2022 G5 Preview: Does Navy Have A Quarterback?
The Midshipmen have suffered through a few down seasons. Is there hope for a change this year?
This is part of the American Athletic Conference Preview, the final conference in the Outside Zone’s Group of Five season preview package. Check out the preview landing page for all previous stories. All previews and the entire Outside Zone archive are available for only $5 a month or $50 a year.
The handwringing around NIL rules and the transfer portal among legacy college football media is almost entirely overblown. It’s an easy talking point to rile up the boomer base most of these outlets cater to, and anonymous quotes from boosters angry about losing a high-value recruit make for great copy. But, largely speaking, the last two years of changes have done very little to truly change the sport. Team make-up is about the same, the talent is distributed in roughly the way it was before, and ultimately it seems that this stuff comes out in the wash for the vast majority of teams.
There are a few teams, though, that have a legitimate gripe about these new rules having a serious impact on their approach to the game. And all three of them are service academies, struck with much stronger transfer requirements and unable to engage in any sort of NIL business. These are already difficult jobs, and they’ve only gotten harder in recent years.
Air Force and Army, to their credit, have navigated these choppy waters pretty well. Jeff Monken has ushered in a new golden era of Army football, and Troy Calhoun looks primed to put one of his finest rosters on the field this fall. Navy has had no such luck. And if an interview with The Athletic is any indication, head coach Ken Niumatalolo knows it – even if he’s still been able to largely stick to his usual protocols of late.
“I’ve been doing this a long time,” Niumatalolo said. “To this point, I feel I’ve been able to build our team like we normally do. Now, if we get crushed again this year, it doesn’t bode well. If we’re 4-8 and get crushed, it doesn’t bode well. The transfer portal is there and the teams will still be tough, but the way I’ve always built our team is by building a team.
“This will be the year that I’ll have a really clear indication if this doesn’t look good. We would have done everything. Nothing about not getting a chance to lift. No, we’re doing everything from January until kickoff. It’s the way I’ve prepared my team 12 other times prior to the last two years.”
He’s right. Not necessarily about the program building (I won’t pretend to know how to build a service academy roster) but about this being a critical year for the Midshipmen. They went 3-7 in the abridged 2020 campaign, struggling through a defensive transition and failing to find a suitable replacement for Malcolm Perry. The 2021 season offered a little more optimism, with a 4-8 final mark, but the offense was still lacking in dynamic options and the defense just couldn’t get off the field when it needed to.
Two seasons don’t necessarily make a trend. That 2020 year is an anomaly for every school in America, and Niumatalolo is deserving of the kind of reset that 2021 can be described as. He’s one of the best coaches in program history (if not the best) and he’s proven himself capable of remaking his team when needed before.
The excuses don’t come so easily with a third consecutive down season. Niumatalolo is as secure in his job as any coach in America, but athletic director Chet Gladchuk nipped at his heels last season, briefly firing long-time offensive coordinator Ivin Jasper out from under Niumatalolo. Jasper ultimately stayed around, suffering a demotion to quarterbacks coach, but the outburst is worth noting. Even with Niumatalolo’s track record, Navy isn’t immune to some impatience – and the success Air Force and Army are having certainly doesn’t help.
Navy’s ability to avoid another down year is going to hinge largely on Tai Lavatai. Where the quarterback goes this system always follows, and Lavatai showed flashes of potential to be more than a game manager last season. It’s not fair to expect Perry or Keenan Reynolds-level play from the rising junior, but improvement for the Midshipmen this season is going to come directly from Lavatai taking steps forward both within the structure of the offense and as a playmaker outside of its structure.
If he’s ready to shine, this can be a bowl team. If he’s still learning the ropes? Navy has new starters all around him in the backfield, and it’ll really show. A strong quarterback can bring along slowly new fullback Anton Hall Jr., halfback Kai Puailoa-Rojas and slotbacks Vincent Terrell III and Maquel Haywood.
There’s very little experience among that bunch, and they’ll be replacing fullbacks James Harris II and Isaac Ruoss and slotbacks Carlinos Acie and Chance Warren. Those four accounted for 374 carries, 1,854 yards and 10 touchdowns and populated four of the top six spots on the carries leaderboard. The other two belonged to quarterbacks.
With Lavatai, there are reasons for pessimism and optimism.
On the former front, his running left plenty to be desired. His offensive line – which also has three starters to replace – is at least partially to blame, but his 2.2 yards per carry average is entirely too low. He’s a good enough athlete, but he’s never going to be the kind of runner than his best predecessors were. There are ways to work around that, but they’ll all require he get smarter with the football, be it on option reads or in the open field.
The final month of the season does much of the work in arguing for the latter. Lavatai didn’t see significant statistical improvements against ECU, Temple or Army in the last three games of the year, but the Navy offense sure did. After clocking a 16.7 PPG average in the first nine contests, the Midshipmen pitched in 35 points against the Pirates, 38 in a win over the Owls and 17 in the famously stingy season-ending rivalry bout with Army.
It’s a small sample size, against two downtrodden defenses, but a 30-point average through the season would have yielded Navy an extra three wins. Does that late-season bump give Lavatai the confidence needed to continue his development? It certainly could, even if the offense around him is likely to suffer some growing pains.
The other side of the ball is an enigma. Plenty of Navy’s defensive stats last season were average to above average. The Midshipmen finished the season 32nd in rushing yards allowed per game, 51st in passing yards allowed per game and 35th in total yards allowed per game, but they were in the 80s for points allowed.
It was, in essence, a bend-don’t-break defense that couldn’t generate the big plays needed to avoid breaking too often – the Midshipmen were 119th in sacks and 102nd in TFL. This group had really strong showings against Air Force, Army, Cincinnati, Houston, Temple and Tulsa, but wasn’t able to generate that same consistency against the rest of the schedule.
Six starters return for this season, as does plenty of experience in the two-deep. That includes a trio of impactful starting safeties Eavan Gibbons (31 tackles), Rayune Lane III (37 tackles) and striker John Marshall (54 tackles) and much of the defensive front.
Leading the charge there is end Jacob Busic (20 tackles, 5.5 TFL), nose tackle Donald Berniard Jr. (23 tackles, 2.5 TFL), tackle Clay Cromwell (15 tackles, 7 TFL) and edge rusher Nick Straw (33 tackles, 6 TFL). Cromwell was only a part-time starter last year, but the other three are incumbents. There’s not a star in the bunch (Straw probably has the most star potential of the bunch in the raider role), but it’s a good group that should improve with a year of continuity under its belt.
The areas of concern are at linebacker and cornerback. The former group has Diego Fagot and his team-best 94 tackles and 11 TFL to replace, the latter will need two new starters to step up.
At linebacker, the favorites to take over are Will Harbour and Colin Ramos. Harbour racked up 21 tackles and looked very good when he was on the field last season, but injuries limited him to only a few appearances. Ramos is one of the younger members of the defense, a sophomore this season, but he was also good in limited snaps. Tyler Fletcher, a starter in four games last season, returns as well. With him comes 47 tackles, the most of any returning linebacker.
The cornerback responsibilities have fallen to another true sophomore, Mbiti Williams Jr., and junior counterpart Matthew Peters. Navy was gashed underneath far too often in 2021 and will look to these two to cut that down, although both are stepping into jobs essentially blind. Williams was a special teams player last season, Peters is a former quarterback who recently moved to the position.
There will be enough growing pains in those spots to keep Navy from making a huge jump defensively, but it probably deserved better results a season ago. That should catch up to it this year. Movement back into the average range defensively would set the table for bowl contention, so long as Lavatai is ready to lead the offense as both a game manager and as an occasional star.
Can he do it? Absolutely. Will he? We’ll find out.