Drew Cronic, the second-year coordinator of a Navy offense that shook off four years of a struggling offensive unit with a huge outburst in 2024, traced his football path way back to a memory that has stuck with him for most of his 51 years.
 
Cronic, who gave Navy's unit new life with dazzling results behind quarterback Blake Horvath to push the Midshipmen to a 10-3 comeback year – highlighted by Navy's first Commander-In-Chief's trophy since 2019 and a historic victory over Oklahoma in the Armed Forces Bowl – can still see himself in the early stage of falling for the game of football.  
 
He vividly recalled his dad, Danny Cronic, then a young high school coach in Georgia with several decades of success in front of him, evaluating his LaGrange High School squad, with the help of a 16mm reel-to-reel projector.
 
Drew, five or six years old at the time, had been assigned the task of taping together spliced film.
 
The youngster was drawn to watching and trying to decipher the action his father and his coaching staff studied. By middle school, Drew was getting absorbed in his dad's playbook and the schemes that made his creative and effective Wing-T offense go.
 
Drew's younger brother, Nathan Cronic, would acquire the same curiosity.
 
"They would watch film together with me and really focus on it. When my wife would take them [in elementary school] to watch LaGrange games, they wouldn't be playing around like the other kids. They would sit and really watch the whole game," Danny Cronic said.
 
"They knew the names of the players. They could understand plays our offense was running. Before long, they were drawing up their own plays. They both have high football IQs."
 
The Cronic brothers excelled as quarterbacks during their early years. They would each have three-year starting QB stints at East Coweta High School (Ga.), where Danny Cronic would coach each son, while amassing 149 victories over 18 seasons that began in 1990. In all, as a high school head coach, Danny Cronic won 222 games.
 
While Nathan eventually would enter the legal profession as an attorney, Drew stayed the course on a football journey. As a college player, at 5-feet-8, he was a successful walk-on at the University of Georgia. Cronic lettered twice as a receiver and contributor on special teams and played in two bowl games with the Bulldogs.
 
Drew Cronic said he felt as a high school kid that he inevitably would embark on a career in coaching. He envisioned himself calling plays, teaching the game properly and winning. He was determined to master his father's expanded vision of the Wing-T's possibilities and put his own stamp of creativity on an offense that could give opponents fits.
 
"Coaching is the only thing I ever wanted to do. Dad was a positive influence," Cronic said. "Learning about football was a part of us [sons]. I was fortunate to grow up around some very good high school coaches. But it all started with my dad. My brother and I watched so much film with him."
 
"[Nathan and I as youngsters] loved talking with high school players at practice, stacking blocking dummies, building forts with them, running around playing catch with each other. We had fun coming up with our own plays," he added. "Becoming a coach was not much of a stretch for me. It's all I've ever really known."
 
Cronic was quite ready for his chance to reverse Navy's fortunes on his side of the ball, while coaching at his first FBS program.
 
His versatile Hybrid Wing-T offense, led by Horvath's running and throwing and complemented by playmakers such as snipes Eli Heidenreich and Brandon Chatman and fullback Alex Tecza, reestablished Navy's offense as a force.
 
The Mids, who had suffered through four straight losing years and struggled offensively through much of that drought, got off to a roaring 6-0 start.
 
Navy averaged 44.8 points in those first six wins, mixing sustained drives with big play after big play and taking excellent care of the ball.  No offense in the FBS scored touchdowns more efficiently in the red zone than the Mids.
 
Their fast start featured a 56-44 shootout victory over #24 Memphis and a 34-7 rout at Air Force. The Mids finished crisply with three straight victories, including a come-from-behind, 21-20 win in the Armed Forces Bowl over Oklahoma – Navy's first bowl win over an SEC team in 70 years – and a dominant, 31-13 blowout of #19 Army.
 
Horvath, who excelled as a first-year starter by averaging 103.8 yards rushing and 112.8 yards passing and accounted for a combined 30 touchdowns, credited Cronic for lifting the Mids.
 
"His offensive mind is very clear. His ability to teach offense, and to slow down everything in the film room is unparalleled [compared] to any coach I've ever met," Horvath said. "Coach Cronic doesn't call plays randomly. Every play call has a reason. He is very good at causing confusion and setting up defenses."
 
For example, at the start of the second quarter at Air Force, when the Mids' faced a fourth-and-two at the Air Force 34, Horvath felt sure Cronic would call for a run play for him or Tecza to move the chains.
 
"I'm thinking we're going to be the tougher, smashmouth team, waiting in the huddle for a play call up the middle, and [Cronic] calls for a reverse," he said. "There wasn't a scared moment in my head. The trust in him among the players is unwavering."
 
Horvath executed a reverse pitch to wideout speedster Nathan Kent, who swept around the right side and scored a touchdown without getting touched.
 
When Navy hired Cronic following a 5-7 finish in 2023 – Brian Newberry's first year as head coach – it marked the Mids' third offensive coordinator in three years. Newberry had first recruited Cronic a year earlier, before he gave up his head coaching job at Division I (FCS) Mercer to start over in Annapolis.
 
"We had to evolve our offense. I didn't want to lose the option element. They have had too much success around here with an option quarterback under center. I figured keeping it could make us harder to defend," said Newberry, alluding to the run-heavy, triple option attack that was the foundation of many previous winning seasons and CIC trophies earned at Navy.
 
"My vision was we could merge the option with the Wing-T stuff that Drew has had a ton of success with. Drew is versatile, which I think we need to be," Newberry added.
 
"I went back 15 years, watching film of what [Cronic] was doing, like incorporating a tight end into his scheme and doing good stuff out of the [shot] gun [formation]. He always has an edge on offense. He'd been very successful at places where coaches must do more with less."
 
Under Cronic, Mercer went 28-17 in four seasons, including a 22-10 mark against the formidable Southern Conference. The Bears finished 9-4 in 2023, before losing to eventual champion South Dakota State in the second round of the FCS playoffs. Mercer's nine victories over Division I opponents are the most ever in the 50-year history of the program.
 
Having coached offenses at various collegiate levels over nearly a quarter-century – and posting a 75-23 record as a head coach at three schools – Cronic had long shown a knack for adjusting well to his personnel's strengths or weaknesses and helping his scoring weapons shine, in whatever iteration of the Wing-T he chose to amplify.  
 
When Georgia's Reinhardt University, an NAIA school, started its football program in 2012, Drew Cronic joined his head coaching father as assistant head coach, offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for the first three seasons. After he got the Eagles established with a 12-8 record over two seasons, Danny Cronic retired. Drew took over as head coach in 2015.
 
Under Drew Cronic, the Eagles won 22 games over the next two seasons, including a record-breaking 13-1 year in 2016. Reinhardt's only loss happened in the NAIA quarterfinals.
 
That team led the nation by averaging 51 points and 550.6 yards per game. Reinhardt was tops with 71 rushing touchdowns and an average of 360 yards rushing. They also recorded the country's second-highest passing efficiency (178.0) while piling up 25 TD passes.
 
Twice, Cronic was named the American Football Coaches Association's NAIA Region I Coach of the Year. Then, in 2018, he took on another head coaching opportunity at Division II Lenoir-Rhyne, which had finished 3-8 the previous year.
 
Cronic's multifaceted Wing-T attack overwhelmed opponents, as the Bears posted a 25-3 mark over two seasons. Cronic was named AFCA National Coach of the Year in 2018, after he led the Bears to a 12-2 finish. It marked the sixth best turnaround in D-II history.
 
"When Drew was my [coordinator] at Reinhardt, he asked if he could call the plays, something I had done for a lot of years," said Danny Cronic, who eventually agreed to hand over that responsibility.
 
"Before long, Drew was calling plays so fast that I didn't have much input," he added. "Then he comes to see me and says he wants to run the hurry-up [offense]. I'm like, do what? When we tried it in practice, by the time we got to the second quarter, the defense was so exhausted. Drew won that battle."
 
Through the years, Cronic has revised and refined the Wing-T look, much like his father had done. His sense of versatility – a punishing ground game not always wedded to the option, play action passes, straight drop-back throws, pre-snap motion, misdirection, expanding the roles of his playmakers – is popular at Navy.
 
"We are basically three offenses that are sort of plastered together – the Navy under-center option, the Wing T and more spread concepts like RPO [run-pass option]," Drew Cronic said. "That has got to be one of our superpowers here. We need to be different from other folks. We need to be a hard team to prepare for."
 
Heidenreich, for example, was built to thrive in Cronic's schemes. He had another solid year running the ball, averaging five carries per game and 6.8 yards per carry with three TDs. And he crushed his share of defenses as a matchup nightmare and sure-handed receiver, as Horvath's favorite target.
 
Heidenreich led Navy in receptions (39), receiving yards (671) and TD catches (6). Chatman, a speedy, shifty runner and skilled receiver, produced 260 yards rushing and 257 in the passing game and scored seven touchdowns.
 
Tecza was delighted by his expanded role. No longer just a fine battering ram, he operated at times on the perimeter as a runner and receiver. In addition to his 576 yards rushing and eight rushing TDs, Tecza got open enough to average 19.1 yards on 12 receptions – second only to Kent's 22.2 yards per catch.
 
"I had been in a three-point stance since my dad put me at center in third grade," Tecza said. "No catching balls out of the backfield for me. In our first game this year [against Bucknell], we were in the gun [formation] and I'm motioning out. Coach Cronic opened up the offense completely. He has built swagger and confidence in us."
 
When asked to describe Cronic, Navy players and coaches point, first and foremost, to the easy-going man of deep faith who is no pushover and carries a calm, confident demeanor through the day and a game.
 
Horvath recalled a players' meeting soon after Cronic joined the Mids. The discussion had little to do with football.
 
"Coach Cronic had this sheet of paper with questions like 'What are your parents like?' and 'What to do you like to watch on TV?' He wanted to find out what made us tick," Horvath said. "He wants us to ask questions, give him football ideas. It doesn't matter how crazy the play is that you describe. He takes it in. He's a very down-to-earth guy."
 
"He's just a really chill, upstanding person," Tecza said. "You could tell right off the bat he really cared about us. He wanted to help build us as men and let us have fun playing the game we all grew up loving. He's not a curser. If he raises his voice to get his point across, he will sometimes apologize."
 
"What makes [Cronic] stand out from other coaches I've had, here or in high school or wherever, is the love for people he talks about. He has this love for us," Heindenreich said.
 
Ivin Jasper, who is in his 26^th year as a Navy assistant – he handles quarterbacks and running backs and is a former offensive coordinator – was thrilled to be retained on the staff after Cronic was hired. Cronic's decision made sense, given Jasper's deep knowledge of the triple option. But the two coaches clicked personally.
 
"When Coach Cronic got here, he immediately embraced everything – this program, the tradition, the kids – and started building a foundation of love and trust. Everybody has a voice here," Jasper said. "His message was that yes football is important. We all want to win. And we [coaches] are here to do our jobs, which is to help you and work with you."
 
Cronic said truly caring for his players is just one more principle he learned from his father, a lesson he has done his best to apply at every coaching stop, a lesson that rings true at Navy.
 
"My dad had a great coaching career, what a tremendous offensive mind. The most special thing about him was how his players would run through walls for him, because he really cared about them," Cronic said.
 
"When you come into a situation like Navy, you want to prove the things you've done can help you be successful at the highest levels of football. That certainly motivates me.," he added.
 
"You have to trust and care about each other. These [Midshipmen] have a lot on their plates. They spend limited time with us. We want them to work hard and have fun over here. We feel obligated to help put these guys in position to be successful, because they dang deserve it. We want them to feel like this is their family away from home."