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ONE-TWO PUNCH. Ken Niumatalolo (left photo) was promoted to head football coach of the Navy Midshipmen last month. (AP Photo/U.S. Naval Academy) Navy junior quarterback Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada options the ball in the game against Army in December. Navy won an unprecedented sixth straight victory over Army, 38-3. (AP Photo/Rob Carr)
From The Asian Reporter, V18, #2 (January 8, 2008), page 9.
Asian-led Navy returning to glory days
By Mike Street
Special to The Asian Reporter
The military academy teams of Army and Navy were once among the best in the nation. Roger Staubach, Hall of Fame quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, won a Heisman in 1963 with the Navy Midshipmen. And the 1944-46 Black Knights of Army went 27-0-1 behind their two Heisman-winning running backs, Doc "Mr. Inside" Blanchard and Glenn "Mr. Outside" Davis.
While Army has floundered in recent years, its rival Navy has been on the comeback trail, helped this season by an infusion of Asian talent. The beginning of the turnaround came in 2002, when Paul Johnson took over a program that had won just one game in the previous two seasons. He led the 2004 Midshipmen to their first 10-win season in 99 years, then ran off three straight winning seasons, something Navy hadn’t accomplished since the late 1950s.
Employing an old-style triple-option attack, Navy led the nation in rushing four of the past five seasons. The triple option — derived from the "T" offense used by Blanchard and Davis — favors the military academy’s players, who have too many other commitments to learn the intricate offenses used by most major college programs. Because this grinding run-based style can’t make up large point deficits, it requires strong coaching and a quick-thinking, athletic quarterback who plays mistake-free football. Fortunately, Navy has both of those and, after a recent coaching change, both are Asian.
Last year Johnson abruptly announced he would be leaving Navy to coach Georgia Tech, momentarily sending the Midshipmen into disarray. But the confusion was brief, as Navy’s athletic director immediately offered the head coaching position to assistant head coach Ken Niumatalolo, saying, "If you look at who’s out there that can run the triple option, I consider Kenny one of the masters." Niumatalolo, long associated with Johnson, is believed to be the first Samoan head college football coach at any level and the first Polynesian head coach in Division I history.
Ken Niumatalolo has run the triple option for about 20 years, throughout his tenure at Navy and at the University of Hawaii. As the Rainbow Warriors quarterback, Niumatalolo ran the triple option (under Paul Johnson, then the offensive coordinator), leading Hawaii to its first major bowl appearance, the 1989 Aloha Bowl. He also coached the system for several years at his alma mater.
At Navy, Niumatalolo has another gifted Asian quarterback and Hawaiian native, Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada, to run the triple option. Kaipo — his teammates call him the Hyperhyphenated Hawaiian — brought his Kapolei Hurricanes to the high school state championship his senior year. At Navy, Kaipo took over at quarterback midway through the 2006 season, when starter Brian Hampton went down with a knee injury.
Behind Kaipo, Navy won four of its next five games (with Notre Dame as their only loss), before losing a heartbreaker, 25-24, to Boston College in the Meineke Car Care Bowl. This season, Navy went 8-4, including overtime victories against Pitt and Notre Dame. More importantly, they trounced rival Army, 38-3, for an unprecedented sixth straight victory.
Their strong performance netted them a berth in the 2007 Poinsettia Bowl, as underdogs against the Utah Utes, in what would be a nail-biting contest. New coach Niumatalolo and his Midshipmen were pushing for an upset, leading 17-7 early in the third quarter. After Utah scored 21 unanswered points to take a 28-17 lead in the fourth, Kaipo brought Navy close again with a 10-yard touchdown pass, running in the two-point conversion to narrow the gap to three.
If not for a controversial call late in the game, the result might have ended in Navy’s favor. With his team driving for a score, Utah’s Jerome Brooks caught a short pass and dove for the end zone, losing the ball just before he landed out of bounds. Replays clearly showed Brooks fumbling before landing and the ball hitting the pylon. Since the pylon is part of the end zone, the ball should have been Navy’s on a touchback. Instead, replay officials upheld the ruling on the field, and Utah scored to stretch the lead to 10 with two minutes to play. After the game, the officials admitted their error, acknowledging that Brooks had fumbled out of the end zone.
In spite of this setback, Navy rallied on a 58-yard touchdown pass from Kaipo, following it up with a successful onside kick. With only 57 seconds on the clock and his team trailing by three points, Kaipo underthrew a long pass; his receiver slipped on the wet turf, and Utah intercepted to end the game. "More than anything," Niumatalolo said after the narrow loss, "I feel for our seniors. I’ll coach again." With junior Kaipo also returning next season, this Hawaiian one-two punch should carry on the triple-option tradition and maintain the growing strength of this once-proud Navy program.