Navy Midshipmen 2026 Season Preview

Newberry's Margin Problem

Brian Newberry's 11-2 run had less separation than the record suggests: a 4-0 mark in one-score games and a conference win rate of 88.9% that outran what the actual yardage margin against league foes would predict. The offense also scored efficiently, needing just 13.2 yards per point against a league median of 14.1, which is exactly the kind of edge that tends to even out rather than repeat. None of that erases a strong year in the American Athletic, but it points to a 2026 team getting fewer of the bounces that turned close games into wins.

Woodson Inherits the Nation's Best Ground Game

Navy's offense was never about the arm, and it still won't be with Braxton Woodson projected to start after throwing for just 110 yards in his limited 2025 look. The formula stays the same: a rushing attack that led the country at 286 yards per game, a 51.8% third-down rate that ranked 4th nationally, and an offensive line that allowed only 9 sacks. The real question is whether Woodson can hit enough of the 130-yard passing attack to keep defenses honest, because the ground game alone carried this unit to a 31.5 scoring average a year ago.

Blake Horvath is gone after piling up 1,580 yards and 12 touchdowns running the option, and Navy hands the reins to Braxton Woodson, who takes the first-team snaps into camp off just 110 yards of mop-up duty last season. He is not locked in, with Jackson Gutierrez, Ryan Brass and a four-man class led by Deuce Jefferson pushing from behind, but Woodson is the front-runner in an open competition rather than a true scramble. The job barely requires a passer anyway, since Navy ran for 286 yards a game (1st nationally) while throwing for just 130 (133rd), so whoever wins the room mainly has to protect the ball and keep the option humming behind a line that allowed only 9 sacks all year.

Navy ran the ball better than anyone in the country in 2025, and the back who made that happen, Alex Tecza and his 902 yards and 10 scores, is gone, along with backup Shane Reynolds. What replaces him is essentially a blank slate: Vic Listorti has 17 career rushing yards, and Christian Cromer, Stefan Egbe, Quinton Ezzard, Jai Hundley and Jadyn Jones carry no statistical track record at all. The triple option can manufacture a workhorse out of nowhere, but asking an unproven group to sustain a No. 1 rushing attack while the passing game still sits 133rd nationally is the real test of Navy's 2026 offense.

Navy's passing game ranked 133rd nationally for a reason, and the position group's job is blocking as much as catching. Eli Heidenreich's 941 yards walk out the door, but Luke Hutchison already looked like the option-offense trump card, turning 5 catches into 134 yards and 3 scores, and he inherits the deep-ball role. The four incoming names, Alex Rodriguez, Maceo Watkins, Braeden Stuart and Matthew Pownall, arrive with no stats on file, which fits this offense fine, since Navy's 286 rushing yards per game (1st nationally) means the receiving corps wins by sealing the edge, not piling up targets.

Navy's tight ends were never about catches in this triple option, and 2026 doubles down on that with Cody Howard's 128 yards and lone touchdown gone and nobody replacing him as a receiving threat. Gavin Noe returns as the group's most proven blocker with 6 tackles worth of snaps on his resume, flanked by Jake Norris and Jordan Collins, while Merrick Barlow, Theo Elwell and Drew Hall bring no receiving stats because that has never been the job description. Kaden Glover headlines an incoming class built for the same anonymous, physical role that keeps the nation's No. 1 rushing attack churning at 286 yards a game.

Nine sacks allowed and the top rushing attack in the country tell the story of what this front did in 2025, and the bulk of that group comes back even as 10 linemen departed, including Jake Lusk and Greyson Crawford. Toran Smith, Hoke Smith II, Isaac Bunker and James Cardinali anchor a room deep enough to keep running Brian Newberry's option scheme at the same clip, with three-star arrivals like Alexander Brewer and Christopher Solomon added as depth rather than fixes. The passing game stayed 133rd in the country a year ago, so nothing about this line's job changes in 2026, it just has to keep grinding out the same rushing numbers.

The two biggest disruptors up front, Landon Robinson (64 tackles, 6 sacks, 8 TFL) and Julien Moutome (42 tackles, 4 sacks, 8 TFL), are both gone, leaving a line that already ranked 109th in tackles for loss and 124th in havoc rate searching for someone to threaten the backfield. Griffen Willis (48 tackles, 3 sacks, 6.5 TFL) is the only proven pass rusher left, and the rest of the returning group, Aiden Lyczek, Clinton Anyagafu, Rhoen Breen, Jaden Brock and Alex McCalop, carries no real statistical track record. Navy leaned on newcomers like edge Ian Campbell to add juice, but with that little returning production up front, expect the run-stuff and pressure numbers to slide before they improve.

MarcAnthony Parker's 97 tackles and 6.5 TFL make him the projected centerpiece of this group, with Coleman Cauley's 78 stops next to him giving Navy a proven pairing even as Jaxson Campbell and Kenneth McShan are gone from the two-deep. The havoc numbers explain why that continuity matters: Navy ranked 124th in havoc rate and 109th in tackles for loss a year ago, so Parker and Cauley have to be the ones creating disruption while five incoming linebackers, including Zion Lee and Rashad Fortune, arrive with no stats yet to lean on. Depth beyond the top two is thin on production, with Job Grant's 33 tackles the only other real returning workload, which puts real weight on that newcomer class to be ready sooner than a typical first year.

Navy's secondary racked up tackles without much disruption last year, and that 124th-ranked havoc rate is the number that actually explains an 11-2 season built on field position rather than takeaways. Giuseppe Sessi (81 tackles) and Phillip Hamilton (49 tackles) anchor a group that returns nearly every key piece, but the passing defense still gave up 230 yards per game, 91st nationally, so the same issue looms. Newcomers Kaden Olson and Nico Hunter add depth, but until this unit turns tackles into takeaways, opposing quarterbacks will keep finding the same soft spots that showed up all last season.

Navy loses Nathan Kirkwood, who was nearly automatic at 10 of 11 with an 83-point season, but the bigger continuity play is Jacob Carlson coming back after a 44.5-yard average that flipped field position all year. Lance Gossett takes over placekicking duties with no game tape to lean on, a real downgrade in proven production for a team that just went 11-2 largely because special teams never cost it a game. If Gossett is even ordinary, this unit still tilts field position Navy's way behind Carlson's leg.

Replacing Everything at Once

Navy loses its entire offensive engine, Blake Horvath's 1580 yards and 12 touchdowns, Eli Heidenreich's 941 receiving yards and Alex Tecza's 902 rushing yards, without adding a single transfer to soften the blow. Braxton Woodson, who threw for just 110 yards last season, is projected to run the offense in 2026, while the defense has to replace Luke Pirris and Landon Robinson without a portal answer either. With zero transfers in and a recruiting class ranked 144th, this is a program betting entirely on internal development to survive its most significant production turnover in years.

Braxton Woodson

Navy ran the option to an 11-2 record with Blake Horvath pulling the strings, and now that job shifts to Braxton Woodson, who has thrown for just 110 yards with no touchdowns. Woodson does not need to sling it in this offense, but he has to protect the ball and manage the mesh point well enough to keep drives alive behind a defense anchored by MarcAnthony Parker and Coleman Cauley. With zero portal additions to lean on, Woodson's growth in game reps is the swing factor for whether Navy's ground game stays as dominant as it was in 2025.

Backed Into Every Game

Navy went 11-2 straight up but covered just 38% of the time, and the gap is starkest at home, where Brian Newberry's team won every game (6-0) yet covered only twice in six tries and went 1-4 as a favorite. Bettors have priced Navy as a near-lock all season, and the result is a program that keeps winning the room while losing the number, including a 3-6 conference cover mark against an 8-1 league record. Until the market stops overcorrecting for those blowout wins, Navy is a buy-low straight-up team and a sell-high spread team.