ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Nolan Henderson threw a pair of touchdown passes to lead Delaware to a 14-7 win over Navy on Saturday in front of 30,542 fans at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium to give Ryan Carty a win in his debut as the Fightin' Blue Hens' coach.

Carty, a Delaware graduate and a member of the Blue Hens' 2003 national championship team, came to Delaware from Sam Houston State where he was offensive coordinator.

It was No. 19 Delaware's first win over an FBS team and Navy's first loss to an FCS team since the Blue Hens beat the Midshipmen in 2007.

"This win means a lot," said Carty.  "I'm so proud to be the head coach at Delaware.  My God, to be able to do it in a place like this and against such a good football team, man did they play hard and gritty, but luckily so did we.  The sky is the limit for this team."

"Obviously this is a disappointing loss," said Navy head coach Ken Niumatalolo.  "I thought the defense played great, but our number one thing on offense is always to take care of the ball. You can't beat anybody turning the ball over three times.  Our big emphasis this whole camp was to get off to a fast start and then we fumble on the first play. We made too many mistakes and they were all self-inflicted. The defense gave us a chance to win, I'm just disappointed in how we came out and failed to do what we had practiced on the offensive side of the ball."

Navy, which lost five fumbles all of last season, had three in the first 18 minutes against Delaware. On Navy's first play from scrimmage Tai Lavatai lost a fumble on the mesh handoff between himself and fullback Anton Hall Jr. and Delaware recovered at the Navy 21-yard line.  Two plays later the Blue Hens converted the mistake into points when Henderson hit Bryce de Malle with a six-yard touchdown pass. 

Henderson found Chandler Harvin deep for a 51-yard score in the third quarter to make it 14-0. That scoring drive was set up by an odd chain of events. On first-and-20 from their own 28, a Delaware offensive lineman was called for a false start to set up a first-and-30, but another official came in and overruled the penalty and called Navy for making disconcerting signals causing Delaware to jump and making it first-and-15 instead.  Three plays later Henderson hit Harvin for the touchdown.

Navy responded with its only points of the game, moving 56 yards in 10 plays, capped off by a two-yard touchdown run by Lavatai to make the score 14-7 with 29 seconds left in the third quarter.

The Navy defense, which was sensational all game, made another big play early in the fourth quarter when Delaware surprisingly went for it on fourth-and-two from its own 45.  Linebacker Jianni Woodson-Brooks dropped running back Khory Spruill for a one yard gain to give Navy the ball back at the Delaware 46 with 11:38 left.

Navy, however, could do nothing with it as the Mids gave the ball to fullback Daba Fofana four-straight times for a total of nine yards.  The Blue Hens dropped Fofana for a gain of two yards on fourth-and-three to get the ball back.

The Navy defense stopped Delaware two more times and on the second stop it looked like the Mids would be able to do something with it.  

Navy took over at the Delaware 49 with 3:16 left and on second down Lavatai hit sophomore slot back Maquel Haywood with a 34-yard pass down to the Delaware 15.  

After two runs by Fofana gained just two yards, Navy ran a throw-back screen to senior wide receiver Mark Walker that looked like was set up to score, but linebacker Johnny Buchanan ran across the field to knock Walker out of bounds at the Navy nine-yard line.  On fourth-and-four, Lavatai's pass to Haywood was broken up in the end zone by Justis Henley to end Navy's hopes.

The star of the game for Delaware was Buchanan, who was all over the field recording 23 tackles, a tackle for a loss and forced a fumble.  Safety Noah Plack had 17 tackles, while linebacker Liam Trainer made 14 stops.

"I told Coach (Manny) Rojas (Delaware's Defensive Coordinator) after the game that I thought that was one of the best performances a defense had against a triple-option team in a long time," said Carty.  "I thought we kept them off-balance, I thought we ran to the ball extremely, extremely hard and we made plays when they were there to be made. I thought we had an unbelievable assignment-based plan going into it and our guys executed it perfectly."

Navy's defense was even better than Delaware's, allowing just 202 yards of total offense including just 13 on the ground.  Navy's 12 tackles for a loss in the game was its most since 2005.

Sophomore linebacker Colin Ramos led the Mids with a career-high nine tackles and forcing a fumble, while junior safety Eavan Gibbons was in on eight tackles and two tackles for a loss.  Senior striker John Marshall had seven tackles, 3.5 tackles for a loss and two sacks.

"I think we made a lot of good strides today on defense," said Marshall.  "We definitely executed what we've been working on in the offseason.  Of course there's stuff to correct and we'll get back to that on Monday."

Henderson finished the day 20-for-32 for 189 yards.  Chandler Harvin had three catches for 69 yards.

Fofana led the Navy rushing attack with 47 yards on 15 carries as Navy gained just 184 yards on the ground on 63 carries (2.9 yards per carry).  Lavatai completed five of his 13 pass attempts for 135 yards, while Haywood had two catches for 77 yards and six carries for 28 yards.

Navy will be back in action at home next Saturday at 3:30 PM against Memphis in the American Athletic Conference opener for both teams, while Delaware plays host to Delaware State.