December 4, 2024 • 58 mins
Welcome to Navy Sports Central, the official podcast of the Navy Sports Nation!
It is December, and that means Army week is right around the corner. Join me, Karl Darden and Navy Sports superfan Doug Conkey, as we break down the Mids solid win over East Carolina, and discuss the impact of the transfer portal and name, image and licensing (NIL) deals on college football.
We'll also get you caught up on the Women's Basketball team. Zanai Barnett-Gay, Kate Samson and Kyah Smith have them playing at a high level, while freshman Mary Gibbons has made an immediate impact with her long range shooting.
Both Navy Swimming & Diving teams head to West Point for an absolutely crucial dual meet. We'll tell you who to look out for as the Mids play catch up in the annual Army - Navy Star series.
We've got all that plus our Question of the Day and Mid Watch segments, so please stay with us for what promises to be a great conversation.
Related Links:
We want your answer to our Question of the Day. Here is the one for this episode:
Navy's record in bowl games is 12-11-1. What is their longest winning streak? Is it
A. 2
B. 3
C. 4
D. None of the above
You can answer by sending us a text message using the link at the top of the show notes. I'll also post the question on our group Facebook Page.
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- Seven In Music (Intro)
- Alexiaction (Deep Dive)
- Loka Music (Deep Dive Pt. 2 Lead In)
- Artlss (Question of the Day Lead In)
- Cinematic Alex (Closeout Music)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Karl (00:14):
Hi everybody, my name is Karl Darden and I'd like to
welcome and thank all of you forjoining us today on Navy Sports
Central.
I'm your host and this is theofficial podcast of the Navy
Sports Nation where we take adeeper dive into Navy sports.
It is December and that meansthe Army-Navy game is right
around the corner.
This year's contest should beespecially interesting, with
both teams headed for bowl games.
Let's just hope the Mids canwind up singing second when they
(00:35):
score off against the BlackKnights on December 14th.
We'll talk a little bit aboutthe run-up to that game in our
Deep Dive segment with today'sguest.
We've also got our sportsupdate question of the day and
mid-watch segments, and I alsohave an exciting announcement
about a new feature to the showcoming in 2025.
So please stick around becausewe are just getting started.
All right, it's great to haveyou guys with us.
(01:02):
Thanks so much for dropping in.
I really appreciate you takingthe time Before we get into the
sports update's great to haveyou guys with us.
Thanks so much for dropping in.
I really appreciate you takingthe time Before we get into the
sports update.
I wanted to bring you all up tospeed on some additions I'm
looking at making to the showduring the upcoming year, and
this is being done with the ideaof getting more of the Navy
Sports Nation involved in thepodcast.
The only thing that won'tchange is the audio-only format
being just a one-personoperation.
Adding video editing to theworkflow isn't really what I'm
(01:24):
looking for, but I think itcould be very interesting to
host a live stream every sooften.
It would be pretty much like aroundtable format that includes
two or three panelists.
The idea would be to discusswhat is relevant to Navy sports
at the time, and I would make anannouncement well in advance
letting everyone know when it is, so they would have the
opportunity to engage with thepanel.
The live stream would also berecorded and I would later edit
(01:49):
the audio so that it could bereleased later as a podcast
episode.
I floated the idea about a weekago on the group Facebook page
as well as my class page, andthe response was pretty positive
.
So I've decided to move forwardwith the planning of the first
live stream, and that willlikely take place after the
holidays.
Please stay tuned for more infoas those plans begin to fall
into place.
Now let's go ahead and jump intoour sports update, and we'll
start with the women'sbasketball team.
They got out of the gatesquickly and currently have a 6-2
record.
There are a handful ofnon-conference games left before
(02:11):
they start their Patriot Leagueschedule right after the new
year, and that's when things arereally going to get cranked up
Now.
I want to remind you that thereare no seniors on this year's
squad, but the group they dohave has been pretty
battle-tested.
Point guard Zanai Barnett-Gayis picking up right where she
left off.
As the mid's number one scorer,she's averaging nearly 18
points per game and also leadsthe team in rebounds and assists
.
Meanwhile, junior center KateSamson is making nearly 50% of
(02:35):
her shots from the field.
One newcomer that hascontributed early is freshman
Mary Gibbons.
She had a breakout game againstWagner a couple of weeks ago,
putting up 17 points on 7 of 11shooting, and she also connected
three times from long range.
And finally, sophomore KyahSmith continues to be a factor,
just like she was last season.
Smith is third on the team inscoring at just about 10 points
(02:56):
per game, and she was the otherhalf of a very productive
backcourt last year, along withher classmate Barnett- Gay.
So I'm really looking forwardto watching them this year to
see what they can do.
We're going to find out a lotmore about this team when
conference play begins, but I'vewatched the highlights from
most of their games and so far Ican tell you that they play
some really tough defense andare very smooth in transition.
The Mids were 9-9 in thePatriot League last year and I
(03:19):
think they've got a really goodchance on improving on that
record, despite being such ayoung squad.
Next up we've got Navy Swimmingand Diving, where both the men's
and the women's teams have beenpreparing for their star meet
against Army.
This meet will be carried onESPN Plus as usual, so if you
happen to subscribe, be sure tocheck it out.
If you do, you're going to wantto keep an eye out for
sophomore Ben Irwin.
(03:39):
He had a monster year as afreshman and hasn't shown any
sign of slowing down.
Irwin swims the 100 and 200backstroke and he won both of
those events a couple weeks agoat the West Virginia Invite,
leading the mids to a firstplace finish.
The women came in third.
In that same event, sophomoreElla Habjan and junior Lauren
Walsh posted a couple of wins.
Habian got to the wall first inthe 100 backstroke, while Walsh
(04:01):
took the 100 breaststroke.
The West Virginia Invite was themids' final competition before
they take on Army this weekend,and I've got to say that if the
mids don't take both stars,their chances of winning the
series this year become veryslim.
Right now the Black Knightshave a 7-2 lead and that means
they're halfway to the magicnumber 14 to clinch the
competition.
If they pick up two more winsbefore we really get into the
(04:23):
winter sports schedule, theyonly need to come up with five
more out of the remaining 15contests to seal the deal.
And no matter how much of anoptimist I am, there's no
denying that if Army gets tothat point, the math looks way
better for them than it does forthe mids.
But I will say that if thereare two teams who have shown
that they can deliver when itmatters most, it's Navy swimming
and diving, and I feel prettygood about them being able to
(04:44):
come through again.
Okay, there are two more thingsI want to leave you all with
before we get to our deep divesegment.
First, the Navy water polo teamjust completed another solid
season.
They got to the Mid-AtlanticConference Championship game for
the second straight year, butthe only problem was that number
one seeded and undefeated Fordham University was standing
in their way of a league title.
The Mids battled all the waybut eventually fell short 11-6.
(05:08):
Still, it was an outstandingyear for the team.
Sophomore Kiefer Black andfreshman Ryan Irwin were named
first team all-conference andsophomore Billy Zech picked up
second team honors, whilefreshman goalkeeper Ryan Munch
was named rookie of thetournament.
So congratulations to the Navywater polo team and another
great season.
(05:28):
And finally, we're going to goahead and finish up with the
wrestling team.
Cary Kolat had some gaps tofill after last year's seniors
graduated and one wrestler whohas stepped up immediately has
been sophomore Danny Wask.
At the Navy Classic a coupleweeks ago he upset the number
six ranked wrestler at 174pounds from Nebraska, scoring a
10-5 decision that got him thetop spot on the podium.
It was also the secondconsecutive Navy Classic title
for Wask, who was named the EIWAWrestler of the Week.
(05:51):
Next up for the mids is the LasVegas Invitational and that
gets started on Friday.
So there you go.
This edition of the SportsUpdate is now complete.
Next up is our Deep Divesegment.
So, in the words of the lategreat Stuart Scott, please stick
and stay.
Okay, welcome back to NavySports Central.
(06:22):
And joining me today is areally good friend and classmate
, Doug Conkey, and I wanted togive you his bio really quickly
before we bring him on.
Doug was a member of the golfteam while we were at the
academy and after graduation hebecame a Navy pilot and flew the
A-7 Corsair and the F-A-18Hornet.
Following a successful Navycareer, doug moved on to local
(06:42):
politics, serving as a two-timecounty commissioner for Clay
County which, by the way, isjust south of Jacksonville,
florida and now he's serving asthe intergovernmental
coordinator for the St JohnsRiver Water Management District.
Okay, so that basically getsyou up to speed.
Now, doug is what I would calla Navy sports super fan.
I mean, we've talked on thephone several times about not
just a football program butquite a few of the other Navy
(07:03):
sports.
So, doug, welcome to the show.
It's great to have you on.
Doug (07:06):
Karl, thanks for allowing me to be on.
You're a great show.
That's really helped the classand the sports fanatics like
myself get in touch with what'sgoing on, and so just a pleasure
to be here today.
Karl (07:18):
Yeah, and this is going to be and, by the way, for those
of you guys out there listening,this is what I'm looking to do,
that's a little bit new for2025 is pull in a lot more folks
that are part of the NavySports Nation Facebook group.
So I think it'll be kind of funto have some fans like Doug on
the show, in addition to ourstandard format where we just
have a guest, and my goal todaywas actually to pull in a couple
(07:39):
more folks, but unfortunately,being the Thanksgiving holiday,
we were not able to get them on,so this will just be a standard
guest format today.
But we do have severalquestions from the group itself
that we can answer as well.
So, Doug, what I'd like to dotoday is talk a little bit about
the game yesterday against EastCarolina and get your take on
(07:59):
that.
But first let me ask you whenwe were talking on the phone a
couple of weeks ago as themidids were getting ready to
play the Pirates, we covered acouple of different things, so I
was wondering if you couldrecap some of the parts of the
conversation we had for everyoneout there.
Doug (08:17):
I was thinking in the big picture, we always want to win,
but also in this picture,army-navy is the preeminent goal
of the year and especially thisyear.
Also, the winner is going toget the CIC.
So this game was a game thatyou wanted to win so we could
(08:41):
get our mojo.
We've had a rough month againstsome really tough opponents
probably the some of thetoughest opponents, uh, during
the course of the year and it.
So we're at a time going intothe biggest game.
You really want the team to geta level of mojo back and sense
of confidence, but also havingyour starting quarterback healed
.
So if he's not 100, there wasno reason to put him in.
(09:04):
And in the big picture wasbuild a game plan right from
scratch, knowing Braxton wasgoing to be the starter and
Chronic is very good at buildinga game plan around the talent
level he's got on the field andthey did that.
And as Braxton shows histalents that they always speak
(09:24):
highly of and he's a differentlevel of player strong arm with
those long legs, you know he canbe pretty quick, as we saw and
they just wanted to make themone dimensional, which they were
able to do, which allowed themto kind of focus on how to keep
(09:47):
them in a box, which they didand, as we've seen, making
mistakes and their coach kind oftalked about it afterwards.
You know we made a couple ofmistakes in our first two drives
.
That totally changed thecomplexion for us, because now
we allowed them to getcomfortable and implement their
(10:08):
game plan.
They came out of halftime, theyhit all cylinders, braxton, got
comfortable, they startedscoring and then they made us
get out of our game plan foreverybody to kind of rally
around one another, show whatthey can do and also keep the
(10:28):
starting quarterback on ahealing process.
And the head coach made itquite clear that he will be
ready to go for the Army game.
It's just they just didn't wantto risk bringing him back
prematurely.
Ecu is a physical team we knowthat from past years playing
them and so they had a plan.
(10:51):
It was able to be executed toperfection, almost, you could
say Stats really showed how manytimes does Navy come out of the
half down zero to three andthen put 34 points on the board
in the second half.
So that was very good, right,right, and I think we came out
(11:14):
of it in good health.
And it was interesting too,because you're seeing some
players that we're not used toseeing, who have risen up during
the course of the season.
Willis is a good example.
He was a beast on the line,that freshman linebacker who
blitzed and tackled.
Karl (11:32):
Yeah, yeah.
Doug (11:33):
So I mean you're like, okay, that was early in the game
and they're putting a freshmanlinebacker in.
So their game plan for us is toplay as many folks as possible,
that in a tough game they cankeep people fresh Right right.
And it's good that he's reallydeveloping that kind of depth to
(11:54):
be able to have the confidenceto do that.
So it was very good.
And now, as you heard Jacob sayduring his interview, we'll
celebrate for 24 hours.
But make no mistake, and thesetwo senior captains, if you ever
watch them interview after agame, they're about as focused
(12:15):
as I've ever seen and they saidwe're going to eat, sleep and
breathe Army for the next twoweeks.
Right, right.
Karl (12:24):
Yeah, that's so true.
And just to kind of speak toyour point around how that game
evolved, I was kind of lookingback at some of the ESPN stats
and one thing I was going tokind of look at is how the flow
of the possessions goes.
So in the first half Navy'spossessions went like this Downs
, punt, punt, fumble, punt,downs, missed field goal.
(12:47):
And, by the way, that missedfield goal obviously was like
inside of extra point range.
So that was reallydisheartening.
And then you turn around andlook at the second half and it
was TD, punt, td, td, td, td andthen end of game.
So there's a pretty clearturnaround there in terms of,
just to your point, they weremoving the ball fine in the
(13:09):
first half, but just making theright play at the right time and
just executing all the wayuntil they crossed the goal line
.
That was a clear differencemaker.
And speaking to your point aboutgetting shut out and then
coming back and scoring allthose points, I was thinking
about that yesterday as well.
I'm thinking, man, when was thelast time they got shut out and
they came back and scored over30?
And I said, well, I still haveto look that up, but I do know
(13:30):
the last time they came back andscored 27.
And that was four years agoagainst Tulane, because that was
in the COVID year and Iremember they were down 24 zip
and ended up winning on a lastminute, on the last second field
goal by Bijan Nichols that hekicked through right as time
expired.
So that's the last time theyput up at least 27 points.
Doug (13:51):
So you bring up an excellent point is that even
even the announcers were stunnedwhen Reithman, who is one of
the best punters in the country,didn't hit such a good punt.
But the missing, the field goal, that's been kind of an issue
for us this year.
Yeah, and if so, if I had anachilles, if I had an achilles
heel right now at that point fornavy armenian navy football
(14:13):
games.
As much as we would like toblow them out like we did when
johnson's first year, theytypically come down to close
games, right.
That close game typically meansthe field goal kicker is going
to have tremendousresponsibilities and pressure if
it's a game-winning opportunity, and obviously he had an injury
(14:33):
earlier in the year.
But I don't know if there'scompetition that's to be had on
who's going to be the starting,because field goals do make a
difference in the Army-Navy game.
Yeah for sure.
Karl (14:45):
Now looking at Kirkwood's numbers, that missed field goal
was his first from that close.
He was 2 of 2 this season from20 to 29 yards before that kick,
and he's made 2 of 4 from 40 to49 yards with a long of 46.
So that comes to only sevenattempts all year, and the main
reason for that is because themids have been pretty consistent
once they get inside the redzone.
(15:06):
The one thing I will say isthat you don't see too many
field goal tries from the righthash mark from that close in.
That's a pretty sharp angle butnevertheless, I'm sure it's one
that even Kirkwood will tellyou that he needs to be ready
for, no matter what.
By the way, L ance Gossett isthe only other kicker on the
roster besides the punters andand he handles the kickoffs.
Um, maybe the coaches go withthe competition these next two
(15:26):
weeks, or maybe not uh.
Either way, there's going to bea lot of attention paid to
sharpening up the field goalefficiency between now and uh
December 14th.
All right, so we did talk aboutuh braxton woodson's uh play
and and, like you were saying, Imean clearly a different uh
quarterback in terms of just hisbuild.
You know how he moves on thefield.
Compared to Horvath, I wouldsay that you know you're looking
(15:48):
at the two of them.
Horvath is probably the quickerand the more elusive of the two
, but I would say in terms ofstraight line speed they're
probably about the same.
I might even give the edge toWoodson because of his legs and
how long they are, because whenhe broke that 38 yarder up the
middle once he got past thatfirst line there, was nobody
going to catch him, yeah, I mean.
Doug (16:08):
So that was good for him, because you think about it, when
he's put in, uh, as the second,because blake's got to come out
for an injury or whatever he'strying, he has to implement a
plan that was put in for Blakeand that's what everybody's used
to, whereas in this case he hasshown that if they have a
backup plan and this is going tobe the if we have to put him in
(16:30):
as the backup, we can flex tothis plan and we know he's
comfortable running it Right.
You know that's always toughcoming in the middle of the game
where he where he's had to doit, and it's kind of tough,
whereas now chronic now knows.
Okay, here are the plays I wantto use if he's in.
Karl (16:53):
Yep, right, okay.
So the other thing I wanted tomention very briefly is a little
bit about this run up to the,the army Navy game.
I mean obviously the, the.
The preparation is going to bethere in terms of the coaching
staff and so forth, and and theplayers are going to do what
they need to do to get ready.
You've seen Army play a littlebit more than me.
I mean, I watched a fair amountof the Notre Dame game, but
I've not really sat down andbroken that team down, besides
(17:14):
the fact that I know that theyhave a new OC and he is still
using the triple option.
It's a slightly differentversion.
I think it's probably closer totheir base than what we've base
, than what Navy has been doing.
But give me your take on whatyou see from that team.
I know they are heavilyquarterback-driven as well.
(17:35):
So what are your thoughts onthe Black Knights?
Doug (17:39):
Well, obviously, taking nothing away being 9-0, going
into the Notre Dame game isimpressive, I mean, it speaks
volumes.
So you know, they did at thebeginning try some of that.
Like, what we've done is goneto the wing tee, which is
modified, a hybrid of the tripleoption, but they got frustrated
(18:02):
, I believe.
So Munkin just went.
We're just going right back tothe base, we're just and he's
done very good building thatfoundation.
I mean, you watch thatoffensive line, uh, the
quarterbacks, 220, and they justmarch and push people down the
field three, four, five yards ata clip and they take, they just
(18:22):
wear you out, keep the the keepthe ball in their hands.
I've just watched them andthat's what kind of worries me,
you know, because notre dame hasthe power.
They said, okay, army's prettymuch against us, is going to be
one-dimensional, and and theyjust, and they just line up some
bruisers that we are.
Ultimately, we know all tootytoo well.
(18:42):
Every time the quarterback wasrunning he didn't get hit by one
, but he got hit by three guys.
He's a beast that offensiveline is.
My worry is and I'm sure theywill come up with a game plan is
how do we line up with theexpectation that they're not
just going to push their waydown the field three and four
(19:05):
yards down there.
How do we stop that?
And then at the same time, haveenough guys, because you know
they'll throw that wrinkle playin there.
You don't want to get burned,uh, by that.
So I'll be curious to see howwe line up against them to kind
of just not get them comfortablewith, enforce them much like
(19:27):
they did with east carolina.
If, if we know, army is goingto be kind of one-dimensional,
how do we?
We're good at stopping the run,but that offensive line they
got is you know they're, they'rebruisers, uh, and that's what.
And then in the quarterback,mean, he's like the quarterback
we had what five, six years ago?
(19:49):
The kid, the local kid out ofAnnapolis, that you know, runs
through you as opposed to aroundyou, but you know that does
wear you out.
So, leading up to it, they gotNotre Dame, they got UTSA today,
uh, and they got tulane, whichI'm sure is going to have a chip
on their shoulder after losingat home to memphis in the aec.
(20:11):
Now, if they have to go to army, that could change things too,
because army is used to playingin the cold.
I bet you they're not used todown in new orleans playing in
potentially snow and 20 degrees,right, and it forces you to be
one dimensional.
Karl (20:27):
Yeah, that will be interesting.
And the one thing that I wasthinking about as it relates to
that army game is, you know,looking at the offense, maybe
kind of going back to theirroots with the triple and
everything.
My thinking is that CoachVolker has done a really good
(20:48):
job, even with programs thathave, I mean, where we've been
overmatched on the offensiveline versus defensive line.
I mean, this past game was agood example.
You look at Memphis, that'sanother good example, but he's
figured out well.
The Memphis game might not bethe best example because they
scored 44 points, but still hedid enough.
(21:09):
So my biggest thing is allright.
I think that Coach Volker canput together a plan that at
least minimizes the impact ofArmy's quarterback Bryson Daily,
and that scheme willundoubtedly target the offensive
line too.
I mean, it's got to besomething that keeps them off
balance.
Now, whether or not they can dothat for every single play
remains to be seen.
(21:29):
So that's why the onus comesback to the offense and then
just being able to execute atevery possible opportunity.
Because, like you said, I meanevery possession is gold and
it's going to be said.
I mean every possession is goldand, uh, it's going to be uh, I
think it's just going to be areally, really tough battle from
start to finish.
Um come a couple of weeks fromnow in um in Washington DC.
Doug (21:50):
And it's.
You know, it's easy for us tosit here and say, well, you know
, navy should just keep theplaybook wide open, uh.
But as we've known that, thepressure in anything Army, Army-
Navy I don't care if it'stiddly, winks or the A rmy -
Navy game, uh is so high thecoach is always reticent to get
(22:10):
out of a game plan or dosomething that if it didn't go
right, what were you thinking,you know?
But I think Cronic's got apretty wide open opportunity to
kind of keep them off, like Iwas thinking, just send Kent
deep every play that's going topull two defenders with him.
There's two defenders goingdownfield.
Now you get.
(22:31):
Maybe you can spread it outwith others Because I guarantee
you, with him they're going tosay we cannot let Kent get
behind us or it could be a toughday.
Karl (22:42):
Right, right, and the nice thing is this year as well.
I mean, the team has got somany other weapons that they can
kind of spread it around, andthey did a really good job of
that on Saturday.
Okay, before we move on, I'dlike to get to a few questions
that some of you sent in throughour group Facebook page.
The first one comes fromMichael Reed, and he was asking
(23:02):
about this whole shoulder shrugtouchdown celebration.
He says, hey, give me thebackstory on that.
I want a full explanation.
So, mike, here's what I foundout, and in fact, it was tough
for me to go back and find theinterview.
Okay, but I do remember watchingone of the games and I was
watching the postgame and Ibelieve it was Luke Slabaugh,
who works for Navy SportsInformation.
(23:23):
He was interviewing either EliHeidenreich or Alex Tecza, and
whichever player he was talkingto said hey, that's just our way
of saying hey, no big deal,this is what we're supposed to
be doing, you know and I thoughtthat was really funny because
the original shoulder shrug forthose of you who who follow NBA
basketball and did 30 years ago.
(23:45):
You know, the first time I eversaw somebody do that was Michael
Jordan, and one of the playoffgames against and it was an NBA
finals, I think it was in 92against Portland, but he was
just going off.
I mean, not that that's unusualfor MJ, but there's just a
couple of ridiculous shots.
He was hitting in a row and atone point he looked over at the
guys calling the game and justshrugged his shoulders as
finishing third and for a whilethey were undefeated.
(24:07):
I think that that's their wayof saying look, this is not a
big deal for us.
We should be doing this all thetime.
(24:27):
So, mike, I hope that answersyour question.
That's just what I rememberfrom the interview when Luke
Slabaugh was talking to eitherEli Heidenreich or Alex Tecza.
Doug (24:43):
Tecza does it all the time .
I saw eli do it.
Tecza, if you noticed, he'sgot that swagger when he goes in
the end zone.
It's just like what I call.
He's very, it's a showman.
And he, and he starts it withthe, you know, the shoulder
shrug right, right, uh, becauseyou always see the riffs are
kind of watching him, you know,so he doesn't cross the line in
the celebration.
And then Eli did it yesterday.
So I was like okay, justinteresting.
Karl (25:05):
Okay, the next question we have comes from Maura Kent,
who's Nathan Kent's mom, andshe's been on the show a couple
of times.
So Maura, thanks for sendingthis question in.
She wants to know a little bitmore about Jackson Gutierrez,
who was the Navy third stringquarterback who came in when
Braxton had to step out for alittle bit after he got hit late
out of bounds.
So here's the info on him.
He is obviously a freshman andhe's from San Antonio, texas.
(25:28):
So those of you who rememberRam Vela from all those years
back with the game against NotreDame, he was from San Antonio
as well, but he went to John JayHigh School and actually played
four sports, not just three.
Normally you hear about highschool athletes playing a sport
in the fall, winter and spring.
Gutierrez lettered in football,basketball, baseball and track.
(25:50):
So I'm trying to figure out howthat worked.
Apparently, you know theyprobably played baseball and
track during the same season andhe had some sort of deal worked
out with the coaches of bothteams.
But anyway, he was alsorecruited to Army and in a
second you're going to see whyhe's a very, very good dual
threat quarterback.
In high school, his senior year, he was the conference MVP and
(26:11):
he threw for 1,722 yards and 15touchdowns and at the same time
he rushed for over 1,000, 1,089to be exact and he scored 19
times.
So, interestingly, he came froma system that basically did not
take snaps under center, and Ithink I remember hearing Blake
talk a little bit about thatwhen he was being interviewed
(26:33):
pregame I think it was a coupleof days ago and as they were
talking about getting JacksonGutierrez ready, they were
saying that yeah, he's nevertaken a snap under center until
he showed up here.
So a lot of times you know,people kind of discount that,
but it is kind of a big deal,especially when you're not used
to that.
I mean, you got your handsunder center there and that ball
comes back.
It just gets fired back by thecenter and if your fingers and
(26:56):
hands aren't in the rightposition, you could get jammed
fingers and so forth and thatjust doesn't feel too good.
So when I look at how Gutierrezperformed yesterday, obviously
he did have the fumble, so thatwas kind of a drag, but he ran
the ball fairly well fivecarries for 20 yards and got him
right down to the goal lineuntil they just couldn't quite
punch it in there, but again,he's a freshman, he's got plenty
(27:17):
of time.
Punch it in there, but againhe's a freshman, he's got plenty
of time.
But he definitely has the skillsets and clearly Army thought
so too, because they heavilyrecruited him and luckily we
were able to have him come toAnnapolis.
So, maura, that's the info Icould find out on Jackson
Gutierrez.
And that brings us to our lastquestion, which is one that is
probably top of mind for mostNavy fans right now, and that is
(27:37):
how is Blake Horvath doingphysically?
I would say that, based onCoach Newberry's response
yesterday, I feel pretty goodabout him being ready to go in
two weeks.
He's undergoing treatment everysingle day and they're just
going to be really smart withhim, and luckily he's not the
kind of guy who necessarilyneeds constant reps and so forth
to stay fresh.
(27:58):
I mean, he's got a football IQthat's off the charts and I
think as long as he can, youknow, get right on Saturday,
we've got a really good shot.
So your thoughts, doug?
Doug (28:10):
Yes, I mean and and coach called it and think also think
of it as you know, Navy orservice Academy, but maybe, from
our experience, is a little bitdifferent than I think maybe
some other of the civiliancolleges, in that when there's
an injury, the doctors are notonly worried about the kid and
(28:32):
his being able to play, butthey're protecting an asset that
is, eventually, they have tomake sure he is able to graduate
and function in the fleet.
So, if they see things that no,we need to protect this, and a
lot of the guys who've had toretire because of concussions,
that's the doc saying you'redone, at this point in time,
(28:54):
we're going to save your assets,your body, to make sure you can
be a qualified officer.
So, in this case, your assets,your body, to make sure you can
be a, you know, a qualifiedofficer.
So in this case though, youknow, at the army Navy game, big
one, and he just wasn't ahundred percent, and and they
just they didn't want toaggravate it in any way, and if
(29:15):
it, what was going to be toutedas a very physical game against
ECU, as they have been in thepast, and they said, well, like
we said, yes, you want to win.
But it's more important, we gel, let's build a game plan.
And you showed because all yearthey've been touting in their
post-game comments and duringthe week interviews, the talents
(29:38):
of Braxton, which we sawflashes of when he was a
freshman and we saw yesterdayyou can, you get them
comfortable and you have theright play sets, it's good.
And so I think they just saywell, you got to be prepared,
because you know what happenswith a service academy they're
running their quarterbacks takeprobably more hits than the
(30:00):
average quarterback out therebecause of the systems they run.
Uh, and fortunately with blakeit's not like, like with ty.
You know you had some kneeinjuries.
He was dealing with back spasms, all right.
So it just it.
Just, it just gives them achance to get, like you say,
treatment.
He can talk them up, you know,and I bet you, if they were in a
pinch, he could have I mean, hecould have gone out there.
(30:22):
They had gone through the twoquarterbacks, for you know some
ungodly reason you would evenwant to talk about.
Right now our focus is on ourtwo top goals and that's having
everybody that's critical assetto the team be ready, right,
right.
Karl (30:40):
Okay, we're going to go ahead and take a short break now
, but before we do that, I didwant to give you all a couple of
ways to stay up to date on Navysports.
The first is to join the NavySports Nation group Facebook
page.
I've got a link to that in theshow notes.
Just click on it, answer acouple of questions and you'll
be good to go.
The second way takes even lesstime.
Just hit the follow button onwhichever platform you're
listening to this podcast rightnow.
(31:01):
It can be Apple Podcasts,spotify, iheartradio, it doesn't
matter.
Once you do that, every episodewill be downloaded to your
directory when it's released andyou can listen to it whenever
you're ready.
So please consider becoming amember of our group and you can
actually tap that follow buttonright now to show your support
for the podcast.
I'm looking forward to havingyou join us.
(31:38):
We'll be right back.
Thanks for staying with us onNavy Sports Central, Karl Darden
here with you, and we arejoined by my classmate and Navy
superfan, doug Conkey, talking alittle Navy football.
So, doug, now I'd like totransition to a discussion on
name, image and licensing, whichhas really stood college
football on its collective ear.
And just so you guys know, dougand I have spoken about this on
a couple of occasions in thepast, just on the phone or
(32:00):
whatever, but it has to do withwhere college football is right
now and how this landscapecontinues to change almost daily
, and one of the things that Ipicked up on earlier this week
was that, well, actually it wasa while ago that Temple fired
their coach about a little overa week ago and then just about
(32:21):
four days ago, the beginning ofthis week, the president at
Temple was talking about thefact that they were reassessing
their college football program,which, to me, reads okay.
Kind of a shock to me whenespecially when you consider
that when the Americanconference was formed in 2015,
(32:42):
that was Navy's first year Well,actually they were formed in
2013.
Navy's first year was 2015 andthey played Temple for the
conference championship in 2016and Temple won that game.
So, um, the Owls were have beenconference champions.
I mean, so it's not likethey've been doormats forever or
anything like that.
They've had a tough last fouror five years, but the fact that
(33:03):
you've got a, you know, groupof five program seriously
considering and this isn't justfrom the president, this is from
boosters to wondering whetheror not not not just dropping
temple to like division two orwhatever, but just getting rid
of the program altogether.
I found that to be somewhatsurprising.
But then when I heard them layout the reasons I thought, okay,
(33:26):
maybe that is worth taking alook at.
And the main point of thediscussion was Temple is not in
a position to compete with theseother programs who can just
throw massive amounts of NILdollars at these athletes for
recruiting purposes and so forth.
And I don't disagree, and Dougand I have had conversations
around what that means for theservice academies.
I maintain that to some extentthe service academies are
(33:50):
somewhat immune because they'renot really going after those
athletes anyway.
I mean, you're talking aboutthese four and five star
athletes.
I've seen the service academiesrecruit two and three star
athletes that develop into threeand four star athletes, but
those were never the ones thatcould really command a lot of
like NIL dollars, so they werenever really on the radar and I
felt like because of that therewould still be a place for
(34:12):
service academy football in, youknow, among the college ranks.
So my mind hasn't reallychanged all that much, but for
the first time I'm recognizingthat shoot, the service
academies might be in a slightlybetter position or on slightly
more solid ground than some ofthese middle-tier Division I
(34:33):
programs.
Doug, what do you think about?
Doug (34:35):
that you are correct and obviously the Temple president
couldn't have picked the worstway of phrasing that tactically
because he came up back prettyquickly which in previous times,
before Transfer Portal and NILexisted, it was all about
(34:55):
development.
You know there was a clearlevel of the ultimate performers
that could recruit and develop,like Nick Saban programs, just
for example.
But now you have this NIL and atransfer portal come in and you
kind of have seen a level ofparity among programs now
because players they have a goodyear and next thing you know
(35:18):
they say well, I can go commandmore money elsewhere.
So the group of five teamsalways are griping.
The UTSA coach was one of themost vocal ones last year
because he says all we are isgetting picked clean by the
power of four or it was power offive at the time because of
these big NIL, these moneyfoundations they're putting up
(35:41):
there.
Also there's, I think, where theservice academies can really
blossom is we recruit, wedevelop, we have a mentality, a
brotherhood that carries overinto what you're going to do the
rest of your life.
That really is going to recruitthe special kids.
(36:05):
Everybody knows you play aservice academy.
It's 60 minutes, you better beplaying and it doesn't matter
what the score is, you'replaying hard.
It's just a different game InTemple.
They were bitten by it lastyear.
The quarterback they had lastyear left for ice, yep, and so
(36:26):
this president.
But now that he has said, thatis the worst thing, because now
the vultures are going to comein and start calling all of the
top Temple players and say, hey,are you willing to stay at a
place that may not be playingfootball?
Karl (36:40):
Here's some money.
Come to us.
Doug (36:42):
That's what I'd be doing, and so any coach that is going
to get hired now is is like he,he really didn't do any favors
but uh.
So NIL obviously is going tocreate winners and losers.
Because of that, the transferportal has just uh, and, and I
know it's just down to twotransfers.
But the other thing is if thiskid, uh, that the quarterback at
(37:06):
vanderbilt wins his suit, inwhich your juco time doesn't
count against you, that'sanother, because chronic
actually talked about it we'replaying teams with nil and
transfer that have our fieldingteams far senior to us.
You know these kids have beenplaying four, five, six years
(37:26):
and so they're bigger andstronger.
It just puts us, you know, wereally have to bring our A game.
Yeah, exactly, serviceacademies in this new world of
college sports that we live in,in particular with the revenue
producing sports.
I think that our pool ofathletes has probably gotten a
(37:49):
little stronger in the long termbecause we'll be the last
bastions of the true recruitsand develop a team, a foundation
, and you keep doing this,whereas now you've seen how does
one recruit, especially withthe higher tier, the power fours
(38:15):
and a good chunk of the groupfives.
How do you recruit a kid on thepremise that, oh, you're going
to, you're going to play for me,when they know that in a matter
of a month, uh, through nil,all of a sudden this new,
experienced quarterback comes inand bumps them and then, unless
(38:36):
they are getting paid a lot ofmoney like an archie manning
which is a whole other story inhow it makes kids stay around
longer, because if they knowthey don't have a shot at the
pros, but the longer they stayaround in the NIL world making
money that they never couldbefore, the service academies
(38:57):
are going to have a hard timecompeting against teams that are
going to be full of a rosterthat is two to three years their
senior by position, justbecause these kids are going to
hang around and they're going touse all their eligibility,
unless, obviously, they have apath to getting drafted or think
(39:17):
they have a chance of gettingsigned as an unrestricted free
agent.
But what it has done is createdthis whole new level of parity
so that, whereas before you hadthe top tier schools which had
the ability to recruit anddevelop, and just that, the
(39:38):
facilities, which in a way isnil uh, and all the things that
made them powerful, has now beendispersed, because now the kids
aren't necessarily thinkingabout facilities, they're
thinking about the paycheck.
And a good example is las vegas.
You know they they pulled thatkid from holy cross.
(39:59):
He goes over there and all of asudden he's not making what
they promised him and he justwalks out on the team, which
leaves a really bad taste.
It was Vanderbilt.
They had a kid who was a Jucoand he has now sued the NCAAs
Now.
He had a couple of good yearsat New Mexico State and then now
(40:20):
he's at Vanderbilt and he'slike I like playing at this
power five level and I want moretime.
And so NIL and Transfer Portalhas created a whole new
landscape that really is goingto create haves and have nots,
(40:43):
halves and have-nots, onlybecause money is going to.
I mean, why would somebodyleave a team when they've had a
successful year?
That player's had a really goodyear and yet they go off.
A good example Dylan Gabriel.
You're at Oklahoma, you're thestud.
Obviously Oklahoma's going tothe SEC and next thing, you know
, he leaves for Oregon andchanges the whole complexion.
(41:03):
So Temple had the kid who's nowat Rice and definitely had
Navy's attention because we sawwhat he could do when he was at
Temple and he did it to us thisyear.
So it's hard to prep, but atthe same time, we have the
maturity level and one of thethings that they made note in
(41:24):
the beginning of the year maybenot so much the second half of
the year, but in the beginningyou have a team that's totally
new to each other, so they gotto learn the nuances of playing
together as a unit and thatfirst six games half the year
could be uh, whereas navy, youknow, they clicked, I mean they
gelled, they showed they were aunit.
Well then, now a lot of schoolsare getting that experience,
(41:47):
playing as a unit and that thoseintrinsic changes that have
made them a little bit stronger,right, uh, are starting to rise
to the top.
You know that.
So it's, it's very interesting,but well, the straw that's
going to break the camel's backcollegiately is this revenue
sharing.
(42:07):
I was trying to read up alittle bit in our break there
and, uh, that is what I thinkprobably the temple president
was talking about.
It's like this revenue sharing.
Well, we all have to throw thisamount of money in this pool
and how much gets paid out ishas potentially of creating
haves and have nots and who getsthe money, it could create a
(42:27):
legal issues.
So the non-revenue sports, Imean you could have whole
athletic departments shedprograms.
So the academies I don't thinkwe're a part of that.
We're not going to take moneyand be putting into this revenue
sharing.
So the academies I don't thinkwe're part of that.
We're not going to take moneyand be putting into this revenue
sharing.
So right now we're kind ofunique in that we have 36
division one sports and that'snot going to change, whereas
(42:50):
some of these schools, even likea Stanford, uh, or these
programs that create Olympiansand NCAA champions, may just go
by the wayside because they arenot producing the money and
those programs have to suck upall that money to be competitive
(43:10):
in this new landscape of.
How much notoriety am I gettingand how big a check are you
going to Flipping recruitsnowadays?
Nowadays I guarantee it has nowgone from.
What are you giving me forfacilities?
Where am I staying with?
You know, school, it's all.
How big is the check?
I mean ohio state's carryingwhat a 21 million dollar nil
(43:32):
load that is.
That's probably more than someathletic department budgets for
schools, like a temple andthat's just money they're
throwing at athletes.
So but the academies, I say ourpool is still going to be strong
.
You know, that's where we shine.
As we take that one, two andthree-star athlete, you put them
(43:53):
in a good environment,well-coached, and next thing,
you know they're playing as aunit.
You know we've always saidyou're stronger as a unit than
you are as an individual andthat's where, uh, and maybe it's
a good example I mean, you gotso many good players out there.
Uh, it's not like the old dayswhen we were there we had
napoleon mccallum.
Geez, what's the play gonna be?
(44:14):
I don't know.
I'm gonna guess it's going tonapoleon, right, so, so, so, uh,
it's just hard to say right now, but it's the haves and
have-nots are going to jump.
Revenue sharing is going toimpact programs.
Down here in Jacksonville, whereI live, ju had football.
(44:35):
They don't do that now and Ithink Kerwin Bell is one of
their better coaches now inanother program.
He was the Florida quarterbackthat did well with UNF.
Unf doesn't even touch it, butthey have a really good
basketball program and othersports.
So some schools will look atGonzaga.
Oh for sure, they're a power inbasketball, but there's no
(44:58):
football there and we're uniquebecause if we were to say you
got to take all your sports andplay in the same conference.
That would be a really a killthe academy if we had to play
all of our sports in theamerican.
We go to a league that's very,very comparable to us and that's
the patriot.
But we take football becausethe historic, you know, uh,
(45:19):
we've, we've always had uh, youknow, in our heydays and we have
these good years.
I mean for us, uh, eight andfour and we are in your beat
army.
That's a really good year.
You compete for the AAC fineCommander-in-Chief's trophy and
beating the service academies isstill premier.
8-4 in the SEC or any of thepower fours gets you showing the
(45:41):
door.
Oh and heck in some of the AACschools.
Jim Houston at ECU didn't't havea bad record, but he had one
off here and bam yeah, you know,the expectations for a coach
are so much, and now you look atwhere a lot of the changes are
(46:02):
being made because these coaches, head coaches, make so much
money.
If you keep firing them becausethey're not producing, after
only only two years, three years, the payout for the school is
huge.
So what are they doing now?
Let me bring in a bunch of toptier coordinators.
And when they dismantled BobbyBowden in Florida State back in
(46:26):
the heyday, how did they do it?
They hired off all of his toptier coordinators to be head
coaches elsewhere.
So there's a new game in townwhere the coordinator now is
going to be king because andthat's why some of these head
coaches I'm taking some of mymoney and I'm going to give it
to my coordinators to keep them.
Karl (46:48):
Yeah, I think that's probably a fairly sound strategy
there, and but I think you'reright.
I think when it comes to allthe different changes that
you're seeing, it's, it'sprobably not going to Well.
First of all, I think it'sgoing to probably get a little
bit worse before it gets better.
And for it to get better, itthere probably needs to be
people who have the politicalwill to make some changes in
(47:10):
terms of just providing morestructure around the whole
operation, Because until thathappens, we're going to keep
seeing this.
I mean, this kid that's atVanderbilt right now, you know
he's bringing a suit against theNCAA because he doesn't want
his junior college time to count.
Well, you know, if he wins that, my God, that's just going to
change everything.
And I don't really see and thatwas never an issue until now,
(47:33):
and I think that you know onceyou, college eligibility is
college eligibility, regardlessof its junior college level,
division one, two, three,whatever.
And I think that if, if somebodyor enough people finally just
put their foot down and say,okay, look, you've got four
years of eligibility plus a redshirt year, or maybe even just
give them five and just be donewith it, you know, as a
(47:53):
compromise or whatever that thatneeds to be where it ends,
Because, to your point, when yougot kids that are sticking
around until they're 22, 20,well, 24, 25 years old, I mean
and we saw that during the COVIDyears and so forth uh, that
gets gets to forth, that getsold in a hurry.
I mean, I was talking to my son,Ethan, and he was telling me
(48:15):
about this one guy who, betweeninjuries and having the timing
of going through college duringCOVID and so forth, he's going
to be coming back for his ninthyear.
Now, obviously, he didn't playall the games in all nine years.
He played, like you know, twoyear and three year, and so you
got to play a certain number ofgames for it to count as a
qualified year.
But the fact is he's beensticking around college that
(48:37):
long because of these rules, andI think that Ishii had a
running back that way becauseNewberry remembers him in 2019.
Doug (48:58):
Yeah, you know, and it's just, it just gets kind of crazy
.
But you know we'll see whathappens and typically the
reaction when these laws arepassed to handle what has
happened is that they make ittoo extreme, right, and so it
takes time for people to realizethat you have to pull it back
(49:22):
some.
So that's what happened.
This is because there was asuit.
Athletes didn't feel they weregetting you know and probably
there was some legitimate thatschools were making a lot of
money off a lot of young kids,really good talents.
But the reaction has been thisso much money has polluted the
waters.
Now that it's muddied.
(49:43):
The NCAAs who's in charge?
People are getting you know,the Big Ten, the SEC, these
conferences are getting sopowerful.
So you have this huge swingwhere it's gone way past what
would be what I would consider anice, mature process.
So eventually it's going to getso bad they're going to have to
bring it back.
But, like you say, it's goingto get worse before it gets
(50:06):
better, and I feel because a lotof athletes are going to get
chewed up and spit out by theprocess.
Karl (50:14):
Yeah, yeah, and I think that that's one of the reasons
why, when you see just all thischaos going on around you in
college football, it's almostgreat to have these schools like
Navy Army and Air Force.
College football is stillcollege football.
They go out there and they playit because they love playing
the game.
It's not about the money, it'snot about you know, I used to
(50:34):
say, it's not about the shoecontract, it's going out there
and playing for the guy next toyou, and I think that that's why
, just for that reason alone, Ithink schools like Navy Army and
Air Force can continue to stayrelevant in college football
during this day and age.
Doug (50:47):
And here's one.
What was going on this weekend?
This weekend, or the last twoweekends, it's been senior day,
the last game of your collegecareer.
How many of those colleges,unlike the Naval Academy or the
service academies, actually puta lineup on the field in which
those players were there for allfour years?
Karl (51:09):
Yeah, exactly.
Doug (51:10):
Some of them have there.
They only go one or two, so howdo you get them to step to go?
This is senior day.
This is your day to go outthere.
For some, it's like this is mylast shot to make a big paycheck
.
There's no loyalty to thestands.
This is like my third school.
Karl (51:30):
Yeah, yeah.
Doug (51:30):
Yeah, Tradition is is dying in collegiate sports.
Karl (51:34):
Yeah, and that's too bad.
And to your point, real quickly, before we wrap things up here,
I think that uh, uh, it's.
It's just getting so much morecommon to hear the announcers
that are calling a game, uh, saysome athlete's name and saying
the transfer from you knowschool a, and before that he was
at school b.
Like you said, this is like thethird school that they're at
(51:57):
and I mean you'll never see thatat navy.
I mean people, people don'tcome to the academies through
the transfer portal.
That we know for sure exactlyand, uh, you know.
Doug (52:07):
So you know, we're the traditionalists that hopefully
will remain to have a strongfoundation.
We'll know our place, We'll doit well and our pool of kids is
really not going to change.
Karl (52:22):
Yeah, yeah, all right.
Hey, doug, listen.
That's going to wrap things upfor us here, but I just want to
thank you again for joining ustoday on Navy Sports Central and
, like I said, in 2025, I'mlooking at bringing in just kind
of a rotating group ofpanelists and so forth to
discuss different sports.
So it'd be great to have youback on sometime in the future.
Doug (52:45):
That'd be awesome.
Love to and thanks for allyou're doing and go Navy beat
Army All right.
Thanks, Doug.
Go Navy beat Army, All right,Take care.
Karl (52:52):
All right, bye-bye.
Okay, stay with us, folks,because we've got our question
of the day and mid-watchsegments coming up next.
This is Karl Darden, and you'relistening to Navy Sports
Central.
We are into the home stretchnow, which means it is time for
(53:19):
our question of the day.
So let's start by checking outthe responses from the last one,
which, if you recall, was fromthe episode marking the Class of
84's 40th reunion.
Here is the question In thegame against Charlotte, navy had
a 38-3 halftime lead.
What is the most number ofpoints that the Mids have put up
in the first half of a gamesince 2003?
Is it A 40, b 42, c, 45, or D49?
(53:45):
Now, as we check out theanswers, the most popular one
was D 49 points.
There were 66% of you who wentwith that choice.
Next was B 42 points, with 17%,and then there were 16% of you
who picked 40 points.
No one selected C, which was 45points.
Okay, before I get to the answer, I'll tell you that at some
(54:06):
point since 2003, the Mids haveput up these numbers.
In one half, they scored 40against Rutgers in 2004.
The year before that, they putup 42 in the first 30 minutes on
their way to beating CentralMichigan, and I think they
scored like 63 points in thatgame.
Then, in 2010, the offense ledby Ricky Dobbs went crazy
against East Carolina on theroad and rung up 49 points in
(54:27):
posting a 76-35 win.
But all those points came inthe second half.
Remember the question asked forthe points scored in the first
half?
That means that C 45 points isthe correct answer, and that
came in 2007 when the Midsplayed North Texas in what has
to be one of the wildest gamesI've ever been a part of.
Navy would end up winning thegame 74-62, which sounds more
(54:47):
like a college basketball score.
But here's what's totally nutsthere were four different times
in the first half where Navy wasbehind by 18 points, and at
halftime they were still behind49-45.
And it was the third quarterthat proved to be the difference
.
The offense outscored NorthTexas 20-7 to put the game on
ice, and the two teams must havebeen exhausted by then, because
(55:08):
there were only 15 pointsscored in the fourth quarter,
and that was a 9-6 in favor ofthe mids, I think.
At some point during the firstquarter, both teams scored 28 in
a span of about five minutesand the stats were something
right out of a video game.
There was over 1,300 yards oftotal offense between both teams
.
Navy had 572 rushing yards togo along with 108 through the
air, and the offense was soexplosive that they averaged 10
(55:28):
yards per rush.
So they were basically pickingup a first down every time they
carried the ball.
That was one crazy game.
Okay, now let's check outtoday's question.
ESPN is predicting Navy willplay in either the Armed Forces
Bowl on December 27th againstMiami of Ohio or the Military
Bowl on December 28th againstBoston College.
The mid's overall record inbowl games is 12-11-1.
(55:49):
What is their longest winningstreak in these games?
Is it A, 2, b, 3, c, 4, or D?
None of the above?
Go ahead and give that somethought and you can get back to
me with an answer by respondingto the poll question which will
be posted later on the NavySports Nation group Facebook
page.
You can also text the showdirectly by using the link in
(56:11):
the show notes.
Now let's finish things up withour mid-watch segment, starting
with the women.
We were following AmandaGraziano, who is a midfielder on
the soccer team.
The mids ended up 9-10-2 on theyear and lost in the first
round of the Patriot Leaguetournament.
In fact, it was kind of a roughmonth of October overall.
Now, the team defense wasgenerally pretty good, except
(56:31):
for the star match against Army,where not much of anything went
right.
Navy held their opponents to nomore than one goal and, as a
midfielder, graciano played abig role in that.
The only problem was that themids went through a bit of a
scoring drought at exactly thewrong time.
They only put up one goal intheir last six games, and that
was a 1-0 win over Holy Cross onOctober 25th.
Graciano did finish the year byleading the team in points,
(56:52):
though, which is a nice way tofinish her career.
Moving on to the men, we've gotLuke Wagner and Luke O'Connell
from the sprint football team.
The Mids did get back to thechampionship game, as expected,
but they weren't able to make itfour titles in a row, dropping
a close game to Army 21-16.
O'connell did not play in thegame, so I don't know what was
going on there.
He might have been injured.
Luke Wagner did lead the teamin rushing with 67 yards.
(57:15):
He also threw for 156 yards andtwo touchdowns, but it wasn't
enough to overcome the BlackKnights' 11-point lead.
In the fourth quarter, the Midsscored with less than a minute
to go and they couldn't recoverthe onside kick, so the Black
Knights just ran out the clock.
Wagner side kick, so the BlackKnights just ran out the clock.
Wagner will be graduating inthe spring, so we wish him the
(57:35):
best in his future career, butO'Connell is just a sophomore,
so he will likely be back tohelp Navy pursue another CFL
championship in 2025.
That's going to do it for thisedition of Navy Sports Central.
Thank you all so much forjoining us Now.
If you like what you've heard,please be sure to hit that
follow button wherever you getyour podcasts, and remember to
get the word to all the otherNavy fans out there.
Once again, I'd like to thankmy classmate and Navy sports
(57:55):
superfan, doug Conkey, forjoining me today.
It was great to get hisperspective not only on Navy
football, but also the transferportal and NIL, two things that
are really disrupting thecollege game.
Our question of the daycontinues to be a show favorite.
You can get in on that byjoining the Navy Sports Nation
group Facebook page and givingyour answer to this week's
question.
You can also respond by sendingus a text.
All you need to do is click onthe link in the show notes.
And just a quick reminder theviews expressed on Navy Sports
(58:17):
Central are my own and do notreflect those of the US Naval
Academy or Navy Athletics.
By the way, the music used inNavy Sports Central comes to you
courtesy of Audio Jungle.
This is a great site forpurchasing the rights to use the
music from thousands of artistsaround the world, and those
featured in the podcast will becredited in our show notes.
Talk to you soon, everybody,until next time.
This is Karl Darden.
Go Navy beat Army.
Hi everybody, my name is Karl Darden and I'd like to
welcome and thank all of you forjoining us today on Navy Sports
Central.
I'm your host and this is theofficial podcast of the Navy
Sports Nation where we take adeeper dive into Navy sports.
It is December and that meansthe Army-Navy game is right
around the corner.
This year's contest should beespecially interesting, with
both teams headed for bowl games.
Let's just hope the Mids canwind up singing second when they
(00:35):
score off against the BlackKnights on December 14th.
We'll talk a little bit aboutthe run-up to that game in our
Deep Dive segment with today'sguest.
We've also got our sportsupdate question of the day and
mid-watch segments, and I alsohave an exciting announcement
about a new feature to the showcoming in 2025.
So please stick around becausewe are just getting started.
All right, it's great to haveyou guys with us.
(01:02):
Thanks so much for dropping in.
I really appreciate you takingthe time Before we get into the
sports update's great to haveyou guys with us.
Thanks so much for dropping in.
I really appreciate you takingthe time Before we get into the
sports update.
I wanted to bring you all up tospeed on some additions I'm
looking at making to the showduring the upcoming year, and
this is being done with the ideaof getting more of the Navy
Sports Nation involved in thepodcast.
The only thing that won'tchange is the audio-only format
being just a one-personoperation.
Adding video editing to theworkflow isn't really what I'm
(01:24):
looking for, but I think itcould be very interesting to
host a live stream every sooften.
It would be pretty much like aroundtable format that includes
two or three panelists.
The idea would be to discusswhat is relevant to Navy sports
at the time, and I would make anannouncement well in advance
letting everyone know when it is, so they would have the
opportunity to engage with thepanel.
The live stream would also berecorded and I would later edit
(01:49):
the audio so that it could bereleased later as a podcast
episode.
I floated the idea about a weekago on the group Facebook page
as well as my class page, andthe response was pretty positive
.
So I've decided to move forwardwith the planning of the first
live stream, and that willlikely take place after the
holidays.
Please stay tuned for more infoas those plans begin to fall
into place.
Now let's go ahead and jump intoour sports update, and we'll
start with the women'sbasketball team.
They got out of the gatesquickly and currently have a 6-2
record.
There are a handful ofnon-conference games left before
(02:11):
they start their Patriot Leagueschedule right after the new
year, and that's when things arereally going to get cranked up
Now.
I want to remind you that thereare no seniors on this year's
squad, but the group they dohave has been pretty
battle-tested.
Point guard Zanai Barnett-Gayis picking up right where she
left off.
As the mid's number one scorer,she's averaging nearly 18
points per game and also leadsthe team in rebounds and assists
.
Meanwhile, junior center KateSamson is making nearly 50% of
(02:35):
her shots from the field.
One newcomer that hascontributed early is freshman
Mary Gibbons.
She had a breakout game againstWagner a couple of weeks ago,
putting up 17 points on 7 of 11shooting, and she also connected
three times from long range.
And finally, sophomore KyahSmith continues to be a factor,
just like she was last season.
Smith is third on the team inscoring at just about 10 points
(02:56):
per game, and she was the otherhalf of a very productive
backcourt last year, along withher classmate Barnett- Gay.
So I'm really looking forwardto watching them this year to
see what they can do.
We're going to find out a lotmore about this team when
conference play begins, but I'vewatched the highlights from
most of their games and so far Ican tell you that they play
some really tough defense andare very smooth in transition.
The Mids were 9-9 in thePatriot League last year and I
(03:19):
think they've got a really goodchance on improving on that
record, despite being such ayoung squad.
Next up we've got Navy Swimmingand Diving, where both the men's
and the women's teams have beenpreparing for their star meet
against Army.
This meet will be carried onESPN Plus as usual, so if you
happen to subscribe, be sure tocheck it out.
If you do, you're going to wantto keep an eye out for
sophomore Ben Irwin.
(03:39):
He had a monster year as afreshman and hasn't shown any
sign of slowing down.
Irwin swims the 100 and 200backstroke and he won both of
those events a couple weeks agoat the West Virginia Invite,
leading the mids to a firstplace finish.
The women came in third.
In that same event, sophomoreElla Habjan and junior Lauren
Walsh posted a couple of wins.
Habian got to the wall first inthe 100 backstroke, while Walsh
(04:01):
took the 100 breaststroke.
The West Virginia Invite was themids' final competition before
they take on Army this weekend,and I've got to say that if the
mids don't take both stars,their chances of winning the
series this year become veryslim.
Right now the Black Knightshave a 7-2 lead and that means
they're halfway to the magicnumber 14 to clinch the
competition.
If they pick up two more winsbefore we really get into the
(04:23):
winter sports schedule, theyonly need to come up with five
more out of the remaining 15contests to seal the deal.
And no matter how much of anoptimist I am, there's no
denying that if Army gets tothat point, the math looks way
better for them than it does forthe mids.
But I will say that if thereare two teams who have shown
that they can deliver when itmatters most, it's Navy swimming
and diving, and I feel prettygood about them being able to
(04:44):
come through again.
Okay, there are two more thingsI want to leave you all with
before we get to our deep divesegment.
First, the Navy water polo teamjust completed another solid
season.
They got to the Mid-AtlanticConference Championship game for
the second straight year, butthe only problem was that number
one seeded and undefeated Fordham University was standing
in their way of a league title.
The Mids battled all the waybut eventually fell short 11-6.
(05:08):
Still, it was an outstandingyear for the team.
Sophomore Kiefer Black andfreshman Ryan Irwin were named
first team all-conference andsophomore Billy Zech picked up
second team honors, whilefreshman goalkeeper Ryan Munch
was named rookie of thetournament.
So congratulations to the Navywater polo team and another
great season.
(05:28):
And finally, we're going to goahead and finish up with the
wrestling team.
Cary Kolat had some gaps tofill after last year's seniors
graduated and one wrestler whohas stepped up immediately has
been sophomore Danny Wask.
At the Navy Classic a coupleweeks ago he upset the number
six ranked wrestler at 174pounds from Nebraska, scoring a
10-5 decision that got him thetop spot on the podium.
It was also the secondconsecutive Navy Classic title
for Wask, who was named the EIWAWrestler of the Week.
(05:51):
Next up for the mids is the LasVegas Invitational and that
gets started on Friday.
So there you go.
This edition of the SportsUpdate is now complete.
Next up is our Deep Divesegment.
So, in the words of the lategreat Stuart Scott, please stick
and stay.
Okay, welcome back to NavySports Central.
(06:22):
And joining me today is areally good friend and classmate
, Doug Conkey, and I wanted togive you his bio really quickly
before we bring him on.
Doug was a member of the golfteam while we were at the
academy and after graduation hebecame a Navy pilot and flew the
A-7 Corsair and the F-A-18Hornet.
Following a successful Navycareer, doug moved on to local
(06:42):
politics, serving as a two-timecounty commissioner for Clay
County which, by the way, isjust south of Jacksonville,
florida and now he's serving asthe intergovernmental
coordinator for the St JohnsRiver Water Management District.
Okay, so that basically getsyou up to speed.
Now, doug is what I would calla Navy sports super fan.
I mean, we've talked on thephone several times about not
just a football program butquite a few of the other Navy
(07:03):
sports.
So, doug, welcome to the show.
It's great to have you on.
Doug (07:06):
Karl, thanks for allowing me to be on.
You're a great show.
That's really helped the classand the sports fanatics like
myself get in touch with what'sgoing on, and so just a pleasure
to be here today.
Karl (07:18):
Yeah, and this is going to be and, by the way, for those
of you guys out there listening,this is what I'm looking to do,
that's a little bit new for2025 is pull in a lot more folks
that are part of the NavySports Nation Facebook group.
So I think it'll be kind of funto have some fans like Doug on
the show, in addition to ourstandard format where we just
have a guest, and my goal todaywas actually to pull in a couple
(07:39):
more folks, but unfortunately,being the Thanksgiving holiday,
we were not able to get them on,so this will just be a standard
guest format today.
But we do have severalquestions from the group itself
that we can answer as well.
So, Doug, what I'd like to dotoday is talk a little bit about
the game yesterday against EastCarolina and get your take on
(07:59):
that.
But first let me ask you whenwe were talking on the phone a
couple of weeks ago as themidids were getting ready to
play the Pirates, we covered acouple of different things, so I
was wondering if you couldrecap some of the parts of the
conversation we had for everyoneout there.
Doug (08:17):
I was thinking in the big picture, we always want to win,
but also in this picture,army-navy is the preeminent goal
of the year and especially thisyear.
Also, the winner is going toget the CIC.
So this game was a game thatyou wanted to win so we could
(08:41):
get our mojo.
We've had a rough month againstsome really tough opponents
probably the some of thetoughest opponents, uh, during
the course of the year and it.
So we're at a time going intothe biggest game.
You really want the team to geta level of mojo back and sense
of confidence, but also havingyour starting quarterback healed
.
So if he's not 100, there wasno reason to put him in.
(09:04):
And in the big picture wasbuild a game plan right from
scratch, knowing Braxton wasgoing to be the starter and
Chronic is very good at buildinga game plan around the talent
level he's got on the field andthey did that.
And as Braxton shows histalents that they always speak
(09:24):
highly of and he's a differentlevel of player strong arm with
those long legs, you know he canbe pretty quick, as we saw and
they just wanted to make themone dimensional, which they were
able to do, which allowed themto kind of focus on how to keep
(09:47):
them in a box, which they didand, as we've seen, making
mistakes and their coach kind oftalked about it afterwards.
You know we made a couple ofmistakes in our first two drives
.
That totally changed thecomplexion for us, because now
we allowed them to getcomfortable and implement their
(10:08):
game plan.
They came out of halftime, theyhit all cylinders, braxton, got
comfortable, they startedscoring and then they made us
get out of our game plan foreverybody to kind of rally
around one another, show whatthey can do and also keep the
(10:28):
starting quarterback on ahealing process.
And the head coach made itquite clear that he will be
ready to go for the Army game.
It's just they just didn't wantto risk bringing him back
prematurely.
Ecu is a physical team we knowthat from past years playing
them and so they had a plan.
(10:51):
It was able to be executed toperfection, almost, you could
say Stats really showed how manytimes does Navy come out of the
half down zero to three andthen put 34 points on the board
in the second half.
So that was very good, right,right, and I think we came out
(11:14):
of it in good health.
And it was interesting too,because you're seeing some
players that we're not used toseeing, who have risen up during
the course of the season.
Willis is a good example.
He was a beast on the line,that freshman linebacker who
blitzed and tackled.
Karl (11:32):
Yeah, yeah.
Doug (11:33):
So I mean you're like, okay, that was early in the game
and they're putting a freshmanlinebacker in.
So their game plan for us is toplay as many folks as possible,
that in a tough game they cankeep people fresh Right right.
And it's good that he's reallydeveloping that kind of depth to
(11:54):
be able to have the confidenceto do that.
So it was very good.
And now, as you heard Jacob sayduring his interview, we'll
celebrate for 24 hours.
But make no mistake, and thesetwo senior captains, if you ever
watch them interview after agame, they're about as focused
(12:15):
as I've ever seen and they saidwe're going to eat, sleep and
breathe Army for the next twoweeks.
Right, right.
Karl (12:24):
Yeah, that's so true.
And just to kind of speak toyour point around how that game
evolved, I was kind of lookingback at some of the ESPN stats
and one thing I was going tokind of look at is how the flow
of the possessions goes.
So in the first half Navy'spossessions went like this Downs
, punt, punt, fumble, punt,downs, missed field goal.
(12:47):
And, by the way, that missedfield goal obviously was like
inside of extra point range.
So that was reallydisheartening.
And then you turn around andlook at the second half and it
was TD, punt, td, td, td, td andthen end of game.
So there's a pretty clearturnaround there in terms of,
just to your point, they weremoving the ball fine in the
(13:09):
first half, but just making theright play at the right time and
just executing all the wayuntil they crossed the goal line
.
That was a clear differencemaker.
And speaking to your point aboutgetting shut out and then
coming back and scoring allthose points, I was thinking
about that yesterday as well.
I'm thinking, man, when was thelast time they got shut out and
they came back and scored over30?
And I said, well, I still haveto look that up, but I do know
(13:30):
the last time they came back andscored 27.
And that was four years agoagainst Tulane, because that was
in the COVID year and Iremember they were down 24 zip
and ended up winning on a lastminute, on the last second field
goal by Bijan Nichols that hekicked through right as time
expired.
So that's the last time theyput up at least 27 points.
Doug (13:51):
So you bring up an excellent point is that even
even the announcers were stunnedwhen Reithman, who is one of
the best punters in the country,didn't hit such a good punt.
But the missing, the field goal, that's been kind of an issue
for us this year.
Yeah, and if so, if I had anachilles, if I had an achilles
heel right now at that point fornavy armenian navy football
(14:13):
games.
As much as we would like toblow them out like we did when
johnson's first year, theytypically come down to close
games, right.
That close game typically meansthe field goal kicker is going
to have tremendousresponsibilities and pressure if
it's a game-winning opportunity, and obviously he had an injury
(14:33):
earlier in the year.
But I don't know if there'scompetition that's to be had on
who's going to be the starting,because field goals do make a
difference in the Army-Navy game.
Yeah for sure.
Karl (14:45):
Now looking at Kirkwood's numbers, that missed field goal
was his first from that close.
He was 2 of 2 this season from20 to 29 yards before that kick,
and he's made 2 of 4 from 40 to49 yards with a long of 46.
So that comes to only sevenattempts all year, and the main
reason for that is because themids have been pretty consistent
once they get inside the redzone.
(15:06):
The one thing I will say isthat you don't see too many
field goal tries from the righthash mark from that close in.
That's a pretty sharp angle butnevertheless, I'm sure it's one
that even Kirkwood will tellyou that he needs to be ready
for, no matter what.
By the way, L ance Gossett isthe only other kicker on the
roster besides the punters andand he handles the kickoffs.
Um, maybe the coaches go withthe competition these next two
(15:26):
weeks, or maybe not uh.
Either way, there's going to bea lot of attention paid to
sharpening up the field goalefficiency between now and uh
December 14th.
All right, so we did talk aboutuh braxton woodson's uh play
and and, like you were saying, Imean clearly a different uh
quarterback in terms of just hisbuild.
You know how he moves on thefield.
Compared to Horvath, I wouldsay that you know you're looking
(15:48):
at the two of them.
Horvath is probably the quickerand the more elusive of the two
, but I would say in terms ofstraight line speed they're
probably about the same.
I might even give the edge toWoodson because of his legs and
how long they are, because whenhe broke that 38 yarder up the
middle once he got past thatfirst line there, was nobody
going to catch him, yeah, I mean.
Doug (16:08):
So that was good for him, because you think about it, when
he's put in, uh, as the second,because blake's got to come out
for an injury or whatever he'strying, he has to implement a
plan that was put in for Blakeand that's what everybody's used
to, whereas in this case he hasshown that if they have a
backup plan and this is going tobe the if we have to put him in
(16:30):
as the backup, we can flex tothis plan and we know he's
comfortable running it Right.
You know that's always toughcoming in the middle of the game
where he where he's had to doit, and it's kind of tough,
whereas now chronic now knows.
Okay, here are the plays I wantto use if he's in.
Karl (16:53):
Yep, right, okay.
So the other thing I wanted tomention very briefly is a little
bit about this run up to the,the army Navy game.
I mean obviously the, the.
The preparation is going to bethere in terms of the coaching
staff and so forth, and and theplayers are going to do what
they need to do to get ready.
You've seen Army play a littlebit more than me.
I mean, I watched a fair amountof the Notre Dame game, but
I've not really sat down andbroken that team down, besides
(17:14):
the fact that I know that theyhave a new OC and he is still
using the triple option.
It's a slightly differentversion.
I think it's probably closer totheir base than what we've base
, than what Navy has been doing.
But give me your take on whatyou see from that team.
I know they are heavilyquarterback-driven as well.
(17:35):
So what are your thoughts onthe Black Knights?
Doug (17:39):
Well, obviously, taking nothing away being 9-0, going
into the Notre Dame game isimpressive, I mean, it speaks
volumes.
So you know, they did at thebeginning try some of that.
Like, what we've done is goneto the wing tee, which is
modified, a hybrid of the tripleoption, but they got frustrated
(18:02):
, I believe.
So Munkin just went.
We're just going right back tothe base, we're just and he's
done very good building thatfoundation.
I mean, you watch thatoffensive line, uh, the
quarterbacks, 220, and they justmarch and push people down the
field three, four, five yards ata clip and they take, they just
(18:22):
wear you out, keep the the keepthe ball in their hands.
I've just watched them andthat's what kind of worries me,
you know, because notre dame hasthe power.
They said, okay, army's prettymuch against us, is going to be
one-dimensional, and and theyjust, and they just line up some
bruisers that we are.
Ultimately, we know all tootytoo well.
(18:42):
Every time the quarterback wasrunning he didn't get hit by one
, but he got hit by three guys.
He's a beast that offensiveline is.
My worry is and I'm sure theywill come up with a game plan is
how do we line up with theexpectation that they're not
just going to push their waydown the field three and four
(19:05):
yards down there.
How do we stop that?
And then at the same time, haveenough guys, because you know
they'll throw that wrinkle playin there.
You don't want to get burned,uh, by that.
So I'll be curious to see howwe line up against them to kind
of just not get them comfortablewith, enforce them much like
(19:27):
they did with east carolina.
If, if we know, army is goingto be kind of one-dimensional,
how do we?
We're good at stopping the run,but that offensive line they
got is you know they're, they'rebruisers, uh, and that's what.
And then in the quarterback,mean, he's like the quarterback
we had what five, six years ago?
(19:49):
The kid, the local kid out ofAnnapolis, that you know, runs
through you as opposed to aroundyou, but you know that does
wear you out.
So, leading up to it, they gotNotre Dame, they got UTSA today,
uh, and they got tulane, whichI'm sure is going to have a chip
on their shoulder after losingat home to memphis in the aec.
(20:11):
Now, if they have to go to army, that could change things too,
because army is used to playingin the cold.
I bet you they're not used todown in new orleans playing in
potentially snow and 20 degrees,right, and it forces you to be
one dimensional.
Karl (20:27):
Yeah, that will be interesting.
And the one thing that I wasthinking about as it relates to
that army game is, you know,looking at the offense, maybe
kind of going back to theirroots with the triple and
everything.
My thinking is that CoachVolker has done a really good
(20:48):
job, even with programs thathave, I mean, where we've been
overmatched on the offensiveline versus defensive line.
I mean, this past game was agood example.
You look at Memphis, that'sanother good example, but he's
figured out well.
The Memphis game might not bethe best example because they
scored 44 points, but still hedid enough.
(21:09):
So my biggest thing is allright.
I think that Coach Volker canput together a plan that at
least minimizes the impact ofArmy's quarterback Bryson Daily,
and that scheme willundoubtedly target the offensive
line too.
I mean, it's got to besomething that keeps them off
balance.
Now, whether or not they can dothat for every single play
remains to be seen.
(21:29):
So that's why the onus comesback to the offense and then
just being able to execute atevery possible opportunity.
Because, like you said, I meanevery possession is gold and
it's going to be said.
I mean every possession is goldand, uh, it's going to be uh, I
think it's just going to be areally, really tough battle from
start to finish.
Um come a couple of weeks fromnow in um in Washington DC.
Doug (21:50):
And it's.
You know, it's easy for us tosit here and say, well, you know
, navy should just keep theplaybook wide open, uh.
But as we've known that, thepressure in anything Army, Army-
Navy I don't care if it'stiddly, winks or the A rmy -
Navy game, uh is so high thecoach is always reticent to get
(22:10):
out of a game plan or dosomething that if it didn't go
right, what were you thinking,you know?
But I think Cronic's got apretty wide open opportunity to
kind of keep them off, like Iwas thinking, just send Kent
deep every play that's going topull two defenders with him.
There's two defenders goingdownfield.
Now you get.
(22:31):
Maybe you can spread it outwith others Because I guarantee
you, with him they're going tosay we cannot let Kent get
behind us or it could be a toughday.
Karl (22:42):
Right, right, and the nice thing is this year as well.
I mean, the team has got somany other weapons that they can
kind of spread it around, andthey did a really good job of
that on Saturday.
Okay, before we move on, I'dlike to get to a few questions
that some of you sent in throughour group Facebook page.
The first one comes fromMichael Reed, and he was asking
(23:02):
about this whole shoulder shrugtouchdown celebration.
He says, hey, give me thebackstory on that.
I want a full explanation.
So, mike, here's what I foundout, and in fact, it was tough
for me to go back and find theinterview.
Okay, but I do remember watchingone of the games and I was
watching the postgame and Ibelieve it was Luke Slabaugh,
who works for Navy SportsInformation.
(23:23):
He was interviewing either EliHeidenreich or Alex Tecza, and
whichever player he was talkingto said hey, that's just our way
of saying hey, no big deal,this is what we're supposed to
be doing, you know and I thoughtthat was really funny because
the original shoulder shrug forthose of you who who follow NBA
basketball and did 30 years ago.
(23:45):
You know, the first time I eversaw somebody do that was Michael
Jordan, and one of the playoffgames against and it was an NBA
finals, I think it was in 92against Portland, but he was
just going off.
I mean, not that that's unusualfor MJ, but there's just a
couple of ridiculous shots.
He was hitting in a row and atone point he looked over at the
guys calling the game and justshrugged his shoulders as
finishing third and for a whilethey were undefeated.
(24:07):
I think that that's their wayof saying look, this is not a
big deal for us.
We should be doing this all thetime.
(24:27):
So, mike, I hope that answersyour question.
That's just what I rememberfrom the interview when Luke
Slabaugh was talking to eitherEli Heidenreich or Alex Tecza.
Doug (24:43):
Tecza does it all the time .
I saw eli do it.
Tecza, if you noticed, he'sgot that swagger when he goes in
the end zone.
It's just like what I call.
He's very, it's a showman.
And he, and he starts it withthe, you know, the shoulder
shrug right, right, uh, becauseyou always see the riffs are
kind of watching him, you know,so he doesn't cross the line in
the celebration.
And then Eli did it yesterday.
So I was like okay, justinteresting.
Karl (25:05):
Okay, the next question we have comes from Maura Kent,
who's Nathan Kent's mom, andshe's been on the show a couple
of times.
So Maura, thanks for sendingthis question in.
She wants to know a little bitmore about Jackson Gutierrez,
who was the Navy third stringquarterback who came in when
Braxton had to step out for alittle bit after he got hit late
out of bounds.
So here's the info on him.
He is obviously a freshman andhe's from San Antonio, texas.
(25:28):
So those of you who rememberRam Vela from all those years
back with the game against NotreDame, he was from San Antonio
as well, but he went to John JayHigh School and actually played
four sports, not just three.
Normally you hear about highschool athletes playing a sport
in the fall, winter and spring.
Gutierrez lettered in football,basketball, baseball and track.
(25:50):
So I'm trying to figure out howthat worked.
Apparently, you know theyprobably played baseball and
track during the same season andhe had some sort of deal worked
out with the coaches of bothteams.
But anyway, he was alsorecruited to Army and in a
second you're going to see whyhe's a very, very good dual
threat quarterback.
In high school, his senior year, he was the conference MVP and
(26:11):
he threw for 1,722 yards and 15touchdowns and at the same time
he rushed for over 1,000, 1,089to be exact and he scored 19
times.
So, interestingly, he came froma system that basically did not
take snaps under center, and Ithink I remember hearing Blake
talk a little bit about thatwhen he was being interviewed
(26:33):
pregame I think it was a coupleof days ago and as they were
talking about getting JacksonGutierrez ready, they were
saying that yeah, he's nevertaken a snap under center until
he showed up here.
So a lot of times you know,people kind of discount that,
but it is kind of a big deal,especially when you're not used
to that.
I mean, you got your handsunder center there and that ball
comes back.
It just gets fired back by thecenter and if your fingers and
(26:56):
hands aren't in the rightposition, you could get jammed
fingers and so forth and thatjust doesn't feel too good.
So when I look at how Gutierrezperformed yesterday, obviously
he did have the fumble, so thatwas kind of a drag, but he ran
the ball fairly well fivecarries for 20 yards and got him
right down to the goal lineuntil they just couldn't quite
punch it in there, but again,he's a freshman, he's got plenty
(27:17):
of time.
Punch it in there, but againhe's a freshman, he's got plenty
of time.
But he definitely has the skillsets and clearly Army thought
so too, because they heavilyrecruited him and luckily we
were able to have him come toAnnapolis.
So, maura, that's the info Icould find out on Jackson
Gutierrez.
And that brings us to our lastquestion, which is one that is
probably top of mind for mostNavy fans right now, and that is
(27:37):
how is Blake Horvath doingphysically?
I would say that, based onCoach Newberry's response
yesterday, I feel pretty goodabout him being ready to go in
two weeks.
He's undergoing treatment everysingle day and they're just
going to be really smart withhim, and luckily he's not the
kind of guy who necessarilyneeds constant reps and so forth
to stay fresh.
(27:58):
I mean, he's got a football IQthat's off the charts and I
think as long as he can, youknow, get right on Saturday,
we've got a really good shot.
So your thoughts, doug?
Doug (28:10):
Yes, I mean and and coach called it and think also think
of it as you know, Navy orservice Academy, but maybe, from
our experience, is a little bitdifferent than I think maybe
some other of the civiliancolleges, in that when there's
an injury, the doctors are notonly worried about the kid and
(28:32):
his being able to play, butthey're protecting an asset that
is, eventually, they have tomake sure he is able to graduate
and function in the fleet.
So, if they see things that no,we need to protect this, and a
lot of the guys who've had toretire because of concussions,
that's the doc saying you'redone, at this point in time,
(28:54):
we're going to save your assets,your body, to make sure you can
be a qualified officer.
So, in this case, your assets,your body, to make sure you can
be a, you know, a qualifiedofficer.
So in this case though, youknow, at the army Navy game, big
one, and he just wasn't ahundred percent, and and they
just they didn't want toaggravate it in any way, and if
(29:15):
it, what was going to be toutedas a very physical game against
ECU, as they have been in thepast, and they said, well, like
we said, yes, you want to win.
But it's more important, we gel, let's build a game plan.
And you showed because all yearthey've been touting in their
post-game comments and duringthe week interviews, the talents
(29:38):
of Braxton, which we sawflashes of when he was a
freshman and we saw yesterdayyou can, you get them
comfortable and you have theright play sets, it's good.
And so I think they just saywell, you got to be prepared,
because you know what happenswith a service academy they're
running their quarterbacks takeprobably more hits than the
(30:00):
average quarterback out therebecause of the systems they run.
Uh, and fortunately with blakeit's not like, like with ty.
You know you had some kneeinjuries.
He was dealing with back spasms, all right.
So it just it.
Just, it just gives them achance to get, like you say,
treatment.
He can talk them up, you know,and I bet you, if they were in a
pinch, he could have I mean, hecould have gone out there.
(30:22):
They had gone through the twoquarterbacks, for you know some
ungodly reason you would evenwant to talk about.
Right now our focus is on ourtwo top goals and that's having
everybody that's critical assetto the team be ready, right,
right.
Karl (30:40):
Okay, we're going to go ahead and take a short break now
, but before we do that, I didwant to give you all a couple of
ways to stay up to date on Navysports.
The first is to join the NavySports Nation group Facebook
page.
I've got a link to that in theshow notes.
Just click on it, answer acouple of questions and you'll
be good to go.
The second way takes even lesstime.
Just hit the follow button onwhichever platform you're
listening to this podcast rightnow.
(31:01):
It can be Apple Podcasts,spotify, iheartradio, it doesn't
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Once you do that, every episodewill be downloaded to your
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So please consider becoming amember of our group and you can
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for the podcast.
I'm looking forward to havingyou join us.
(31:38):
We'll be right back.
Thanks for staying with us onNavy Sports Central, Karl Darden
here with you, and we arejoined by my classmate and Navy
superfan, doug Conkey, talking alittle Navy football.
So, doug, now I'd like totransition to a discussion on
name, image and licensing, whichhas really stood college
football on its collective ear.
And just so you guys know, dougand I have spoken about this on
a couple of occasions in thepast, just on the phone or
(32:00):
whatever, but it has to do withwhere college football is right
now and how this landscapecontinues to change almost daily
, and one of the things that Ipicked up on earlier this week
was that, well, actually it wasa while ago that Temple fired
their coach about a little overa week ago and then just about
(32:21):
four days ago, the beginning ofthis week, the president at
Temple was talking about thefact that they were reassessing
their college football program,which, to me, reads okay.
Kind of a shock to me whenespecially when you consider
that when the Americanconference was formed in 2015,
(32:42):
that was Navy's first year Well,actually they were formed in
2013.
Navy's first year was 2015 andthey played Temple for the
conference championship in 2016and Temple won that game.
So, um, the Owls were have beenconference champions.
I mean, so it's not likethey've been doormats forever or
anything like that.
They've had a tough last fouror five years, but the fact that
(33:03):
you've got a, you know, groupof five program seriously
considering and this isn't justfrom the president, this is from
boosters to wondering whetheror not not not just dropping
temple to like division two orwhatever, but just getting rid
of the program altogether.
I found that to be somewhatsurprising.
But then when I heard them layout the reasons I thought, okay,
(33:26):
maybe that is worth taking alook at.
And the main point of thediscussion was Temple is not in
a position to compete with theseother programs who can just
throw massive amounts of NILdollars at these athletes for
recruiting purposes and so forth.
And I don't disagree, and Dougand I have had conversations
around what that means for theservice academies.
I maintain that to some extentthe service academies are
(33:50):
somewhat immune because they'renot really going after those
athletes anyway.
I mean, you're talking aboutthese four and five star
athletes.
I've seen the service academiesrecruit two and three star
athletes that develop into threeand four star athletes, but
those were never the ones thatcould really command a lot of
like NIL dollars, so they werenever really on the radar and I
felt like because of that therewould still be a place for
(34:12):
service academy football in, youknow, among the college ranks.
So my mind hasn't reallychanged all that much, but for
the first time I'm recognizingthat shoot, the service
academies might be in a slightlybetter position or on slightly
more solid ground than some ofthese middle-tier Division I
(34:33):
programs.
Doug, what do you think about?
Doug (34:35):
that you are correct and obviously the Temple president
couldn't have picked the worstway of phrasing that tactically
because he came up back prettyquickly which in previous times,
before Transfer Portal and NILexisted, it was all about
(34:55):
development.
You know there was a clearlevel of the ultimate performers
that could recruit and develop,like Nick Saban programs, just
for example.
But now you have this NIL and atransfer portal come in and you
kind of have seen a level ofparity among programs now
because players they have a goodyear and next thing you know
(35:18):
they say well, I can go commandmore money elsewhere.
So the group of five teamsalways are griping.
The UTSA coach was one of themost vocal ones last year
because he says all we are isgetting picked clean by the
power of four or it was power offive at the time because of
these big NIL, these moneyfoundations they're putting up
(35:41):
there.
Also there's, I think, where theservice academies can really
blossom is we recruit, wedevelop, we have a mentality, a
brotherhood that carries overinto what you're going to do the
rest of your life.
That really is going to recruitthe special kids.
(36:05):
Everybody knows you play aservice academy.
It's 60 minutes, you better beplaying and it doesn't matter
what the score is, you'replaying hard.
It's just a different game InTemple.
They were bitten by it lastyear.
The quarterback they had lastyear left for ice, yep, and so
(36:26):
this president.
But now that he has said, thatis the worst thing, because now
the vultures are going to comein and start calling all of the
top Temple players and say, hey,are you willing to stay at a
place that may not be playingfootball?
Karl (36:40):
Here's some money.
Come to us.
Doug (36:42):
That's what I'd be doing, and so any coach that is going
to get hired now is is like he,he really didn't do any favors
but uh.
So NIL obviously is going tocreate winners and losers.
Because of that, the transferportal has just uh, and, and I
know it's just down to twotransfers.
But the other thing is if thiskid, uh, that the quarterback at
(37:06):
vanderbilt wins his suit, inwhich your juco time doesn't
count against you, that'sanother, because chronic
actually talked about it we'replaying teams with nil and
transfer that have our fieldingteams far senior to us.
You know these kids have beenplaying four, five, six years
(37:26):
and so they're bigger andstronger.
It just puts us, you know, wereally have to bring our A game.
Yeah, exactly, serviceacademies in this new world of
college sports that we live in,in particular with the revenue
producing sports.
I think that our pool ofathletes has probably gotten a
(37:49):
little stronger in the long termbecause we'll be the last
bastions of the true recruitsand develop a team, a foundation
, and you keep doing this,whereas now you've seen how does
one recruit, especially withthe higher tier, the power fours
(38:15):
and a good chunk of the groupfives.
How do you recruit a kid on thepremise that, oh, you're going
to, you're going to play for me,when they know that in a matter
of a month, uh, through nil,all of a sudden this new,
experienced quarterback comes inand bumps them and then, unless
(38:36):
they are getting paid a lot ofmoney like an archie manning
which is a whole other story inhow it makes kids stay around
longer, because if they knowthey don't have a shot at the
pros, but the longer they stayaround in the NIL world making
money that they never couldbefore, the service academies
(38:57):
are going to have a hard timecompeting against teams that are
going to be full of a rosterthat is two to three years their
senior by position, justbecause these kids are going to
hang around and they're going touse all their eligibility,
unless, obviously, they have apath to getting drafted or think
(39:17):
they have a chance of gettingsigned as an unrestricted free
agent.
But what it has done is createdthis whole new level of parity
so that, whereas before you hadthe top tier schools which had
the ability to recruit anddevelop, and just that, the
(39:38):
facilities, which in a way isnil uh, and all the things that
made them powerful, has now beendispersed, because now the kids
aren't necessarily thinkingabout facilities, they're
thinking about the paycheck.
And a good example is las vegas.
You know they they pulled thatkid from holy cross.
(39:59):
He goes over there and all of asudden he's not making what
they promised him and he justwalks out on the team, which
leaves a really bad taste.
It was Vanderbilt.
They had a kid who was a Jucoand he has now sued the NCAAs
Now.
He had a couple of good yearsat New Mexico State and then now
(40:20):
he's at Vanderbilt and he'slike I like playing at this
power five level and I want moretime.
And so NIL and Transfer Portalhas created a whole new
landscape that really is goingto create haves and have nots,
(40:43):
halves and have-nots, onlybecause money is going to.
I mean, why would somebodyleave a team when they've had a
successful year?
That player's had a really goodyear and yet they go off.
A good example Dylan Gabriel.
You're at Oklahoma, you're thestud.
Obviously Oklahoma's going tothe SEC and next thing, you know
, he leaves for Oregon andchanges the whole complexion.
(41:03):
So Temple had the kid who's nowat Rice and definitely had
Navy's attention because we sawwhat he could do when he was at
Temple and he did it to us thisyear.
So it's hard to prep, but atthe same time, we have the
maturity level and one of thethings that they made note in
(41:24):
the beginning of the year maybenot so much the second half of
the year, but in the beginningyou have a team that's totally
new to each other, so they gotto learn the nuances of playing
together as a unit and thatfirst six games half the year
could be uh, whereas navy, youknow, they clicked, I mean they
gelled, they showed they were aunit.
Well then, now a lot of schoolsare getting that experience,
(41:47):
playing as a unit and that thoseintrinsic changes that have
made them a little bit stronger,right, uh, are starting to rise
to the top.
You know that.
So it's, it's very interesting,but well, the straw that's
going to break the camel's backcollegiately is this revenue
sharing.
(42:07):
I was trying to read up alittle bit in our break there
and, uh, that is what I thinkprobably the temple president
was talking about.
It's like this revenue sharing.
Well, we all have to throw thisamount of money in this pool
and how much gets paid out ishas potentially of creating
haves and have nots and who getsthe money, it could create a
(42:27):
legal issues.
So the non-revenue sports, Imean you could have whole
athletic departments shedprograms.
So the academies I don't thinkwe're a part of that.
We're not going to take moneyand be putting into this revenue
sharing.
So the academies I don't thinkwe're part of that.
We're not going to take moneyand be putting into this revenue
sharing.
So right now we're kind ofunique in that we have 36
division one sports and that'snot going to change, whereas
(42:50):
some of these schools, even likea Stanford, uh, or these
programs that create Olympiansand NCAA champions, may just go
by the wayside because they arenot producing the money and
those programs have to suck upall that money to be competitive
(43:10):
in this new landscape of.
How much notoriety am I gettingand how big a check are you
going to Flipping recruitsnowadays?
Nowadays I guarantee it has nowgone from.
What are you giving me forfacilities?
Where am I staying with?
You know, school, it's all.
How big is the check?
I mean ohio state's carryingwhat a 21 million dollar nil
(43:32):
load that is.
That's probably more than someathletic department budgets for
schools, like a temple andthat's just money they're
throwing at athletes.
So but the academies, I say ourpool is still going to be strong
.
You know, that's where we shine.
As we take that one, two andthree-star athlete, you put them
(43:53):
in a good environment,well-coached, and next thing,
you know they're playing as aunit.
You know we've always saidyou're stronger as a unit than
you are as an individual andthat's where, uh, and maybe it's
a good example I mean, you gotso many good players out there.
Uh, it's not like the old dayswhen we were there we had
napoleon mccallum.
Geez, what's the play gonna be?
(44:14):
I don't know.
I'm gonna guess it's going tonapoleon, right, so, so, so, uh,
it's just hard to say right now, but it's the haves and
have-nots are going to jump.
Revenue sharing is going toimpact programs.
Down here in Jacksonville, whereI live, ju had football.
(44:35):
They don't do that now and Ithink Kerwin Bell is one of
their better coaches now inanother program.
He was the Florida quarterbackthat did well with UNF.
Unf doesn't even touch it, butthey have a really good
basketball program and othersports.
So some schools will look atGonzaga.
Oh for sure, they're a power inbasketball, but there's no
(44:58):
football there and we're uniquebecause if we were to say you
got to take all your sports andplay in the same conference.
That would be a really a killthe academy if we had to play
all of our sports in theamerican.
We go to a league that's very,very comparable to us and that's
the patriot.
But we take football becausethe historic, you know, uh,
(45:19):
we've, we've always had uh, youknow, in our heydays and we have
these good years.
I mean for us, uh, eight andfour and we are in your beat
army.
That's a really good year.
You compete for the AAC fineCommander-in-Chief's trophy and
beating the service academies isstill premier.
8-4 in the SEC or any of thepower fours gets you showing the
(45:41):
door.
Oh and heck in some of the AACschools.
Jim Houston at ECU didn't't havea bad record, but he had one
off here and bam yeah, you know,the expectations for a coach
are so much, and now you look atwhere a lot of the changes are
(46:02):
being made because these coaches, head coaches, make so much
money.
If you keep firing them becausethey're not producing, after
only only two years, three years, the payout for the school is
huge.
So what are they doing now?
Let me bring in a bunch of toptier coordinators.
And when they dismantled BobbyBowden in Florida State back in
(46:26):
the heyday, how did they do it?
They hired off all of his toptier coordinators to be head
coaches elsewhere.
So there's a new game in townwhere the coordinator now is
going to be king because andthat's why some of these head
coaches I'm taking some of mymoney and I'm going to give it
to my coordinators to keep them.
Karl (46:48):
Yeah, I think that's probably a fairly sound strategy
there, and but I think you'reright.
I think when it comes to allthe different changes that
you're seeing, it's, it'sprobably not going to Well.
First of all, I think it'sgoing to probably get a little
bit worse before it gets better.
And for it to get better, itthere probably needs to be
people who have the politicalwill to make some changes in
(47:10):
terms of just providing morestructure around the whole
operation, Because until thathappens, we're going to keep
seeing this.
I mean, this kid that's atVanderbilt right now, you know
he's bringing a suit against theNCAA because he doesn't want
his junior college time to count.
Well, you know, if he wins that, my God, that's just going to
change everything.
And I don't really see and thatwas never an issue until now,
(47:33):
and I think that you know onceyou, college eligibility is
college eligibility, regardlessof its junior college level,
division one, two, three,whatever.
And I think that if, if somebodyor enough people finally just
put their foot down and say,okay, look, you've got four
years of eligibility plus a redshirt year, or maybe even just
give them five and just be donewith it, you know, as a
(47:53):
compromise or whatever that thatneeds to be where it ends,
Because, to your point, when yougot kids that are sticking
around until they're 22, 20,well, 24, 25 years old, I mean
and we saw that during the COVIDyears and so forth uh, that
gets gets to forth, that getsold in a hurry.
I mean, I was talking to my son,Ethan, and he was telling me
(48:15):
about this one guy who, betweeninjuries and having the timing
of going through college duringCOVID and so forth, he's going
to be coming back for his ninthyear.
Now, obviously, he didn't playall the games in all nine years.
He played, like you know, twoyear and three year, and so you
got to play a certain number ofgames for it to count as a
qualified year.
But the fact is he's beensticking around college that
(48:37):
long because of these rules, andI think that Ishii had a
running back that way becauseNewberry remembers him in 2019.
Doug (48:58):
Yeah, you know, and it's just, it just gets kind of crazy
.
But you know we'll see whathappens and typically the
reaction when these laws arepassed to handle what has
happened is that they make ittoo extreme, right, and so it
takes time for people to realizethat you have to pull it back
(49:22):
some.
So that's what happened.
This is because there was asuit.
Athletes didn't feel they weregetting you know and probably
there was some legitimate thatschools were making a lot of
money off a lot of young kids,really good talents.
But the reaction has been thisso much money has polluted the
waters.
Now that it's muddied.
(49:43):
The NCAAs who's in charge?
People are getting you know,the Big Ten, the SEC, these
conferences are getting sopowerful.
So you have this huge swingwhere it's gone way past what
would be what I would consider anice, mature process.
So eventually it's going to getso bad they're going to have to
bring it back.
But, like you say, it's goingto get worse before it gets
(50:06):
better, and I feel because a lotof athletes are going to get
chewed up and spit out by theprocess.
Karl (50:14):
Yeah, yeah, and I think that that's one of the reasons
why, when you see just all thischaos going on around you in
college football, it's almostgreat to have these schools like
Navy Army and Air Force.
College football is stillcollege football.
They go out there and they playit because they love playing
the game.
It's not about the money, it'snot about you know, I used to
(50:34):
say, it's not about the shoecontract, it's going out there
and playing for the guy next toyou, and I think that that's why
, just for that reason alone, Ithink schools like Navy Army and
Air Force can continue to stayrelevant in college football
during this day and age.
Doug (50:47):
And here's one.
What was going on this weekend?
This weekend, or the last twoweekends, it's been senior day,
the last game of your collegecareer.
How many of those colleges,unlike the Naval Academy or the
service academies, actually puta lineup on the field in which
those players were there for allfour years?
Karl (51:09):
Yeah, exactly.
Doug (51:10):
Some of them have there.
They only go one or two, so howdo you get them to step to go?
This is senior day.
This is your day to go outthere.
For some, it's like this is mylast shot to make a big paycheck
.
There's no loyalty to thestands.
This is like my third school.
Karl (51:30):
Yeah, yeah.
Doug (51:30):
Yeah, Tradition is is dying in collegiate sports.
Karl (51:34):
Yeah, and that's too bad.
And to your point, real quickly, before we wrap things up here,
I think that uh, uh, it's.
It's just getting so much morecommon to hear the announcers
that are calling a game, uh, saysome athlete's name and saying
the transfer from you knowschool a, and before that he was
at school b.
Like you said, this is like thethird school that they're at
(51:57):
and I mean you'll never see thatat navy.
I mean people, people don'tcome to the academies through
the transfer portal.
That we know for sure exactlyand, uh, you know.
Doug (52:07):
So you know, we're the traditionalists that hopefully
will remain to have a strongfoundation.
We'll know our place, We'll doit well and our pool of kids is
really not going to change.
Karl (52:22):
Yeah, yeah, all right.
Hey, doug, listen.
That's going to wrap things upfor us here, but I just want to
thank you again for joining ustoday on Navy Sports Central and
, like I said, in 2025, I'mlooking at bringing in just kind
of a rotating group ofpanelists and so forth to
discuss different sports.
So it'd be great to have youback on sometime in the future.
Doug (52:45):
That'd be awesome.
Love to and thanks for allyou're doing and go Navy beat
Army All right.
Thanks, Doug.
Go Navy beat Army, All right,Take care.
Karl (52:52):
All right, bye-bye.
Okay, stay with us, folks,because we've got our question
of the day and mid-watchsegments coming up next.
This is Karl Darden, and you'relistening to Navy Sports
Central.
We are into the home stretchnow, which means it is time for
(53:19):
our question of the day.
So let's start by checking outthe responses from the last one,
which, if you recall, was fromthe episode marking the Class of
84's 40th reunion.
Here is the question In thegame against Charlotte, navy had
a 38-3 halftime lead.
What is the most number ofpoints that the Mids have put up
in the first half of a gamesince 2003?
Is it A 40, b 42, c, 45, or D49?
(53:45):
Now, as we check out theanswers, the most popular one
was D 49 points.
There were 66% of you who wentwith that choice.
Next was B 42 points, with 17%,and then there were 16% of you
who picked 40 points.
No one selected C, which was 45points.
Okay, before I get to the answer, I'll tell you that at some
(54:06):
point since 2003, the Mids haveput up these numbers.
In one half, they scored 40against Rutgers in 2004.
The year before that, they putup 42 in the first 30 minutes on
their way to beating CentralMichigan, and I think they
scored like 63 points in thatgame.
Then, in 2010, the offense ledby Ricky Dobbs went crazy
against East Carolina on theroad and rung up 49 points in
(54:27):
posting a 76-35 win.
But all those points came inthe second half.
Remember the question asked forthe points scored in the first
half?
That means that C 45 points isthe correct answer, and that
came in 2007 when the Midsplayed North Texas in what has
to be one of the wildest gamesI've ever been a part of.
Navy would end up winning thegame 74-62, which sounds more
(54:47):
like a college basketball score.
But here's what's totally nutsthere were four different times
in the first half where Navy wasbehind by 18 points, and at
halftime they were still behind49-45.
And it was the third quarterthat proved to be the difference
.
The offense outscored NorthTexas 20-7 to put the game on
ice, and the two teams must havebeen exhausted by then, because
(55:08):
there were only 15 pointsscored in the fourth quarter,
and that was a 9-6 in favor ofthe mids, I think.
At some point during the firstquarter, both teams scored 28 in
a span of about five minutesand the stats were something
right out of a video game.
There was over 1,300 yards oftotal offense between both teams
.
Navy had 572 rushing yards togo along with 108 through the
air, and the offense was soexplosive that they averaged 10
(55:28):
yards per rush.
So they were basically pickingup a first down every time they
carried the ball.
That was one crazy game.
Okay, now let's check outtoday's question.
ESPN is predicting Navy willplay in either the Armed Forces
Bowl on December 27th againstMiami of Ohio or the Military
Bowl on December 28th againstBoston College.
The mid's overall record inbowl games is 12-11-1.
(55:49):
What is their longest winningstreak in these games?
Is it A, 2, b, 3, c, 4, or D?
None of the above?
Go ahead and give that somethought and you can get back to
me with an answer by respondingto the poll question which will
be posted later on the NavySports Nation group Facebook
page.
You can also text the showdirectly by using the link in
(56:11):
the show notes.
Now let's finish things up withour mid-watch segment, starting
with the women.
We were following AmandaGraziano, who is a midfielder on
the soccer team.
The mids ended up 9-10-2 on theyear and lost in the first
round of the Patriot Leaguetournament.
In fact, it was kind of a roughmonth of October overall.
Now, the team defense wasgenerally pretty good, except
(56:31):
for the star match against Army,where not much of anything went
right.
Navy held their opponents to nomore than one goal and, as a
midfielder, graciano played abig role in that.
The only problem was that themids went through a bit of a
scoring drought at exactly thewrong time.
They only put up one goal intheir last six games, and that
was a 1-0 win over Holy Cross onOctober 25th.
Graciano did finish the year byleading the team in points,
(56:52):
though, which is a nice way tofinish her career.
Moving on to the men, we've gotLuke Wagner and Luke O'Connell
from the sprint football team.
The Mids did get back to thechampionship game, as expected,
but they weren't able to make itfour titles in a row, dropping
a close game to Army 21-16.
O'connell did not play in thegame, so I don't know what was
going on there.
He might have been injured.
Luke Wagner did lead the teamin rushing with 67 yards.
(57:15):
He also threw for 156 yards andtwo touchdowns, but it wasn't
enough to overcome the BlackKnights' 11-point lead.
In the fourth quarter, the Midsscored with less than a minute
to go and they couldn't recoverthe onside kick, so the Black
Knights just ran out the clock.
Wagner side kick, so the BlackKnights just ran out the clock.
Wagner will be graduating inthe spring, so we wish him the
(57:35):
best in his future career, butO'Connell is just a sophomore,
so he will likely be back tohelp Navy pursue another CFL
championship in 2025.
That's going to do it for thisedition of Navy Sports Central.
Thank you all so much forjoining us Now.
If you like what you've heard,please be sure to hit that
follow button wherever you getyour podcasts, and remember to
get the word to all the otherNavy fans out there.
Once again, I'd like to thankmy classmate and Navy sports
(57:55):
superfan, doug Conkey, forjoining me today.
It was great to get hisperspective not only on Navy
football, but also the transferportal and NIL, two things that
are really disrupting thecollege game.
Our question of the daycontinues to be a show favorite.
You can get in on that byjoining the Navy Sports Nation
group Facebook page and givingyour answer to this week's
question.
You can also respond by sendingus a text.
All you need to do is click onthe link in the show notes.
And just a quick reminder theviews expressed on Navy Sports
(58:17):
Central are my own and do notreflect those of the US Naval
Academy or Navy Athletics.
By the way, the music used inNavy Sports Central comes to you
courtesy of Audio Jungle.
This is a great site forpurchasing the rights to use the
music from thousands of artistsaround the world, and those
featured in the podcast will becredited in our show notes.
Talk to you soon, everybody,until next time.
This is Karl Darden.
Go Navy beat Army.
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