ZestVlog

Spring practices at Navy were a bit different this year. Specifically, there were more of them.

The Midshipmen conducted all 15 practice sessions allowed under NCAA rules, something they had rarely done in recent years due to either the timing of exams, depth issues caused by injuries or COVID-19 protocols.

Advertisement

“We needed to use all of them,” head coach Brian Newberry said. “We had to grind them pretty good.”

It’s a new era of Navy football, and Newberry, a bearded Oklahoman, is the face of it. Ken Niumatalolo, the winningest coach in school history with a 109-83 record over 15 years, was fired in December after a loss to Army sealed the program’s third consecutive losing season. Newberry, who had been the defensive coordinator since 2019, was promoted to head coach. His first directive: Get more physical.

“We went live probably twice as much as we have in any other spring I’ve been here,” Newberry said.

More than 2,500 miles away, Niumatalolo has begun the next phase of his career, as UCLA’s new director of leadership under Chip Kelly. He hopes to become a head coach again, but he doesn’t want to talk too much about Navy and distract from their transition.

“I love the Brotherhood! I love Annapolis,” he said in a text message. “I was there for 25 seasons, raised my family there, and still have many dear friends there. I wish the players and coaches all the best.”

It’s on Newberry now to stop the slide, as college football moves into a future that looks particularly difficult for service academies. For two decades, Navy was one of the most consistent programs in the country. Between Paul Johnson and Niumatalolo, the Mids played in 15 bowl games over 17 seasons from 2003 to 2019, winning at least eight games 14 times.

Nobody expects Navy to be the dominant force it was in the 1940s and ‘50s, let alone to produce more Heisman Trophy winners — Joe Bellino in 1960 and Roger Staubach in 1963 won the award as Midshipmen — but it is a program that should annually play in bowl games. And to alumni around the world, it is a program that should beat Army. The Black Knights have won five of the last seven matchups after a 14-year Navy winning streak.

Advertisement

Newberry has been a key part of the good and bad in recent years. He has spoken to Niumatalolo since getting the head job and plans to do so more in the future. Newberry called Navy one of the best jobs in the country. It’s also one of the most difficult.

“I try not to bother him,” Newberry said of Niumatalolo. “There are certainly times I’d like to pick up the phone and ask him questions. I think there’s a point where I’ll be able to do that more freely, but he’s busy as well. I’ll always see him as a mentor and someone I love and look up to. I wouldn’t be ready for this position if it wasn’t for him.”

It was one of the colder firings in recent college football history. As Niumatalolo told it to ESPN, Navy athletic director Chet Gladchuk walked up to Niumatalolo at his locker after the double-overtime loss to Army and fired the coach. Niumatalolo asked his boss to relax and think about it. A year prior, Gladchuk had fired offensive coordinator Ivin Jasper after a loss to Air Force, only for Niumatalolo to convince him to reinstate Jasper. There was no change of mind this time.

Newberry didn’t realize what happened and clarified that it wasn’t some public incident.

“Contrary to a lot of what’s been put out in the press, the firing didn’t happen in the locker room,” Newberry said. “Players weren’t aware, coaches weren’t aware of what was going on. I wasn’t aware until I was asked to be the interim.”

Gladchuk said at the time and still says now that the expectations were clear and that the program had fallen short of them. Coming off an 11-win season in 2019, Navy football was particularly hampered by the COVID-19 protocols in place during 2020 and 2021, which led to much less practice and workout time than normal. The Mids went 3-7 and 4-8 in those two seasons. Still, Niumatalolo told The Athletic going into the 2022 season that things were back to normal and if they went 4-8 again, they would be in trouble. They went 4-8.

Advertisement

“It was pretty straightforward. It was very well thought out, clearly understood by everyone,” Gladchuk said. “No surprise. … We had an agreement there was a timeframe in which we expected to see some improvements. It was clear in everyone’s eye that it was just time.”

Newberry figured he’d be fired as well, as is the case with most coaching changes when the team struggles, though he hoped to have a shot as an internal candidate when he got the interim job. Gladchuk said in a media call that Navy would continue to run the triple-option offense with the next coach, but that coach didn’t necessarily have to have a triple-option background.

So Newberry pitched himself as someone who would continue that style of offense while using his philosophies on defense with the whole team. The Midshipmen improved from 3-10 to 11-2 following Newberry’s arrival in 2019, with the defense rising by at least 90 spots nationally in almost every key stat. The defense wasn’t at that same level in the ensuing three years, but it consistently improved as the season went on.

“If you studied the intensity and the productivity of the defense, in my mind that was a big part of our shortcoming in that we weren’t as tough as a program as we needed to be (everywhere),” Gladchuk said. “Brian always stood out because of his intensity and his intelligence.”

A group of player leaders also went to Gladchuk to support Newberry.

“He knows how the academy is a special place to coach, especially someone who has coached at other schools,” senior center and team captain Lirion Murtezi said. “He knows the ins and outs. The mentality he brought to the defensive side of the ball, he’s going to bring that to the whole team.”

It took five separate meetings with the AD, but Newberry finally convinced Gladchuk and got the job. He went right to work with changes, beginning with the staff. Offensive line coach Danny O’Rourke, one of the longest-tenured assistants in the sport with 21 years in his role, did not return. Neither did slotbacks coach Joe DuPaix after seven years. Newberry did retain Jasper, the 21-year assistant who was thought to be Niumatalolo’s heir until the recent downturn, as quarterbacks coach. (Gladchuk said he has spoken to Niumatalolo since December and is happy for his role at UCLA.)

Advertisement

To run the offense, Newberry hired Grant Chesnut from Kennesaw State to continue the triple-option-based attack. Chesnut spent the last nine years with the FCS program, including six years alongside Newberry. That Kennesaw State braintrust helped the Owls become a top-10 FCS team just three years after beginning play in 2015.

It will still be an option offense at Navy, but it’ll look different than previous years. Expect more tight ends. Expect to see Navy quarterbacks line up in the shotgun from time to time. It won’t be a primarily shotgun-based attack, a shift Army will make this year, but it will be another example of option-based teams adapting to the times, which include stricter rules on downfield blocking outside the tackle box.

“I don’t think the option is dead by any stretch,” said Newberry, downplaying the effect of blocking rule changes. “I do think we’ve got to get creative on how we do certain things. It’s going to help us evolve. It’s a time to call for creativity and to do things better. We’re going to be in the gun as well, we’ll use the tight end, and what we’re doing is different than anybody else in the country.”

Newberry also expanded the staff by adding a director of on-campus recruiting position in March, hiring Sarah Parady from Harvard to fill the role. Service academy recruiting is unique because of the military duty that is the primary purpose of enrollment, along with the larger recruiting class and roster sizes. The three academies playing FBS football often recruit the same pool of players, and Army’s rise over the last five years has directly impacted Navy in recruiting.

“We need to up the ante in recruiting,” Newberry said. “One of our big points of emphasis this spring and summer is to get as many kids up on campus as we can, and we’ve already started to see the impact of that. Danny Payne, our recruiting coordinator, does a phenomenal job. It’s just more help, which we needed. Chet was supportive in giving us everything I’ve asked for so far.”

Those kinds of asks have become a semi-regular occurrence at Navy. For years, Niumatalolo was frustrated that other academies ended class for athletes around noon, allowing for more meal time and an easier practice schedule than Navy, where classes end after 3 p.m. Gladchuk has regularly said those decisions are made above him. Newberry called it an ongoing discussion. But it’s an issue that has been unique to Navy.

“We’re fine. I have no excuses for failure,” Gladchuk said. “We’ve got a coach that expects to win. For 20 years, I’ve been the athletic director and provided our football staff with everything they’ve asked for. There may have been a limitation or two or a decision made by administration that had justification behind it. The academy reports up the chain of command to the Secretary of the Navy. There are standards our administration is going to sustain.

Advertisement

“But in the bigger picture, there are no excuses here for not winning. None. We have beautiful facilities, conference affiliation that makes sense for us. We’ve got resources, finances, we compensate our staff, recruit the nation. There’s no reason not to meet our goals. Our objectives have never been unrealistic. For 20 years, they’ve been exactly the same. No one’s saying you have to win the championship every year. It’s beat Army, beat Air Force, win four (other) games, we get the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy and go to a bowl game.”

One of Navy’s biggest goals this season is to get off to a faster start. That’s why the Mids have practiced more and hit more in the spring.

Over the last two years, Navy has started slow at the beginning of the year and improved as it went on. In 2021, a 1-6 start was followed by a 3-2 finish, including a win against Army. The 2022 season’s 2-5 start included a loss to FCS Delaware, but its 2-3 finish included a win at No. 20 UCF and a three-point loss to No. 20 Notre Dame.

“We haven’t (gone live) as much in the past, and that caused us to get off to a bit of a slow start during the season,” Newberry said.

“We’re coming out with a lot of energy,” linebacker and team captain Will Harbour said of this spring.

Rising sophomore Tedros Gleaton has the No. 1 spot at quarterback right now, sitting atop the post-spring depth chart, but the competition will continue in fall. Fellow sophomore Blake Horvath split first-team reps in camp and was listed at No. 2. Neither has played any varsity snaps, but their positioning is in part due to injuries in spring. Rising senior Tai Lavatai, who has started 18 games, missed spring while recovering from a knee injury. Fellow rising senior Xavier Arline, who played in nine games last year, was injured all spring while also playing on the lacrosse team, so he didn’t take many reps.

“It’s wide open right now,” Newberry said. “Xavier and Tai have played a lot of snaps and won games for us. They’ll be in the mix in fall camp.”

Advertisement

Last year’s leading rusher, rising junior fullback Daba Fofana (769 yards), is back, but leading slotback Maquel Haywood (6.4 yards per carry) transferred to Appalachian State. It was another reminder of the difficulties of the new era of college football. Service academies can lose transfers, but it’s almost impossible to add them, because of academic and military requirements. Service academy players are also not allowed to have name, image and likeness deals.

On defense, 10 of the 13 leading tacklers return from a group that finished 87th in yards per play allowed but sixth in yards per rush allowed (up from 66th in 2021).

Navy will open the season against Notre Dame in Ireland in Week 0, and the Air Force game in October will be at home. It’ll be the first season of the new-look AAC, with six new teams and without Cincinnati, Houston and UCF. This year’s Army game will be played in Foxborough, Mass., noting the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. That game will always lead the story of the season.

When Newberry moved into the head coach’s office, the first thing he put up was a large 3×6 photo from the 1926 Army-Navy Game at Soldier Field. He found it in a closet when he arrived at the academy in 2019. Every fan is wearing a top hat, and it’s a great conversation starter for anyone who comes in the room.

In the press release announcement of his promotion, Newberry’s statement ended with “Go Navy! Beat Everyone!” It wasn’t meant to de-emphasize Army by any means. It signified that Navy has a lot of ground to make up. As Newberry put it, he’s not going to talk much about winning. It’s about doing what it takes to get those wins, to get Navy football back to where it has been.

“Some years, that may be good enough to win only six or seven. If that’s the case, I’m good with it,” he said. “But in some years, it’s going to be 10, 11, 12 wins maybe. I just want to make sure we’re maximizing who we are and not worrying about anything else.”

(Top illustration: John Bradford for The Athletic; Photos: Mark Goldman and Rich Graessle / Icon Sportswire / Getty Images)

ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57k25vcnBoanxzfJFsZmluX2WFcLrAr7Bmnp%2BkwaOty6Vkm6qZlrtuusSwmZ6qoq56rLHNZqWirZ2WwaK4zqWmaA%3D%3D