Anchors away! Navy sinks football's battleship 64-27

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - In its 100-plus years of playing varsity football, the Naval Academy has competed in more than 1,000 games. Until Saturday, however, it had never scored 64 points against a Division I-A opponent.

The Midshipmen (3-1) tallied 43 unanswered points during a 14-minute second-half stretch, turning a 21-21 halftime tie into a 64-27 blowout of Duke at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium. The Blue Devils (0-5) committed seven turnovers and, after registering 13 first downs in the first half, failed to achieve another for the first 18 minutes of the second half.

"It's definitely embarrassing," Duke junior guard Chad Melita said. "It's probably the most embarrassing loss I've ever endured at Duke. It's one thing if someone beats you in the first [part of the] game, but if someone just embarrasses you at the end and keeps on putting up points, it's horrible.

"No matter how close the game was in the beginning, it doesn't matter because when you get beaten by 40 or whatever points, it's horrible."

Navy's defense and special teams played nearly as important a role in the onslaught as did its offense. The defense and special teams accounted for three of the Midshipmen's nine touchdowns, and big plays by the two units set up three more Navy scores. In total, contributions by Navy's defense and special teams led to 41 of the club's 64 points.

"I'm disappointed with [Duke's special teams]-what can I say?" Duke head coach Fred Goldsmith said. "You get back there and you fumble kickoffs and all of that other stuff. I'm very disappointed."

Navy began the 43-point explosion on its opening drive of the second half. With the score even at 21, the Mids moved 49 yards-all but seven on the ground-to set up Tom Vanderhorst's 33-yard field goal.

On the ensuing kickoff, Navy's Travis Cooley and Desmond Morgan stripped Duke kick returner Cedric Tate at the 15-yard line. Navy junior Russ Tate pounced on the fumble, and on the next play, fullback Tim Cannada lumbered 17 yards for a touchdown.

"I didn't know what the hell was going on, but you know, hey, that's 7, that's great."

The Midshipmen stopped the Blue Devils on the next possession, got the ball back and, facing a dejected Duke defense, moved 68 yards for their fourth score of the third quarter.

In case the outcome was still in question, Navy drove 84 yards-all on the ground-on its first possession of the fourth quarter. Cannada capped off the attack with a seven-yard touchdown jaunt, making the score 50-21. The Mids noticed the Blue Devils' disappointment during the second half and capitalized on it, ramming their running game at the middle of the Duke defense.

"A lot of the first-teamers had the ball in the second half," Navy quarterback Chris McCoy said. "They really turned it up another level, and I was happy. [Fullbacks Omar Nelson and Cannada] ran hard and made good plays also, and... the [offensive] line did a real, real good job in the second half."

The Blue Devils fell apart completely in the fourth quarter, especially after the Midshipmen had hit the half-century mark in points. One minute after Cannada's second touchdown, senior punt returner Ross Scott danced through a confused Duke coverage team for a 65-yard touchdown return, and less than two minutes later, linebacker Travis Cooley scooped up Letavious Wilks' fumble and returned it 22 yards for the Midshipmen's ninth touchdown.

"You really can't pinpoint exactly what the problem is because so many different things were going wrong," Duke quarterback Dave Green said. "I feel [humiliated] right now, not so much that we lost and the difference in the score, but the way that we did lose. We weren't dominated, we just looked silly out there... we were basically just trying to hand it to them."

Duke scored on its final possession, as third-string quarterback Kevin Thompson hit freshman Scottie Montgomery with an 11-yard touchdown strike with 21 seconds left.

In the first half, Navy jumped out to a 21-7 lead with a combination of trick plays and takeaways. On the game's first play from scrimmage, the Mids set up their first touchdown with a 41-yard halfback option pass from Howard Bryant to Astor Heaven. Near the end of the quarter, Bruce recovered a Laymarr Marshall fumble at the Duke 24, and McCoy hit LeBron Butts in the end zone on the next play.

Duke cut the deficit to 14-7 early in the second quarter when Marshall pranced 13 yards up the middle for a touchdown, but on its next possession, Navy struck back with another trick play. On fourth and 3 from their own 45, the Midshipmen ran a fake punt, with upback Gervy Alota evading Duke's 10-man front and dashing 36 yards.

"We knew, going into the ballgame, that we were probably going to run a fake punt, and we knew by what they did with their 10-man rush that that particular play would be there," Navy head coach Charlie Weatherbie said. "I just think it was executed very well. We practice it all the time."

The fake punt put Navy in position for its third touchdown, a 13-yard run by Omar Nelson, but the Blue Devils refused to quit. Two possessions later, Rader escaped a heavy pass rush and hit Dominique Flemming, who raced 45 yards down the middle of the field for a touchdown.

After the Duke defense stopped Navy on its next possession, Mid punter Jason Covarrubias fumbled a snap and gave Duke the ball at the Navy 17. Rader hit Owens for a touchdown on the next play, and with Sims Lenhardt's extra point, the game was tied and the Blue Devils had momentum going into halftime.

"We were real optimistic," Melita said. "We weren't going out there, saying it was going to be easy, but we were really optimistic. We thought we were going to go in there, move the ball and stop them, but right off the bat we made some crucial mistakes and just never got going, and the rest is history."