Navy game

[Dong Fong '09]

I was at the navy game in person and only tonight just watched it on tv and some thoughts

1. There were some terrible misses by the refs. Opening drive 4th down pass was 100% a hold. In the stadium it just looked like a bad pass. That other punt def hit the navy guys foot. Those calls get correctly there’s a good chance this game is not close.

2. This offense was 100% the right choice for this game. It is the best we have looked offensively against navy in a long time. It was self inflicted penalties that stopped us, not navy. The third quarter we got the ball like on our ten yard line and we flipped the field both times.

3. It looks like at the snap of the ball our offensive line doesn’t fire off the line of scrimmage. I don’t understand the blocking scheme. I think if we fix this and mix in more outside plays we can make big improvements.

4. If Tyler were the qb, several key runs would have been stopped for a loss vs getting a first down. Daily should have been the guy last year, and we need to recruit more qbs built like him.

[PrideandDream]

It is amazing what you see when you go back and re watch a game on film. With YouTube now having most big games in full you can see lots of stuff.

If you are interested go back and watch last year's game from an offensive perspective. Most people have forgotten a few critical things from that game.

1. We ran almost the entire first half out of the gun and Ballard took most of the QB snaps.
2. We dropped pass after pass after pass in the first half. Most thrown by Ballard. But the QB was under constant pressure as we couldn't block a soul in the 1st half.
3. We didn't run the fullback not once. Zero carries for Riley or Buchanan or Johnson in the first half.

Re watching the first half of the 2022 game we had 5 possessions for 28 yards and only 1 first down. We ran 19 total plays in the first half. 14 runs and 5 passes. Tyler had 11 runs and 1 pass, Ballard had 2 runs and 4 passes. Murphy had 1 run. We went 0 for 5 passing with every one of those balls being catchable but dropped. More importantly we didn't run the fullback not one time in the first half. We were under center I believe 3 of those 19 plays.

This is important perspective because Monken and Davis were searching for answers for several years in the A/N game. The idea of the gun isn't new. To Monken's point it's hard to run two offenses. We tried last year and performed poorly. Were we better this year? Maybe from a yards stand point but not signicantly better with points. I like Daily as a runner. Would he have been better? I don't know. If you watch the O line from last year I think he likely gets swallowed up too the way the Navy D line dominated our front. Truth is we could have had Pat Mahommes back there and I don't know that it would have mattered with our line and the dropped passes.

Here's the link to last year's game. Pretty interesting to see the first half again. And we weren't better in the 2nd half either. More under center but still no meaningful fullback play until Johnson scores in Overtime. good food for thought.


Army Navy 2022

PD

[ArmorDude]

I was at the navy game in person and only tonight just watched it on tv and some thoughts

1. There were some terrible misses by the refs. Opening drive 4th down pass was 100% a hold. In the stadium it just looked like a bad pass. That other punt def hit the navy guys foot. Those calls get correctly there’s a good chance this game is not close.

2. This offense was 100% the right choice for this game. It is the best we have looked offensively against navy in a long time. It was self inflicted penalties that stopped us, not navy. The third quarter we got the ball like on our ten yard line and we flipped the field both times.

3. It looks like at the snap of the ball our offensive line doesn’t fire off the line of scrimmage. I don’t understand the blocking scheme. I think if we fix this and mix in more outside plays we can make big improvements.

4. If Tyler were the qb, several key runs would have been stopped for a loss vs getting a first down. Daily should have been the guy last year, and we need to recruit more qbs built like him.

I'm happy to see you survived the second viewing without inflicting self-harm. Obviously you didn't have any sharp objects nearby or you wouldn't be able to post!

[Armyfaninpa]

From my 30,000 foot perspective, a bigger issue than gun vs. under center is the utter predictability of the play calling. Take your pick - Tyler running a keeper on each and every first down vs. Dailey running a keeper on each and every first down. Tyler running a keeper on each and every third down (irrespective of distance) vs. Dailey running a keeper on each and every third down. It must've been those unpredictable second down calls that kept opposing DC's awake at night. Nowhere was the risk averse nature of both offense and defense coordinators more apparent than in the final 5 minutes of the Navy game. A "prevent defense" that allowed possibly the worst passing team in the country to march the length of the field in 2 minutes without needing to use a single time out. Followed by an offense with a chance to put the game away with a single first down, refusing to throw a single pass even with 1st and 20 - instead preferring to leave the game in the hands of a punter who was averaging less than 30 yards on the afternoon. Followed of course by yet another soft "prevent defense". Hard for me to believe the players really thrive with such a "safety first" mentality in those circumstances.

[PrideandDream]

All fair points. Don't disagree that the predictability of the QB runs is not ideal. We did run Udoh more this year than we did the fullback last year. I tend to think that these coaches over think some of these games and get cute. Instead of just pounding away inside. One thing we've not done even in the old offense is balanced the ball distribution. This has been a problem for years as many pointed out but essentially we'd like to see 1/3 of carries to the fullback, 1/3 to the quarterback, and the final 1/3 split to the halfbacks. That has become harder to do and also we've limited the pitch to limit turnovers. But to your point the problem isn't solved by being in the gun. We ran for more yards this year vs Navy but were still ineffective in putting up points.

[RABBLE]

In the end, the gun frankly did not work. We just left 3-4 wins slip away. Any way you look at it. The gamble really failed but we did win the CIC Trophy. Who would have believed that at season's start?
A mystifying, crazy but yet again a good year, not a great year.
A lot of thought to improve must be forthcoming.
My biggest concern down the line is conference affiliation. This scares me a lot. I remember the last time we tried it. It was the worst time in our glorious period of football. Very sad to me and it will always be sad.

[RABBLE]

In the end, the gun frankly did not work. We just left 3-4 wins slip away. Any way you look at it. The gamble really failed but we did win the CIC Trophy. Who would have believed that at season's start?
A mystifying, crazy but yet again a good year, not a great year.
A lot of thought to improve must be forthcoming.
My biggest concern down the line is conference affiliation. This scares me a lot. I remember the last time we tried it. It was the worst time in our glorious period of football. Very sad to me and it will always be sad.

[kfan12]

In the end, the gun frankly did not work. We just left 3-4 wins slip away. Any way you look at it. The gamble really failed but we did win the CIC Trophy. Who would have believed that at season's start?
A mystifying, crazy but yet again a good year, not a great year.
A lot of thought to improve must be forthcoming.
My biggest concern down the line is conference affiliation. This scares me a lot. I remember the last time we tried it. It was the worst time in our glorious period of football. Very sad to me and it will always be sad.

I guess I'd say it failed just about as much as the UC TO did the year before.

[ArmyRoadFan7]

In the end, the gun frankly did not work. We just left 3-4 wins slip away. Any way you look at it. The gamble really failed but we did win the CIC Trophy. Who would have believed that at season's start?
A mystifying, crazy but yet again a good year, not a great year.
A lot of thought to improve must be forthcoming.
My biggest concern down the line is conference affiliation. This scares me a lot. I remember the last time we tried it. It was the worst time in our glorious period of football. Very sad to me and it will always be sad.

The gun option was effective against Air Force, Navy and UTSA.

The gun option gives us a better chance to beat Air Force and Navy but lowers our chances to beat everybody else.
I am glad that Army is going back to their old offense but they need to keep their foot in the pool of the gun option enough to use it in the CIC games. Just enough wrinkles to keep them off balance. Which when you think about it Thatcher’s offense really only is a wrinkle. You can get through a game or 2 with it at the FBS level but not an entire season.

[RABBLE]

The Army- Navy game is the last remaining college football game that remains the last bastion of pure amateurism of the game I appreciated and loved over the years. The players paid for the love of the game and not playing for what the great game of football became in the last 40-50 years.
Today the players play for compensation that the game gives them.
True, but when you play a game of sport for the money it can personally give you, it detracts from the excitement and joy you can receive from it. It is played for the love of money.
I still love the college game. The pros play it better of course but I feel the college game still has a little of what you would call the love of the game.
No one can change the college game but they are trying to do it. All of them. It is a money game now with the Portal and the NIL. The game is different now and how sad that it is.
As they say, change can be good and change can be bad. Many say that that is a good thing. Sometimes I wonder. I really do.