For many, Monday was filled with excitement. Fans got to finish their Labor Day weekend and sit down to watch what felt like the return of college football. It was no marquee matchup, but that didn’t matter because football was back and being played on a college campus between two recognizable schools.
However, the excitement surrounding college football’s return was soon extinguished as the BYU Cougars boat-raced the Navy Midshipmen. BYU scored quickly and often during Monday’s game. The Cougars scored on eight of their first nine drives in the game.
Navy, who led all FBS teams in rushing last season, struggled to get anything going all evening. The Midshipmen finished the night with 119 rushing yards to BYU’s 301 yards.
BYU Cougars
No team worked harder to ensure their school had a college football season than the BYU Cougars. As an Independent school, BYU is the only FBS school west of Texas playing a fall season. Many conferences postponing their seasons until the spring caused a frantic effort for the Cougars to find enough teams to make up an eight-game schedule. All the while not knowing if a season would be possible for BYU, they maintained their practice schedules as if the season had already begun.
That preparation proved to be one of the deciding forces of the game. While BYU had no idea what their schedule would be, the Cougars fall camp had a much different look than that of the Navy Midshipmen.
Navy Midshipmen
Navy did have their full fall camp as well. It just looked a bit different than usual. Due to looming concerns around COVID-19 and it’s spread, Navy elected to avoid contact as much as possible in their practices. Before Monday nights game, the Midshipmen had yet to do a scrimmage or tackling drill, and it showed. BYU dominated at the line of scrimmage and bulldozed the Midshipmen as they rushed for over 300 yards. Then when the cougars got into the open field, Navy put on a masterclass on missed tackles. Time and time again, the Midshipmen failed proper tackling technique and could not stop the Cougar offense.
While the Navy football team’s preparation has faced some criticism, Navy head coach Ken Niumatalolo did it in the name of protecting his players.
Ken Niumatalolo Protecting His Players
“Boy, that game was 1000 percent my fault,” Niumatalolo said. “Obviously, we weren’t prepared. One team was playing football. There’s nobody to blame but myself. I erred on the side of trying to keep our guys safe with covid and contact tracing stuff. I’d say it’s the worst Navy football game we ever played.”
The head coach went on to say, “The last time we tackled anybody was the bowl game, that’s nine months ago. . . . I made the decision to practice that way. It killed us.”
Although no coach wants to lose that way, seeing a coach looking out for his unpaid labor and protecting his players is refreshing. These concerns are what has made this season in college football such a major talking point. For example, players from the Pac-12 and Big Ten made demands for what it will take for them to play with concerns of COVID-19. Ultimately both conferences chose to push their season back until the spring.
As for Navy, moving forward Coach Ken Niumatalolo plans to talk with doctors this week to find out what is allowed and see how they can adjust practices. Still, he acknowledged that the extra precautions were completely his decision.
“We’re going to have to do something,” Niumatalolo said. “It’s hard to tackle dummies and block bags then try to play somebody live. So, we’ll see.”
Takeaways
College Football is being played, schools and conferences have done a lot of work to ensure that. Whether it is the best move for the sport or the players is something that only time will tell.
The disconnect between how different programs practiced and sought to protect their players creating this kind of divide is alarming.
Even in a loss like this, Navy head coach Ken Niumatalolo should be applauded for the leadership he showed in his efforts to protect his players, as well as taking responsibility for how that decision altered the outcome of the game.
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