Navy Recruiting Update 1/29

Bummer about Bobby Ross. I know the Black Knights struggled and most of the fans weren't in a hurry to see him back, but I've always admired the guy and despite rooting against him in the Army-Navy game, always pulled for his success the rest of the season. My comments about the guy they've got coming in? Uh, who exactly is Stan Brock? And all of this coming on the day Barbero was euthanized...I thought sports were suppose to make us feel better things?

Anyways, on to recruiting. Army likely will take a fairly big hit in their efforts this offseason, so Navy clearly will lead the way in the fight for recruits. The Midshipmen landed Norcorsse (Georgia) Middle Linebacker James Simien today, while once prized Navy-commit Philip Davis went a different direction and committed to Tulane. Tulane? I don't mean to be rude, but what exactly does that school or its football team have going for it right now?

Regardless, Davis is in the past and Simien's commitment is in the here and now. When I first saw his Scout.com page reporting he runs a 4.98/40, obviously I was a little concerned. I ran a faster time at the Navy Football Camp when I was a freshmen in high school, and that's saying a lot considering how bad of a football player I actually was. Thankfully the Scout.com page is a little off, and if you scroll down you can see he ran a respectable 4.66 at the Atlanta combine. The Atlanta Journal Constitution has Simien listed at 6'1 (advise a little shorter per scout listing) and reports that he had received offers from Air Force, Ball State, and both Eastern and Western Kentucky (which will soon be I-A) prior to choosing Navy. He also drew heavy interest from Southern Miss, but apparently his visit last week wasn't enough to swoon him away from Annapolis. He looks like another solid pickup for the class of 2007 and hopefully a future component in a great linebacker tradition.

Navy also recently picked up another running back, this time getting 5'11, 195-lb Delvin Diggs from Claxton High School in Georgia. He will be attending NAPS before coming to the Academy. Best of luck to both of these young men!

Note of Interest

As most of you know, I moved my regular operations to the Fan House for the past season, where I've been providing daily coverage relating exclusively to Navy football. It's been fun, and the interaction with other bloggers, readers, and fans has surpassed anything I've ever done over here at Pitch Right. Unfortunately, starting next week, the Navy Fan House is, well, dead.

AOL has decided to move in a different direction, one that doesn't include the services of numerous team oriented blogs like the Navy Fan House. I'll admit that I'm a little bummed, but I can completely understand where they're coming from, and want to use this experience to springboard Pitch Right further onto the blogsphere. So, starting next week and continuing with what I hope will be a growing consistency, regular posting picks back up at Pitch Right. Some ideas I've been kicking around:

• Friday Lists, a collection of random rankings and/or lists pertaining to various college football subject matter (ie. Top 10 most obscure I-A teams, junk like that)


• Wall to Wall "Mid-Major Coverage." I love Navy football and couldn't dream of shifting away from keeping this a Navy-oriented blog, but I would like to up my coverage of other non-BCS teams.


• "Holding Phil Accountable," a look at the abysmal job my buddy Phil Steele did on his 2006 guide.


• Fourth and Inches Podcast. Set you calenders for May, where I and several friends will develop a daily Sports Podcast. Not Navy or even college football exclusive, but hopefully still something to tune in for. Much more information on this in the coming months.


• Other stuff, recruiting coverage, spring practice coverage, and whatever comes up.

• Official Meeting Ground of the Jeff Deliz fan club, hence the picture.

Well, that's that. Comments, musings, collective brainstorming actions, or general pleasantries can go in the box below. Thank you to all my Fan House readers for reading, and hopefully we can move forward and make this offseason go as smooth as possible.

-Adam

(Photo From Navysports.com)

Miles to Transfer

The 6'2, 189-lb safety was granted a release from the team and the Academy by Johnson last week, and is looking to enroll at another Division I school in time for the spring semester. Miles reportedly told Coach Johnson that the reason for his leaving was the five year military commitment he'd have to serve after his graduation. The Capital reported that Miles is eying Temple, Bowling Green, and I-AA UMass. Our friend Frank from the UMass football blog has already begun a campaign for Miles, who was named an Honorable Mention Freshmen All-American as well as the All-East Freshmen on the Year.

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Navy Outlook '07: Quarterback

While Kaipo-Noa has started the last six games and played well, don't rule out a spirited competition with fellow sophomore Jarod Bryant this off-season. Kaipo-Noa's knowledge of the offense, which he ran in High School and at NAPS, has been his chief advantage over Bryant to this point, but the Hoover product is catching up. Bryant has all the physical tools to be a great option quarterback, plus the kind of arm that could really add another dimension to the offense. If nothing else, he should be able to push Kaipo to become a more complete player, which will ultimately benefit the entire team.

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Cole Smith Holding: It's Your Call

The Third and One

I was going to wait until later this week to post this, but judging by the comments I've been seeing thought the day, I thought I should address it now. First though, the usual discretionary speech. Most of us have never coached a college football team, so take what I say with a grain of salt. That being said, fans are always going to second guess and play arm chair coach, so I post this in the confidence that I won't be burned at the stake. Ok, now that we've established that, lets talk about Paul Johnson's play-calling, and in specific the third and one at the end of the first half.

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(AP PHOTO)

Meineke Car Care Bowl In Pictures

View The Entire Gallery (With Commentary)

(Photos By Dan Nettina)

Anatomy (Well, Kinda) of the Triple Stack

Yea, what, exactly, was that?

That's the question some of us Navy fans are asking this morning, as we try to make sense of the first wrinkle in what I would deem a very odd game. While I'm sure this is the least of our concerns after yesterday's 25-24 heartbreaking loss in the Meineke Car Care Bowl, it nevertheless is a place to start in explaining the game.

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(Picture by Me, ask before stealing it please)

HEARTBREAKING

PHOTO BY TODD SUMLIN

Navy Recruiting News

In case you haven't been paying attention, I've got you covered. We're in the "dark period" of recruiting right now, but Paul Johnson has already been able to secure eight verbal commitments and should be able to really lock up some great prospects come January. Here's a collection of links to get you acquainted with both the situation and Navy's current commits.

General

Success Serves Navy in Recruiting Mission (Bill Wagner, Annapolis Capital)

Navy Recruiting Update (Me, Navy Football Fan House)

Navy Commits Lead Teams to Playoffs (Me, Fan House)

Player Specific

Navy Gets the Other Caleb King (Me, Fan House)

Cabbage Picks Navy (Me, Fan House)

QB of the Future: Davis To Be A Mid (Me, Fan House)

As usual, updates when they come available. Hope everyone is having a pleasant and productive day.

(Picture from The Daily Commercial / Keri Rasmussen)

College Football Blog Awards Part Uno

The 2006 College Football Blogger Awards. They're all the rage these days, really. Remember when nominating your favorite Independent blog that Notre Dame is being filtered in with the Big East blogs for this event, which means by default I'm really the only candidate. Alright, I'll shut up now.


The Dr. Z Award
Cogent, interesting analysis.

Dawgsports.com. I still don't understand much of what Kyle is actually saying, but that doesn't make it any less interesting. He has a great base of knowledge on teams all over the country, and does a phenomenal job keeping track of all the daily happenings around the world of college football.

The Trev Alberts Quits To Do Construction Award
Comic relief; overall hilarity.

Like I'm sure you've read on a number of blogs to date, this one is simply a no-brainer. Orson's Every Day Should Be Saturday was the first college football blog I ever read, and is still the first I read when I get up every morning. I think I speak for all of us, however, when I say I wish he could have toned down the humor when interviewing Michael Lewis. I had no idea people actually could be that annoying when they laughed.

The Sports Fans Don't Cry Award
The blog that has suffered through its chosen team's dismal season with the most dignity.

How Ornage 44 can still find the will to not only post on his own blog, but on his Fan House blog, I'll probably never know. Let us all hope we can find such inner strength when our own teams suck that much.

The Keith Jackson Circa 1995 Award
The blog with the most consistently expressive and excellent writing.

The Blue Gray Sky. Excellent analysis combined with just solid diction and tone. If there was a "classiest blog" award, these guys would win it. Note that my overt fondness of the 'Domers played a huge role in this nomination. Deal with it.

The Brady Quinn Award
The prettiest blog, the best layout and design.

Defiantly College Football Resource. Brian has not only been a friend to Pitch Right since its inception, he's also been a friend to every blog since its inception. In a world of Blogger sponsored clones, CFR gets it right.

Best New Blog
The best new college football blog

There have been a lot of great blogs that have launched within the past year. The only problem is, I have no idea which ones are which, considering I've only launched within the past year. However I'm going to nominate another friend of Pitch Right (a reoccurring theme here) in Block U. Jazzy Ute does a great job not only keeping tabs of the Utes, but of keeping us all informed on whats going on in my favorite region of the country, The Mountain West.

More (hopefully anyway) tommarow...

Playoff = Dumb

For those of you wondering (all four or five of you) I am not in favor of a playoff for the Bowl subdivision or whatever they've decided to call Div I-A. The reasons for my opposition are simple. I just don't want one. I'm worried that the hoopla surrounding a playoff would take away from the excitement of Bowl season and even the playoff system in place for Divisions I-AA, II, and III. It's not a concept too alien, and I link it to the relationship between the NCAA Basketball tournament and the NIT tournament. Do you know who won the NIT last year?

Exactly, nobody (at least not regular fans) knows, and once more, nobody really cares. I don't want this to befall the Bowls, and the I don't want the matchup between two of the best teams in the land detracting from the significance of say, oh a Rice (which hasn't had a winning season in forever) in albeit a very low-tier Bowl. That's not to say I hate the hoopla of the big game or I'm anti big-time college football, I just would be very suspicious of where the "rest" of the Nation's teams would fit in amongst an ESPN/ABC controlled playoff system. Do we really think the powers that be would take anytime to contribute (meaningfully) to the Bowl games featuring teams that (gasp) aren't a prominent feature in the Top 10?

Because I don't, and that's why I'm proud to be part of what Brian has labeled the "Playoffs are bad, m'kay?" coalition. Well, that's my short little speil. I have more to say about this issue but not a lot of time to say, so if by chance you should like to either rudely disagree with me or give me the thumbs up, feel free to leave a comment.

Q&A With a BC Blogger

Just a heads up for anyone interested in reading this who hasn't already seen it on the Fan House. I've just published Part I of an interview Bill Maloney and I had over the weekend. Bill, as some of you know, is the author of the Boston College Fan House page and does some great work over at Eagle In Atlanta. Among other things, we discussed Tom O'Brian, Navy's secondary, Paul Johnson, Brian Toal, and even Doug Flutie. Check it Out.



(Picture from Reuters)

Paul Johnson and the Fall of Fisher DeBerry

They say that things like this are bound to happen. That in all manner events, whether on or off the football field, all things must eventuall come to an end. For Fisher DeBerry and the Air Force football community, the dynasty built during the 1980s and 1990s has come to a sudden halt following a third consecutive losing season, an event which culminated with the retirment of the 68 year old living legend and the beginning of a new Service Academy football era.

And just as Rome did not fall by the hands of the Visigoths alone, so to can we trace the fall of Fisher DeBerry's Air Force program to a multitude of different causes and events. And while one can dispute the label of "fallen," one certainly cannot find argument in the fact that the Falcons of today are not the Falcons of five, ten, fifteen, or even twenty years ago. The possible explanations for this are many, and in reality we will come to find that it was probably a combination of both internal and external factors which finally slowed DeBerry's Juggernaut. From the advent of a more competitive Mountain West to the changing face of the Air Force Academy's administration, these factors finally came to a head in 2003, which, not by coincidence alone, was also the year another Service Academy asserted itself onto a winning stage. But for the sake of argument, I wish to focus in on only one of the many aspects that contributed to the recent downswing of the Air Force football program, and with it, DeBerry's career; The advent of Paul Johnson's resurgent Navy Football program.

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(Picture from Deadspin.com)

A Reminder

Just a reminder that for the rest of the regular season I will be blogging primarily over at the Navy Football FanHouse. If you'd like to get in touch with me, email me at guyontheright at gmail.com

Sunday Rewind

Well, that Sucked- It's never fun to watch your team lose 34-0, but to watch your team's starting quarterback go down for the year is just gut-wrenching.What we saw yesterday was a team which was completely dominated and completely demoralized. Give the Rutgers "D" a lot of credit, they flew to the ball-carrier and came off blocks which such speed and tenacity that the option never was able to gain a foothold. By the same token, it should be acknowledge that the focus of this Navy team just wasn't there yesterday, and that "dumb" mistakes (ie. penalties, blocked punts, blown assignments, dropped passes) kept Navy from even making this one close.

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Navy Loses Hampton, then Game

As it stands right now, disaster may be an understatement. How else you would label a 34-0 drudging at the hands of Rutgers, I'm really not sure.

Not only did Rutgers dominate the Midshipmen completely, but Starting Quarterback Brian Hampton dislocated his left knee in the first quarter and may be lost for the rest of the season. Hampton's injury, which came about halfway through the first quarter, proved to be the deciding factor in the game, as Navy's offense could never recover its composure. Sophomore Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada was inconsistent and ineffective in relief of Hampton, although Navy's offensive woes ran much deeper then just poor quarterback play.

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Kettani Gets the Call

Things aren't going so hot for Navy fullback Matt Hall. The former starter has had a bit of a fumble problem this season,a problem which effectively killed a Navy scoring drive against Air Force on Saturday. He's also turned the ball over in key situations against ECU and Tulsa. With these struggles in mind, and a need to provide a relief for Navy's primary bulldozing fullback Adam Ballard, Coach Paul Johnson has decided to insert much-heralded sophomore Eric Kettani into the lineup.

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Navy More then "Lucky"

I, along with just about every other writer who covers Navy football, have no idea where all this sprang from. Most likely it had to do with some on-the-field trash talk or behind the scenes stuff that none of us regular people see or hear about. When asked if the source of the comment was an Air Force player, Johnson responded with a "sure was." However when Johnson elaborated on his team being the "luckiest team in America," Navy's head Coach maintained that it wasn't just coming form the Falcons.

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Mids in "Others" of Harris Poll

The Mids are slated ahead of Wake Forest (9 votes), NC State (8 votes), Texas Tech (5 votes), Miami (3 votes), and South Carolina (1 vote). Despite numerous text messages placed to his cell phone from the author of this post, the Ball Coach was unable to comment on how little the Harris Poll thinks of his Gamecocks. Mike Leach, still in shock over the decline of his superior offensive genius, merely reaffirmed his fondness of hail.

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