(Author’s note: I originally wrote this column Nov. 14 after Navy’s stirring comeback fell short against Notre Dame. After the Mids’ win against No. 20 UCF, it felt appropriate to re-visit it this week. The final line of the original column said, “Beating Army again would be a meaningful way of reminding the country of just that. And you can’t get me to think it’s impossible they couldn’t shock UCF en route.” As we now know, it wasn’t.)
It would have been easy to miss what was happening.
It would have been easy to only see a third straight season in which Navy football will fall short of bowl eligibility after its loss to Notre Dame Nov. 12. It would be easy to think that perhaps in Year 15, head coach Ken Niumatalolo just doesn’t have the same juice. It would be easy to wonder if, fun as the Mids might have been, the success of the run from 2008-2019 simply cannot be replicated.
(OK, so the last one might be true, but that’s only because the standard is insane. There were only 32 programs in the country with more wins than Navy’s 80 from 2010-2019.)
The point is that it would have been easy to miss the bigger story of Navy football in 2022. It would be easy to miss that what they’re doing is, honestly, remarkable.
I know what you might have been thinking. You were impressed by the fight the Mids showed in the second half against the Irish at M&T Bank Stadium, but this was a team with three wins on the season at that point … and a loss to FCS Delaware! And I get it. I’m not trying to pretend that this is somehow secretly one of the best teams in college football.
It’s just that Navy has been trying to compete despite facing a disadvantage literally every time it takes the field. Though Navy has always faced the disadvantage of not being able to “redshirt” players because of the Academy’s requirement that students graduate in four years, the issue has never been more dramatic than in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The offer of an additional year of eligibility has led to fifth- and even sixth-year players at programs across the country. Some teams (like, hypothetically, ones that are currently favored to repeat as national champions) even have quarterbacks who are TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OLD.
Even other service academies have protected themselves against the impact of this. Navy hasn’t had that luxury. The mere nature of the military commitment has always made things more difficult for Navy in the modern era. Now the Mids have found themselves in an almost overwhelming disadvantage against not only their American Athletic Conference rivals but even their Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy rivals.
And while they’ve only won four of 11 games this season, the Mids have been unbelievably competitive. They struggled to start the season. But after two difficult losses, they’ve either won or been right in every game they’ve played (with the exception of being outscored 14-0 in the first quarter of a loss to soon-to-be Big 12 Houston).
At the bare minimum, we could describe it by saying they “don’t quit.” But it feels like something so much bigger than that. How do you possibly explain outscoring one of the hottest teams in the country 19-0 in the second half despite playing without starting quarterback Tai Lavatai and also losing backup Xavier Arline? (The Irish were coming off back-to-back wins against Syracuse and previously unbeaten Clemson.)
Do you understand how completely ridiculous that is? Trailing 35-13 against a team that is not only more talented but simply bigger and older than they are, it would have been so easy for most programs to accept their fate and just keep the clock running. Yet this Navy team dug back in, continued to fight and nearly pulled off one of the most shocking upsets in recent memory.
That’s the story of the 2022 Navy football team. That’s what you might have been missing. Perhaps the win against UCF might have woken you up. Just a week earlier, the Knights’ win against Tulane had given them the inside track to the Group of 5 bid to the Cotton Bowl. They had lost just one game since falling to major-conference Louisville Sept. 9, a streak that included a win against another ACC opponent (Georgia Tech). But they were overwhelmed by a Navy defense that tallied five sacks, a forced fumble and an interception. Howard County native John Marshall was an absolute monster, leading the way with four sacks of his own.
Look, Ken Niumatalolo never needed me to try to white knight for him. He’s one of the most accomplished coaches in recent college football memory. He’s one of the greatest coaches in local sports history. If even a single soul was thinking about it being time for Navy to move on from him, they were insane. And to be clear, even in the most wretched parts of Elon Musk’s now-even wretcheder bird app, there isn’t much of this. But saying “Ken Niumatalolo doesn’t deserve to be fired” never went far enough because that was obvious.
It’s that we weren’t recognizing what a truly remarkable job he (and his players and staff!) were doing with the odds stacked against them in such an extraordinary way. I hope the win against UCF provided that reminder.
And beating Army again truly would make another loud, electric statement about just how high the standard remains.
See Also:
• Five Takeaways From Navy Football’s 35-32 Loss To Notre Dame
• A Salute To Coaches: Ken Niumatalolo
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox