ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Take a look at Navy football’s offensive production against North Texas at Navy-Marine Corps Stadium on Oct. 24 and it’d be fair to assume the Midshipmen would be in solid shape to win the game.
Navy piled up 506 yards and picked up 30 first downs as a team. The Mids won the time-of-possession battle, holding the ball for 37:31. Junior quarterback Jackson Gutierrez ran 26 times for 225 yards and three touchdowns and added 133 yards and a touchdown through the air.
However, Navy surrendered several big plays that doomed it in a 49-39 loss to North Texas. The Mids fell to 2-5 overall and 1-4 in the American, while the Mean Green improved to 5-2 overall and 3-0 in the league. Receiver Justin Stevenson caught eight passes for 209 yards, including touchdowns of 45 and 53 yards from quarterback Tayven Jackson. Receiver Dalton Carnes returned a punt 76 yards for a touchdown with the help of some trickery. And linebacker Zakye Barker returned a fumble 63 yards for a touchdown.
“I thought we did some really good things offensively, but the difference really in the game [was] the 14 points scored [on] non-offensive touchdowns,” Navy head coach Brian Newberry said. “… You’re not going to beat a good football team when they score 14 points on you like that and when you tackle like we did, when you give up the big plays in the pass game. You’ve got to give them credit. They’re a really good football team, a really good offense.”
This marks the third time Navy has lost while outgaining its opponent, but the punt return and fumble return proved to be backbreakers. On the punt return, North Texas didn’t send Carnes deep to receive the punt until late, leaving the other returner as eye candy for the Mids to sort through and giving Carnes a path to the end zone down the sideline. Newberry said this was “a thing we worked on in practice several times during the week, didn’t execute it.”
North Texas’ first touchdown, a Jackson-to-Stevenson strike, set the tone for the game. Jackson completed 17 of 23 throws for 305 yards and three touchdowns on the day. Newberry compared Jackson to former Mean Green quarterback Drew Mestemaker, now with Oklahoma State and one of the top quarterback prospects in the 2027 NFL Draft. Newberry said “there’s no drop-off with [Jackson], and what they do offensively is challenging with the RPO stuff. They took a lot of shots and got on top of us, and when they did, he put it in the perfect spot.”
Senior safety Giuseppe Sessi agreed that North Texas — which has scored 35 or more points in all but one game — poses some challenges but shouldn’t have been quite as successful on this day as it was.
“I think, one, they’re a good football team. They’ve got a good quarterback and some good receivers,” Sessi said. “But I think we gave them most of what they got. I think there’s some stuff we need to clean up on the back end on how we play some things. We’ve just got to get better at that.”
Navy now turns its attention to its trip to Foxborough, Mass., to play Notre Dame on Halloween. The Mids must win their next four games — Notre Dame, Temple, Memphis and Charlotte — to clinch bowl eligibility since the Dec. 12 Army game occurs after bowl selections.
If the Mids get back to their winning ways, Gutierrez will likely play a big role. Since taking over as the starting quarterback, the 6-foot, 207-pound signal-caller has racked up 766 yards and nine touchdowns on the ground and 592 yards and five touchdowns through the air (five starts). He kept Navy’s offense humming after original starter Braxton Woodson suffered an ankle injury against FAU on Sept. 12, and now the Mids have both at their disposal.
“We try not to look forward too much and just take each week as it is,” Gutierrez said. “We’ve got a big game coming up. Coach Newberry preaches it — we’ve got to attack each week with a 1-0 mentality, focus on the task at hand. We’ve got to turn this thing around. There’s still a lot of football left in front of us.”
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox