If there was one sequence that summed up the difficulty facing the Navy football team, it came early in the third quarter Saturday of a 37-13 loss to Memphis at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.
The Midshipmen trailed just 13-7 at halftime before punting on their first possession of the second half. Then came two plays that turned the game and underscored the challenges facing Navy Coach Ken Niumatalolo.
On first down, Memphis quarterback Seth Henigan dropped to pass. Navy didn’t blitz, and Henigan, with forever to throw, found Joseph Scates wide open behind the Midshipmen’s defense for a 79-yard touchdown.
Navy took over after an out-of-bounds kickoff on its 35. On first down, Anton Hall burst up the middle for four yards, a solid start to a critical drive. Except that Zay Cullens, a fifth-year linebacker, stripped him and jumped on the ball at the Navy 39.
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Transfers and turnovers — both were pivotal in Saturday’s loss.
“We simply can’t turn the ball over,” Niumatalolo said during the week. “If we lose the turnover battle, we’re going to lose most games.”
The turnover totals were Navy three, Memphis zero.
As far as transfers go, it was a little more lopsided: The Tigers had 37 in uniform Saturday; Navy had one. When someone transfers into Navy, they start as a plebe — basically, their college career is beginning from scratch.
Once upon a time, Scates would have been watching from the Memphis sideline having transferred from Iowa State in December after three seasons in Ames. Or perhaps he wouldn’t have transferred at all, knowing he had to sit out a season.
But with the rules now allowing transfers to play right away — at every school except those that compete for the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy — transfers are flooding the transfer portal and contributing to their new teams right away.
The game was tight after the first half, with Navy scoring on a 62-yard pass from quarterback Tai Lavatai to fullback Hall. Lavatai slightly overthrew the ball, but Hall stretched his arms out, got both hands on it, bobbled it, brought it back, somehow kept his balance and raced into the end zone. It was the first catch of his career.
Hall’s third-quarter fumble hardly ended Navy’s chances, but it continued a disturbing trend for the Midshipmen. Navy lost three fumbles in its season-opening loss to Delaware last week and now has lost four in two games. Last season, even while struggling to a 4-8 record, Navy lost five fumbles in 12 games.
It wasn’t as if the Mids quit after the Hall fumble. Helped by a foolish Memphis penalty, they held the Tigers to a field goal that kept it a two-score game — sort of — at 23-7. Then they put together a classic Navy drive: 21 plays, 74 yards with 11:23 coming off the clock.
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There were two problems: Taking that much time off the clock when you are behind in the fourth quarter is not great. Worse, after Navy scored, the absolutely critical two-point conversion failed: Lavatai’s pass to Hall was knocked down, keeping the margin at two scores. Memphis promptly marched 88 yards and killed 6:01, putting the game away when Brandon Thomas went in from four yards out to make it 30-13 with 6:05 to go.
“We’re hurting as a program,” said Niumatalolo, still clearly upset 20 minutes after the game’s end. “We have great young men, and they’re resilient. We aren’t going anywhere; we’re not throwing up a white flag. We’re devastated now, but we have to get up tomorrow and go back to work.”
As usual, Niumatalolo pointed the finger at himself more than his players. He felt as if the game’s turning point came midway through the second quarter when Navy had driven the ball to the Memphis 29. On second and six, Niumatalolo called a halfback pass, with Maquel Haywood taking a pitch, running left and trying to find tight end Jayden Umbarger in the end zone. But Umbarger was double-covered, and defensive back Quindell Johnson made a spectacular, one-handed Odell Beckham Jr.-type catch for the interception.
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“I just killed us with that call,” Niumatalolo said. “It was a horrible call. We had the momentum, especially if we score there. ”
When it was pointed out to him that Haywood had thrown into double coverage, Niumatalolo shrugged and said, “I shouldn’t have put Maquel in that position.”
The halftime stats, like the score, were close to even. By game’s end, like the score, they weren’t close: Memphis finished with 506 yards of offense, including 415 yards passing by Henigan. Navy totaled 314 yards, a decent chunk coming in the fourth quarter after the outcome had been decided. Other than the 62-yard pass to Hall, Lavatai completed two of six passes for 37 yards. He rushed 18 times for 37 yards.
“The touchdown pass was nice — it was good to get something positive,” Lavatai said of the pass to Hall. “But that was just a brief spurt of happiness. I have to be more consistent.”
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A week ago, the defense kept Navy in the game until the final seconds. On Saturday, it simply didn’t have the speed to keep up with the Tigers’ wide receivers.
“I feel like we were close,” said linebacker John Marshall, who made 15 tackles. “There were a couple of passes that we could have knocked down that we didn’t. We had flashes where we were very good and moments when we weren’t good enough.”
Navy now has a much-needed week off, a chance to take a deep breath both mentally and physically. Then it has to go on the road to a much-improved East Carolina team and to Air Force, which is 2-0 after beating Colorado, 41-10, on Saturday.
Navy won’t be favored in either of those games. It hasn’t won at Air Force since 2012, when Keenan Reynolds came off the bench and led the Mids to a 28-21 overtime victory. Sadly for Navy, Reynolds isn’t walking through the door anytime soon, although he does live in the Annapolis area. Neither is Malcolm Perry, the last Navy quarterback to beat Memphis, four years ago.
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“It isn’t going to change around here,” Athletic Director Chet Gladchuk said, talking about all the Memphis transfers. “The rules are the rules, and if they put us at a disadvantage, so be it. We’ll figure it out. We always do.”
As his players and the brigade of midshipmen stood at attention for the playing of “Navy Blue and Gold,” the alma mater, Niumatalolo stood ramrod straight, singing every word.
Then he headed for the locker room. There was work to do. No white flags.
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