THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
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Navy football faces another team playing its season opener in Temple

Navy football faces another team playing its season opener in Temple

Chaos has ruled throughout the 2020 college football season as each program has dealt with the far-reaching effects of the global coronavirus pandemic in their own way. The Navy Midshipmen have faced a new challenge each week, though Coach Ken Niumatalolo tries not to fret as he acknowledges, "it's chaotic for everybody."

For the second game in a row, Navy is preparing for an opponent that has yet to play a game, which leaves the Midshipmen without any tape to scout the latest iteration of Temple football on Saturday.

"Our guys are resilient," Niumatalolo said. "There's things you'd not like to have to face, but it's reality. It is what it is."

The first five weeks of football has been a bit brutal for the Mids. Navy lost its opener to BYU by 52 points after mostly avoiding live blocking and tackling during the preseason. Starting quarterback Dalen Morris was benched during that opener and lost the job afterward, but backup Perry Olsen then decided to enter the transfer portal after not being assured the starting job.

Freshman Xavier Arline started against Tulane and the Mids fell behind 24-0 at halftime. Morris guided the comeback for a 27-24 victory, but couldn't play the next game against Air Force in Colorado because of an undisclosed medical condition. That left Tyger Goslin as the starter under center and made Navy the only FBS program to start three different quarterbacks in the first three games this season. Oh, and the Falcons had yet to play, so there was no scouting tape, and they were missing 30-40 players and still won 40-7.

The biggest positive heading into this week is the quarterback position, which seems to be settled with Morris the starter for the foreseeable future.

"They can come out in who knows what on defense, we're just going to have to be ready to play," Morris said. "Definitely having three starting quarterbacks in three games, it can kind of get things jumbled in the backfield. I plan to be the starting quarterback for the rest of the year. I plan on being the guy and have to assert myself in practice as the leader of this team. I plan to do that and bring a little consistency to the position and the offense."

The game against Temple was originally scheduled for Sept. 26, but the Owls requested to move the date because of practice issues stemming from safety guidelines imposed by local government. Temple Coach Rod Carey explained that his team could only work in groups of 50 and that included all coaches, support staff and trainers. He didn't feel it was physically safe to play football without the proper preparation. Navy found itself in that situation against BYU and Carey used that as an example of what could happen.

Temple has been practicing since July, in one form or another, but it was only cleared for full contact three weeks ago.

"It's the world's longest fall camp and they're excited, to say the least," Carey said. "You've got to practice football if you're going to play football."

The Owls feature seven returning starters on offense, including quarterback Anthony Russo, running back Re'Mahn Davis and wide receivers Jadan Blue and Branden Mack. The offensive line will have new starters at center and right guard. Russo ranks in the top four in every major passing category in school history. The defense was hit hard with only three returning starters, but Carey said the unit has been ahead of the offense in practices. That's not abnormal for any team that has yet to play a game.

Regardless of the bodies available, Carey acknowledged there's some built-in advantage this week.

"Obviously we have had a ton of time to prepare for this one, going all the way back to March," Carey said. " . . . We have some more information now on Navy, which is a good thing for us with them playing three games. Certainly will put that information to good use.

"From a preparation standpoint, there's no question that we have an advantage there because we've seen three game films of theirs and we haven't played, so they don't have any of ours. How does that transition into competitive advantage? I don't know yet."

There is both optimism and concern in Annapolis. There's hope that Morris settles the offense and the operation can find some consistency after scoring a combined 10 points against BYU and Air Force. Defensively, the 39.7 points allowed per game ranks 57th out of 74 teams in the nation.

Temple is known for being a physical program and Navy did not fare well against that style in the season opener versus BYU. The Midshipmen just had their first in-person meetings this week after previously conducting those virtually, so there's hope that improves communication on the field.

"I was encouraged by our practice, we still have to produce on the field," Niumatalolo said. "It's not the team we want to be playing after the game we had last week, getting beat the way we did. . . . They're an impressive team on defense. They can run. Physical. It's going to be a tough challenge.

"Everybody's mad. Everybody's upset. Everybody's embarrassed. But you have to move on. That's where we're at."

 

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