Air Force and Navy ready for another tight football game

When Air Force went to Oklahoma last year, or Navy played at South Carolina this season, it wasn’t a huge shock when the service academies moved the ball well.

Teams that don’t spend much time preparing for the Air Force and Navy offenses have a difficult time. They make mistakes, and the offenses of the Falcons and Midshipmen are built to exploit every one of them.

Then Navy and Air Force play each other, and the mistakes are tough to find. There’s nothing to exploit.

The teams aren’t exactly the same. Navy primarily uses the option, while Air Force has evolved into an offense that relies more on running behind a zone-blocking scheme. But when they play Saturday, the similarities and intense familiarity between the teams are reasons the game should be tightly contested, with every yard tough to come by.

“It’s like you’re fighting your brother,” Air Force defensive end Ben Kopacka said. “It’s a mirror image.”

The past two years, as coaches Troy Calhoun and Ken Niumatalolo and their staffs have settled in and gotten to know the other team, the offenses haven’t been able to move the ball. The level of execution by the defenses in those games has been startling. Two years ago the meeting produced 29 total points in an overtime game, and Air Force’s defense scored the Falcons’ only touchdown. Last year the score dipped to 20 combined points, and one of the game’s two touchdowns came on a 15-yard drive after a blocked punt.

In last year’s game, Air Force had just 13 first downs. The Falcons averaged 22.6 first downs in their other 12 games, including 25 at Oklahoma. Navy couldn’t get in the end zone, settling for two field goals. It was the first time Midshipmen quarterback Ricky Dobbs started a game and didn’t score a touchdown.

“Any game where you’re struggling to move the ball, it’s frustrating,” receiver Jonathan Warzeka said. “But you have to dig your cleats into the ground and grind a little harder.”

The Falcons and Midshipmen figure on another tight game Saturday. Maybe there will be more points than the last couple of years – Las Vegas oddsmakers have set the line for total points in the game at 54, or five more points than the teams have scored the past two meetings combined – but even if there are some big plays, the two teams will pound on each other all afternoon.

“You better get ready to get your nose bloodied and get a black eye,” Niumatalolo said. “There could be some fingers crooked after this one.”

One reason the game brings out the best in both teams is that it’s perhaps the biggest game of the year for each of them. Navy or Air Force has won the Commander-in-Chief’s trophy each of the past 14 years, with each academy getting it seven times. Army might be Navy’s biggest rival, but Air Force has been a tougher challenge for many years. And for Air Force, beating Navy practically became an obsession during a seven-game losing streak, which it snapped last year.

The level of intensity during the Air Force-Navy games is unmatched for the teams.

“Any typical football game, you come out and your juices are flowing, especially the first couple drives, but after a while it kind of wears down and you get into the regular flow of the game,” quarterback Tim Jefferson said. “In a service academy game, especially against Navy, those juices stay flowing through the entire game. I remember the feeling last year, where I was just as hyped up going into the fourth quarter as I was going into the opening kickoff. Your adrenaline never leaves you.”