ANNAPOLIS, Md.—Senior quarterback Tai Lavatai came off the bench to throw for 75 yards and a touchdown, while the defense recorded a school-record 8 sacks to lead Navy (2-3, 1-2 in the AAC) to a 27-24 victory over North Texas (2-3, 0-1) in front of 28,648 fans at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.
 
"It's hard to win games and we found a way to probably make that one a little more difficult than it should've been," said Navy head coach Brian Newberry. "Hats off to North Texas. Coach Morris has done an awesome job taking over that program. I have a ton of respect for them. I thought they had a really good offense. To hold their guys to 24 points, Coach Volker did a good job with the game plan."
 
Lavatai, who was playing in his 22^nd career game and the first as a non-starter, took over for an injured Blake Horvath late in the second quarter and immediately led Navy on a touchdown drive. 
 
On third-and-eight from the North Texas 46, Lavatai scrambled for 20 yards and a first down.  On the very next play, Lavatai dropped a beautiful throw right into the arms of sophomore wide receiver Nathan Kent in the right corner of the end zone for a 26-yard touchdown to give Navy a 13-10 lead.
 
"We thought it was a critical situation in the game. He went in and did some good things," said Newberry.  "It felt like we had a little juice right there, so we decided we were going to roll with him moving forward. I was really proud of the way he played."
 
Navy got the ball to start the second half and Lavatai led a 12-play, 75-yard touchdown drive to give the Mids a 20-10 lead. 
 
The big play of the drive was a perfect pass from Lavatai to sophomore slot back Brandon Chatman along the left sideline that Chatman was able to maintain his balance to stay in-bounds after the catch and carry the ball down to the one-yard line for a 38-yard gain. Two plays later, junior slot back Anton Hall Jr. scored from the 1 to give the Mids the 10 point lead.
 
The Mean Green would cut the Navy lead to 3 points on the first drive of the fourth quarter on an 18-yard touchdown pass from Chandler Rogers to Ja'Mori Maclin to make the score 20-17. Rogers would finish the day 22-32 passing for 267 yards with 1 touchdown.
 
After a Navy punt, the defense got the ball right back for the Mids as sophomore raider Luke Pirris sacked Rogers for a loss of 18 yards, jarring the ball loose from the North Texas quarterback. The fumble was recovered by junior linebacker Colin Ramos at the North Texas 21.  Pirris finished the day with a career-high 9 tackles, a sack, a tackle for a loss, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery.
 
"I got an opportunity to help the team out. My role has increased a little bit so I am just trying to take as much advantage of it as possible and do everything in my power to help the team get a win," said Pirris.
 
One play later, sophomore fullback Alex Tecza burst through the North Texas defense for a 21-yard touchdown run to give the Mids a 27-17 lead. Tecza finished the night with 137 yards rushing and 2 touchdowns on 17 carries.
 
The Tecza touchdown turned out to be the game-winner, because North Texas answered with an 8-play, 73-yard scoring drive capped off by Ayo Adeyi's 47-yard touchdown run to cut the Navy lead to 3 at 27-24. 
 
North Texas would get the ball back with a chance to win with 1:58 left in the contest, but the Mids sent a corner blitz on first down and sophomore Andrew Duhart got home for a 7-yard loss. Three-plays later junior Mbiti Williams broke up Rogers pass and Navy had its first conference win.
 
The Navy offense rushed for 331 yards on the day, led by Tecza and Horvath, who ran for 88 yards and a touchdown in a quarter and a half.  Junior fullback Daba Fofana chipped in with 55 yards.
 
"I am really proud of Lavatai," said Newberry. "I had a conversation with him earlier in the week saying that we were going to go with the other two guys. He owned his role this week. He was awesome, coaching those guys at practice, encouraging them last night. His number got called today and he went in and did some really good things, leading us to victory. A lot of good things. There are a lot of things that we need to clean up moving forward, and we will. We needed a win like this. Hopefully, it will be some good momentum for us and catapult us moving forward."
 
"That is all of our philosophies – practice like you are going to be the starter and that you are going to play," said Lavatai. "Everyone plays a role on the team. I may not like the decision of where I was, but at the same time I feel like I had a lot of experience to be able to help Braxton and Blake. That was something I didn't feel like I really had when I was a sophomore. I wanted to be able to give to them as a mentor. Someone they could talk to about whatever they wanted football-wise. Coach always says you are always one play away from playing. You have to mentally prepare like that so I played my role. Unfortunately, Blake went down, but you want to be able to keep the offense rolling the way that it was. I was fortunate to be able to go out there and help the way I did."
 
Pirris and Williams led Navy with 9 stops each, a career-high for both, while Ramos had 8 tackles and junior safety Rayuan Lane 6.  Pirris, Lane, Duhart, senior linebacker Will Harbour, senior striker Xavier McDonald, junior defensive end Justin Reed, sophomore nose guard Landon Robinson and senior defensive tackle Clay Cromwell all recorded sacks, with Cromwell getting 2.
 
Navy travels to Charlotte next Saturday for a 2 pm kick on ESPN+. The game is sold out.