Newberry a ‘wizard’ of unique packages
Navy football’s defensive players have started calling coach Brian Newberry “The Wizard.”
It’s based in part on the fact Newberry now sports a big, bushy white beard. However, it is rooted in their universal belief the third-year defensive coordinator is somewhat of a savant when it comes to devising unique concepts and innovative schemes.
“He’s just a defensive mastermind. He comes up with a lot of different ways to attack an offense and is very smart about how he does it,” Navy outside linebacker Xavier McDonald said.
Head coach Ken Niumatalolo has referred to Newberry as the “mad scientist” because he’s constantly inventing new defensive packages and plays.
Newberry added to his growing reputation for creativity by unveiling a new concept during Saturday’s game against Houston. Navy came out in an odd alignment that featured three safeties, a scheme the defensive staff has been experimenting with in practice since last spring.
Navy started three linebackers instead of four and their assignments were vastly different from what they are asked to do in the base defense.
When the ball was snapped, the two outside linebackers
— McDonald, the striker, and Johnny
Hodges, the raider — usually dropped into pass coverage.
The Midshipmen started five defensive backs — two cornerbacks as usual with safeties Kevin Brennan, Taylor Robinson
and John Marshall providing a cordon on the back end. Marshall, who is normally Navy’s starting striker, shifted back a level and replaced inside linebacker Will Harbour on the field.
It was an interesting scheme designed to accomplish Newberry’s primary goal
of not allowing talented Houston quarterback Clayton Tune to connect on long pass plays.
Newberry had identified those downfield “chunk” plays as the main reason Navy gave up 41 points to Houston in 2019 and 37 in 2020.
“Really, the reasoning behind it was partly personnel and partly that Houston is an explosive offense, and the last two times we
played them we gave up a ton of big plays in the pass game,” Newberry said. “I really felt like if we could keep things in front of us and make them earn every yard they got it would give us the best chance to win.”
For the most part, the strategy worked as designed as Tune was repeatedly forced to
dump the ball off to checkdown receivers. The Midshipmen rallied to the ball to limit the Cougars to short gains.
Newberry wanted to force Houston to work its way downfield in short increments, hoping the home team would not
have the discipline or execution to do so. He was right, as the Cougars faltered three times in the red zone.
“In retrospect, it was a good plan, and it worked the way we wanted it to. We knew we would give up some yards in the run game and thought they would not be patient enough to keep running it, and they weren’t,” Newberry said. “We held up well enough to have a four-man box the entire game and give up [4.1] yards per carry. That’s exactly what I was hoping we would be able to do.”
Indeed, Newberry’s gameplan and defensive alignment enabled Houston to gain significant yards on basic draw plays. Tailbacks Alton McCaskill and Ta’Zhawn Henry combined for 128 rushing yards by exploiting the hole in the middle of the Navy defense created by having just three defensive linemen and inside linebacker Diego Fagot in the box.
Newberry’s plan was far from perfect as Tune connected with fleet wide receiver Marcus Jones for a 47-yard touchdown and found tight end Christian Trahan for a 34-yard gain. There were nine other pass plays ranging from 10 to 20 yards.
“We dropped eight a decent amount. When you drop eight, you’ve got to be really good in coverage and the thing we didn’t do a great job of was protecting the seams, particularly that weak hash. They hit us on some passes right there,” Newberry said.
Newberry blamed himself for “gambling” a few times and having those calls come back to “bite me.” In hindsight, he would have avoided the blitzes and stuck with the game plan of dropping eight into coverage to ensure the ball always stayed in front of the Navy defense.
“It’s just not my nature to do that for an entire game,” Newberry admitted.
Newberry was disappointed the Midshipmen did not finish and felt a 17-7 second-half lead should be protected. Meanwhile, the “wizard” said Navy will likely employ the three-safety alignment again.
“It’s a good little package for us and a nice complement to what we do,” he said. “We’ll continue to polish it up and implement that in certain situations against certain personnel groupings.”