Coaches not happy with Friday’s lackluster scrimmage
Navy football coach Ken Niumatalolo wasn’t pleased with his team’s performance Friday in a scrimmage which was closed to the media. The Midshipmen have one more scrimmage left before their Sept. 3 opener with Delaware.
“I thought we could have played with better effort, better pad level,” Niumatalolo said. “Probably not a great scrimmage. But it was great film for us to study from.”
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Niumatalolo said he wants to see logistic routines improve in the next scrimmage, so players will be prepared for the sideline basics for the opener.
Speaking about his unit, defensive coordinator Buddy Green echoed Niumatalolo’s comments on Friday’s scrimmage, but offered few specifics.
“We’re not close. We got a long way to go. I thought our effort and intensity wasn’t what I want at all,” Green said. “So we’ve gotta get better. We’ve gotta get better pad level and intensity, better angles in tackling. We gotta clean it all up. Today was a good start.”
Navy thought it had a punter lined up to replace three-year standout Kyle Delahooke. But Justin Hann left the Midshipmen in the lurch over the summer, as he was granted a leave of absence for a church mission.
Navy now has turned punting and holding duties over to Pablo Beltran. It’s an unusual amount of ball-handling responsibility to give a freshman.
“He’s a pretty composed kid,” Niumatalolo said. “You never know what’s going to happen to a guy, jogging around, running three miles a day during plebe summer, what’s going to happen to their legs. Fortunately his leg still has some pop.”
Navy didn’t make many depth chart changes after Friday’s scrimmage. One tweak, however, was solidifying senior David Wright at cornerback, relieving senior Kwesi Mitchell of some of his responsibility. Mitchell was previously listed as a possible starter at three different positions in the secondary. Now, it’s just two.
“David’s had a great camp and enabled us to move Kwesi to safety, where he’s played a lot in the past,” Green said. “It gives us some more flexibility in what we can do.”
