Navy Hires ex-Mercer HC as OC

[3seconddelay]

https://youtu.be/4Ru8DMW-grY?feature=shared

[ARMORMAN]

Dunno about the link above....

Try this one instead:
https://mercerbears.com/news/2024/1/9/c ... Midshipmen.


On another subject, I did notice that Notre Dame has an open 2024 date on Nov 23. Jus' sayin'....

[WrekDivr]

The link below gives Navy’s take on the new hire. Looks like he run a version of the option.

https://navysports.com/news/2024/1/10/f ... ademy.aspx

[WrekDivr]

The article below gives some insight into the offense Cronic ran at Mercer. The author describes it as a blend of the wishbone and spread that uses a unique position of a “Joker” that is a combo back and receiver. It also sounds like he used a lot of passing. You have to scroll down about halfway to get to the Cronic part.

https://oddballsports.substack.com/p/th ... rew-cronic

[PrideandDream]

Drew Cronic is a really good football coach. His dad was a long time HS coach in GA with over 200 career wins. Drew has deep ties to GA and the coaches in GA. He's been successful at each level he's coached at as well. Interestingly he was on staff at Furman as an assistant when Cody Worley was a player. He has revived Mercer football in middle GA and brought the Bears back to respectability. This could be a huge win for Navy on many fronts.

This hires certainly stands as a stark contrast to hiring Thatcher who had ties in Nebraska and New Mexico and never been a head coach nor had he coached above the D2 level. And the bulk of his career was at the New Mexico Military Institute and has a strong background in the Air Raid as a player. Not trying to beat up on Coach Thatcher just highlighting the differences in approach. Conversely we now will have Worley at the helm who has never been a coordinator but has been on staff in the old system, coached at FCS Kennesaw State, has strong recruiting ties in the southeast and has at least 2 auditions as the OC (Liberty Bowl vs WVU and Coastal).

Be interesting to watch these two teams next year.

PD

[kfan12]

Averaged 323 yds per game last year...down considerably apparently from the previous year. HMMM...

[wpgrad]

Regarding the hire, time will tell. There was more than 1 Army fan over the last few years that wanted us to go after the Kennesaw guys to include chestnut. There were many people who thought the chestnut hire was A plus (navy stole the option kennesaw OC away from Army who just fired Davis!!!!!).

9 months later, the guy is fired.

On the one head the mercer guy seems to have success, on the other hand his stops have been in mercer and furman and some place called Rheinhardt which might be a shut down army base in Germany from the cold war.

And...I think navy might fall prey to the "lets get cute with the new guy" kind of attitude where as I think Worley is 100% focused on "these are the 12 plays that work in triple option and lets get really really good at these" kind of mindset.

Also....We will play ND at ND on November 23rd.

[ArmyRoadFan7]

Drew Cronic is a really good football coach. His dad was a long time HS coach in GA with over 200 career wins. Drew has deep ties to GA and the coaches in GA. He's been successful at each level he's coached at as well. Interestingly he was on staff at Furman as an assistant when Cody Worley was a player. He has revived Mercer football in middle GA and brought the Bears back to respectability. This could be a huge win for Navy on many fronts.

This hires certainly stands as a stark contrast to hiring Thatcher who had ties in Nebraska and New Mexico and never been a head coach nor had he coached above the D2 level. And the bulk of his career was at the New Mexico Military Institute and has a strong background in the Air Raid as a player. Not trying to beat up on Coach Thatcher just highlighting the differences in approach. Conversely we now will have Worley at the helm who has never been a coordinator but has been on staff in the old system, coached at FCS Kennesaw State, has strong recruiting ties in the southeast and has at least 2 auditions as the OC (Liberty Bowl vs WVU and Coastal).

Be interesting to watch these two teams next year.

PD

Will it be a Tale of Two Cities when we play Navy?

[Oliphant]

Dunno about the link above....

Try this one instead:
https://mercerbears.com/news/2024/1/9/c ... Midshipmen.


On another subject, I did notice that Notre Dame has an open 2024 date on Nov 23. Jus' sayin'....

Back in 2021, it was announced we would play ND in 2024.

[ArmyRoadFan7]

Army played them in 2020

https://youtu.be/C3KXSS_1qZw?si=mEv61X1R2xHdtRpp