September 8, 2024 • 10 mins
In Today's episode, we’re launching our first installment of the Navy Blitz. Here, you’re going to get all of the insights and commentary on the most recent Navy football game. We’ll start by breaking down the Mids’ opponent, move on and talk about the keys to the game, and analyze the big plays. And finally, we’ll check out some of the stats that helped determine the outcome.
This is going to be a little bit different from the usual Navy Sports Central podcast episode because the only topic discussed will be Navy Football.
It will be short and to the point, but by the time it’s over, Navy football fans will be 100% up to speed on how the team performed and how things look moving forward. So please, stick around.
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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.
Today we're launching our firstinstallment of the Navy Blitz.
Here you're going to get allthe insights and commentary to
the most recent Navy footballgame.
We're going to start bybreaking down the mids opponent,
move on to talk about the keysto the game and then analyze the
(00:36):
big plays, and then, finally,we'll check out some of the
stats that help determine theoutcome.
This is going to be a littlebit different from the usual
Navy Sports Central podcast,because the only topic discussed
will be football.
It'll be short and to the point, but by the time it's over,
navy football fans will be 100%up to speed on how the team
performed and how things lookmoving forward.
So please stick around.
All right, so glad you alldropped in.
(01:05):
I really appreciate you takingthe time.
This Navy Blitz show is what Ilike to call an offshoot of the
Navy Sports Central podcast.
As I mentioned in the intro,its only focus is going to be
Navy football.
When I was going over how tocover the season, I decided that
having episodes that onlydiscuss football would be the
most efficient way for me tomanage the workload.
In the meantime, I do plan torecord some guest interviews for
(01:28):
our usual Navy Sports Centralpodcast that I plan to release
throughout the fall.
I'm actually kind of curious tosee how this all works out.
So let's go ahead and getstarted by taking a look at the
team that squared off againstthe Mids in Week 2.
The Temple Owls finished the2023 season with a 3-9 record.
They were 1-7 in the AmericanConference, tying them for last
with East Carolina.
But it turns out that the Owls'lone conference win happened to
(01:49):
be against Navy.
They absolutely rolled the mids32-18 last September.
The Navy offense never got pastmidfield.
The entire first half.
In fact, they punted five timesand three of those came on
3-outs.
After that game, coach BrianNewberry stated he was
completely embarrassed by howthe team performed.
Considering how the rest of theseason went, you could actually
argue that the loss to Templecost Navy a chance to compete in
(02:11):
a bowl game.
So there was no question in mymind that the Mids would come
out Saturday with some realattitude when they took the
field against the Owls.
One thing that was true was thatthis was a different looking
Temple squad.
They picked up a bunch oftransfers through the portal and
last year's quarterback, E.
J.
Warner, who's Kurt Warner's kid, left to go to Rice.
His replacement, Forrest Brock,had a really tough outing
(02:32):
against Oklahoma last week.
The Owls turned the ball oversix times and failed to get into
the end zone, losing 51-3.
Still, coach Newberry knew thatthe Navy-Temple games are
usually pretty physical battlesand there was every expectation
that this one would be the sameas all the others.
The message all week was tostart fast, defensively and
finish strong.
That was definitely one of thekeys to the game.
(02:57):
Navy's defensive coordinator, P.
J.
Volker, kept things prettybasic last week against Bucknell
, but, this being the firstconference game, his plan was to
keep the Temple offenseguessing as much as possible.
On offense, the big key to thegame was just to eliminate those
pre-snap penalties.
Assuming the mids could do that.
Cronic was was looking to buildon the good things Navy did
last week while adding inanother layer of his hybrid wing
tee system.
For the record, navy wasfavored by 11.5 at kickoff and,
(03:19):
as you all saw, they didn't havemuch trouble covering that
spread.
So let's take a look and seehow they did it.
On defense, they got six for thesecond straight week.
In fact they got nine for thesecond straight week.
Led by Colin Ramos and JaxsonCampbell, the Navy D forced four
, three and outs, turned overthe owls on downs twice, came up
with two interceptions andrecovered one fumble.
(03:39):
So that comes out to ninealtogether.
One of the three and outsresulted in a safety, so you
could almost take a two for onethere, and the mids also scored
a touchdown following thatinterception by Campbell.
Overall, it was a prettyimpressive performance.
The Mids were clearly the morephysical of the two teams,
despite Temple having somepretty good athletes.
Ramos and Campbell were flyingall over the place and I counted
(04:00):
at least three hits, includingone by Deshaun Peel, that could
have easily loosened a couple offillings.
And I counted at least threehits, including one by Deshaun
Peel, that could have easilyloosened a couple of fillings.
Ramos led the team with 15tackles and had a pass
deflection as well.
Jackson Campbell chipped inwith five tackles, as well as
that interception that led tothe touchdown, and Justin Reed
had two tackles for a loss.
That Navy D was not onlyaggressive, but they were really
, really intimidating.
I know that Forrest Brock washappy for that game to be over.
(04:21):
Coach Volker did an awesome jobgetting that defense prepared.
But there's still a matter ofthose penalties.
The mids were flagged for onepersonal foul, a pass
interference and an offside.
None of them did any reallyserious damage.
But that can't happen in twoweeks against Memphis.
(04:42):
The bottom line is that themids are going to need close to
a clean sheet if they expect towin that game.
Now let's take a look at how theoffense did.
It's true that Temple isn't thesame kind of team that won the
conference championship eightyears ago over Navy, by the way
but that doesn't mean they don'thave really good athletes
lining up on defense.
And considering that the Midshad all kinds of trouble moving
the ball against them lastseason, this game wasn't
(05:03):
necessarily a slam dunk.
The main thing I was lookingfor on offense in this second
game was to see whether or notCoach Kronick would shift in and
out of different formationsmore, and I think we did see
that to some extent.
There were several occasionswhere the mid started off with
one look and then changed into ashotgun formation with a full
backfield.
Other times they set up in apistol formation and then went
with a read option.
And then of course there wasthe usual triple option
(05:24):
alignment with Horvath orWoodson under center.
During his press conference thispast week, coach Kronick spoke
a lot about getting the timingof the offense down and I think
you saw pretty good evidence ofthat improvement if you compare
it to the game against Bucknell,that screen pass to Heidenreich
on the first touchdown pass wasa good example.
He lined up wide right andHorvath was in a shotgun with a
full backfield.
When the ball was snapped,heidenreich started upfield and
(05:46):
engaged his defender as Horvathfaked a handoff on the fullback
dive.
As he was doing that,heidenreich came off of his
defender and took a couple stepsback to catch the ball.
Horvath's pass was right ontarget by that time.
Navy tight end Jake Norris gotjust enough of a kickout block
on Heidenreich's defender tospring him for a nine-yard gain.
And then Horvath ended upscoring two plays later.
That made the score 9-0 Navy.
(06:08):
The other thing I wanted topoint out about this game was
the blocking by the offensiveline.
I know that in the pressconference last week Coach
Chronic made a point of sayingthat the offense played hard,
but clearly there were someissues in terms of the blocking
schemes that he felt neededimproving and I think they did
improve on it.
And you saw that on BlakeHorvath's long, 62-yard run
(06:28):
following Jaxson Campbell'sinterception.
They were in a triple optionalignment with Horvath under
center.
On the snap he started left andthen Connor McMahon and Ben
Purvis, who are the tackle andguard on that side, completely
sealed off their defenders andwhen Horvath saw that, he
immediately planted his foot inthe ground and turned upfield.
He had an option to pitch toIsaiah Bryant, but that was not
going to be the right callbecause he had a wide open lane
(06:49):
to get to the sidelines and hetook it.
Heidenreich got a nice kick outblock and even though Bryant
didn't get the pitch, he stayedwith the play just enough to get
a push on the Temple defenderand that allowed Horvath to
sprint through that gap.
He almost got tripped up butwas able to stay on his feet and
ended up scoring a few secondslater.
Now it was 16-0.
Navy.
The Mids' third touchdown waspretty much all Alex Tecza doing
(07:12):
a great job, staying on hisfeet long enough to get to the
outside and take off.
But the reason it was so wideopen was because the left side
of the offensive line got theirguys on the ground.
When Tecza shook himself free,there was nothing but open field
in front of him.
So again, just another exampleof some really, really good
blocking on the part of theoffensive line, especially on
the left side.
(07:32):
Horvath's touchdown pass toHeidenreich was a play that
we've seen plenty of times aspart of Navy's triple option
attack.
Still, it's nice to see themexecute it so well.
I mean, you could see that theTemple defenders had their eyes
in the backfield and Heidenreichjust snuck out right past them
and was just wide open for thatpass from Horvath.
So that put the mids up 31-3,and it was this last touchdown
(07:53):
that Horvath scored.
That told me he is totallycomfortable running this offense
.
The Mids were lined up in apistol formation with
Heidenreich wide left.
He went in motion right andHorvath looked like he was going
to hand it off to him on asweep.
When the Temple defensive endcommitted to shutting down the
play, Horvath pulled the balland took off left Again.
That side of the line sealedthings off nicely and that gave
(08:14):
Horvath a really nice lane tosprint through for the touchdown
that made the score 38-3, andthen, of course, temple did pick
up one more touchdown with atwo-point conversion to make the
final score 38-11.
So I thought the offenseexecuted very well against
Temple.
You can tell they're gettingmore confident.
They were two for two in thered zone, scoring touchdowns on
both occasions, and that makesthem a perfect seven for seven
(08:35):
on the year in a stat where theyranked near the bottom of the
FBS last season.
And are you ready for this?
The only offensive penalty wasa meaningless delay of game that
they took intentionally just togive Riley Reithmann more room
to punt.
There were no false starts orholding penalties the entire
game.
That's the kind of disciplinethe Mids will need if they want
to beat Memphis in a couple ofweeks.
So we'll see how things go.
I will say that this is a prettytimely bye week coming up for
(08:57):
the team.
The line did get a little bitbeat up, so the extra days will
definitely help everybody getback in fighting shape and
getting back to Memphis.
This will be Navy's firstreally big test.
I think everybody can agree onthat.
Historically they do play theTigers pretty tough.
In fact, last year they camepretty close to pulling off a
big upset in a Thursday nightgame.
Memphis is picked to win theconference again in 2024, and
they've looked pretty good intheir first two games, averaging
(09:19):
39 points a contest.
So if the Mets can figure out away to come away with a win,
that could set the stage for areally interesting season.
That's gonna do it for thisedition of the Navy Blitz.
Thank you all so much forjoining us.
Let me know what you think ofthis approach to covering Navy
football.
As always, I'd be interested ingetting your feedback.
Remember, you can text the showdirectly with your comments and
(09:40):
I'll be happy to share them inthe following episode.
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.
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.
(10:01):
Talk to you soon, everybody.
Until next time.
This is Karl Darden.
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.
Today we're launching our firstinstallment of the Navy Blitz.
Here you're going to get allthe insights and commentary to
the most recent Navy footballgame.
We're going to start bybreaking down the mids opponent,
move on to talk about the keysto the game and then analyze the
(00:36):
big plays, and then, finally,we'll check out some of the
stats that help determine theoutcome.
This is going to be a littlebit different from the usual
Navy Sports Central podcast,because the only topic discussed
will be football.
It'll be short and to the point, but by the time it's over,
navy football fans will be 100%up to speed on how the team
performed and how things lookmoving forward.
So please stick around.
All right, so glad you alldropped in.
(01:05):
I really appreciate you takingthe time.
This Navy Blitz show is what Ilike to call an offshoot of the
Navy Sports Central podcast.
As I mentioned in the intro,its only focus is going to be
Navy football.
When I was going over how tocover the season, I decided that
having episodes that onlydiscuss football would be the
most efficient way for me tomanage the workload.
In the meantime, I do plan torecord some guest interviews for
(01:28):
our usual Navy Sports Centralpodcast that I plan to release
throughout the fall.
I'm actually kind of curious tosee how this all works out.
So let's go ahead and getstarted by taking a look at the
team that squared off againstthe Mids in Week 2.
The Temple Owls finished the2023 season with a 3-9 record.
They were 1-7 in the AmericanConference, tying them for last
with East Carolina.
But it turns out that the Owls'lone conference win happened to
(01:49):
be against Navy.
They absolutely rolled the mids32-18 last September.
The Navy offense never got pastmidfield.
The entire first half.
In fact, they punted five timesand three of those came on
3-outs.
After that game, coach BrianNewberry stated he was
completely embarrassed by howthe team performed.
Considering how the rest of theseason went, you could actually
argue that the loss to Templecost Navy a chance to compete in
(02:11):
a bowl game.
So there was no question in mymind that the Mids would come
out Saturday with some realattitude when they took the
field against the Owls.
One thing that was true was thatthis was a different looking
Temple squad.
They picked up a bunch oftransfers through the portal and
last year's quarterback, E.
J.
Warner, who's Kurt Warner's kid, left to go to Rice.
His replacement, Forrest Brock,had a really tough outing
(02:32):
against Oklahoma last week.
The Owls turned the ball oversix times and failed to get into
the end zone, losing 51-3.
Still, coach Newberry knew thatthe Navy-Temple games are
usually pretty physical battlesand there was every expectation
that this one would be the sameas all the others.
The message all week was tostart fast, defensively and
finish strong.
That was definitely one of thekeys to the game.
(02:57):
Navy's defensive coordinator, P.
J.
Volker, kept things prettybasic last week against Bucknell
, but, this being the firstconference game, his plan was to
keep the Temple offenseguessing as much as possible.
On offense, the big key to thegame was just to eliminate those
pre-snap penalties.
Assuming the mids could do that.
Cronic was was looking to buildon the good things Navy did
last week while adding inanother layer of his hybrid wing
tee system.
For the record, navy wasfavored by 11.5 at kickoff and,
(03:19):
as you all saw, they didn't havemuch trouble covering that
spread.
So let's take a look and seehow they did it.
On defense, they got six for thesecond straight week.
In fact they got nine for thesecond straight week.
Led by Colin Ramos and JaxsonCampbell, the Navy D forced four
, three and outs, turned overthe owls on downs twice, came up
with two interceptions andrecovered one fumble.
(03:39):
So that comes out to ninealtogether.
One of the three and outsresulted in a safety, so you
could almost take a two for onethere, and the mids also scored
a touchdown following thatinterception by Campbell.
Overall, it was a prettyimpressive performance.
The Mids were clearly the morephysical of the two teams,
despite Temple having somepretty good athletes.
Ramos and Campbell were flyingall over the place and I counted
(04:00):
at least three hits, includingone by Deshaun Peel, that could
have easily loosened a couple offillings.
And I counted at least threehits, including one by Deshaun
Peel, that could have easilyloosened a couple of fillings.
Ramos led the team with 15tackles and had a pass
deflection as well.
Jackson Campbell chipped inwith five tackles, as well as
that interception that led tothe touchdown, and Justin Reed
had two tackles for a loss.
That Navy D was not onlyaggressive, but they were really
, really intimidating.
I know that Forrest Brock washappy for that game to be over.
(04:21):
Coach Volker did an awesome jobgetting that defense prepared.
But there's still a matter ofthose penalties.
The mids were flagged for onepersonal foul, a pass
interference and an offside.
None of them did any reallyserious damage.
But that can't happen in twoweeks against Memphis.
(04:42):
The bottom line is that themids are going to need close to
a clean sheet if they expect towin that game.
Now let's take a look at how theoffense did.
It's true that Temple isn't thesame kind of team that won the
conference championship eightyears ago over Navy, by the way
but that doesn't mean they don'thave really good athletes
lining up on defense.
And considering that the Midshad all kinds of trouble moving
the ball against them lastseason, this game wasn't
(05:03):
necessarily a slam dunk.
The main thing I was lookingfor on offense in this second
game was to see whether or notCoach Kronick would shift in and
out of different formationsmore, and I think we did see
that to some extent.
There were several occasionswhere the mid started off with
one look and then changed into ashotgun formation with a full
backfield.
Other times they set up in apistol formation and then went
with a read option.
And then of course there wasthe usual triple option
(05:24):
alignment with Horvath orWoodson under center.
During his press conference thispast week, coach Kronick spoke
a lot about getting the timingof the offense down and I think
you saw pretty good evidence ofthat improvement if you compare
it to the game against Bucknell,that screen pass to Heidenreich
on the first touchdown pass wasa good example.
He lined up wide right andHorvath was in a shotgun with a
full backfield.
When the ball was snapped,heidenreich started upfield and
(05:46):
engaged his defender as Horvathfaked a handoff on the fullback
dive.
As he was doing that,heidenreich came off of his
defender and took a couple stepsback to catch the ball.
Horvath's pass was right ontarget by that time.
Navy tight end Jake Norris gotjust enough of a kickout block
on Heidenreich's defender tospring him for a nine-yard gain.
And then Horvath ended upscoring two plays later.
That made the score 9-0 Navy.
(06:08):
The other thing I wanted topoint out about this game was
the blocking by the offensiveline.
I know that in the pressconference last week Coach
Chronic made a point of sayingthat the offense played hard,
but clearly there were someissues in terms of the blocking
schemes that he felt neededimproving and I think they did
improve on it.
And you saw that on BlakeHorvath's long, 62-yard run
(06:28):
following Jaxson Campbell'sinterception.
They were in a triple optionalignment with Horvath under
center.
On the snap he started left andthen Connor McMahon and Ben
Purvis, who are the tackle andguard on that side, completely
sealed off their defenders andwhen Horvath saw that, he
immediately planted his foot inthe ground and turned upfield.
He had an option to pitch toIsaiah Bryant, but that was not
going to be the right callbecause he had a wide open lane
(06:49):
to get to the sidelines and hetook it.
Heidenreich got a nice kick outblock and even though Bryant
didn't get the pitch, he stayedwith the play just enough to get
a push on the Temple defenderand that allowed Horvath to
sprint through that gap.
He almost got tripped up butwas able to stay on his feet and
ended up scoring a few secondslater.
Now it was 16-0.
Navy.
The Mids' third touchdown waspretty much all Alex Tecza doing
(07:12):
a great job, staying on hisfeet long enough to get to the
outside and take off.
But the reason it was so wideopen was because the left side
of the offensive line got theirguys on the ground.
When Tecza shook himself free,there was nothing but open field
in front of him.
So again, just another exampleof some really, really good
blocking on the part of theoffensive line, especially on
the left side.
(07:32):
Horvath's touchdown pass toHeidenreich was a play that
we've seen plenty of times aspart of Navy's triple option
attack.
Still, it's nice to see themexecute it so well.
I mean, you could see that theTemple defenders had their eyes
in the backfield and Heidenreichjust snuck out right past them
and was just wide open for thatpass from Horvath.
So that put the mids up 31-3,and it was this last touchdown
(07:53):
that Horvath scored.
That told me he is totallycomfortable running this offense
.
The Mids were lined up in apistol formation with
Heidenreich wide left.
He went in motion right andHorvath looked like he was going
to hand it off to him on asweep.
When the Temple defensive endcommitted to shutting down the
play, Horvath pulled the balland took off left Again.
That side of the line sealedthings off nicely and that gave
(08:14):
Horvath a really nice lane tosprint through for the touchdown
that made the score 38-3, andthen, of course, temple did pick
up one more touchdown with atwo-point conversion to make the
final score 38-11.
So I thought the offenseexecuted very well against
Temple.
You can tell they're gettingmore confident.
They were two for two in thered zone, scoring touchdowns on
both occasions, and that makesthem a perfect seven for seven
(08:35):
on the year in a stat where theyranked near the bottom of the
FBS last season.
And are you ready for this?
The only offensive penalty wasa meaningless delay of game that
they took intentionally just togive Riley Reithmann more room
to punt.
There were no false starts orholding penalties the entire
game.
That's the kind of disciplinethe Mids will need if they want
to beat Memphis in a couple ofweeks.
So we'll see how things go.
I will say that this is a prettytimely bye week coming up for
(08:57):
the team.
The line did get a little bitbeat up, so the extra days will
definitely help everybody getback in fighting shape and
getting back to Memphis.
This will be Navy's firstreally big test.
I think everybody can agree onthat.
Historically they do play theTigers pretty tough.
In fact, last year they camepretty close to pulling off a
big upset in a Thursday nightgame.
Memphis is picked to win theconference again in 2024, and
they've looked pretty good intheir first two games, averaging
(09:19):
39 points a contest.
So if the Mets can figure out away to come away with a win,
that could set the stage for areally interesting season.
That's gonna do it for thisedition of the Navy Blitz.
Thank you all so much forjoining us.
Let me know what you think ofthis approach to covering Navy
football.
As always, I'd be interested ingetting your feedback.
Remember, you can text the showdirectly with your comments and
(09:40):
I'll be happy to share them inthe following episode.
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.
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.
(10:01):
Talk to you soon, everybody.
Until next time.
This is Karl Darden.
Go Navy Beat Army.
Thank you.
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