The Challenges of Playing Navy

Navy's offensive style is unique. The triple option attack requires a complete overhaul of defensive preparation for coordinator Ted Roof. Everything about preparations for Navy is different because of its style of offense. Playing well against Navy's offense comes down to being very disciplined on every play.
"Navy is so good at what they do, they're attacking your discipline, and they're attacking your toughness," O'Brien said. "Now, we've got a tough defense. In my opinion we have a tough football team. We have a tough defense. But what we've got to do defensively is we've got to play responsibility football. And these guys, what was good about the Virginia game is you saw guys playing responsibility football against Virginia. They've got to do that and up that another notch against the Naval Academy."

Preparation on the practice field is very challenging for Navy.

"It's very difficult to practice it because you're talking about cut blocks and triple option and triple option play action," O'Brien said. "What we do is we get our 'dirty show' offense team out there a little earlier and they run through the plays they're going to run with our defense. So hopefully it's executed when they come out for practice and they can see a picture of what they're doing. It's a difficult team to play against. I didn't schedule Navy.