Already ahead, 14-7, at Air Force last October, Navy was driving for a two-score lead. Midshipmen quarterback Blake Horvath dropped back and rolled to his left before flipping his hips and targeting teammate Eli Heidenreich down the right sideline.
Horvath threw the ball where only Heidenreich could catch it, but Heidenreich was ruled out of bounds. Replay, however, showed that Heidenreich dragged his left foot in remarkable fashion for a 25-yard gain down to the Air Force 13-yard line. Four plays later, Navy took a two-touchdown lead on the way to a 34-7 win in Colorado Springs.
“Most receivers have a pretty good sense when they’re in and out of bounds. It was tough. I wasn’t sure,” Heidenreich said. “I caught it right on the Air Force sideline, so I looked over. They’re all going incomplete, so I thought maybe I was out. Whenever they played the review on the big screen, you could see [I] was in and then all of our guys reacting on the sideline, it was pretty cool to see.”
Heidenreich’s catch was one of the signature plays of Navy’s 10-3 season that also included wins against Army and Oklahoma. Now, the Mids are looking to take another step forward. Horvath –who began the year on the watch list for the Maxwell Award, presented annually to the most outstanding player in college football — is back for his senior season. Three of his top playmakers from a year ago — Heidenreich, Brandon Chatman and Alex Tecza — are also back for their senior seasons.
“Everybody talks about Blake, and that’s rightly deserved,” Navy head coach Brian Newberry said. “The credit he’s getting right now and expectations are well-deserved, but you don’t hear enough about are the Teczas of the world, Eli, Brandon Chatman. We’ve got a lot of playmakers on offense. There’s really not enough balls to go around, which is a great thing. To be in the same system, to have our trigger guy back and to have all those pieces around him is huge.”
For Heidenreich and Tecza, producing on the field together is nothing new. The Pittsburgh natives have known each other since first or second grade. They started playing together in eighth grade and starred alongside one another at Mt. Lebanon High School. And now, they are key parts of Navy’s offense. Each was named to the watch list for the Doak Walker Award, given to the most outstanding running back in college football.
Heidenreich, a 6-foot, 206-pound slot back, ran for 444 yards and three touchdowns and caught 39 passes for 671 yards and six touchdowns in 2024. Tecza, a 6-foot, 199-pound running back, ran for 576 yards and eight touchdowns and caught 12 passes for 229 yards and two touchdowns.
The 2024 season marked Navy’s first season with offensive coordinator Drew Cronic. The Mids averaged 31.3 points per game, seventh in the AAC — a big step up from its offensive production in 2020-2023. Heidenreich’s fit within Cronic’s offense was a big part of that improvement.
“I think this offense is unique in the sense that it allows me to play a lot of different positions,” Heidenreich said. “Back in high school, I did some pretty similar things. I played a little bit of receiver, slot back, running back. … It was interesting to see that I was able to do it in high school and carry it over and do it again in college. I learned a lot about myself in that sense, and it was pretty cool. I’m looking to do that again this year.”
The 2025 campaign marks the first time in their college careers that Heidenreich and Tecza have had the same offensive coordinator as the previous season. Ken Niumatalolo was fired as head coach after the 2022 season. That led to the promotion of former defensive coordinator Newberry, who hired Grant Chesnut as his offensive coordinator ahead of the 2023 campaign. Newberry moved on from Chesnut after one season and landed on Cronic.
Tecza is excited about the program’s continuity heading into 2025.
“I think that’s just built confidence for not only us but the whole team,” he said. “Blake is as confident as I’ve ever seen him. That just feeds throughout the whole offense and the whole team, so it’s definitely huge.”
Heidenreich and Tecza have been close friends since their freshman year at Mt. Lebanon. Both were offered scholarships by Navy between their junior and senior seasons of high school. Both were attracted to Annapolis because of what the Academy offered in terms of football, academics and leadership. Both are now studying cyber operations.
Heidenreich committed to Navy first, but the Academy would have been a perfect fit for either individually.
“He jokes that when he committed, I committed,” Tecza said. “He kind of helped me through that process, but I just think it was the best of both worlds for me, both football and academics. I really wanted to look into life after football. That’s what the Academy brought for me. I just think it worked out. We both found our spot.”
Last year’s 10-3 campaign marked the first winning season for Navy since 2019. The Mids haven’t had consecutive winning seasons since they strung together six in a row from 2012-2017 and enter 2025 looking to re-establish that consistency.
Navy opens the season against VMI at Navy-Marine Corps Stadium on Aug. 30, then kicks off American play against UAB in Annapolis on Sept. 6. The Mids will host Air Force on Oct. 4, play at Notre Dame on Nov. 8 and face archrival Army in Baltimore on Dec. 13.
How Heidenreich and Tecza perform will go a long way to determining just how dangerous Navy’s offense can be in 2025.
“I think Alex and Eli are two of the most elite playmakers on our team,” Horvath said. “Getting them the ball in positions where they can be successful is the most important thing. I think Coach Cronic does a really good job of scheming things to get them the ball where they can do that … in open space. As you can see, both of these guys can make moves in open space and break tackles. It starts there, just scheming ways to allow them to be successful.”
Photo Credits: Kenya Allen/PressBox
Issue 294: August / September 2025
Originally published Aug. 13, 2025