Mids approach preparation mode
Depth chart, scout teams coming together; practice closed to public today
It is natural for Ken Niumatalolo to worry about everything. Navy’s 11th-year coach spends most of August training camp fretting about one thing or another.
Niumatalolo knows what goes into getting a college football team ready. It is a gradual process that cannot be rushed or accelerated. Depending on the day, Niumatalolo is either worried about Navy’s progress leading up to the Sept. 1 season opener at Hawaii or feels fairly comfortable the team is on schedule.
Niumatalolo hesitated Tuesday when asked if he feels good about where things stand with just under three weeks to go before the team de- Season opener Sept. 1, 11 p.m. TV: CBS Sports Network Radio: 1090 AM parts for Honolulu.
“I feel OK. Not great, not bad, just OK. We have a long way to go and a lot of things to improve on. There are just so many different areas that we have to work on,” Niumatalolo said. “No, I don’t feel so great because I’m not confident right now. I don’t know if you’re ever really confident, you just keep working.”
One day later, Niumatalolo noted that he saw signs of Navy players beginning to wear down from the grind of August drills.
“Today was the first time I saw that our legs were a little bit dead. It’s important to manage our legs. You’ve got to push through things, but you can’t be stupid. We don’t need a ton of hamstring injuries as we get closer,” Niumatalolo said. “We’re starting to get beat up a little bit. So we just have to manage things for the next two weeks to make sure we’re at our best when we get to Hawaii.”
Navy opened preseason practice on Aug. 3 and will complete the training camp portion on Friday. Beginning next Monday, the Cornerback Jarid Ryan, a Severn graduate, is in the running to be Navy’s primary punt returner this season. The senior is competing with sophomore C.J. Williams. Midshipmen will move into game preparation mode for the next two weeks before taking a 10-hour commercial flight from Dulles International Airport to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport on Thursday, Aug. 30.
This weekend is huge as the coaching staff will sit down and review the results of training camp and nail down a depth chart. It’s an important process as players will be notified by Monday where they stand.
Beginning with Monday’s practice, the offensive and defensive scout teams will be set. Some of the older players, particularly juniors and seniors, will be greatly disappointed if they do not make the depth chart and are placed on the scout team. Niumatalolo indicated that process has already begun this week to some extent.
“We’ve started to set a lot of our stuff, just making sure we’re practicing the right players – people that have a chance to get in the mix,” he said. “We don’t want to have any wasted reps. We have to be really diligent as far as the guys who are getting reps.” Closed practice: Navy will conduct a closed practice today, which is somewhat of a rarity during the training camp portion of August. Almost all practices are open to the public, which is almost unheard of at the Football Bowl Championship level.
Niumatalolo said the Midshipmen will be working on formations, schemes and plays he would rather keep shielded from the prying eyes of the media.
“There’s things we want to work on and we don’t need anything coming out like they were practicing a bunch of this or they were throwing the ball to this guy or running this type of blitz or they’re running this type of zone,” he said.
Navy has employed the triple-option offense since 2002 so there’s not muchsecret about what the team is practicing on the offensive side of the ball. However, the Midshipmen do occasionally mix up defenses and Niumatalolo used last season’s opener as an example.
“One of the things I thought helped us against Florida Atlantic last season was that we played a ton of man (coverage) against them,” he said. “We’ve never really been a man team. That was a really good football team and I think we caught them off-guard a little bit.” Many happy returns: Navy must identify a new punt and kickoff returner after losing its top performers from last season. Craig Scott, who handled all the punt returns, was a senior who graduated last May. Malcolm Perry, who took the most kickoff returns with 13, is now the starting quarterback.
Wide receiver Zack Fraade and slotback Tre Walker had nine and five kickoff returns, respectively. Walker is coming off a knee injury that required surgery and is due to start at slotback so it’s questionable whether he’ll take on that role. Fraade, who would be a junior now, left the program prior to spring practice.
Niumatalolo said the battle to serve as punt returner is between senior cornerback Jarid Ryan and sophomore slotback C.J. Williams.
Walker was listed atop the depth chart at kick returner coming into preseason camp with fellow starting slotback Keoni- Kordell Makekau as the backup. Niumatalolo said several players were in the mix at kickoff return, but did not specify which ones. Niumatalolo is not even sure how important the kickoff returner will be this season after the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel approved a new rule stating that a fair catch on a kickoff received inside the 25-yard line will result in a touchback.
Both college and professional football rule-makers have targeted the kickoff, which many football analysts claim produce an inordinate number of injuries. In the hopes of creating fewer returns and more touchbacks, kickoffs were moved from the 30-yard line to the 35 in 2012 and the starting position after a touchback was moved up from the 20 to the 25.