Deep within the dark, inner recesses of the average Army fan’s mind is the last happy memory of a once proud rivalry with their service academy adversary from Annapolis, the Naval Academy Midshipmen, a 26-17 victory in the final battle at Veteran’s Stadium, in front of then-President George W. Bush mere months after the September 11th terrorist attacks. Since then, our country has engaged itself in two wars, Navy hired a new coach who revamped a depressed program into a quasi national power, Army hired a coach, fired him, hired another one, had him retire, hired another one, fired him too, Justin Timberlake released a song about crying, 50 Cent enjoyed birthdays and hugs in a club and I’ve repeatedly banged my head an immovable objects in reaction to practically every snap during Army-Navy games. It is fairly simple and the record since that December day in 2001 is not pretty; Navy has won seven straight tussles with Army by a combined 274-71. If, during that time, Army were allowed to take one of its games against Navy, choose its highest scoring output pitted against Navy’s lowest, Army would still lose by a field goal. It gets worse, sadly, if Army had scored all 71 of its points in that stretch in the 2002 game, they would’ve only beaten Navy by 13 points. Navy, on the other hand, has been practically unstoppable winning six straight outright commander in chief trophies, 14 straight match-ups against both Army and Air Force. Navy has been to six straight bowl games with a seventh, the 2009 Texas Bowl, upcoming after Saturday’s clash.
Army, on the other hand, has trended in an entirely different and sad direction. Mired in 12 straight losing seasons, Army now faces the real prospect of a 13th, with a faint glimmer of hope that a win over Navy would bring the end to the streak. I have noted previously that a great hope among Army fans would be to never hear the phrase “the first time since 1996” uttered again for a long time (unless the phrase was used like “the first McAda to play for Army since 1996”). It does not help to continue to rehash old news about Army’s downturn this decade; the stories have been told beyond belief at this point.
Overly flowery prose aside, there is some substantive analysis to do for the game. One thing to note upfront, I have a tremendous amount of difficulty putting a lot of weight behind statistical analysis when it comes to a game like this. I do not mean that “throw the records out the window” part either. The overall statistics for both teams are driven by their offenses, it is quite simple. That said, true analysis of Navy’s rushing offensive per carry versus Army’s yards allowed per carry can be difficult to conduct simply because my belief is that those statistics tend to lose value when offenses focus on one strength in particular (two things on this: 1) I know plenty of people will disagree with that and 2) please do not tell me “the triple option is not one-dimensional, how can you say they ‘focus on one strength”; I know that already). Rushing statistics generated out of particular offenses like the flexbone option, Air Forces multiple set option attack, or Rich Rodriguez’s spread rushing attack will more than likely skew statistics in a certain way such that a defense like Army’s that might have good defensive rushing statistics might seem like a good fit to defend the flexbone triple option, when in fact they match up horribly. Take, for example, Army’s team rushing defense stats: Army currently ranks 67th in the country in rushing yards allowed, however they are 59th in yards per carry. These statistics are skewed by the fact that they have played North Texas (a spread team with a solid rushing attack) and VMI a flexbone option team that has had some offensive success on the 1AA level (this blog does not acknowledge the nomenclature of “FCS” or “FBS”, thank you very much). If Army were first in the country in rushing defense, Navy would more than likely rush for a lot of yards so there seems to be no question that their multi-faceted option attack will work with a great amount of success this weekend. 350-400 yards rushing is not out of the question here. The question to me is not “how many yards will Navy get?” it is “how effective will the rushing yards be?” Army really held Air Force down in the first half before a well-timed third quarter pass play and the altitude caught up as Air Force blew open a very tight game. Despite this, Army held Air Force below its season average in rushing offense by over 110 total rushing yards, 20 rushing yards below their next worst rushing performance (Navy) and 1.28 yards per carry below their season average of 4.42 YPC (again, their lowest figure on the season). VMI (a team who runs an option attack more similar to Navy) had sustained rushing success against Army all day, picking up yardage in little chunks combined with four or five well timed big plays. If Army wants to have any chance in this game, they absolutely must be able to hold Navy below its season average in yards per game (nearly 280) and yards per carry (4.79). This means the game plan must be to limit big plays on the outside, force shorter runs on the full back dive and not being susceptible to misdirection (like Paul Johnson’s incredibly well-timed end-around off of a triple option run in the 2006 game that absolutely broke Army’s back in what was a surprisingly close game up to that point). There is no question to me that Navy’s quarterback Ricky Dobbs is perfectly suited to Navy’s offense because of his innate ability to read a defense, use his speed effectively to hit small gaps on midline option and triple option plays, but his ability to create deception in play-action combined with his skill at throwing passes in drop back play calls. He presents a unique challenge that Army has yet to deal with thus far this season. Army’s defense has indeed been able to create havoc for opposing QBs in its double-eagle flex formation, part of why Air Force struggled to create any plays in the first half of their game, however, the majority of Army’s success defensively has come against teams more suited to drop back passing where players like junior defensive end Joshua McNary has been a nightmare all season for opposing offensive tackles. The loss of junior linebacker and team co-captain Stephen Anderson certainly hurts Army’s ability to “read” the option defensively. Army must create disruption in Navy’s timing first and foremost through a surge by Victor Ugenyi and it is imperative for linebacker Andrew Rodriguez to have a good day in pursuit of both toss-sweep plays and to make correct reads when Navy runs outside options.
Offensively, it almost feels trite at this point to mention that Army has struggled in its first year in the Rich Ellerson era. Last season’s attempt at option football was not a true foray into the world of the spread option that Navy’s fans have come to love over the years. In the process of winning three games, Army’s reliance on fullback Colin Mooney became entirely predictable to the point that Navy dared Army to test them outside in last year’s Army-Navy game by loading the box and forcing quarterback Chip Bowden outside where Navy’s defensive speed took over the game. While this year has presented some measure of hope, there is little doubt that Army has faced severe growing pains as it does not yet have a level of speed on the outside in its slotbacks that Navy has been able to use to its advantage over the years. Furthermore, to this point, Army’s offensive line has not created enough of a surge for dives by the “B-Back” or counter runs by slotbacks. On the season, Navy has only allowed on average 127 yards per game passing, an average of 4.16 ypc and as previously mentioned held Air Force to its second lowest rushing output of the season with 183 total rushing yards on 3.45 ypc. Navy’s outlier in this category is their game against Temple where they allowed a staggering 8 yards per carry. Temple’s offense is clearly different than Army’s or Air Force’s considering neither have freshman running back sensation Bernard Pierce nor the same style of run blocking, so a fair tendency is to throw those statistics out the window and look at the fact that Navy has a pretty good defense against the run and has done very well against a complicated option attack. While Trent Steelman now is probably better than Chip Bowden then, Army does not have Colin Mooney’s dive runs to help take the pressure off of the outside game and Army’s offensive line has been vulnerable to disruption of their timing through post-snap penetration by team’s like VMI which presents the distinct possibility that this will be a very long day for Army in the rushing department. Steelman’s passing has shown notable strides, but beyond the “throw super high to Villanueva and pray” play call, the creativity has been lacking in the passing department this season. Going forward, this will likely not be the case as Army is dealing with the simultaneous challenge of a plebe qb starting every game in his first season at the academy, a 6’10” offensive tackle playing his first ever season at wide receiver, a largely brand new offensive line and slotbacks and receivers learning an entirely new and complex offense where a premium is placed on their ability to block, not always their route-running and pass-catching capabilities. Perhaps with a three week break between their last game and the Navy game, the coaching staff has been able to install and work through new plays and formations, right now, it seems as though that will not happen. Passing will be crucial for Army against Navy but facing a defense that has averaged just over 200 yards per game allowed, with only Notre Dame and Hawaii really posting serious outliers above 300 yards passing against the Mids, I’m not betting my collection of Britney Spears memorabilia that Army will control the game through the air to set up the run.
So where does that leave us? Either the season ends frustratingly in an 8th straight defeat to our hated rivals or we pull a pretty stunning upset to finally break this gosh-darned streak and we get another chance to shove it in the face of the MAC refs who stole the first Temple game (don’t bother arguing with me on this, please). Either way, we will review the season over the next few weeks, so this is not the forum for a lengthy review of some of the frustrations with the season thus far. No matter what happens, there truly have been some positive strides for a program that has gone 30-108 since the beginning of the 1997 season. No one will question Army fans; urge to yell or go crazy if Army loses, but let’s not lose sight of the strides the team has made. The worst case scenario is that Navy comes out and blows Army away early with no chance for recovery; the best case is that this becomes like the Navy-Air Force game this year, a low scoring, largely defense-driven affair ending in a close game coming down to the last moments (or overtime). It is hard for me to believe that we are in for a repeat of 2002 (or 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 or 2008), but there is not yet much evidence to support that this game will turn into the second version of the 1996 game. I think Army is still two years away from being competitive on any sort of level with Navy head to head.
Three things I want to happen:
1) Steelman with 350 total yards and two rushing TDs
2) McNary and Ugenyi with 18 combined tackles and 5 tackles for loss
3) Army 17, Navy 10
Three things I think will happen
1) Ricky Dobbs has 400 total yards and 3 rushing TDs
2) Navy holds Army under 300 yards of total offense and 200 yards rushing
3) Navy 31, Army 13
GO ARMY, BEAT NAVY!
Tags: Army-Navy 2009, Navy
