Navy 63, Rice 14
A beat-down of
epic proportions

Jeramy Goodson eyes downfield as he plays jump-over-the-Middie in a bit of open-field gymnastics (PTH photo)

Rice no match for Navy as Middies' offense scores virtually at will, defense keeps Owl attack at bay

Rice quarterback Nick Fanuzzi was ordered to stay in the pocket for most of the day as he breaks back into routine after returning from shoulder injury (PTH photo)

HOUSTON (Oct. 11) – Let’s look on the bright side of things. With all the shooting wars this country seems to be getting in this day and age, it’s a good deal we have these Navy boys on the front lines for us.

Resorting to unvarnished realism: if there’s as much of a talent differential between Rice and Navy as seemed to be indicated on the Rice Stadium scoreboard Saturday, we might as well bulldoze the place and use the land to build assisted living units for aging baby boomers.

Anyone who had the misfortune to view Saturday’s one-sided skirmish between Rice and the Naval Academy can form his or her opinion about the depth to which Rice’s football fortunes have fallen since seeming to be on top of the world just this past 30^th day of December’s after its tenth win of the '08 season in the Texas Bowl.

It’s maddening enough for the even casual fan. Imagine what it must be like for head coach David Bailiff and his not-so-merry men.

First of all, about that talent differential – it’s not there. The Navy lads were no bigger, no stronger, no faster than the Institute Boys – but oh, man, were they better schooled.

For it really didn’t seem to matter whether it was the Navy’s first string, or second string, or third string in there running its offense, which consistently forged ahead, averaging, oh, about 15 knots with fair winds and following seas. The Brigade marched up and down the turf of Rice Stadium as if it were their own private parade ground.

The Rice defense appeared completely unnerved at the prospect of defending Navy’s deceptive, some say antiquated, option offense. "The option is a whole different beast," Rice senior Andrew Sendejo said. "We tried out best to get ready for it, but it just didn’t turn out the way we wanted it to; we didn’t make the plays we needed to make."

Such was evident in the fact the the Owls’ veteran All-Conference safety finished the day with 17 tackles.

The Midshipmen ground out touchdown drives the first six times they got their hands on the ball. In all, they scored nine touchdown in eleven possessions. They were stopped exactly one time all day – and that was with second and third teamers running the offense. For that matter, the Middies left one of their biggest offensive weapons, starting fullback Alexander Teich, back home in Annapolis with a bum leg.

Stats were almost as overwhelming as the final score

Owl defense battled Navy on even terms in the trenches   but was constantly out of position to defense the Navy option play calls (PTH photo)

Without Teich, the Navy offense nonetheless ground out 471 yards rushing, made 31 first downs and held on to the ball for over 40 minutes.  And they threw the football exactly three times all day -- but even when they did that, the result was deadly effective.

Navy junior quarterback Ricky Dobbs ran for four touchdowns himself while captaining the Mids on touchdown drives on each of the six possessions in which he participated, before drawing shore leave five minutes deep into the third quarter.

Navy’s second-string quarterback, sophomore Kriss Proctor, who looked like he might have weighed as much as, say, 150 pounds dripping wet, managed 85 yards in 14 rushes in just over a quarter of play. And he scored three touchdowns – and this, we're told, in the first collegiate action he’d ever seen.

Strange as it may seem, Andrew Sendejo said that the Owls had had excellent preparation for Navy’s seldom-seen triple option attack. "We had a good week at practice and felt confident," he said. "We had momentum in this game and we wanted to build off of that, we played hard. They might have put a few wrinkles in we were not ready for."

As far as David Bailiff was concerned, once is more than enough, when it comes to having to defend against the option in this day of wide-open spread offenses in the collegiate ranks.

"Thank God we don’t play the option the rest of the year -- or for the next three or four years," Coach Bailiff said afterwards. "These days, you just don’t see the option. That’s how they took Ohio State to the brink. It’s hard to get ready for, and they’ve been doing it for years and they recruit very well."

In fact, despite protestations of preparedness, the Rice defense appeared completely taken aback, literally, by the necessity to ‘stay home’ and play assignment football against Navy’s offense. Last week, Owl defensive lineman Scott Solomon spoke of the necessity to avoid charging in hell bent for leather on every play, instead having to cover one’s assigned territory. "Instead of taking, say, 24 inches on that first step, we have to step out like six inches on the snap," he said. "That’s not easy to get used to."

In fact, the Owls appeared to be rocking backwards, reluctant to commit, on each Navy offensive play. As a result, just about anything the Mids bothered to run on first down picked up eight or nine yards – and that made the rest academic.

In this space, we usually try to give a reasonably comprehensive,   blow-by-blow description of the entire game. But here, that seems to be a   case of dwelling on the unnecessary and inappropriate. Besides, this game was basically signed, sealed and delivered to the United States Navy with the completion of the Academy’s very first play from scrimmage.

After 52-yard kickoff return, Owls fizzle

Matt Nordstrom brings down Navy running bac after runner is slowed down by Andrew Sendejo (PTH photo)

It was a quick dashing of the hopes engendered among the Rice faithful moments before, when Shane Turner got off a marvelous 52-yard return of the game’s opening kickoff. The Owls even picked up a first down, right out of the box, when Nick Fanuzzi hit Taylor Wardlow for 14 yards on third and long.

But from there, the Rice offense returned to its predictable ways, picking up two yards in the next three plays. Still, when the Flock lined up for a 46-yard field goal attempt, it gave the home team a chance a score first – and the stat books say that, seven out of the last eight times, when a Navy opponent scores first, they win the game.

The snap and hold might have been just a bit slow, and it’s axiomatic that, the farther distant a field goal try is, the lower must be the kicker’s trajectory. In any event, Clark Fangmeier’s attempt never crossed the line of scrimmage, for it landed right in the solar plexus of Navy’s Wyatt Middleton, and that noise you heard was the air going out of Sammy’s tire, before his jalopy was scarcely out of the garage.

So, now you’re the Rice defensive coordinator. So what’s Navy going to run on its first play from scrimmage? Well, in the previous week’s 16-13 overtime win over Air Force, the Mids threw exactly four passes. Guess what they run. Navy QB Dobbs runs the play action, and the Owl defenders bite for and swallow it like so many hungry channel cats going after a trotline full of stink bait.

Fifty yards downfield is Navy’s Marcus Curry, wide open, and Dobbs lays in the ball as smooth as silk. The Navy receiver is at least six or eight yards behind Andrew Sendejo, but because Andrew is bigger, stronger, faster, and for that matter a better athlete than the Navy lad, he catches right up to him and pulls Curry down at the Rice two yard line.

But the damage is done. Navy scores on the next play, and the rest of the game, frankly, is one long nightmare for the Blue and Grey.

Down 35-0, just before the half, the Owls did manage one nice-looking touchdown drive, moving 74 yards in seven plays to get on the scoreboard with 1:42 left in the second quarter. On that possession, all of Rice’s yardage came via the pass, including two well-executed Nick Fanuzzi tosses, one to Charles Ross rolling out of the backfield for 18, and another to Patrick Randolph on an actual screen for 21.

The touchdown came on second and 10 from the Navy 12 yard line, when Nick hit Patrick deep in the corner of the end zone; Pat making the reception via an artful scoop of the pill just before it hit the turf.

But when Navy took the opening second half kickoff and promptly drove 80 yards in nine plays – in other words, pretty much their standard drive of the day – it was 42-7, Mid quarterback Dobbs’ day was done, and all thoughts of keeping the final score reasonably respectable were down the drain.

Down 56-7, Rice managed another TD with just under ten minutes left in the game. Don’t know how many Middie benchwarmers were in there at the time, but the Owls’ 83-yard, five-play touchdown drive was their most emphatic of the season.

On that one, Nick made five straight pass completions, including a 29-yarder to Jeramy Goodson, and a 26-yard downfield shot to Taylor Wardlow. Patrick Randolph also did the scoring on this drive, nabbing a seven yard completion underneath the goal posts for Rice’s second and only other score of the day.

Returning from a three-game injury hiatus, Fanuzzi was 20 of 33 passing for 242 yards, with two interceptions. Early in the game, his passes seemed to sail on him every time he pushed the ball downfield, but with Rice’s first touchdown drive late in the second quarter, his touch seemed to come back to him and he mostly threw well after that, with only a couple of lapses.

His scrambling ability went largely untested, however, as the Rice staff appeared to be reluctant to let him run at will, quite possibly for fear of re-injuring his tender shoulder.

"I felt great after this week of practice," Nick said afterwards. "I was confident with what I could do with my arm. I'm not putting how I played based on my shoulder hurting, that's not the case today. I think we just had missed opportunities and we've just got to fix them and look forward to next week."

"I felt prepared," he added. "I thought we were ready to go out and play Navy this week, but I give them all the credit. They played a great game offensively and defensively. We've just got to keep on grinding."

--P.T.H.

Owls will have to figure out
way to wrest game from Navy

Navy's 1960 Heisman winner Joe Bellino will be the subject of a pre-game award presentation at Saturday's game

HOUSTON (Oct. 8) -- The first couple of things for Rice aficionados to bear in mind going into Saturday's home tilt with the U. S. Naval Academy are (a) Service Academies NEVER "Coog" a game; and (b) sore-armed quarterbacks can't be expected to soar and break records on their first day back on the job.

Nope, the Owls are going to have to figure out some other way to pull in their first win of the season Saturday, because the Middies aren't going to hand over a victory, gift-wrapped with turnovers, gaffes, and lackadaisical play.

Owlook

And Rice quarterback Nick Fanuzzi can't be expected to post Case Keenum-type rushing and passing numbers (speaking of "Coogin' it") amid the hoopla and high expectations generated by his return from bruised-shoulder land -- not, in any event, with a decimated Rice offensive line that displays more patchwork than those quilt ladies who'll be holding their convention at the George R. Brown this weekend.

That's what Rice head coach David Bailiff has been saying all along to anyone within earshot -- don't blame the Owls' lack of offensive production on the previously untested quarterbacks that he's had to throw to the wolves the last couple or three weeks.

"It's not really the quarterbacks, it's the offensive line," Coach Bailiff told press earlier this week. "What people don't realize is those guys have got to work together."

Both senior J T Shepherd and redshirt freshman Ryan Lewis have had more than their share of difficulties piloting the team, and have put up statistics that ought not be repeated here in a family publication.

But it's hard for a quarterback to hang up big numbers when he's lying flat on his back, and that's the position that John Thomas and Ryan have often found themselves in this season.

That's largely because the Owl OL was as green as God's little apples to start with, and a series of injuries have caused the Rice coaching staff to shuffle offensive guards and tackles out of their usual positions and into ones that are totally bassackwards to them. The art of blocking, after all, is not the simple affair that it was back in leather-helmet days. One doesn't simply clench those fists to the chest and drive out of the play the defender in front of you.

Blocking schemes in Rice's spread offense are highly complicated -- so much so, in fact, that it's been necessary for Owl offensive assistants to dial down the playbook several clicks, lest the switched-around players have simply too much on their plates to digest.

Result: a Rice offense that indeed looks pretty much dumbed-down -- one which does not stretch the field, does not play to its opponents' weaknesses, and frankly just isn't all that exciting to watch.

Mistakes, early advantage keys to this one

But take heart, Owl fans, for if there is a type of opponent which such an offense might get the job done, especially if charged up a bit by the return of its spark-plug, it's these self-same men from Annapolis.

That's not necessarily a slam on the Mid's defensive play, which has been solid so far this year. Case in point: in Navy’s season opener on the road against Ohio State, it took a blocked two-point conversion returned for a score for the Buckeyes to preserve a narrow, 31-27 victory.

The last time the Owls visited Ohio Stadium, they had 70 dropped on them – and that was a quality Rice team.

Rather, the cause for optimism refers to an overall football philosophy that we can all remember well from Rice's Ken Hatfield - coached days: Play conservatively, play the possession game, take advantage of the other team's mistakes, and let the game come to you. Tellingly, Navy ranks number one in the country in fewest penalty yards per game (24.0) and fewest penalties per game (2.8). It ranks seventh in the nation in time of possession. The Middies average eleven passes a game -- because we all know what Darrell Royal says can happen when you throw the ball.

A week ago, the Midshipmen totaled only 209 yards of total offense against Air Force. But that was enough for them to pull out a 16-13 overtime win against the Falcons.

Last Saturday, the Navy and the Air Force played a chess game, and there were still plenty of pieces on the board when USNA head coach Ken Niumatalolo got to say, "checkmate." In that contest, of Navy's final 55 running plays, 52 went either to a fullback or quarterback. The Midshipmen also attempted only four passes.

That's what you call playing "keep-away."

Consequently, the first 20 minutes of Saturday’s game can be expected to be of utmost importance to the Owls' chance of success. A few more SID facts for you: Navy has won 33 of its last 36 games when scoring first, and is 40-5 in the triple option era (since 2002) when leading at halftime.

On the other hand, the Middies have lost seven of their last eight games when the opposition scores first.

The obvious conclusion: Score first! Duhh!

Navy coach worried about hangover from AFA game

Even a momentary hangover from last week's all-out, inter-academy war just might give the Owls the opening they need to pick up a quick advantage and have the opportunity to sink the Mids at their own game. Especially if The Fanooz comes out raring to go.

Navy coach Niumatalolo expressed concerns about that in his weekly press conference. "I still see some residual effect from the (Air Force) game," he noted.

"It was such a big game last week that we've got to forget about that and move on," the Navy head man said. "A lot of our guys have moved on, but there are still some guys that are thinking about either going home to Texas or whatever the case may be. We've got to make sure we've got our minds right and ready to go."

Niumatalolo has reminded the players of Navy's trip to Tulane in 2004; the Midshipmen were 7-1 at the time and facing a Green Wave team that had won only two games. Tulane proceeded to pound the Midshipmen, 42-10, while piling up 538 yards of total offense.

"We went up there and it wasn't one of Tulane's better teams and they got after us. We didn't show up," Coach Niumatalolo said. "We just got to make sure [to remind players that Rice] is a team that has played some good people. They're searching for their identity. Nobody wants to be 0-5 and they're going to come out with a vengeance."

We can only hope so.

--P.T.H.

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