The football season is over, but Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo?s work is far from finished.
Niumatalolo, who took over for the Georgia Tech-bound Paul Johnson on Dec. 8, just finalized hiring his coaching staff and is focusing with assistants on recruiting, offseason conditioning and the season opener against Towson on Aug. 30.
“We got a good blend of younger and experienced coaches, said Niumatalolo, who was Navy?s assistant head coach the past six seasons. “But I was looking for some young, energetic coaches that can go out and hit the road in recruiting which is vital for us to be successful,”
In the past week, Navy, which finished 8-5 this fall, hired Joe DuPaix to coach the slot backs, Ashley Ingram to coach the offensive line, Steve Johns to coach inside linebackers and Tony Grantham to coach outside linebackers.
DuPaix comes to Navy from California-Poly, where he was the offensive coordinator, and Ingram was offensive coordinator at Bucknell. Johns coached with Niumatalolo at UNLV, where he was linebackers coach and coordinated recruiting and special teams. Grantham returns to Navy, where he coached for four years, after spending last year at Campbell University.
But all of Niumatalolo?s hires have experience working with option offenses, which is important since Navy runs a triple-option attack, installed by Johnson in 2002.
Niumatalolo said his hires should be a perfect complement to the returning assistants, who include defensive coordinator Buddy Green and offensive coordinator Ivin Jasper, who was promoted from quarterbacks coach.
“I don?t want to overhaul what Coach Johnson did here, but I will make some tweaks here and there,” Niumatalolo said. “I also know a lot of the moves I made were to fill in the holes we had [with the changes], including someone who can recruit in the south and West Coast and has a background in option football.”
Niumatalolo said he?s stressed to his players to put last season in the past as soon as they stepped off the field the 35-32 loss to Utah in the Poinsettia Bowl.
“There are a lot of things as far as mechanics as a staff that we can improve upon which we took from that loss as we get ready for Towson,” Niumatalolo said.
Niumatalolo said he understands the expectations for him at Navy are far different than the ones placed upon Johnson six years ago when Navy was coming off a 0-10 season.
“We?ve got everything here to be successful,” Niumatalolo said. “The only thing I do now is go to work. If we do that and do the best we can to be organized and prepared, the rest will fall into place.”
