October 12, 2024 • 24 mins
Welcome to Navy Sports Central, the official podcast of the Navy Sports Nation!
In this episode, we will break down how the Navy Football team dominated Air Force from the opening whistle. The Mids executed their game plan on both sides of the ball and effectively purged their memories of four years worth of nightmarish losses against the Falcons.
We're going to really get into that in our Deep Dive segment. And we'll also discuss how an Air Force team that has won 29 games over the past three seasons is now struggling to score even 10 points per contest.
Finally, I will share some of the numbers that point directly to why the Mids are off to such a great start, and why they still haven't reached their ceiling.
We've got all that plus our Question of the Day and Mid Watch segments, so please stick around!
Related Links:
We want your answer to our Question of the Day. Here is the one for this episode:
Blake Horvath has opened the season with 5 consecutive games where he has passed for 100 yards or more. In the last 23 years what is the record for the most number of games where a Navy Quarterback has had 100 or more passing yards. Is it:
A. 5
B. 6
C. 7
D. 8
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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Music is provided courtesy of Audio Jungle. Artists featured in order:
- Seven In Music (Intro)
- Alexiaction (Deep Dive)
- Loka Music (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.
This is the official podcast ofthe Navy Sports Nation, where
we take a deeper dive into Navysports, with the focus obviously
being on football.
The Mids have a bye week thatcame just at the right time on
the schedule.
After a dominating but veryphysical win over Air Force, the
team has a chance to rest upand recover before starting a
(00:36):
stretch of five straight gamesthat includes Notre Dame and
Tulane, and all but one of themare away from Navy Marine Corps
Stadium.
But first things first.
After a quick sports update, wewill take a closer look at that
game against the Falcons in ourdeep dive segment, and we'll
also have our question of theday and check in with our
athletes on the mid-watch.
So sit tight, we're justgetting started.
All right, it's great to haveyou guys with us.
(01:06):
Thanks so much for dropping in.
I really appreciate you takingthe time For this sports update.
I wanted to start things off bytalking about the Navy water
polo team.
This is a group of guys that wedon't talk a whole lot about,
but trust me, their matches I'vewatched a lot of them on ESPN
Plus and they're pretty exciting.
Trust me, their matches I'vewatched a lot of them on ESPN
Plus and they're pretty exciting.
But anyway, the mids arecurrently 11-5 with a 2-2
(01:28):
conference record so far thisyear.
One of their non-conferencewins was a 19-18 thriller over
Air Force about a month ago.
It was a tight game from startto finish.
In fact it ended up going intoovertime and that's when
freshman center Maddox Geraghyscored his fifth goal of the
game to seal the win.
It also meant that Navy canhang on to the Freedom Vase for
another year.
That's the hardwood that's upfor grabs when these two teams
(01:50):
play each other every season.
The Mids won their most recentouting against Mercyhurst to
even up their conference record.
In that game 13 differentplayers scored, and leading them
all were Quinn Bartlett andHenry Williams, with three goals
apiece.
One thing I didn't realize ishow many games these guys play.
After 16 games, the team isbarely halfway through the
(02:11):
season.
They've got 13 left to go, plusthe playoffs.
Last year ended with a toughloss to Fordham in a conference
championship game.
So the clear goal here is toget back there and see what they
can do about bringing home thetrophy.
Okay, now let's move on to men'sand women's cross country.
Both teams have wrapped uptheir invitational seasons and
all that remains before thePatriot League Championships is
their star meet against Army.
That will take place on October19th at noon.
Last year the men came awaywith a win at West Point, but
(02:32):
the women weren't able to makeit a sweep.
This year could be pretty toughas well, because, from what I
remember about the outdoor trackseason last spring, the Army
women have a fair amount ofdepth at the middle to long
distances.
Now, in the most recentInvitational for the men up in
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, seniorMurphy Smith led the team by
finishing fifth overall in thefield of 374 runners.
Smith ran the 8K course in atime of 23 minutes 33.2 seconds.
(02:56):
That was good enough to earnhim Patriot League Athlete of
the Week honors.
His teammate Patrick Gandinipicked up Rookie of the Week for
his efforts.
Gandini rounded out the topfive for Navy with a time of 24
minutes 36.8 seconds for the 8Krace.
That's a season's best for himand it helped lock down the
fourth place finish for the midsout of 44 teams.
The women finished exactly inthe middle of a 42-team field.
(03:17):
In the same meet, senior AlexWercinski was the top runner for
the mids, finishing 70th out of371 competitors.
Her time over the 6k course was21 minutes 10.1 seconds.
So I know it seems like it'skind of a short season for cross
country, but remember, justabout all those runners are
going to be rolling right intoindoor track and that gets going
really, really soon.
(03:38):
Okay, I also wanted to give aquick shout out to the Navy
Rifle Team.
They are 2-1 on the year so far, with a couple of wins over VMI
.
The team is led by sophomoreIsabella Baldwin, who's coming
off an All-American freshmanseason.
Baldwin scored a team-high 587points in the small-bore
competition.
She also led the mids in theair rifle with 596 points,
(03:59):
giving her an aggregate score of1,183.
Senior Marleigh Duncan wasright behind her with 1,179
total points and, for the men,parker Haydin returned, after
missing last season, to post ascore of 578 in the small bore
and 593 in the air rifle.
That was good for a total of1171, and that's a strong score
for not having shotcompetitively in over a year.
Next up for the mids will beNebraska, ole Miss and Memphis.
(04:22):
That match will take place onthe weekend of October 19th and
20th.
Okay, that gets you caught upon some of the other fall sports
teams in action, and I will bementioning a few more of those
in my posts on the Navy SportsNation group Facebook page over
the next couple of weeks.
As for today, we have juststarted to scratch the surface
in this episode, so please staywith us.
Our deep dive segment is next.
(04:59):
Prior to this last Navy AirForce football game, it had been
five years since the Mids lastbeat the Falcons, and that was
in Annapolis.
They took a 21-9 lead into thefourth quarter, but after
missing a field goal, air Forceended up getting one of their
own.
Then a fumble in the three andout possession led to two Falcon
touchdowns.
Suddenly, the mids were down25-21 with just over three
minutes to go, and a field goalwasn't going to cut it.
(05:20):
They needed to get into the endzone.
They were staring a prettycrushing loss right in the face
after being in control of thegame for three quarters, but the
Mids didn't flinch.
That was a record-settingoffense in 2019, and they
overcame a potentiallydrive-killing holding penalty
and connected on two key passplays to get into the red zone.
After that, Malcolm Perry gotjust the yardage he needed on a
fourth and one from the 15, andhe scored two plays later.
(05:41):
The Mids now led 28-25 with 23seconds left.
Air Force couldn't move theball on their last possession,
though, and on 4th and 10, theyfumbled the attempted lateral,
and linebacker Tony Brown tookit in for the touchdown.
The final score was 34-25.
From that point forward, navylost four in a row to Air Force,
and it hasn't been prettyeither.
During that stretch from2020-2023, the Mids were
(06:02):
outscored 93 to 26, including a40 to 7 thumping in Colorado
Springs four years ago.
In the following year, the Navydefense kept the team in the
game for basically threequarters, but they were on the
field way too long.
I think.
Air Force had like a seven oreight, maybe even nine minute
advantage in time of possession,so the Navy defense just ran
out of gas.
Eventually, air Force tacked onnine points on a safety and a
(06:24):
touchdown in the fourth quarterto close things out, and the
final score was 23-3.
Two years ago, the Navy defenseplayed another outstanding game,
but the offense reallystruggled, and even though they
managed to tie it at 10 in thefourth quarter, the Falcons
tacked on a field goal late inthe game to win it 13-10.
Now, last year was really ugly.
Once again, the defense playedgreat, except for one play that
(06:45):
came on a 94-yard touchdown passthat gave Air Force their early
lead.
Their offense never saw the endzone again after that.
The Falcons' only other scorecame on a pick six.
The only problem, though, wasthat the Navy offense was
non-existent.
Air Force completely shuteverything down, holding them in
to just 124 total yards.
Only a meaningless touchdownwith less than a minute to go in
the game prevented a shutout,and the final score was 17-6.
(07:07):
Now, as painful as it was for meto do that recap, I thought it
was necessary.
So you guys would have theright context as we break down
the mids big win this pastSaturday.
These are two completelydifferent teams compared to last
year.
Now I will get into whathappened with Air Force later on
in this segment, but we allknow the reason for Navy's big
improvement.
It all came down to getting theright guy for their offensive
coordinator.
Some of you may have heardrecently that Coach Newberry
(07:28):
actually wanted to hire DrewKronick when he took over as
head coach following the 2022season, but the timing just
wasn't right.
On his end and after theoffense took a step backwards
last season, despite showingsome flashes of solid play and
nice execution, newberry decidedto move on from Coach Chestnut
and he took another shot atbringing Coach Kronick to
Annapolis.
In this case, the second timewas a charm, so let's go ahead
(07:49):
and take a look at a couple ofthings going into this game.
The Mids were favored by ninepoints.
That seemed reasonable to me.
I knew the Falcons were havingtrouble scoring in their first
few games and I thought the Navyoffense was more than capable
of putting up at least 21 points.
The bottom line was as long asthe team came ready to play, I
expected them to win easily, andI would say that the result was
even better than anticipated.
(08:09):
That's been the case withpretty much all the games so far
.
One of the reasons is that CoachCronic constantly looks for
ways to use all of his offensiveweapons.
Obviously, one of them is BlakeHorvath, but in this hybrid
wing tee offense, horvathoperates a lot like a point
guard.
Whether it's a traditionaloption, play being run or
something else Coach Cronic hascalled, based on what he's
seeing.
Defensively, the goal is to getthe ball into the hands of the
playmakers.
(08:30):
Both Eli Heidenreich andBrandon Chatman are dynamic
runners who happen to be reallygood receivers too, and Alex
Tecza and Daba Fofana arecapable of taking it to the
house from just about anywhereon the field.
Just like Horvath, the tightends are being used very
strategically and, of course,we've seen what Nathan Kent can
do once he gets his hands on theball.
(08:50):
So when you have a quarterbackwho's very comfortable in the
system and has a whole bunch ofweapons at his disposal, the
outcome is usually going to be apretty good one.
Here's another reason for theMets' terrific improvement on
offense, and it has to do withboth coaching and mindset.
First of all, the two coacheswho haven't gotten enough credit
this year are Jay Guillermo andTommy Laurendine.
Both of them coach theoffensive linemen, and you know
what I'm going to go ahead andthrow in Matt Gonzalez's name
too.
He's the team's strength andconditioning coach.
All three of these coaches areresponsible for the consistent
(09:13):
offensive play.
When Coach Cronic first arrived, he was asked about what he
thought the biggest challengewould be for the offense as they
learned the new system.
Kronick said it was teachingthe offensive lineman the proper
footwork and the correctblocking angles that his version
of the wing tee required.
It's pretty clear that CoachGuillermo and Coach Laurendine
have been successful there, butthat's been magnified by the
fact that the offensive line hasbeen pretty dominant physically
.
In the Memphis game thebroadcast team made several
(09:35):
references to how the O-line wasjust pushing the Tigers
defensive lineman all over theplace, and I heard the same
thing in the Air Force game.
That all comes down.
They've developed a programthat makes sure the team is
physically ready to play everygame and recover in time for the
next one.
Now I want to talk about themindset part.
We've all heard the phrase playfor the guy next to you plenty
(09:57):
of times, but while that'spretty easy to say, it's usually
a little tougher identifyingspecific examples during the
game.
But not this season, and if youwant to know just where to look
, the offensive line would be agood place to start, especially
during an explosive play.
I'm going to use Navy's secondtouchdown in the Air Force game
as an example.
That was the one where NathanKent scored on a reverse from 34
yards out on the fourth and two.
First of all, that play wasperfectly executed.
(10:19):
By the time Kent got the ball,the entire Falcon defense was on
the left side of the field.
But there was one Navy playerwho got downfield really fast
and that was the left tackle,Connor McMahon.
He briefly teamed up with BenPurvis on a block right there at
the line and then he releasedand sprinted downfield towards
the goal line, looking to clearthe way for Kent in case he
needed it.
I'll put a link to thehighlights in the show notes so
you can see it.
(10:39):
The play starts at about the118 mark.
You can see at the end of theplay that McMahon sort of nudges
an Air Force defender out ofthe way at about the two-yard
line.
But Kent was going to scoreregardless.
There's no way that thedefensive back was going to
bring him down in the open fielda couple of yards short of the
goal line.
But when you watch the play,focus on what Kent does.
After he scores.
He turns around and pointsright at Connor McMahon as if to
(10:59):
say, hey, thanks for hustlingall the way downfield to make
sure I got in, and then theycelebrate together.
That's not the first time oneor more Navy teammates have been
right there with the ballcarrier as he reaches the end
zone on an explosive play.
The linemen and receivers takepride in getting down the field
and delivering one more block toget their guy across the goal
line.
It is really cool to seeeveryone doing their part and
celebrating the team's successtogether.
Besides a touchdown by Kent,horvath and Teske each had two
(11:23):
behind some really good blockingby the offensive line.
Heidenreich had 100 yardsrushing and he also picked up
101 yards receiving, and to tellyou the truth, I don't think
that's ever happened in thetriple option era.
So that's a pretty significantaccomplishment.
Now on defense, coach Volkertcalled another excellent game.
He was bringing pressure fromall kinds of different angles to
keep the Air Force offense offbalance pretty much every
(11:44):
possession.
Kyle Jacob led the team with 10tackles, while Jackson Campbell
had two sacks to go along withtwo tackles for a loss.
The Mids seemed to be a stepahead all day.
They registered threethree-and-out possessions,
turned the Falcons over on downstwice and tacked on an
interception by Deshaun Peel.
So the defense got their sixpoints for this game and we know
that this almost always resultsin a win.
This time it was a prettyconvincing one.
(12:05):
Now, on Monday, I mentioned onour group Facebook page that
Navy's 34 points were eight morethan they put up in the
previous four games combined.
It's also the most they'vescored in Colorado Springs since
1978, when they won 37-8.
So what's the reason for AirForce taking such a significant
step back this year?
I think the answer to that liesin the fact that, for the past
(12:27):
few years anyway, they stoppedbeing a developmental program,
and it all had to do with anacademy policy that many,
including me, thought that theFalcons used to game the system
during the pandemic.
It's called the turnback policy.
The purpose is to allow cadetswho experience a hardship to
take a semester off to deal withit and then return to the
academy.
I don't have any issue with thepolicy itself.
I guess I just have a problemwith how it was applied this
time.
So when the pandemic hit in 2020, the Mountain West Conference
(12:49):
canceled their fall footballschedule, and when that happened
, 36 members of the footballteam used the turnback program
to skip that semester.
It was tacked on to their finalsemester, which gave them the
opportunity to graduate inDecember, and that in turn, gave
them another year ofeligibility for football.
Then the Mountain West did a180 and decided to play an
abbreviated six-game schedule.
(13:10):
With that reduced squad, theFalcons ended up going 3-3.
Now, to be fair, the 36 playersin the turnback program were
not part of the 2020 squad, soit wasn't like it was a true
redshirt season where they couldbe practicing with the team and
sitting in on meetings, but,seriously, there's no way that
those players still weren'tconnected to the team.
I'm pretty sure they followedthe equivalent of an off-season
(13:30):
program, which included strengthand conditioning as well as
staying up to speed on theoffensive and defensive schemes
that they used, and when theycame back for the following
season, these players hadmatured one more year without
having to deal with the wear andtear on their bodies.
The Falcons went 10-3 in eachof their next two seasons, and
then last year, they won theirfirst eight, before losing their
next four in a row to close outthe year.
They did win their bowl game,though.
(13:50):
So in the three years followingthe pandemic, Air Force had a
record of 29-10, with three bowlwins, but all that came with a
pretty heavy price.
The younger players in theprogram weren't getting
developed at the same rate asthey otherwise might have been.
That's because of the playerswho had entered the turnback
program staying an extra season.
The Falcons had a ton ofplayers with lots of experience
those last couple of years andthey were getting the lion's
(14:11):
share of the snaps.
Now just about all those guysare gone and as a result, air
Force has one of the leastexperienced teams in the country
and they'll need to managetheir way through that.
Meanwhile, navy's program is onpretty solid footing.
There's no turnback program atthe academy, so when they lost
some key players through thetransfer portal a couple years
ago, it was just basically thenext man up.
These players took their lumpsat first, but now they have the
(14:33):
benefit of all that experience.
Most of their playmakers thisyear are underclassmen.
Horvath, heidenreich, chapman,kent and Teske are all juniors,
and so are Landon Robinson,kendall Whiteside, luke Pierce
and Jackson Campbell on defense.
At the end of the day, it allboils down to staying true to
the developmental nature of theprogram.
To me, it seems like Air Forcetook advantage of an existing
policy to reap some quickrewards.
(14:53):
Sure, they won some extra games, but they only came away with
one CIC trophy during thatperiod, and now they have a
pretty decent mountain to climbto get everything back on track.
Okay, we're going to go aheadand take a short break now, but
before we do that, I did want togive 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.
(15:14):
Just click on it, answer acouple of questions and you'll
be good to go this podcast rightnow.
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
(15:36):
actually tap that follow buttonright now to show your support
for the podcast.
I'm looking forward to havingyou join us.
We'll be right back.
Thanks for staying with us onNavy Sports Central.
(15:59):
Karl Darden, here with you andas we finish this deep dive
segment, I wanted to spend sometime doing a little exercise
comparing how much this Navyfootball team has improved
compared to last year, and I'mgoing to call it with this game.
Now.
Ideally, it probably makes moresense to do this after the
sixth game, since that wouldmark the halfway point in the
season.
But five games is close enoughfor you all to see the
(16:20):
difference, so let's go aheadand get started.
With this game against AirForce, the Mids have scored 218
points.
They only scored 212 all oflast season.
The team is currently averagingjust over 43 points per game,
compared to just over 17 in 2023.
They are ranked 7th in thecountry in scoring offense,
compared to 125th a year ago.
By the way, that improvement ofover 25 points per game ranks
(16:46):
as the best across all ofDivision I.
With this game, the Navy offensecontinues to be perfect in the
red zone.
They are 18 for 18 and everyscore has been a touchdown.
That compares to just 14 all oflast year.
And, by the way, that 18 for 18, with all of them being
touchdowns ranks first in theFBS.
With this game, the team rankssecond in the country with 303
rushing yards per game.
This is over 100 yards morecompared to last year, and the
(17:07):
21 touchdowns they've scored onthe ground is already five more
than the 16 they put up all oflast season.
With this game, the mids areaveraging 8.2 yards per play,
which ranks first among all FBSteams.
Last season, they were all theway down at 118th, with just 4.6
yards per play.
With this game, the Navy offensecontinues to maintain their
high standards with respect toball security.
(17:28):
They've only put the ball onthe ground once and they got
that one back.
They're ranked sixth in thecountry in fewest fumbles per
game.
In 2023, they were at 115th.
Now let me go ahead and throwin one for the defense, because
the defense was pretty good lastyear, but I did want to find
one metric that applied to them.
With this game, the Navydefense added another turnover
to their total and so far thisyear, they have a turnover
(17:50):
margin of plus 1.8, which ranksthem third in the country.
This is a stat where the teamranked pretty high last year,
finishing seventh overall, sothe defense has even managed to
improve on this number over thefirst five games.
So there you go.
Those are a handful of statsthat show the huge improvement
in Navy football year over year,and I think the Mids will
continue to get better.
If they can steer clear of anysignificant injuries, this team
(18:10):
could rank among the best ever.
Okay, that takes care of ourdeep dive for this episode, but
stick around because we stillhave our question of the day
segment by going back to ourlast one, which actually was in
(18:43):
episode 67.
That was a little over a monthago, and that one had to do with
, uh, navy's opening game ofseason.
So here's the question Since2002, what is the most number of
years in a row that Navy haswon their first football game of
the season, either at home oron the road?
Is it A 3, b 4, c 5, or D 6?
(19:04):
And for this one, everyone whoanswered went with either four
there were 60% of you who chosethat answer or five 40% picked
that one, so the correct answerwas actually A three years.
And the mids have done that onthree different occasions in the
last 23 years.
The first was from 2002 to 2004.
And you'll recall that 2002 wasPaul Johnson's first year as
(19:27):
the head coach.
Now, interestingly enough, theywon their very first game of
the year against SMU and themids just absolutely hammered
them.
Now, remember, in the previousyear Navy had not won a single
game the entire season, sothey're riding a pretty long
losing streak.
They came into the game 10 anda half point underdogs and gave
the Mustangs a 38-7 beatdown,but then they lost their next
(19:49):
what 9?
Before they thrashed Army 58-12in the last game of the season.
So it was kind of a bookendyear and, of course, after that
the team just took off.
The next time was from 2006 to2008.
And remember that Coach Johnsonleft after that 2007 season, so
that 08 win was Coach Ken'svery first one as a head coach.
(20:10):
And then, finally, the lasttime was from 2015 to 2017.
So that's our recap.
Now let's go ahead and take alook at this episode's question.
Blake Horvath has opened aseason with five consecutive
games where he's passed for 100yards or more In the last 23
years.
What is the record for the mostnumber of games in a season
where a Navy quarterback has had100 or more passing yards?
(20:30):
Is it A 5, b 6, c 7, or D 8?
You can take your time on thatone and get back to me either by
texting the show or respondingto the poll question on the
group Facebook page.
So I'm looking forward toseeing what you have for me
there.
Okay, it is time to check inwith our athletes on the
mid-watch, so let's go ahead andstart with the women.
(20:51):
You'll recall that we aretracking senior midfielder
Amanda Graziano from the soccerteam.
The mids are currently 8-6-1overall and 2-1-1 in the
conference.
Meanwhile, graciano is theirleading points producer.
She's got four goals and sixassists to give her a total of
14 points overall.
Remember, for statisticalpurposes a goal counts as two
points.
Three of those assists came ina 4-3 win over Loyola a couple
(21:14):
of weeks ago.
Graziano delivered a perfectlyplaced corner kick to the front
of the goal that Alexa Riddleheaded in for Navy's first score
of the game, and it was about amonth ago that Graziano scored
on a pretty cool free kick.
After being fouled, she madeher attempt from about 18 yards
out.
The rest of the players werelined up about halfway between
Graziano and the goal, but therewas a break in the line and
(21:36):
Graziano decided to go low.
When she kicked it, the ballcurved right through the gap and
found the back of the net justinside the left post.
It was a terrific shot.
I'm going to go ahead and put alink in the show notes for you,
because you really got to checkit out.
It was pretty cool.
Anyway, the mids have five moreconference games, including the
star match against Army, andthat's going to be played on
(21:56):
October 19th on the road.
That's going to be a tough oneand I'm thinking that Graziano's
got to play a pretty pivotalrole if the mids are going to
win.
Now let's jump over to the men.
We are following two guys namedLuke, and both of them happen
to play on the sprint footballteam.
First we have Luke Wagner, whois a senior, and he was actually
listed as a running back at thebeginning of the season, but
now he's playing quarterback.
(22:17):
And it looks like LukeO'Connell, who's a sophomore and
at the beginning of the yearwas playing quarterback, is now
playing running back.
So basically they've justswitched roles.
The mids are the three-timedefending college sprint
football league champions, butthey're only two and one.
After a disappointing loss toArmy last week in the star game,
the offense just reallycouldn't get anything going.
(22:38):
There was a couple of costlyturnovers and I don't know.
It just wasn't their day.
So they've got four games leftand they're probably going to
have to win all of them to getback into the championship game,
where they'll most likely justface Army again.
I mean, that's the way it'sbeen for the last God knows how
many years.
In any case, luke Wagner issecond on the team in rushing,
averaging about six yards percarry.
(22:59):
He's got 149 yards through thefirst three games and his best
game throwing the ball wasagainst Cornell.
He passed for 144 yards and atouchdown and led the Mids to a
49-0 win.
The change to running backmeans less touches for Luke
O'Connell, since the team ispretty deep at that position.
So far this season, the DarienConnecticut native has only seen
action in the Cornell game.
He did make the most of itthough, picking up 32 yards on
(23:20):
just two carries, including onetouchdown.
Now we'll see how things goover these last four games.
The nice thing is, withO'Connell just being a sophomore
, he's got two more years tomake a significant impact.
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.
(23:41):
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
Central are my own and do notreflect those of the US Naval
Academy or Navy Athletics.
(24:03):
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 KarlDarden.
Go Navy Beat Army.
Thank you.
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.
This is the official podcast ofthe Navy Sports Nation, where
we take a deeper dive into Navysports, with the focus obviously
being on football.
The Mids have a bye week thatcame just at the right time on
the schedule.
After a dominating but veryphysical win over Air Force, the
team has a chance to rest upand recover before starting a
(00:36):
stretch of five straight gamesthat includes Notre Dame and
Tulane, and all but one of themare away from Navy Marine Corps
Stadium.
But first things first.
After a quick sports update, wewill take a closer look at that
game against the Falcons in ourdeep dive segment, and we'll
also have our question of theday and check in with our
athletes on the mid-watch.
So sit tight, we're justgetting started.
All right, it's great to haveyou guys with us.
(01:06):
Thanks so much for dropping in.
I really appreciate you takingthe time For this sports update.
I wanted to start things off bytalking about the Navy water
polo team.
This is a group of guys that wedon't talk a whole lot about,
but trust me, their matches I'vewatched a lot of them on ESPN
Plus and they're pretty exciting.
Trust me, their matches I'vewatched a lot of them on ESPN
Plus and they're pretty exciting.
But anyway, the mids arecurrently 11-5 with a 2-2
(01:28):
conference record so far thisyear.
One of their non-conferencewins was a 19-18 thriller over
Air Force about a month ago.
It was a tight game from startto finish.
In fact it ended up going intoovertime and that's when
freshman center Maddox Geraghyscored his fifth goal of the
game to seal the win.
It also meant that Navy canhang on to the Freedom Vase for
another year.
That's the hardwood that's upfor grabs when these two teams
(01:50):
play each other every season.
The Mids won their most recentouting against Mercyhurst to
even up their conference record.
In that game 13 differentplayers scored, and leading them
all were Quinn Bartlett andHenry Williams, with three goals
apiece.
One thing I didn't realize ishow many games these guys play.
After 16 games, the team isbarely halfway through the
(02:11):
season.
They've got 13 left to go, plusthe playoffs.
Last year ended with a toughloss to Fordham in a conference
championship game.
So the clear goal here is toget back there and see what they
can do about bringing home thetrophy.
Okay, now let's move on to men'sand women's cross country.
Both teams have wrapped uptheir invitational seasons and
all that remains before thePatriot League Championships is
their star meet against Army.
That will take place on October19th at noon.
Last year the men came awaywith a win at West Point, but
(02:32):
the women weren't able to makeit a sweep.
This year could be pretty toughas well, because, from what I
remember about the outdoor trackseason last spring, the Army
women have a fair amount ofdepth at the middle to long
distances.
Now, in the most recentInvitational for the men up in
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, seniorMurphy Smith led the team by
finishing fifth overall in thefield of 374 runners.
Smith ran the 8K course in atime of 23 minutes 33.2 seconds.
(02:56):
That was good enough to earnhim Patriot League Athlete of
the Week honors.
His teammate Patrick Gandinipicked up Rookie of the Week for
his efforts.
Gandini rounded out the topfive for Navy with a time of 24
minutes 36.8 seconds for the 8Krace.
That's a season's best for himand it helped lock down the
fourth place finish for the midsout of 44 teams.
The women finished exactly inthe middle of a 42-team field.
(03:17):
In the same meet, senior AlexWercinski was the top runner for
the mids, finishing 70th out of371 competitors.
Her time over the 6k course was21 minutes 10.1 seconds.
So I know it seems like it'skind of a short season for cross
country, but remember, justabout all those runners are
going to be rolling right intoindoor track and that gets going
really, really soon.
(03:38):
Okay, I also wanted to give aquick shout out to the Navy
Rifle Team.
They are 2-1 on the year so far, with a couple of wins over VMI
.
The team is led by sophomoreIsabella Baldwin, who's coming
off an All-American freshmanseason.
Baldwin scored a team-high 587points in the small-bore
competition.
She also led the mids in theair rifle with 596 points,
(03:59):
giving her an aggregate score of1,183.
Senior Marleigh Duncan wasright behind her with 1,179
total points and, for the men,parker Haydin returned, after
missing last season, to post ascore of 578 in the small bore
and 593 in the air rifle.
That was good for a total of1171, and that's a strong score
for not having shotcompetitively in over a year.
Next up for the mids will beNebraska, ole Miss and Memphis.
(04:22):
That match will take place onthe weekend of October 19th and
20th.
Okay, that gets you caught upon some of the other fall sports
teams in action, and I will bementioning a few more of those
in my posts on the Navy SportsNation group Facebook page over
the next couple of weeks.
As for today, we have juststarted to scratch the surface
in this episode, so please staywith us.
Our deep dive segment is next.
(04:59):
Prior to this last Navy AirForce football game, it had been
five years since the Mids lastbeat the Falcons, and that was
in Annapolis.
They took a 21-9 lead into thefourth quarter, but after
missing a field goal, air Forceended up getting one of their
own.
Then a fumble in the three andout possession led to two Falcon
touchdowns.
Suddenly, the mids were down25-21 with just over three
minutes to go, and a field goalwasn't going to cut it.
(05:20):
They needed to get into the endzone.
They were staring a prettycrushing loss right in the face
after being in control of thegame for three quarters, but the
Mids didn't flinch.
That was a record-settingoffense in 2019, and they
overcame a potentiallydrive-killing holding penalty
and connected on two key passplays to get into the red zone.
After that, Malcolm Perry gotjust the yardage he needed on a
fourth and one from the 15, andhe scored two plays later.
(05:41):
The Mids now led 28-25 with 23seconds left.
Air Force couldn't move theball on their last possession,
though, and on 4th and 10, theyfumbled the attempted lateral,
and linebacker Tony Brown tookit in for the touchdown.
The final score was 34-25.
From that point forward, navylost four in a row to Air Force,
and it hasn't been prettyeither.
During that stretch from2020-2023, the Mids were
(06:02):
outscored 93 to 26, including a40 to 7 thumping in Colorado
Springs four years ago.
In the following year, the Navydefense kept the team in the
game for basically threequarters, but they were on the
field way too long.
I think.
Air Force had like a seven oreight, maybe even nine minute
advantage in time of possession,so the Navy defense just ran
out of gas.
Eventually, air Force tacked onnine points on a safety and a
(06:24):
touchdown in the fourth quarterto close things out, and the
final score was 23-3.
Two years ago, the Navy defenseplayed another outstanding game,
but the offense reallystruggled, and even though they
managed to tie it at 10 in thefourth quarter, the Falcons
tacked on a field goal late inthe game to win it 13-10.
Now, last year was really ugly.
Once again, the defense playedgreat, except for one play that
(06:45):
came on a 94-yard touchdown passthat gave Air Force their early
lead.
Their offense never saw the endzone again after that.
The Falcons' only other scorecame on a pick six.
The only problem, though, wasthat the Navy offense was
non-existent.
Air Force completely shuteverything down, holding them in
to just 124 total yards.
Only a meaningless touchdownwith less than a minute to go in
the game prevented a shutout,and the final score was 17-6.
(07:07):
Now, as painful as it was for meto do that recap, I thought it
was necessary.
So you guys would have theright context as we break down
the mids big win this pastSaturday.
These are two completelydifferent teams compared to last
year.
Now I will get into whathappened with Air Force later on
in this segment, but we allknow the reason for Navy's big
improvement.
It all came down to getting theright guy for their offensive
coordinator.
Some of you may have heardrecently that Coach Newberry
(07:28):
actually wanted to hire DrewKronick when he took over as
head coach following the 2022season, but the timing just
wasn't right.
On his end and after theoffense took a step backwards
last season, despite showingsome flashes of solid play and
nice execution, newberry decidedto move on from Coach Chestnut
and he took another shot atbringing Coach Kronick to
Annapolis.
In this case, the second timewas a charm, so let's go ahead
(07:49):
and take a look at a couple ofthings going into this game.
The Mids were favored by ninepoints.
That seemed reasonable to me.
I knew the Falcons were havingtrouble scoring in their first
few games and I thought the Navyoffense was more than capable
of putting up at least 21 points.
The bottom line was as long asthe team came ready to play, I
expected them to win easily, andI would say that the result was
even better than anticipated.
(08:09):
That's been the case withpretty much all the games so far
.
One of the reasons is that CoachCronic constantly looks for
ways to use all of his offensiveweapons.
Obviously, one of them is BlakeHorvath, but in this hybrid
wing tee offense, horvathoperates a lot like a point
guard.
Whether it's a traditionaloption, play being run or
something else Coach Cronic hascalled, based on what he's
seeing.
Defensively, the goal is to getthe ball into the hands of the
playmakers.
(08:30):
Both Eli Heidenreich andBrandon Chatman are dynamic
runners who happen to be reallygood receivers too, and Alex
Tecza and Daba Fofana arecapable of taking it to the
house from just about anywhereon the field.
Just like Horvath, the tightends are being used very
strategically and, of course,we've seen what Nathan Kent can
do once he gets his hands on theball.
(08:50):
So when you have a quarterbackwho's very comfortable in the
system and has a whole bunch ofweapons at his disposal, the
outcome is usually going to be apretty good one.
Here's another reason for theMets' terrific improvement on
offense, and it has to do withboth coaching and mindset.
First of all, the two coacheswho haven't gotten enough credit
this year are Jay Guillermo andTommy Laurendine.
Both of them coach theoffensive linemen, and you know
what I'm going to go ahead andthrow in Matt Gonzalez's name
too.
He's the team's strength andconditioning coach.
All three of these coaches areresponsible for the consistent
(09:13):
offensive play.
When Coach Cronic first arrived, he was asked about what he
thought the biggest challengewould be for the offense as they
learned the new system.
Kronick said it was teachingthe offensive lineman the proper
footwork and the correctblocking angles that his version
of the wing tee required.
It's pretty clear that CoachGuillermo and Coach Laurendine
have been successful there, butthat's been magnified by the
fact that the offensive line hasbeen pretty dominant physically
.
In the Memphis game thebroadcast team made several
(09:35):
references to how the O-line wasjust pushing the Tigers
defensive lineman all over theplace, and I heard the same
thing in the Air Force game.
That all comes down.
They've developed a programthat makes sure the team is
physically ready to play everygame and recover in time for the
next one.
Now I want to talk about themindset part.
We've all heard the phrase playfor the guy next to you plenty
(09:57):
of times, but while that'spretty easy to say, it's usually
a little tougher identifyingspecific examples during the
game.
But not this season, and if youwant to know just where to look
, the offensive line would be agood place to start, especially
during an explosive play.
I'm going to use Navy's secondtouchdown in the Air Force game
as an example.
That was the one where NathanKent scored on a reverse from 34
yards out on the fourth and two.
First of all, that play wasperfectly executed.
(10:19):
By the time Kent got the ball,the entire Falcon defense was on
the left side of the field.
But there was one Navy playerwho got downfield really fast
and that was the left tackle,Connor McMahon.
He briefly teamed up with BenPurvis on a block right there at
the line and then he releasedand sprinted downfield towards
the goal line, looking to clearthe way for Kent in case he
needed it.
I'll put a link to thehighlights in the show notes so
you can see it.
(10:39):
The play starts at about the118 mark.
You can see at the end of theplay that McMahon sort of nudges
an Air Force defender out ofthe way at about the two-yard
line.
But Kent was going to scoreregardless.
There's no way that thedefensive back was going to
bring him down in the open fielda couple of yards short of the
goal line.
But when you watch the play,focus on what Kent does.
After he scores.
He turns around and pointsright at Connor McMahon as if to
(10:59):
say, hey, thanks for hustlingall the way downfield to make
sure I got in, and then theycelebrate together.
That's not the first time oneor more Navy teammates have been
right there with the ballcarrier as he reaches the end
zone on an explosive play.
The linemen and receivers takepride in getting down the field
and delivering one more block toget their guy across the goal
line.
It is really cool to seeeveryone doing their part and
celebrating the team's successtogether.
Besides a touchdown by Kent,horvath and Teske each had two
(11:23):
behind some really good blockingby the offensive line.
Heidenreich had 100 yardsrushing and he also picked up
101 yards receiving, and to tellyou the truth, I don't think
that's ever happened in thetriple option era.
So that's a pretty significantaccomplishment.
Now on defense, coach Volkertcalled another excellent game.
He was bringing pressure fromall kinds of different angles to
keep the Air Force offense offbalance pretty much every
(11:44):
possession.
Kyle Jacob led the team with 10tackles, while Jackson Campbell
had two sacks to go along withtwo tackles for a loss.
The Mids seemed to be a stepahead all day.
They registered threethree-and-out possessions,
turned the Falcons over on downstwice and tacked on an
interception by Deshaun Peel.
So the defense got their sixpoints for this game and we know
that this almost always resultsin a win.
This time it was a prettyconvincing one.
(12:05):
Now, on Monday, I mentioned onour group Facebook page that
Navy's 34 points were eight morethan they put up in the
previous four games combined.
It's also the most they'vescored in Colorado Springs since
1978, when they won 37-8.
So what's the reason for AirForce taking such a significant
step back this year?
I think the answer to that liesin the fact that, for the past
(12:27):
few years anyway, they stoppedbeing a developmental program,
and it all had to do with anacademy policy that many,
including me, thought that theFalcons used to game the system
during the pandemic.
It's called the turnback policy.
The purpose is to allow cadetswho experience a hardship to
take a semester off to deal withit and then return to the
academy.
I don't have any issue with thepolicy itself.
I guess I just have a problemwith how it was applied this
time.
So when the pandemic hit in 2020, the Mountain West Conference
(12:49):
canceled their fall footballschedule, and when that happened
, 36 members of the footballteam used the turnback program
to skip that semester.
It was tacked on to their finalsemester, which gave them the
opportunity to graduate inDecember, and that in turn, gave
them another year ofeligibility for football.
Then the Mountain West did a180 and decided to play an
abbreviated six-game schedule.
(13:10):
With that reduced squad, theFalcons ended up going 3-3.
Now, to be fair, the 36 playersin the turnback program were
not part of the 2020 squad, soit wasn't like it was a true
redshirt season where they couldbe practicing with the team and
sitting in on meetings, but,seriously, there's no way that
those players still weren'tconnected to the team.
I'm pretty sure they followedthe equivalent of an off-season
(13:30):
program, which included strengthand conditioning as well as
staying up to speed on theoffensive and defensive schemes
that they used, and when theycame back for the following
season, these players hadmatured one more year without
having to deal with the wear andtear on their bodies.
The Falcons went 10-3 in eachof their next two seasons, and
then last year, they won theirfirst eight, before losing their
next four in a row to close outthe year.
They did win their bowl game,though.
(13:50):
So in the three years followingthe pandemic, Air Force had a
record of 29-10, with three bowlwins, but all that came with a
pretty heavy price.
The younger players in theprogram weren't getting
developed at the same rate asthey otherwise might have been.
That's because of the playerswho had entered the turnback
program staying an extra season.
The Falcons had a ton ofplayers with lots of experience
those last couple of years andthey were getting the lion's
(14:11):
share of the snaps.
Now just about all those guysare gone and as a result, air
Force has one of the leastexperienced teams in the country
and they'll need to managetheir way through that.
Meanwhile, navy's program is onpretty solid footing.
There's no turnback program atthe academy, so when they lost
some key players through thetransfer portal a couple years
ago, it was just basically thenext man up.
These players took their lumpsat first, but now they have the
(14:33):
benefit of all that experience.
Most of their playmakers thisyear are underclassmen.
Horvath, heidenreich, chapman,kent and Teske are all juniors,
and so are Landon Robinson,kendall Whiteside, luke Pierce
and Jackson Campbell on defense.
At the end of the day, it allboils down to staying true to
the developmental nature of theprogram.
To me, it seems like Air Forcetook advantage of an existing
policy to reap some quickrewards.
(14:53):
Sure, they won some extra games, but they only came away with
one CIC trophy during thatperiod, and now they have a
pretty decent mountain to climbto get everything back on track.
Okay, we're going to go aheadand take a short break now, but
before we do that, I did want togive 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.
(15:14):
Just click on it, answer acouple of questions and you'll
be good to go this podcast rightnow.
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
(15:36):
actually tap that follow buttonright now to show your support
for the podcast.
I'm looking forward to havingyou join us.
We'll be right back.
Thanks for staying with us onNavy Sports Central.
(15:59):
Karl Darden, here with you andas we finish this deep dive
segment, I wanted to spend sometime doing a little exercise
comparing how much this Navyfootball team has improved
compared to last year, and I'mgoing to call it with this game.
Now.
Ideally, it probably makes moresense to do this after the
sixth game, since that wouldmark the halfway point in the
season.
But five games is close enoughfor you all to see the
(16:20):
difference, so let's go aheadand get started.
With this game against AirForce, the Mids have scored 218
points.
They only scored 212 all oflast season.
The team is currently averagingjust over 43 points per game,
compared to just over 17 in 2023.
They are ranked 7th in thecountry in scoring offense,
compared to 125th a year ago.
By the way, that improvement ofover 25 points per game ranks
(16:46):
as the best across all ofDivision I.
With this game, the Navy offensecontinues to be perfect in the
red zone.
They are 18 for 18 and everyscore has been a touchdown.
That compares to just 14 all oflast year.
And, by the way, that 18 for 18, with all of them being
touchdowns ranks first in theFBS.
With this game, the team rankssecond in the country with 303
rushing yards per game.
This is over 100 yards morecompared to last year, and the
(17:07):
21 touchdowns they've scored onthe ground is already five more
than the 16 they put up all oflast season.
With this game, the mids areaveraging 8.2 yards per play,
which ranks first among all FBSteams.
Last season, they were all theway down at 118th, with just 4.6
yards per play.
With this game, the Navy offensecontinues to maintain their
high standards with respect toball security.
(17:28):
They've only put the ball onthe ground once and they got
that one back.
They're ranked sixth in thecountry in fewest fumbles per
game.
In 2023, they were at 115th.
Now let me go ahead and throwin one for the defense, because
the defense was pretty good lastyear, but I did want to find
one metric that applied to them.
With this game, the Navydefense added another turnover
to their total and so far thisyear, they have a turnover
(17:50):
margin of plus 1.8, which ranksthem third in the country.
This is a stat where the teamranked pretty high last year,
finishing seventh overall, sothe defense has even managed to
improve on this number over thefirst five games.
So there you go.
Those are a handful of statsthat show the huge improvement
in Navy football year over year,and I think the Mids will
continue to get better.
If they can steer clear of anysignificant injuries, this team
(18:10):
could rank among the best ever.
Okay, that takes care of ourdeep dive for this episode, but
stick around because we stillhave our question of the day
segment by going back to ourlast one, which actually was in
(18:43):
episode 67.
That was a little over a monthago, and that one had to do with
, uh, navy's opening game ofseason.
So here's the question Since2002, what is the most number of
years in a row that Navy haswon their first football game of
the season, either at home oron the road?
Is it A 3, b 4, c 5, or D 6?
(19:04):
And for this one, everyone whoanswered went with either four
there were 60% of you who chosethat answer or five 40% picked
that one, so the correct answerwas actually A three years.
And the mids have done that onthree different occasions in the
last 23 years.
The first was from 2002 to 2004.
And you'll recall that 2002 wasPaul Johnson's first year as
(19:27):
the head coach.
Now, interestingly enough, theywon their very first game of
the year against SMU and themids just absolutely hammered
them.
Now, remember, in the previousyear Navy had not won a single
game the entire season, sothey're riding a pretty long
losing streak.
They came into the game 10 anda half point underdogs and gave
the Mustangs a 38-7 beatdown,but then they lost their next
(19:49):
what 9?
Before they thrashed Army 58-12in the last game of the season.
So it was kind of a bookendyear and, of course, after that
the team just took off.
The next time was from 2006 to2008.
And remember that Coach Johnsonleft after that 2007 season, so
that 08 win was Coach Ken'svery first one as a head coach.
(20:10):
And then, finally, the lasttime was from 2015 to 2017.
So that's our recap.
Now let's go ahead and take alook at this episode's question.
Blake Horvath has opened aseason with five consecutive
games where he's passed for 100yards or more In the last 23
years.
What is the record for the mostnumber of games in a season
where a Navy quarterback has had100 or more passing yards?
(20:30):
Is it A 5, b 6, c 7, or D 8?
You can take your time on thatone and get back to me either by
texting the show or respondingto the poll question on the
group Facebook page.
So I'm looking forward toseeing what you have for me
there.
Okay, it is time to check inwith our athletes on the
mid-watch, so let's go ahead andstart with the women.
(20:51):
You'll recall that we aretracking senior midfielder
Amanda Graziano from the soccerteam.
The mids are currently 8-6-1overall and 2-1-1 in the
conference.
Meanwhile, graciano is theirleading points producer.
She's got four goals and sixassists to give her a total of
14 points overall.
Remember, for statisticalpurposes a goal counts as two
points.
Three of those assists came ina 4-3 win over Loyola a couple
(21:14):
of weeks ago.
Graziano delivered a perfectlyplaced corner kick to the front
of the goal that Alexa Riddleheaded in for Navy's first score
of the game, and it was about amonth ago that Graziano scored
on a pretty cool free kick.
After being fouled, she madeher attempt from about 18 yards
out.
The rest of the players werelined up about halfway between
Graziano and the goal, but therewas a break in the line and
(21:36):
Graziano decided to go low.
When she kicked it, the ballcurved right through the gap and
found the back of the net justinside the left post.
It was a terrific shot.
I'm going to go ahead and put alink in the show notes for you,
because you really got to checkit out.
It was pretty cool.
Anyway, the mids have five moreconference games, including the
star match against Army, andthat's going to be played on
(21:56):
October 19th on the road.
That's going to be a tough oneand I'm thinking that Graziano's
got to play a pretty pivotalrole if the mids are going to
win.
Now let's jump over to the men.
We are following two guys namedLuke, and both of them happen
to play on the sprint footballteam.
First we have Luke Wagner, whois a senior, and he was actually
listed as a running back at thebeginning of the season, but
now he's playing quarterback.
(22:17):
And it looks like LukeO'Connell, who's a sophomore and
at the beginning of the yearwas playing quarterback, is now
playing running back.
So basically they've justswitched roles.
The mids are the three-timedefending college sprint
football league champions, butthey're only two and one.
After a disappointing loss toArmy last week in the star game,
the offense just reallycouldn't get anything going.
(22:38):
There was a couple of costlyturnovers and I don't know.
It just wasn't their day.
So they've got four games leftand they're probably going to
have to win all of them to getback into the championship game,
where they'll most likely justface Army again.
I mean, that's the way it'sbeen for the last God knows how
many years.
In any case, luke Wagner issecond on the team in rushing,
averaging about six yards percarry.
(22:59):
He's got 149 yards through thefirst three games and his best
game throwing the ball wasagainst Cornell.
He passed for 144 yards and atouchdown and led the Mids to a
49-0 win.
The change to running backmeans less touches for Luke
O'Connell, since the team ispretty deep at that position.
So far this season, the DarienConnecticut native has only seen
action in the Cornell game.
He did make the most of itthough, picking up 32 yards on
(23:20):
just two carries, including onetouchdown.
Now we'll see how things goover these last four games.
The nice thing is, withO'Connell just being a sophomore
, he's got two more years tomake a significant impact.
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.
(23:41):
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
Central are my own and do notreflect those of the US Naval
Academy or Navy Athletics.
(24:03):
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 KarlDarden.
Go Navy Beat Army.
Thank you.
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