Sept. 19, 2009
Last Saturday, before being convinced otherwise by prevailing winds and wisdom, Ken Niumatalolo considered betraying both precedent and superstition.
Since returning to the Naval Academy as an assistant to Paul Johnson in 2002, and in his brief tenure as head coach, Niumatalolo has known it to be automatic when the referee tosses his coin in the air and it lands in the Midshipmen's favor.
Heads or tails, Navy wants the football to start the second half. It's a one-sided tradeoff. The opposition receives the opening kickoff of a game, but the Mids dictate which way the wind blows - with or against them - AND - as important - are able to immediately implement any halftime adjustments.
If ahead, the start of the third quarter is an opportunity to turn a halftime edge into an insurmountable lead for a team that so often frustrates opponents by playing keep-away in a time-consuming, possession-limiting offense. If Navy is behind, it gets to regroup and plot its strategy to get back in the game.
That's just how it's been around Annapolis. For seven years now, team captains have been dispatched to midfield before each game with explicit orders. Their standard answer to the lead official, "We'll defer to the second half, sir."
But a week ago, while preparing for Navy's home opener vs. Louisiana Tech, Niumatalolo contemplated a different directive, while considering a different direction.
"I was going to take the ball," he revealed on Wednesday, four days after the Midshipmen pulled themselves out of a 14-0 hole for a 32-14 victory in the home opener. "I'm still concerned about the way we're starting. (Those concerns) got to a point where I thought, `Let's take the ball (first) and get off to a great start."
By the time Ross Pospisil and Osei Asante made their pregame walk to the center of Jack Stephens Field, Niumatalolo changed his mind, opting for more of the same. Admittedly somewhat superstitious, his reversal of thinking had nothing to do with the supernatural - though faith did play a large role.
In part, Niumatalolo believed in his kickers enough to trust their judgment during warm-ups. They told him that the wind would definitely be a factor. They were soon proven correct.
Mostly, the second-year head coach believed in the Navy unit asked to take the field first.
"I have great confidence in our defense," Niumatalolo said. "Right now, that's the strength of our team."
Six minutes into the game, trailing by two touchdowns, he could have easily second-guessed himself. He didn't. There was no need to.
The Bulldogs' scored first on a 10-play, 74-yard touchdown drive, prolonged by a 27-yard pass completion on 3rd-and-16. They scored next on a long punt return. They never scored again.
In fact, they crossed midfield just once the rest of the day, their longest `drive' limited to 21 yards. Six straight La Tech possessions resulted in punts. Its time of possession the final three quarters amounted to roughly 12 ½ minutes.
Its 1,000-yard rusher from 2008, Daniel Porter, gained a meager 44 yards. His afternoon was barely enough to put the Bulldogs' rushing total in the black, taking into account the 35 yards lost on four sacks of quarterback Ross Jenkins.
No play was more pivotal than defensive end Jabaree Tuani's adjustment to a dropped pass over the middle. His interception off a deflected throw by Jenkins helped Navy's offense to a short cut along the way to its 32 unanswered points.
Taking over at the Tech 47-yard line, the Mids produced their first touchdown of the day four plays later. Suddenly, all momentum shifted. Two series later - following the Bulldogs' three-and-out, a 17-yard punt into the wind and another short Navy drive, this one starting from the 48 - the lead changed hands.
The Midshipmen never gave it back. Protecting their advantage, they only got stingier. Pressure on Jenkins never abated, whether generated by the defensive line or blitzing linebackers. If the quarterback managed to stay on his feet, often his passes were knocked down.
Navy didn't just seize control of the game, it wrapped up, grabbed cloth and leveraged the way to a long second half for an experienced and talented Louisiana Tech squad.
The Mids were equal to Niumatalolo's expectations, just as they'd been late in the season opener at Ohio State.
When the Buckeyes eschewed a field-goal try midway through the fourth quarter, attempting to turn a 15-point lead into a rout, Navy held firm at its own 15-yard line. What was 2nd-and-3 eventually became 4th-and-2. On the next snap, OSU's Dan Herron was swarmed under for a minimal gain.
On the snap after that - with possession now the Mids - Marcus Curry ran under a Ricky Dobbs' pass for 85 yards and a touchdown. The difference was down to eight in a brand new game.
Then, on the Buckeyes' next series, Emmett Merchant intercepted Terrelle Pryor and, with a 23-yard return, set up the Dobbs' scoring run that reduced the margin to two.
Again the defense came up with a play on which the offense could capitalize.
Throughout the last seven years of its football resurgence - with good reason - so much of the attention paid to Navy has focused on its triple-option attack. As recently as 2007, it was fair to suggest that the Mids' best defense often was their offense. In a span of three weeks in October and November, Navy allowed 59 points in a loss to Delaware (59-52) and a surreal 62 in a win over North Texas (74-62).
But, as trying as that autumn was for defensive coordinator Buddy Green, who was forced by injury and inexperience to employ more than 20 different starters, he never doubted the effort of his players or their desire.
They ran hard to the whistle, all eleven defenders, on every play back then. They still do. Only now they are a veteran group that continues to validate the trust of their head coach. If it's not THE strength, Green's unit is A strength.
One who should know is this weekend's opposing head coach Dave Wannstedt, who has coordinated defenses in the NFL for a Super Bowl champion in Dallas, and in college for a national champ in Miami. From what he's seen, the Mids are well coached from both fundamental and schematic standpoints.
"They're very aggressive up front," Wannstedt said Monday during a Big East media teleconference. "They use real good technique and get good leverage on you."
Wannstedt sounded a similar note the same day speaking to local media in Pittsburgh.
"We know how big and powerful Ohio State is, and from watching on tape, you don't see (Navy players) getting knocked off the ball," he explained. "The second thing is they are a multiple (defense).'
By that, he means that the Mids can quickly morph from a 3-4 alignment to a 4-3, by posing a linebacker as a rush end, his hand down on the turf and his mission to pressure the quarterback. Much smaller than most of their Division I counterparts, Navy players have generally relied on quickness, effort and being in the right place almost all the time.
This season, though, the Mids are especially stout up front, consistently holding - if not winning at - the point of attack. Led by Tuani, the 2008 ECAC Rookie of the Year, they are as deep and talented as any Navy line in recent memory.
And that speaks to the brilliance of Green and his staff more than anything, considering the blow they absorbed in August. Preparing for the fall, nose guard Nate Frazier, a stalwart up front, was separated from the Academy.
In the aftermath, what was then perceived to be a line made weaker has become much stronger.
"When we lost Nate, Dale (Pehrson) went to work and started moving guys around," Green said recently, noting the work of Navy's defensive line coach.
Among those Pehrson experimented with was Jordan Stephens, who relocated inside from defensive end. Thus far, he and Chase Burge have anchored the interior, executing as instructed by the longest-tenured assistant on the Mids' staff.
"The best way to describe Dale is that he's a great teacher," says Green. "He teaches his linemen to use the right footwork, they know to read the right keys and they use their hands the right way. "
"We've had some D-linemen do very well for us," adds Niumatalolo. "Because (Dale's) been here so long, people might not appreciate him. I've seen it more and more since becoming a head coach, being able to walk around the entire practice field and see our guys working."
He's long known how good the Mids had it on Green's side of the grass.
As a former offensive assistant, when Niumatalolo was hired as head coach in December 2007, he and Athletic Director Chet Gladchuk made it their priority to retain Green. Hindsight makes it obvious for us to see what they saw at the time, what wasn't always readily apparent in the sheer numbers.
Quite simply, no one was better suited to direct Navy's defense than the coordinator already here.
A video connoisseur, devouring hours and hours of opponents' tendencies, Green is extremely energetic and efficient on the practice field. Neither time nor motion is wasted when preparing against the scout-team offense. He doesn't settle for excuses, opting instead for up-downs.
It's exactly how his defense plays. To a man, the Mids are set well before the ball is in play. Once it's snapped, they're all in, going all out.
But, he's also smart and flexible enough to recognize that the 4-3 base defense he originally installed at Navy in 2002 didn't fit the personnel he inherited. The next spring, he shifted to a 3-4. Now, who knows, it can be both.
At the same time, Green's honesty with his players has earned their trust. When they needed a single stop two years ago, to avoid another overtime and celebrate at Notre Dame, they got it. And when losing seemed imminent in the final minutes last year against Temple, and he implored them to keep fighting, they did.
This weekend Green will ask the current Navy defenders to meet the measure of the moment, opposite a Pittsburgh offense that's generated 92 points in its first two games of the season.
Niumatalolo expects they will. And if the Mids win the coin toss, we should expect him to defer.
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