Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo’s message to his team is simple.
“We don’t have any excuses here,” he said. “That’s our motto this year, ‘No Excuses, Nobody Cares.’ Yeah, it’s hot out here, but nobody cares. [Our first opponent] Towson doesn’t care. I don’t care if it’s 100 degrees — you have to practice through it.”
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It would have been easy to create excuses for Navy’s defense last season, which was ravaged by injuries and yielded more than 36 points and 439 yards per game en route to a ranking of 108 out of 119 Football Bowl Subdivision teams.
But that unit should improve with eight returning starters.
It’s the offense, which returns just four starters from a group that averaged 39.3 points and 444.1 yards per game, that has questions.
The unit graduated starting fullback Adam Ballard (141 carries for 665 yards with five touchdowns), kicker Joey Bullen (11-of-17 field goals) and slot backs Zerbin Singleton (67 carries for 484 yards with nine touchdowns) and Reggie Campbell (4,737 career all-purpose yards).
Campbell, who had 13 catches for 242 yards and four touchdowns, 71 carries for 522 yards and five touchdowns and 1,255 return yards with two touchdowns last season, trails just Napoleon McCallum (7,172 yards) on Navy’s career all-purpose yards list.
But the offense, which led the country in rushing for an NCAA record third-straight season (348.4 yards per game), has several key players returning.
Senior quarterback Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada rushed for 834 yards with 12 touchdowns on 180 carriers and completed 55-of-98 passes for 952 yards with eight touchdowns against just five interceptions last season. Senior fullback Eric Kettani, the team’s leading rusher last year, returns after carrying the ball for 880 yards and 10 touchdowns on 152 attempts.
Senior slot back Shun White, who had 620 yards with seven touchdowns on just 78 carries last season, likely will be paired in the backfield with senior captain Jarod Bryant, who has switched from quarterback to slot back. Bryant rushed for 464 yards with five touchdowns on 94 carries last year.
“My goal is to start at slot back,” Bryant said. “For at least the first few weeks of practice, I’m going to be a full-time slot.”
Niumatalolo said the key to playing in a bowl game and retaining the Commander In-Chief’s Trophy — given to the annual round-robin football competition among Navy, Army and Air Force — for a sixth straight season is something very basic: effort.
“We understand who we are,” he said. “ We are not going to be bigger and faster than the other teams, but nobody is going to play harder than us. We take great pride in that on offense and on defense. That will not change. That is our mantra. We will be the hardest playing team in the country.”
