Folks, gather around for another game preview of the Navy Midshipmen. In keeping with tradition, this will be my shortest and most concise game preview of the season because, well, Navy is not very exciting and there isn’t much to talk about.

At this point, it’s safe to say Navy head coach Ken Niumatalolo is a lifer at the school. Outside a brief stint at UNLV for a few years, he’s been a coach in some capacity at Navy since 1995 and is finishing up his 15th season as head coach in Annapolis.

Notre Dame (-15.5) vs. Navy

M&T Stadium
Baltimore, Maryland
Date: Saturday, November 12, 2022
Time: Noon ET
TV: ABC
Series: 80-13-1 Notre Dame

Niumatalolo has brought Navy to some impressive peaks in the recent past but has been going through some very rough times since the 2020 Covid year. In nearly 3 full seasons, the Middies have a 0.322 winning percentage with wins over Temple (3x), Tulsa (2x), East Carolina (2x), Army, UCF, and Tulane.

Navy’s Offense

The Naval Academy is in its 3rd year of having their offense be a bit of a mess–not ideal for a triple option scheme dependent on having a competitive advantage over bigger, faster, and more talented teams throughout the country.

Things sunk so low last year that Ken Niumatalolo fired long-time offensive coordinator Ivin Jasper, only to reverse course 2 days later and keep Jasper on as quarterbacks coach “only.” However, it’s believed Coach N. and Jasper are still working together in the OC role, though.

The Middies also had to go through an off-season rebuilding their roster after 3 offensive linemen, 2 fullbacks, 2 slotbacks, and 1 wide receiver graduated after starting or playing key roles in 2021.

On the line, junior right guard Josh Pena (6-2, 286) and senior right tackle Kip Frankland (6-1, 306) return as starters with junior left tackle Sam Glover (6-3, 265), sophomore left guard Connor McMahon (6-3, 262), and junior center Lirion Murtezi (6-3, 315) moving into starting roles in 2022.

Junior wideout Jay Umbarger and senior Mark Walker have combined for 52 receptions and 738 yards in their careers offering decent stats on the outside.

Navy had to re-load pretty much their entire backfield as the top 5 rushers from 2021 (including quarterback Tai Lavatai, see below) are gone. A trio of sophomore fullbacks are getting 30.5 carries per game with Daba Fofana (502 yards on 140 attempts this year) by far carrying the ball more than anyone else in the offense.

New rule for 2022: Navy can’t cut block outside the tackle box and it’s nerfed their running game. 

Sophomore slotbacks Maquel Haywood and Vincent Terrell are getting the ball roughly 7 and 6 times per game, respectively with the former averaging nearly double the yards per carry.

As mentioned above, quarterback Tai Lavatai is not playing after suffering a knee injury against Temple a couple weeks ago. Instead, Navy has turned to junior Xavier Arline who has now started 6 games in his career, and faced Notre Dame last year after Lavatai left that game with a shoulder injury. Arline is very small (5-9, 176) and has never offered a strong enough running threat (577 yards at 3.5 per carry for his career) to hold down the starting job.

In a bit of desperation (or perhaps to give Notre Dame something extra to work on through film) Navy inserted senior Massai Maynor last week in the 2nd series of the 2nd half against Cincinnati. He completed passes of 31 and 32 yards in relief but was poor on the ground with -9 yards on 6 carries.

Navy’s Defense

Without the advantage of big bodies up front, Navy are continuing their 3-4 scheme in defensive coordinator Brian Newberry’s 4th year with the program.

Heading into 2022 they really missed linebacker Diego Fagot (282 tackles, 35.5 TFL, 9.5 sacks in his career) plus they had to break in a pair of new starters at corner. Otherwise, Newberry has been working with a pretty veteran group.

Junior defensive end Jacob Busic (6-4, 256) is having a nice year with 6 sacks. Fellow junior Donald Berniard (6-0, 256) is trying his best holding things down in the middle as the technical nose guard while playing next to the much larger sophomore defensive tackle Clay Cromwell (6-3, 292). Those 2 interior guys have combined for 9 tackles for loss, not too shabby.

Navy are looking more like the pre-Paul Johnson era program again. 

As usual, Navy is putting a lot on their linebackers’ plates. Senior John Marshall (6-2, 209) and senior Nicolas Straw (6-2, 230) both return after starting in 2021 while sophomore Colin Ramos (5-11, 205) and junior Will Harbour (6-1, 230) played enough last year with some starting experience, too.

Obviously, this is a very small front 7 for Navy and especially after the last 2 weeks Notre Dame is going to feel like they should push the Middies around in the run game.

However, Navy’s defense is only seeing 27.67 rushing attempts per game, 2nd fewest in the country. They’re 13th best in rushing average allowed and have only surrendered 5 touchdowns on the ground all season.

They do have new corners starting this year in sophomore Elias Larry (6-0, 186) and sophomore Mbiti Williams (5-9, 180). And while junior safety Eavan Gibbons (5-10, 199) and sophomore Rayuan Lane (5-11, 197) combined for 13 starts in 2021 this is still a fairly weak secondary prone to giving up big plays through the air.

Coming into the weekend, Navy ranks 118th nationally and 127th nationally in passing plays of 20+ yards and 30+ yards allowed, respectively. In terms of passer rating allowed, they are 123rd nationally, a bit worse than BYU (114th), UNC (104th), and California (103rd) where Drew Pyne finished a combined 63 of 85 (74.1%) for 701 yards, 8 TD, and 1 INT.

Prediction

Since I’m a broken Notre Dame fan, and thus a true Notre Dame fan, we have 2 glaringly obvious issues with this weekend’s game.

1) This is checking every box as a major hangover game.

The Irish are coming off a huge and emotionally draining win. Having to pick things up this week and travel to Baltimore, in a sterile NFL stadium, to face this weird and sad Navy team should give everyone negative trillion hype. I am expecting a lot of rust and frustration, plus the team to lack sharpness. I would be very shocked if Notre Dame came out and breezed through the early stages of the game to build a big lead–always a crucial aspect to making this an easy win over Navy.

2) Navy’s defense could be dominated through the air.

Time to let Pyne air it out, baby! I’m really interested to see if Notre Dame and Tommy Rees stick to their strengths of running the ball heavily and going right at Navy’s best defensive strength, too. The easy thing to do is just let Pyne keep handing off but you do run the risk of really shrinking possessions (Navy opponents are averaging 59 plays per game) and making things artificially tight. Especially since the Irish run game simply cannot break long and explosive runs.

Notre Dame should be fine on defense. The Middies had been trying to throw a little more in 2022 (12 attempts per game!) and without Lavatai those hopes through the air are dashed. They are now so reliant on pounding it up the middle with the fullbacks and haven’t been very potent running on the edges with the quarterback or slotbacks. I’d expect the Irish secondary players to really play well coming down and making tackles.

I’m guessing we’ll see 8 total possessions for the Irish with 3 touchdowns, 2 field goals, and 3 punts.

Notre Dame 27

Navy 12