November 15, 2024 • 13 mins
Get ready for another edition of the Navy Blitz!
Today's installment covers the Mids' two tough losses to Notre Dame and Rice. And with their conference championship game hopes slipping away, Navy's season was definitely at a crossroads.
The team bounced back in strong fashion with a commanding 28-7 win over South Florida. Blake Horvath, Eli Heidenreich and Brandon Chatman all showcased their talent with some terrific playmaking. and the defense delivers a masterclass in pressure and crucial stops.
The spotlight turns to a pivotal showdown against Tulane, with Navy's eyes set on a championship game berth, something that hasn't happened since 2016.
Related Links:
Follow Navy Sports Central wherever you get your podcasts:
Check out the Navy Sports Nation group page on Facebook!
Music is provided courtesy of Audio Jungle. Artists featured in order:
- Seven In Music (Intro)
- Cinematic Alex (Closeout Music)
If you like what you hear, support the Mids and the show at the same time! Navy Sports Central is a proud affiliate partner of Fanatics.com, the Ultimate Fan Gear Store! Click on the link to start shopping now!
Mark as Played
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.
In our fourth edition of theNavy Blitz, we will actually be
covering the Mids' last threegames, and the main reason for
this is because it's very toughfor me to talk about one of
their losses, let alone two,without ending on a positive
(00:35):
note.
So we'll take a quick and I domean quick look at what went
wrong against Notre Dame.
After that we'll talk about whyI knew the Mids were in trouble
against Rice before the gameeven started.
And finally I'll break down theSouth Florida game and talk
about how the team managed toturn things around and get back
into the win column.
The Mids have just threeopponents left and still have an
outside chance at the AmericanConference title game.
(00:56):
So please stay with us and I'lltell you exactly what needs to
happen.
All right, it's great to haveyou guys with us.
Thanks so much for dropping in.
I really appreciate you takingthe time.
All right, let's go ahead andget into this Notre Dame game
before I change my mind, and I'mtelling you right now, this is
(01:17):
not going to be easy for me.
After their convincing win overCharlotte, the Mids got ready to
play the Irish, which is easilyone of the big marquee games on
their schedule.
Even better, it would be playedin the Meadowlands, a venue
where they tend to play verywell In 2010,.
The team put together one ofthe best games I've ever seen
them play and absolutely rolledNotre Dame 35-17.
That was Brian Kelly's firstyear as head coach, which made
(01:39):
it even better.
Anyway, the Mids went into thisyear's game with a lot of
confidence.
Better Anyway, the Mids wentinto this year's game with a lot
of confidence and, even thoughthey were double-digit underdogs
, I believe they could becompetitive against the Irish as
long as they didn't beatthemselves.
In fact, I used those verywords when I posted to the Navy
Sports Nation group Facebookpage on game day.
The exact quote was regardlessof the outcome, I hope the Mids
play their best and don't beatthemselves.
(02:00):
They've got a better thanaverage chance if they can do
that.
Unfortunately, that didn'thappen.
The offense simply could nothold onto the ball After only
one fumble all season, one whichthey recovered.
The Navy offense turned it oversix times, which led to 20
Notre Dame points, and itprobably should have been 24,
because there was a missed extrapoint and also a missed field
goal that got mixed up in there.
(02:21):
When I saw how quickly thingsunraveled after Horvath scored
to make it 14-7, all I couldthink about was a scene from the
movie the Replacements.
Now, I'm betting that most ofyou are familiar with this movie
that starred Gene Hackman andKeanu Reeves.
I'm not saying it was one ofthe best Hollywoods ever turned
out, but I did think it waspretty entertaining.
This film was kind of afictionalized account of the
1987 NFL players' strike.
(02:42):
The league owners figured theycould save their season by using
replacement players.
The main team in the movie wasthe Washington Sentinels.
It was made up of formerplayers with varying degrees of
experience cops, guys doing time, bouncers, shipyard workers and
even a compulsive gambler.
Anyway, there's this one scenethat takes place after the
Sentinels blow an opportunity towin their first game.
(03:04):
Coach Jimmy McGinty, who'splayed by Gene Hackman, has the
team in the locker room and hisgoal is to get them talking
about their fears, and after afew players raise their hands
and start going off aboutspiders and bees and other such
nonsense.
Coach McGinty is getting alittle bit impatient.
Finally, he says is thereanyone here who's afraid of
anything besides insects?
(03:24):
And that's when Shane Falco,who is played by Keanu Reeves,
raises his hand.
He's the team's quarterback whobasically cracked under the
pressure in their first loss andhe just says one word quicksand
.
And when he's asked what hemeans, falco says okay, you're
out there playing and you thinkeverything is going fine, and
then one thing goes wrong, andthen another, and then another.
(03:45):
You try to fight back, but theharder you fight, the deeper you
sink until you can't move, youcan't breathe because you're in
over your head like quicksand.
Now I know that might be alittle overly dramatic, but
seriously, I immediately thoughtof that scene when everything
started going sideways for themids against the Irish.
It was just a tough afternoonall the way around.
(04:06):
When the dust settled, the midswere on the wrong end of a 52-14
score.
Now they had to put that gamein their rearview mirror and get
ready for another one on theroad against Rice.
This was a team that was betterthan their 2-5 record, partly
because they picked up EJ Warnerthrough the transfer portal in
the spring.
And if you're paying attention,yes, that's the same EJ Warner
(04:27):
who played for Temple last yearKurt Warner's kid and all he did
was shred the Navy defense forover 400 yards and four
touchdowns.
The Owls defeated the Mids32-18.
And, by the way, how weird isit that Warner transferred to a
school with the same nickname?
And here's another fun fact foryou there are only three teams
in Division One football thathave an owl as their mascot, and
(04:48):
all three of them are in theAmerican Conference Temple Rice,
and the third team is FloridaAtlantic.
Okay, I'm getting a little offtopic here.
The Navy Rice game was on ESPN2.
So I go to tune it in.
And there was this weatherdelay.
It turns out there were somemajor thunderstorms in the area,
no big deal.
It's Texas and that happenseven in the fall.
And by the way, in case you arewondering about the rules,
(05:11):
whenever lightning is observed,the NCAA rules state that teams
cannot resume play until morethan 40 minutes after the last
sound of thunder and last flashof lightning.
And it's got to be more thansix miles away.
So I'm thinking, okay, noproblem, it shouldn't be too
long before they get started.
Yeah right, that delay lastedover five hours and at one point
they did actually start thegame, but less than three
(05:33):
minutes in it was suspendedagain, and that's when my
superstitious nature started toget the best of me.
This game had all theindications of an upset.
Navy was on the road after anembarrassing loss and this
weather delay had to be tough tohandle mentally.
Now I get it.
Rice was also dealing with thesame set of conditions, but they
were the home team.
You know they're on their ownhome turf, they were in familiar
(05:55):
surroundings, so I don't thinkthey're all that stressed, and
on top of that they weren't evenfavored to win, so there wasn't
a whole lot of pressure on them.
In short, the game was adisaster.
Horvath threw an interceptionon Navy's first offensive play,
rice scored and followed that upwith another quick touchdown
and before you know it, navy hadspotted the Owls' 14 points.
And that actually turned out tobe the difference in the game.
(06:16):
It was 17-7 at halftime, butthe best the offense could do in
the second half was put up onefourth quarter field goal and
the final score was 24-10.
Statistically, the Mids wereheld to 140 yards rushing.
They actually had 80 yards morethan that against Notre Dame.
It was just an ugly loss, andit put a serious dent in their
chances of getting to theAmerican Conference title game.
(06:37):
Of course, now, mysuperstitious nature was just
running wild.
In 2017, the Mids won theirfirst five games.
Then they dropped six of theirlast seven, including a second
straight against Army.
The season did end on apositive note, though, because
(06:57):
the Mids blew out Virginia 49-7in their bowl game.
Now, the big difference between2016 and this year was that
back then, the season went offthe rails because the mids were
just decimated by injuries.
That hasn't been a big issuethis year, you know, knock on
wood.
So, whatever the problem was,the coaching staff needed to fix
it, and they didn't have awhole lot of time to do it
either.
Next up for the mids was SouthFlorida, and they were another
dangerous team on Navy'sschedule.
(07:18):
The Bulls were coming off twostraight wins against Alabama,
birmingham and Florida Atlantic,and it looked like their
offense was starting to find arhythm too, because they put up
a total of 79 points in thosetwo games.
As far as the Navy coachingstaff goes, they continue to
emphasize the team's start fast,finish strong mindset against
South Florida, and when the Midstook the field at Raymond James
(07:38):
Stadium, they managed to dojust that.
The Bulls won the toss andchose to defer.
So Horvath and the offense hada chance to make a statement
right away, and it only tookthem four plays to do it.
After picking up a quick firstdown, the Mids had the ball
first and 10 from their own 40.
And that's when Eli Heidenreichtook a pitch from Horvath,
(08:00):
turned the corner and outraneverybody for a 60-yard
touchdown.
The guy that sprung him was hisfellow snipe, Brandon Chatman.
I mean, you talk about puttingyour body on the line.
Chapman had the responsibilityof blocking South Florida
linebacker Jhalyn Shuler, who,by the way, is 6'3" 220.
Chapman is 5'9" 167, so he'sgiving up 6 inches and 53 pounds
, and all I can say is you knowthis, kid Chatman, he's got no
(08:21):
fear.
The law of gross tonnagedefinitely went out there and
Shuler just bowled him over, buthe really got tangled up with
him in the process and that gaveHeidenreich the time he needed
to run past him and after thathe was off to the races.
Chapman got a touchdown of hisown on the mids next series.
After a Kyle Jacob interception, the offense took over on their
own 21 and slowly worked theirway down the field.
(08:43):
Nearly seven minutes later theyearned the Bulls 20, and that's
when Horvath took a snap out ofthe shotgun and pitched it to
Chapman on the near side.
Again, the downfield blockingwas excellent and Chatman
sprinted around the right sideand into the end zone.
In fact I'm not even sureanybody touched him.
So less than one quarter intothe game Navy was already up 14
to nothing, and it's just whatthe team needed.
(09:05):
From there the defense reallystarted to make its presence
felt.
Here's a recap of what happened.
The next six times SouthFlorida got the ball Punt.
Then they turned to Grover ondowns, punt, punt, punt,
interception, and the four puntswere all three and outs.
So that satisfied the defense's.
Get six metric right there.
Following the interception,horvath was looking to get the
(09:25):
offense in position to get afield goal before the half.
But on first and 10 from theBulls 38, coach Cronin came up
with a perfect play.
So Horvath went back to passand Alex Teska looked like he
was going to stay back and blockone of the pass rushers, but he
released and looped behind thelinebacker and From there Teska
(09:46):
had a decision to make.
When he caught the ball, therewere only seven seconds left on
the clock and the Mids had twotimeouts left so he could have
gone down to give the team achance to kick a field goal.
But when he turned towards thegoal line, teska had three
receivers blocking in front ofhim.
He just needed to get past oneguy, which he did, and from
there he cut back behind acouple of blocks by Chapman and
tight end Jake Norris.
Teska ended up crossing thegoal line with two seconds to
(10:08):
spare and the Mids had acommanding 21-0 lead at halftime
.
The second half proved just asfrustrating for the Bulls.
They punted the ball twice,turned it over on downs and
fumbled it away.
They did wind up scoring atouchdown to keep the Navy
defense from pitching a shutout,but it was really just a
dominating performance all theway around.
On offense, the Mids racked up321 yards rushing, and it was
(10:29):
probably the quietest 300 yardsplus rushing day that I can
remember.
No one ran for more than 100yards.
Heidenreich had 84 yards on sixFofana, picked up 75 on 15
touches and Horvath gained 56yards on 13 attempts.
Even Landon Robinson got in onthe act and he's a nose guard On
special teams, robinson, is theup back in the Navy punt
(10:49):
formation.
So the mids are showing punt ona fourth and two from their own
48.
And this was early on in thefourth quarter.
But then Robinson ended uptaking the direct snap and he
rolled around the left side fora 34-yard gain and that extended
the Mids drive.
Then Horvath scored five playslater from 10 yards out to cap
off the mid scoring.
The final score in the game was28-7.
(11:10):
This was clearly the kind ofwin that Coach Newberry was
looking for heading into thishuge game against Tulane.
Basically, the situation now isthat Army has locked up a spot
in a championship game already.
They only have one conferencegame left and that's against
University of Texas, San Antonio.
Even if they lose, that's onlyone conference loss for them.
So they'll either play Tulaneor Navy, depending on what
(11:31):
happens these next two weeks.
By the way, in case you'rewondering, the Army-Navy game is
considered a non-conferencegame since it takes place after
championship week.
I think the other thing worthnoting is how the scheduling
gods smiled on Army this season.
Just looking at theirconference games, they managed
to skate out of playing bothTulane and Memphis, two teams
that have 16 wins between them,so the Black Knights definitely
(11:53):
lucked out there.
It would have been interestingto me to see how they'd have
played those two teams duringthe regular season.
Of course, Army may still endup playing Tulane.
If the Green Wave can pick upthe win against the Mids, they
are favored by a touchdown thisSaturday.
The last time these two teamsplayed each other was during the
COVID year in 2020, andSaturday the last time these two
teams played each other wasduring the COVID year in 2020,
and Navy won that one 27-24 downin New Orleans.
Tulane is known for toughphysical play and their offense
(12:16):
is high scoring and verybalanced.
The Green Wave averaged 41points, 230 rushing yards and
214 passing yards per contest,so they are the real deal.
It's going to take Navy'sabsolute best effort to win that
game and they still need tobeat East Carolina on
Thanksgiving Friday to earn aspot in the title game.
So it won't be easy.
But I will say this how cool isit for the team to be in this
(12:37):
position now?
It's been five years sincethey've been this close to
making the title game, and evenif they don't, I can live with
it if they can beat Army andbring home the
Commander-in-Chief's trophy.
That's going to do it for thisedition of the Navy Blitz.
Thank you all so much forjoining us.
Remember, if you want to getyour thoughts out there on any
of these games, feel free totext the show directly and I'll
share your comments on the nextpodcast.
(12:57):
I just read on the NavyAthletics website that the
Tulane game is now sold out, soI'm hoping the crowd can give
the mids a little bit of extraenergy and motivation, because
I'm expecting a real knockdowndrag out fight between these two
teams.
For those of you who can't makeit, espn2 will be picking up
the broadcast, so that's whereI'll be watching.
And just a quick reminder theviews expressed on Navy Sports
(13:21):
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.
In our fourth edition of theNavy Blitz, we will actually be
covering the Mids' last threegames, and the main reason for
this is because it's very toughfor me to talk about one of
their losses, let alone two,without ending on a positive
(00:35):
note.
So we'll take a quick and I domean quick look at what went
wrong against Notre Dame.
After that we'll talk about whyI knew the Mids were in trouble
against Rice before the gameeven started.
And finally I'll break down theSouth Florida game and talk
about how the team managed toturn things around and get back
into the win column.
The Mids have just threeopponents left and still have an
outside chance at the AmericanConference title game.
(00:56):
So please stay with us and I'lltell you exactly what needs to
happen.
All right, it's great to haveyou guys with us.
Thanks so much for dropping in.
I really appreciate you takingthe time.
All right, let's go ahead andget into this Notre Dame game
before I change my mind, and I'mtelling you right now, this is
(01:17):
not going to be easy for me.
After their convincing win overCharlotte, the Mids got ready to
play the Irish, which is easilyone of the big marquee games on
their schedule.
Even better, it would be playedin the Meadowlands, a venue
where they tend to play verywell In 2010,.
The team put together one ofthe best games I've ever seen
them play and absolutely rolledNotre Dame 35-17.
That was Brian Kelly's firstyear as head coach, which made
(01:39):
it even better.
Anyway, the Mids went into thisyear's game with a lot of
confidence.
Better Anyway, the Mids wentinto this year's game with a lot
of confidence and, even thoughthey were double-digit underdogs
, I believe they could becompetitive against the Irish as
long as they didn't beatthemselves.
In fact, I used those verywords when I posted to the Navy
Sports Nation group Facebookpage on game day.
The exact quote was regardlessof the outcome, I hope the Mids
play their best and don't beatthemselves.
(02:00):
They've got a better thanaverage chance if they can do
that.
Unfortunately, that didn'thappen.
The offense simply could nothold onto the ball After only
one fumble all season, one whichthey recovered.
The Navy offense turned it oversix times, which led to 20
Notre Dame points, and itprobably should have been 24,
because there was a missed extrapoint and also a missed field
goal that got mixed up in there.
(02:21):
When I saw how quickly thingsunraveled after Horvath scored
to make it 14-7, all I couldthink about was a scene from the
movie the Replacements.
Now, I'm betting that most ofyou are familiar with this movie
that starred Gene Hackman andKeanu Reeves.
I'm not saying it was one ofthe best Hollywoods ever turned
out, but I did think it waspretty entertaining.
This film was kind of afictionalized account of the
1987 NFL players' strike.
(02:42):
The league owners figured theycould save their season by using
replacement players.
The main team in the movie wasthe Washington Sentinels.
It was made up of formerplayers with varying degrees of
experience cops, guys doing time, bouncers, shipyard workers and
even a compulsive gambler.
Anyway, there's this one scenethat takes place after the
Sentinels blow an opportunity towin their first game.
(03:04):
Coach Jimmy McGinty, who'splayed by Gene Hackman, has the
team in the locker room and hisgoal is to get them talking
about their fears, and after afew players raise their hands
and start going off aboutspiders and bees and other such
nonsense.
Coach McGinty is getting alittle bit impatient.
Finally, he says is thereanyone here who's afraid of
anything besides insects?
(03:24):
And that's when Shane Falco,who is played by Keanu Reeves,
raises his hand.
He's the team's quarterback whobasically cracked under the
pressure in their first loss andhe just says one word quicksand
.
And when he's asked what hemeans, falco says okay, you're
out there playing and you thinkeverything is going fine, and
then one thing goes wrong, andthen another, and then another.
(03:45):
You try to fight back, but theharder you fight, the deeper you
sink until you can't move, youcan't breathe because you're in
over your head like quicksand.
Now I know that might be alittle overly dramatic, but
seriously, I immediately thoughtof that scene when everything
started going sideways for themids against the Irish.
It was just a tough afternoonall the way around.
(04:06):
When the dust settled, the midswere on the wrong end of a 52-14
score.
Now they had to put that gamein their rearview mirror and get
ready for another one on theroad against Rice.
This was a team that was betterthan their 2-5 record, partly
because they picked up EJ Warnerthrough the transfer portal in
the spring.
And if you're paying attention,yes, that's the same EJ Warner
(04:27):
who played for Temple last yearKurt Warner's kid and all he did
was shred the Navy defense forover 400 yards and four
touchdowns.
The Owls defeated the Mids32-18.
And, by the way, how weird isit that Warner transferred to a
school with the same nickname?
And here's another fun fact foryou there are only three teams
in Division One football thathave an owl as their mascot, and
(04:48):
all three of them are in theAmerican Conference Temple Rice,
and the third team is FloridaAtlantic.
Okay, I'm getting a little offtopic here.
The Navy Rice game was on ESPN2.
So I go to tune it in.
And there was this weatherdelay.
It turns out there were somemajor thunderstorms in the area,
no big deal.
It's Texas and that happenseven in the fall.
And by the way, in case you arewondering about the rules,
(05:11):
whenever lightning is observed,the NCAA rules state that teams
cannot resume play until morethan 40 minutes after the last
sound of thunder and last flashof lightning.
And it's got to be more thansix miles away.
So I'm thinking, okay, noproblem, it shouldn't be too
long before they get started.
Yeah right, that delay lastedover five hours and at one point
they did actually start thegame, but less than three
(05:33):
minutes in it was suspendedagain, and that's when my
superstitious nature started toget the best of me.
This game had all theindications of an upset.
Navy was on the road after anembarrassing loss and this
weather delay had to be tough tohandle mentally.
Now I get it.
Rice was also dealing with thesame set of conditions, but they
were the home team.
You know they're on their ownhome turf, they were in familiar
(05:55):
surroundings, so I don't thinkthey're all that stressed, and
on top of that they weren't evenfavored to win, so there wasn't
a whole lot of pressure on them.
In short, the game was adisaster.
Horvath threw an interceptionon Navy's first offensive play,
rice scored and followed that upwith another quick touchdown
and before you know it, navy hadspotted the Owls' 14 points.
And that actually turned out tobe the difference in the game.
(06:16):
It was 17-7 at halftime, butthe best the offense could do in
the second half was put up onefourth quarter field goal and
the final score was 24-10.
Statistically, the Mids wereheld to 140 yards rushing.
They actually had 80 yards morethan that against Notre Dame.
It was just an ugly loss, andit put a serious dent in their
chances of getting to theAmerican Conference title game.
(06:37):
Of course, now, mysuperstitious nature was just
running wild.
In 2017, the Mids won theirfirst five games.
Then they dropped six of theirlast seven, including a second
straight against Army.
The season did end on apositive note, though, because
(06:57):
the Mids blew out Virginia 49-7in their bowl game.
Now, the big difference between2016 and this year was that
back then, the season went offthe rails because the mids were
just decimated by injuries.
That hasn't been a big issuethis year, you know, knock on
wood.
So, whatever the problem was,the coaching staff needed to fix
it, and they didn't have awhole lot of time to do it
either.
Next up for the mids was SouthFlorida, and they were another
dangerous team on Navy'sschedule.
(07:18):
The Bulls were coming off twostraight wins against Alabama,
birmingham and Florida Atlantic,and it looked like their
offense was starting to find arhythm too, because they put up
a total of 79 points in thosetwo games.
As far as the Navy coachingstaff goes, they continue to
emphasize the team's start fast,finish strong mindset against
South Florida, and when the Midstook the field at Raymond James
(07:38):
Stadium, they managed to dojust that.
The Bulls won the toss andchose to defer.
So Horvath and the offense hada chance to make a statement
right away, and it only tookthem four plays to do it.
After picking up a quick firstdown, the Mids had the ball
first and 10 from their own 40.
And that's when Eli Heidenreichtook a pitch from Horvath,
(08:00):
turned the corner and outraneverybody for a 60-yard
touchdown.
The guy that sprung him was hisfellow snipe, Brandon Chatman.
I mean, you talk about puttingyour body on the line.
Chapman had the responsibilityof blocking South Florida
linebacker Jhalyn Shuler, who,by the way, is 6'3" 220.
Chapman is 5'9" 167, so he'sgiving up 6 inches and 53 pounds
, and all I can say is you knowthis, kid Chatman, he's got no
(08:21):
fear.
The law of gross tonnagedefinitely went out there and
Shuler just bowled him over, buthe really got tangled up with
him in the process and that gaveHeidenreich the time he needed
to run past him and after thathe was off to the races.
Chapman got a touchdown of hisown on the mids next series.
After a Kyle Jacob interception, the offense took over on their
own 21 and slowly worked theirway down the field.
(08:43):
Nearly seven minutes later theyearned the Bulls 20, and that's
when Horvath took a snap out ofthe shotgun and pitched it to
Chapman on the near side.
Again, the downfield blockingwas excellent and Chatman
sprinted around the right sideand into the end zone.
In fact I'm not even sureanybody touched him.
So less than one quarter intothe game Navy was already up 14
to nothing, and it's just whatthe team needed.
(09:05):
From there the defense reallystarted to make its presence
felt.
Here's a recap of what happened.
The next six times SouthFlorida got the ball Punt.
Then they turned to Grover ondowns, punt, punt, punt,
interception, and the four puntswere all three and outs.
So that satisfied the defense's.
Get six metric right there.
Following the interception,horvath was looking to get the
(09:25):
offense in position to get afield goal before the half.
But on first and 10 from theBulls 38, coach Cronin came up
with a perfect play.
So Horvath went back to passand Alex Teska looked like he
was going to stay back and blockone of the pass rushers, but he
released and looped behind thelinebacker and From there Teska
(09:46):
had a decision to make.
When he caught the ball, therewere only seven seconds left on
the clock and the Mids had twotimeouts left so he could have
gone down to give the team achance to kick a field goal.
But when he turned towards thegoal line, teska had three
receivers blocking in front ofhim.
He just needed to get past oneguy, which he did, and from
there he cut back behind acouple of blocks by Chapman and
tight end Jake Norris.
Teska ended up crossing thegoal line with two seconds to
(10:08):
spare and the Mids had acommanding 21-0 lead at halftime
.
The second half proved just asfrustrating for the Bulls.
They punted the ball twice,turned it over on downs and
fumbled it away.
They did wind up scoring atouchdown to keep the Navy
defense from pitching a shutout,but it was really just a
dominating performance all theway around.
On offense, the Mids racked up321 yards rushing, and it was
(10:29):
probably the quietest 300 yardsplus rushing day that I can
remember.
No one ran for more than 100yards.
Heidenreich had 84 yards on sixFofana, picked up 75 on 15
touches and Horvath gained 56yards on 13 attempts.
Even Landon Robinson got in onthe act and he's a nose guard On
special teams, robinson, is theup back in the Navy punt
(10:49):
formation.
So the mids are showing punt ona fourth and two from their own
48.
And this was early on in thefourth quarter.
But then Robinson ended uptaking the direct snap and he
rolled around the left side fora 34-yard gain and that extended
the Mids drive.
Then Horvath scored five playslater from 10 yards out to cap
off the mid scoring.
The final score in the game was28-7.
(11:10):
This was clearly the kind ofwin that Coach Newberry was
looking for heading into thishuge game against Tulane.
Basically, the situation now isthat Army has locked up a spot
in a championship game already.
They only have one conferencegame left and that's against
University of Texas, San Antonio.
Even if they lose, that's onlyone conference loss for them.
So they'll either play Tulaneor Navy, depending on what
(11:31):
happens these next two weeks.
By the way, in case you'rewondering, the Army-Navy game is
considered a non-conferencegame since it takes place after
championship week.
I think the other thing worthnoting is how the scheduling
gods smiled on Army this season.
Just looking at theirconference games, they managed
to skate out of playing bothTulane and Memphis, two teams
that have 16 wins between them,so the Black Knights definitely
(11:53):
lucked out there.
It would have been interestingto me to see how they'd have
played those two teams duringthe regular season.
Of course, Army may still endup playing Tulane.
If the Green Wave can pick upthe win against the Mids, they
are favored by a touchdown thisSaturday.
The last time these two teamsplayed each other was during the
COVID year in 2020, andSaturday the last time these two
teams played each other wasduring the COVID year in 2020,
and Navy won that one 27-24 downin New Orleans.
Tulane is known for toughphysical play and their offense
(12:16):
is high scoring and verybalanced.
The Green Wave averaged 41points, 230 rushing yards and
214 passing yards per contest,so they are the real deal.
It's going to take Navy'sabsolute best effort to win that
game and they still need tobeat East Carolina on
Thanksgiving Friday to earn aspot in the title game.
So it won't be easy.
But I will say this how cool isit for the team to be in this
(12:37):
position now?
It's been five years sincethey've been this close to
making the title game, and evenif they don't, I can live with
it if they can beat Army andbring home the
Commander-in-Chief's trophy.
That's going to do it for thisedition of the Navy Blitz.
Thank you all so much forjoining us.
Remember, if you want to getyour thoughts out there on any
of these games, feel free totext the show directly and I'll
share your comments on the nextpodcast.
(12:57):
I just read on the NavyAthletics website that the
Tulane game is now sold out, soI'm hoping the crowd can give
the mids a little bit of extraenergy and motivation, because
I'm expecting a real knockdowndrag out fight between these two
teams.
For those of you who can't makeit, espn2 will be picking up
the broadcast, so that's whereI'll be watching.
And just a quick reminder theviews expressed on Navy Sports
(13:21):
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.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!