, the Mids racked up 321 yards rushing, and it was probably the quietest 300 yards plus rushing day that I can remember. No one ran for more than 100 yards. Heidenreich had 84 yards on six Fofana, picked up 75 on 15 touches and Horvath gained 56 yards on 13 attempts. Even Landon Robinson got in on the act and he's a nose guard On special teams, robinson, is the up back in the Navy punt formation.

Karl: 10:55

So the mids are showing punt on a fourth and two from their own 48. And this was early on in the fourth quarter. But then Robinson ended up taking the direct snap and he rolled around the left side for a 34-yard gain and that extended the Mids drive. Then Horvath scored five plays later from 10 yards out to cap off the mid scoring. The final score in the game was 28-7. This was clearly the kind of win that Coach Newberry was looking for heading into this huge game against Tulane.

Karl: 11:17

Basically, the situation now is that Army has locked up a spot in a championship game already. They only have one conference game left and that's against University of Texas, San Antonio. Even if they lose, that's only one conference loss for them. So they'll either play Tulane or Navy, depending on what happens these next two weeks. By the way, in case you're wondering, the Army-Navy game is considered a non-conference game since it takes place after championship week. I think the other thing worth noting is how the scheduling gods smiled on Army this season. Just looking at their conference games, they managed to skate out of playing both Tulane and Memphis, two teams that have 16 wins between them, so the Black Knights definitely lucked out there. It would have been interesting to me to see how they'd have played those two teams during the regular season. Of course, Army may still end up playing Tulane.

Karl: 12:01

If the Green Wave can pick up the win against the Mids, they are favored by a touchdown this Saturday. The last time these two teams played each other was during the COVID year in 2020, and Saturday the last time these two teams played each other was during the COVID year in 2020, and Navy won that one 27-24 down in New Orleans. Tulane is known for tough physical play and their offense is high scoring and very balanced. The Green Wave averaged 41 points, 230 rushing yards and 214 passing yards per contest, so they are the real deal. It's going to take Navy's absolute best effort to win that game and they still need to beat East Carolina on Thanksgiving Friday to earn a spot in the title game. So it won't be easy. But I will say this how cool is it for the team to be in this position now? It's been five years since they've been this close to making the title game, and even if they don't, I can live with it if they can beat Army and bring home the Commander-in-Chief's trophy. That's going to do it for this edition of the Navy Blitz.

Karl: 12:52

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. I just read on the Navy Athletics website that the Tulane game is now sold out, so I'm hoping the crowd can give the mids a little bit of extra energy and motivation, because I'm expecting a real knockdown drag out fight between these two teams. For those of you who can't make it, espn2 will be picking up the broadcast, so that's where I'll be watching. 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.

Karl: 13:26

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.