Observations from Navy

First, I must say, it was nice to get out with the fellas - with my boy Vinny and the GodFather. It was a great experience and served as a reminder how nice we all had it back in the day in the Emerald City.

Second, on to the game analysis from Section 26, Row 9:

Defense

The Good: This Pirates defense looks every bit a Division I defense. And, they hit like trucks.

The Bad: Unfortunately, our guys don't wrap up well. Navy killed us on Yards After Contact. We would have a guy hit in the backfield, at the LOS, or only a yard gain and these 170 pounders would knock us off like we were bags of leaves. Also, on 2 of the 6 pass attempts, had the Navy QB been able to hit the broad side of barn, they would have had two more TDs.

The Ugly: I question some of the coaching decisions we made during this game. For example, Navy's offense operates on the premise that they are going to read your defensive set and then adjust to the soft spot. Logic would seem to dictate then, that perhaps your defense should shift every once in a while to force the QB to reconsider the play. Moreover, since the triple option is assignment football, there is no need for your guys to read and react. Our guys were not moving forward until the runners were on us. If you know you have the FB, then your only read is left or right and then hit the damn FB. If your read is the QB, the same, etc. for the flanker and the tailback. Also, on the last drive, they ran only the dive and belly, yet we did nothing. Hell, you could even have gambled and put an extra guy in there, but we stayed in our base and they kept pounding us.

Offense

The Good: James Pinkney is a stud QB, plain and simple. He has such a command of the pocket and made some simply elite passes. The OL, from my perspective, was decent on pass protection, giving up just one sack. We are going to be able to put a lot of points on the scoreboard this year and I am not worried about the running game, it will come along.

The Bad: Our OLs are too inexperienced and it showed. When our guys actually got off the first block and on to the LBs, you could see the potential in our running game (ie, Chris Johnson's TD run).

The Ugly: Again, I question some of the coaching decisions. We were killing them with the 5-7 yard quick slants and in/out cuts but then stopped using it. Moreover, we had a dominating mismatch with our TE against their LBs. We went to it once in the first half and then abandoned it for the 4-wide set. We took zero shots downfield and in the 3rd quarter, inexplicably got ultra conservative after a TO gave us the ball around midfield. On one series, we ran the ball twice and then through a quick pass to the WR hoping for a big run. We punted.

OVERALL: I believe that we can fix the problems revealed in this game. We will not have to face an offense like this the rest of the way and I think a lot of our inexperienced guys will come back on Saturday in Birmingham, much better players. I think our offense could be unstoppable and we could hang a ton of points on teams good or bad.

I also hope our guys took note of the class and discipline that Navy displays. If our boys took that to heart, they are already a better football team.

Navy is going to pile up a bunch a yards on several teams this year, be sure of that.

UAB:

I know that they just played Oklahoma tough, but we should be able to hang a bundle of points on this team. I believe that Pinkney and his receivers go over 300 yards passing and the team moves up and down the field on them.

I do not believe our defense is bad and I believe that after seeing Navy's option, the UAB version is going to look like slow motion. UAB does not have near the discipline that Navy has , so I look for the Defense to rebound nicely.

We need this game badly and if we can come home 1-1, I think we will be poised to have a nice season.