Navy Football Preview 2026. Can the Midshipmen Crash the College Football Playoff?
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In the first 130 years of Navy football, the 21 wins over the last two represent the best two-season stretch in the program’s history.
After a run of four straight losing seasons and five in six, Year Two under Brian Newberry was a ten-win campaign in 2024. And then came last year with an 11-2 run that was achingly close to being something truly amazing.
Yeah, Navy really was in the mix to make the College Football Playoff.
Can Navy Reload and Keep the Winning Run Going?
First, Navy needed to get to the American Conference championship, but a loss to North Texas kept that from happening.
But it was close, and the winner of that was almost certainly going to be in – Tulane ended up making it.
That it didn’t happen doesn’t really matter. Navy football has become good enough to realistically dream big, at least when it comes to getting invited to things.
This year’s team has to replace just about every major offensive skill player part, but the lines are terrific, the defense is experienced, and the schedule is just favorable enough to think that, with the right breaks, something special is possible.
– American Win Total Predictions
Navy Quick Hits
- Head Coach: Brian Newberry (4th year, 26-12)
- Best Case / Worst Case: Win the American/Lose to Army
- Key Player: Braxton Woodson, QB Sr.
- 2025 Record: 11-2
- Biggest Question: Can all the top rushers quickly be replaced?
Navy Key 2025 Stats
- Rushing Yards: Navy 3,713, Opponents 1,837
- Time of Possession: Navy 32:37, Opponents 27:23
- Sacks: Navy 27 for 183 yards, Opponents 9 for 71 yards
Offense
Navy’s offense found its groove.
It was 126th in the nation in Newberry’s first season, and 39th in rushing. There wasn’t even a glimpse of a passing attack, with only Army and Air Force generating fewer yards.
The 2024 Navy passing game was 132nd in the country – again, only the other service academies were worse – but got the ground attack going, finishing sixth overall.
Enter Drew Cronic as the offensive coordinator, and Navy was No. 1 in the nation in total rushing yards – by close to 250 yards over Utah – and the passing attack was a real, live, part of the mix.
Now Cronic has to keep it all going with a whole new group of starting skill parts.
What’s Working
The running game. It helped to have a slew of veterans who knew what they were doing, but the running game was at a whole other level of dominant, running for three yards or more five times, 200 yards or more against everyone but Army and Air Force, and it’ll all keep going.
No, the Midshipmen will never wing it all around the yard, but as long as the passing attack is servicable, everything else clicks. Blake Horvath was good enough at hitting throws to keep things moving. New head man Braxton Woodson should be good enough to be okay, even if he isn’t Horvath.
The offensive line is full of veterans. The skill parts are the skill parts. It’s not like they’re just cogs in the system, but Navy always has the guys trained to roll if they get time to work. Four starters are back up front around All-AAC right tackle Malcolm Johnson.
What Needs Work
Even for Navy, the loss of production hurts. It’ll be fine, Navy will be Navy, but it’s never a plus to lose over 3,000 yards of the previous season’s rushing production.
Horvath had the offense down, Eli Hiedenreich ran for almost 500 yards and caught 51 passes, and now the new starters have to fill the gaps.
The machine breaks down when the big pass plays aren’t there. It’s a subtle shift, but Navy went from being able to hit throws when it caught teams cheating up against the run to doing that and being able to throw, just because.
Last year, though, the two losses came on the two worst games of the year in yards per attempt. Over the last two years, Navy was 19-0 when averaging over seven yards per throw, and 3-5 when it didn’t.
Again, Blake Horvath really was special. He ran for close to 2,500 yards with 33 touchdowns over the last two seasons, and threw for almost 3,000 yards with 25 scores.
He didn’t throw enough to get into the passer rating mix, but if he were, he’d have been the 11th-most efficient passer in America, ahead of stars like Carson Beck, Trinidad Chambliss, Brendan Sorsby, Arch Manning, Ty Simpson, and on and on.
Player to Watch
Malcolm Johnson, OT Soph.
He looks more like a big power forward than a top football tackle, but the lean, long 6-6, 292-pound sophomore started just seven times but was still among the best blockers in the AAC.
Defense
The Navy defense under defensive coordinator Eric Lewis has one job – hold on.
The offense will keep the ball for long periods of time, the defense will be rested, and its job is to bend without a lot of breaking. And unlike the offensive side, the defense is loaded with veterans.
What’s Working
Getting six starters back on defense is a big deal. The offensive side recruits to a type, and it’s usually fine when it plugs-and-chugs. Finding good defensive players is always a little bit of an issue.
Start with the linebacking corps with leading tackler MarcAnthony Parker and third-leading tackler Coleman Cauley back – they combined for 186 tackles – and making things even better is the depth.
The secondary is loaded with experience, too. Second-leading tackler Giusseppe Sessi returns – he works more like a linebacker than a defensive back. Phillip Hamilton led the way with three picks, corner Nick Bell and Ira Oniha have time logged in, and like the linebacking corps, there’s decent depth.
Everything was fine as long as the defense didn’t get destroyed on third downs. Navy didn’t have a prayer of keeping Notre Dame from moving the chains, and North Texas ripped it up at will, too – both games were Midshipmen losses. However, Air Force was the only other team to convert more than 50% of their tries.
What Needs Work
Fourth down stops are an issue. There’s no question of will or want-to when it comes to the Navy defense, but it got shoved around on the hard-yard downs. Teams tried 35 times to convert on fourth downs, and they succeeded on 26 of them – Navy was 133rd in the nation in stops, partly because …
Bulk. There isn’t any. This group can move, but several of the linebackers are safety-sized, most of the line is woefully undersized, and the idea is to keep the rotation moving, swarm to the ball, and hang in there. However …
Even with the quickness over size defensive front, there aren’t enough plays behind the line.
There’s a decent pass rush coming from several spots, and the raw stats are misleading because the D isn’t on the field that long, but there aren’t enough tackles for loss, and there aren’t enough third down stops.
More on this in a moment, but Navy tends to fly a bit too close to the sun. Every stop for this bunch really, really matters.
Player to Watch
MarcAnthony Parker, LB Jr.
The guy is only 6-0 and 218 pounds, but he’s a guided missile when he gets on the move. He could be used more as a playmaker behind the line – he came up with two sacks and 6.5 tackles for loss – but he tackles everything, coming up with a team-high 97 stops.
Keys to the Season
Don’t miss scoring chances. Ever.
The 2024 team went 9-3 in the regular season, and didn’t play a game all year decided by fewer than double-digits – until it hung on for dear life in a 21-20 Armed Forces Bowl against an Oklahoma team playing a slew of backups.
Last year’s team went 10-2 in the regular season, and not only did it win five games by one score, four of them were by a grand total of eight points.
Give Navy credit for being built for tight battles. More often than not, when the team needed a long drive to take control in key moments, it did.
To win the American Athletic Conference title and have a shot at the College Football Playoff, it’s going to have to win all the tight games again, so …
Player Who Needs To Shine
Justin Welch, PK Soph.
The real player who needs to rock is quarterback Braxton Woodson, but the offense will be fine. For a team that won four games by three points or fewer, though, the kicking game has to be terrific.
Last season, Nathan Kirkwood made all 53 extra point tries and hit 10-of-11 field goals, including two in the 34-31 win over Air Force, two in the 41-38 win over South Florida, a 48-yarder in the 32-21 win over Temple, and a 21-yard kick in the 17-16 win over Army.
Just do that, Justin.
Biggest Concern
Can Woodson and all the new parts of the backfield do that?
The offense was a dominant force over the last two seasons, and even with all of the production, it still took big numbers and giant performances to pull off 21 wins over the last two years. There can’t be a dip no matter who’s carrying the ball.
Biggest Game
Memphis, November 21
Of course Army is the one everyone wants to win, but that’s not a conference game. This might be what gets Navy to the American Conference title game. It should be favored in every other league game except for, maybe, this.
Transfer Portal
Like Army and Air Force, the transfer portal isn’t a part of the Navy program. However, it did lose one key player, with cornerback Justin Ross going to Virginia after making 32 tackles with one pick and four broken up passes.
CFN Season Prediction
Navy was able to win a wild 41-38 shootout over USF last season, and it took out Memphis by 11. There wasn’t any hope against Notre Dame, but had the Midshipmen beaten North Texas – they lost 31-17 – they would’ve been in the American Conference Championship.
However, Navy didn’t have to deal with Tulane – the conference champ who went to the College Football Playoff – missed a loaded East Carolina, and didn’t deal with a nasty UTSA squad.
CFN Prediction: 9-3
This year’s team misses East Carolina and Tulane again, and it doesn’t have to deal with USF or a Rice team that battled hard last year in a 21-13 loss.
This year’s team will get blasted by Notre Dame again and has to deal with a UTSA program that’s a powerhouse at home. Other than that, though, there’s no reason it can’t win everything else, at least in American Conference play.
There will be a misfire somewhere – like at Air Force, or possibly against the Florida Atlantic passing game, or in the showdown against Army that always comes down to inches.
But there’s no lessening the expectations. The team is good, it’s experienced, and the schedule works.
Related: American Conference Football Rankings: Spring 2026 First Look
This story was originally published by College Football News on Jun 3, 2026, where it first appeared in the College Football section. Add College Football News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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