Aug. 30, 2010

Setting the Stage
• Meeting for the 21st time in series history and for the first time since 2005, Navy (0-0) and Maryland (0-0) are set to square off on Labor Day in the season opener for both teams.
• Monday's game will be televised nationally by ESPN and ESPN3.com. Mike Patrick (play-by-play), Craig James (analyst) and Quint Kessenich (sideline) will call the action from Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium beginning at 3:57 pm ET.
• The Navy Football Tailgate Show on 1430 WNAV (Annapolis) will air at 2:00 PM with Pete Medhurst and Joe Miller setting the scene from Baltimore.
• WBAL Radio (1090) will also air a one-hour pregame show starting at 2:00 pm with Brett Hollander live from Baltimore.
• The Navy Football Pregame Show with Bob Socci, Omar Nelson, Pete Medhurst and John Feinstein will get underway at 3:00 pm, followed by game action beginning at 4:00 pm on the Navy Radio Network, Sirius Satellite Radio and the Best of Sirius on XM Satellite Radio.
• Following the contest, Pete Medhurst and Joe Miller will recap the day's events in a 60-minute postgame show live on 1430 WNAV and 1500 AM in Washington.

Pre-Game
• The March-On of the Brigade of Midshipmen will take place at 3:36 pm.
• Monday's fly-by will feature two Boeing F/A-18 Hornets from the "Gladiators" of VFA-106 based out of Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia Beach, Va. Piloting the lead aircraft will be 2002 Naval Academy graduate Lt. Michael "Chewy" Stanfield, who received his master's degree from the University of Maryland. The wing aircraft is piloted by Lt. Michael "TABB" Smith (USNA `02).
• Kickoff is scheduled for 4:01 PM.

Crab Bowl Trophy
• The Touchdown Club of Annapolis has announced that it will present the Crab Bowl Trophy to the winner of the Maryland-Navy football game -- this season and for all subsequent meetings.
• Commissioned by the Touchdown Club of Annapolis with underwriting from the D'Camera Group, the Crab Bowl is a large pewter bowl overflowing with pewter replicas of the Chesapeake Bay blue crab. The Crab Bowl sits atop an ebony-colored mahogony base that will be engraved with the results of the 20 previous Maryland-Navy games.
• The Touchdown Club of Annapolis, founded in 1954, has an extensive history with both the Navy and Maryland football programs. The club's annual football awards banquet, held for 56 years, brings the head coaches of the two programs together and also honors the most outstanding players for the Midshipmen and Terrapins with the Tony Rubino Memorial Silver Helmet Award (Navy) and the Louis L. Goldstein Golden Helmet (Maryland).
• The Crab Bowl was carefully crafted by The Tilghman Company of Annapolis, which also designed and built the Silver Helmet and Golden Helmet. Dean D'Camera, a two-term past president of the Touchdown Club of Annapolis and former chairman of the Maryland Gridiron Network, shared the cost of creating the perpetual trophy along with the Touchdown Club of Annapolis.

The Last Time ... Maryland 23, Navy 20 Sept. 3, 2005 | M&T Bank Stadium | Baltimore, Md.
• Maryland quarterback Sam Hollenbach hit Drew Weatherly with a 11-yard touchdown strike with 1:01 remaining to rally the Terps to a 23-20 victory over Navy in front of 67,809 fans at Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium.
• Navy jumped out to a 14-3 lead in the first quarter as senior quarterback Lamar Owens led the Mids on 80 and 50-yard scoring drives on Navy's first two possessions.
• Matt Hall capped off the 12-play, 80-yard scoring drive with a three-yard touchdown run to give Navy a 7-3 lead. After a Jake Biles interception gave the offense the ball on the 50, the Mids promptly drove down the field in six plays with Marco Nelson scoring from seven yards out on an option pitch to give Navy a 14-3 lead.
• Navy had an opportunity to put the game away the next time it had the ball as Greg Sudderth picked off a Hollenbach pass and returned it to the Maryland 46. The Mids moved the ball down to the 14-yard line where, facing third-and-one, drew a delay of game penalty. Paul Johnson elected to go for it on fourth and two and Owens was stopped for a one yard gain.
• The Navy defense held tough most of the day, holding the Terps to just three field goals through the first three quarters. Maryland finally broke through on their first possession of the fourth quarter when Mario Merrills scored from 12 yards out to give the Terps a 15-14 lead.
• Owens re-entered the game after missing two series with a hand cramp and led the Mids on a eight-play, 66-yard scoring drive that was capped off by a six-yard touchdown run by Hall. The Mids, up by five, had to go for two and didn't convert.
• Facing a fourth-and-eight situation from the Navy 31, Hollenbach hit Lance Ball with a swing pass in the flat and Navy had two defenders in the area, but neither Greg Thrasher nor Tyler Tidwell could bring him down before he crossed the first down marker. Hollenbach hit Weatherley on the next play to make it 23-20.

2010 Storylines
• Navy returns 14 starters and 35 letterwinners off last year's team that won a seventh-straight Commander-In-Chief's Trophy and made a seventh-straight appearance in a bowl game.
• Navy returns five of its top six rushers - senior quarterback Ricky Dobbs, senior fullback Vince Murray, junior fullback Alexander Teich, sophomore slot back Gee Gee Greene and junior quarterback Kriss Proctor, as well as two of its top five receivers - senior wide receiver Greg Jones and senior wide receiver Mike Schupp.
• Dobbs has scored at least one rushing touchdown in all 12 of his career starts. Dobbs set an NCAA record for quarterbacks last year with 27 rushing touchdowns.
• Additionally, Dobbs became just the third quarterback (Chris McCoy in 1997 and Craig Candeto in 2003) in school history last year to rush (1,203 yards) and throw (1,031 yards) for over 1,000 yards in a season. No Navy player has accomplished this feat twice in his career.
• Last fall Murray and Teich combined to rush for 1,347 yards and six touchdowns on 252 carries (5.3 yds/carry).
• The Mids will try and regain their title as the top rushing team in the country after finishing fourth (280.5 yds/gm) last year. Navy had won the rushing title an NCAA-record four-consecutive years (2005-08).
• On the defensive end of the field, five of the Mids' top 10 tacklers are back - senior linebacker Tyer Simmons, senior safety Wyatt Middleton, senior safety Emmett Merchant, junior defensive end Jabaree Tuani and senior corner Kevin Edwards.
• The defense enters the 2010 season having not allowed a touchdown to Service Academy rivals Air Force and Army in 12 quarters (plus one overtime period). The Mids have not given up a touchdown to Army in 12 quarters.
• Navy will be vying for an eighth-straight Commander-In-Chief's Trophy and an eighth-straight bowl game. If the Mids win at least six games, they will play in the Poinsettia Bowl.
• Navy plays four of its first five games this season away from home. No other team in the country plays away from home in four of its first five games.

More on Navy's 2010 Schedule
• Five games at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium and three neutral site games played at NFL venues highlight Navy's 2010 schedule.
• The Mids will face four teams that played in a bowl in 2009, three bowl champions and two conference champions. Air Force won the Armed Forces Bowl, SMU won the Hawai'i Bowl, Central Michigan won the Mid-American Conference as well as the GMAC Bowl, while East Carolina was crowned the Conference USA champion and played in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl.
• CBS College Sports will televise all five games played in Annapolis, while the Notre Dame and Army games will be televised by CBS. ESPN will televise the Mids' 2010 season opener against Maryland.

Playing in the Big Time
• Since the start of the 2003 season, Navy has played 23 games in 11 different big league stadiums (10 NFL and one MLB), posting a 14-9 record (.609).
• No college team in the country has played in more NFL stadiums than Navy over the last seven years.
• Last year Navy lost to Pitt at Heinz Field, defeated Army at Lincolin Financial Field and beat Missouri at Reliant Stadium.
• This fall the Mids play Maryland at Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium, Notre Dame at the New Meadowlands Stadium and Army at Philadelphia's Lincoln Financial Field.

Navy Among the Most Successful Teams Nationally Over The Last Seven Years
• Navy clinched its seventh-consecutive winning season last fall with a 35-18 victory over Delaware.
• The seven-straight winning seasons are the most by Navy since the Mids enjoyed 10-straight winning seasons from 1952-61.
• The Mids own a 61-29 (.678) record over the last-seven years after posting a 3-30 (.091) mark from 2000-02.
• The 61 wins are the 17th most in the country during that span.

Mids Consistently Among the Nation's Top Rushing Teams
• Over the last eight years, Navy has consistently been one of the top rushing teams in the country, never finishing lower than fourth.
• In 2002, Navy finished third in the country in rushing, averaging 270.8 yards per game.
• In 2003, Navy led the nation in rushing, averaging a then school-record 323.2 yards per game. That is the fifth best rushing average for a team over the last 10 years.
• In 2004, Navy finished third in the country in rushing, averaging 289.5 yards per game.
• In 2005, Navy led the country in rushing for the second time in three years, averaging 318.7 yards per game. The 318.7 yards per game is the seventh best rushing average by a team in the last 10 years.
• Navy finished the 2006 campaign averaging a nation's-best and then school-record 327.0 yards per game. That is the fourth-best rushing average by a team in the last 10 years.
• The Mids rushed for a school-record 348.8 yards per game in 2007, becoming the first team in NCAA history to lead the nation in rushing three-consecutive years. The 348.8 yards rushing is the second best rushing average by a team in the last 10 years. Only the 2000 Nebraska team (349.3) rushed for more over that time period.
• The 348.8 yards per game are the most yards rushing by a FBS team since Nebraska averaged 349.3 yards per game in 2000.
• In 2008, Navy led the country in rushing for an unprecedented fourth-straight year, averaging 292.4 yards per game.
• In 2009, Navy finished fourth in the nation in rushing, averaging 280.5 yards per game.