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Navy Football Kicks Off in Hawai’i

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Navy To Open Up 2018 Season At Hawai’I
•    Navy (0-0) will kick off its 138th season of football on Saturday at Aloha Stadium (50,000) in Honolulu, Hawai’i against the Hawai’i Rainbow Warriors (1-0).
•    Navy will be making its fourth appearance at Aloha Stadium and its third against Hawaii. The Mids defeated Cal, 42-38, in the 1996 Aloha Bowl and lost to Hawai’i 48-41 in 1999 and 24-17 in 2009. Both of those games were the second-to-last regular-season games of the year. The loss in 1999 eliminated the Mids from bowl contention.
•    This will be the fourth meeting between the two schools and the first since 2013 when Navy defeated Hawai’i, 42-38, in Annapolis.
•    CBS Sports Network will televise the game nationally with John Sadak, Randy Cross and Amanda Balionis on the call.
•    The Navy Football Tailgate Show on WNAV Radio 1430 AM / 99.9 FM will air at 9:00 pm with Wylie Baker and Bill Lusby.
•    Tim Murray will host a one-hour Navy Football Preview Show on WBAL Radio (1090 AM) starting at 9:00 pm.
•    The Navy Football Pregame Show with Tim Murray, Pete Medhurst, Tom O’Brien and Joe Miller will get underway at 10:00 pm on the Navy Radio Network, followed by game action beginning at 11:00 pm with Medhurst, O’Brien, and  Miller on the call on the Navy Radio Network.
•    Following the contest, Medhurst, O’Brien, Miller, and Murray will recap the day’s events in a 30-minute postgame show.


Navy Fast Facts
•    Ken Niumatalolo is in his 11th year as head coach at Navy, making him the longest-tenured coach in school history. With 84 career wins, he is the winningest coach in school history.
•    Navy is 33-14 (.702) over its last 47 games. The Mids own wins over No. 15 Memphis (2015) and No. 6 Houston (2016) during that time period, as well as a win over Notre Dame in Jacksonville (2016).
•    Since joining the American Athletic Conference in 2015, Navy has compiled an overall conference record of 18-6, shared a West Division title in 2015 and won the West Division outright in 2016. Navy’s 18-6 AAC record is tied with Temple for the second-best record within the league over the last three years. USF leads the pack with a 19-5 mark.
•    Over the last five years, Navy is 29-3 (.906) when winning the turnover battle. Last year the Mids won the turnover battle just three times, finishing +2 in a win over Air Force, +1 in a loss to Houston and +3 in a win over Virginia. Navy was even in the turnover battle against FAU (W), Cincinnati (L), SMU (W), Temple (L), Notre Dame (L) and Army (L). The Mids were -1 vs. Tulsa (W), -2 vs. Tulane (W), -2 vs. UCF (L) and -4 vs. Memphis (L).
•    Navy is 54-9 (.857) under Niumatalolo when scoring first, including 5-1 (.833) in 2017.
•    Navy is 70-5 (.933) under Niumatalolo when entering the fourth quarter with the lead, including 7-1 (.875) in 2017.
•    The Mids are 57-13 (.814) under Niumatalolo when scoring 30 or more points in a game and 72-17 (.809) when holding the opposition to under 30 points. In 2017, Navy was 7-0 when scoring 30 or more points and 0-6 when scoring less than 30 points.
• Over the last five seasons, Navy is one of just seven schools that has not lost to a team that finished with a losing record. The other six are Alabama, Auburn, Florida, LSU, Michigan and Ohio State.

Aloha
•    Navy has three players on its roster from the state of Hawai’i: second-team offensive tackle Adam Amosa-Tagovailoa(Ewa Beach), second-team defensive tackle Alema Kapoi (Honolulu) and starting slotback Keoni-Kordell Makekau (Ewa Beach).
•    Navy head coach Ken Niumatalolo is a native of La’ie, Hawai’i and is a 1989 graduate of the University of Hawai’i, where he earned three varsity letters as a quarterback and was a part of the Rainbow Warriors’ first bowl team in 1989.
•    Offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Ivin Jasper is a 1994 graduate of the University of Hawai’i. Jasper was a three-year letter winner playing quarterback and slot back and helped lead Hawai’i to a Western Athletic Conference Championship.

A Family Affair
•    Va’a Niumatalolo, the oldest son of Navy head coach Ken Niumatalolo, is serving as an intern on the Hawai’i coaching staff.  Va’a is a 2018 graduate of BYU where he was a member of the football team for four seasons.

Scouting Hawai’i
•    Hawai’i is coming off an impressive 43-34 victory over Colorado State last Saturday in Fort Collins. The Rainbow Warriors jumped out to a 37-7 lead and never looked back.
•    Quarterback Cole McDonald, making his first career start, ran up 514 yards and five touchdowns of total offense – completed 26 of his 37 pass attempts for 418 yards and three touchdowns and rushed for 96 yards and two touchdowns on 13 carries.
•    Frank Holly III and Dayton Furuta supplemented McDonald’s yards on the ground by combining for another 103 yards as Hawai’i rushed for 199 yards on the day.
•    Cedric Byrd led the Hawai’i receiving attack with 11 catches for 181 yards and a touchdown, while John Ursua caught seven passes for 123 yards and two touchdowns.
•    The Hawai’i defense was led by Solomon Matautia, who recorded 10 tackles and a tackle for a loss, while Ikem Okeke and Penei Pavihi added eight tackles each.

Tough Two Weeks
•    Navy’s game at Hawai’i will kick off at 5:00 pm (HT),  11:00 pm (ET). The last team from the Eastern Time Zone to win at Hawai’i in the regular season was Cincinnati in 2008, when the No. 13 Bearcats won, 29-24.
•    Navy will fly back to Annapolis on Sunday afternoon and will not get back to the Naval Academy until 9:30 am on Monday.
• The Mids will play host to defending American Athletic Conference West Division Champion Memphis at home the following Saturday.
•    Navy is the first FBS team from the Eastern Time Zone to play at Hawai’i one week and have a game the following week since 2004 when Florida Atlantic won at Hawai’i, 35-28, in overtime and then won at North Texas the following week, 20-13.  FAU finished 9-3 that year.

Mids Face Challenging Road Schedule
•    Navy will travel an incredible 26,496 miles this year to its six road and two neutral site games. The Mids play games in Honolulu (9,706 miles round trip), San Diego against Notre Dame (5,334), Colorado Springs (3,366), Dallas (2,734), New Orleans (2,250), Orlando (1,764), Cincinnati (1,084) and Philadelphia against Army (258). Only Hawai’i (38,578) will travel more this year than Navy.
•    The Mids will play five of their final six and seven of their final 10 games away from Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium. No other team in the country will play five of their final six games away from home.

Navy In Season Openers
•    Navy is 6-4 in season openers under head coach Ken Niumatalolo, including a 2-4 mark when opening up away from the friendly confines of its home facility, Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.
•    The Mids’ four opening-game losses under Niumatalolo have come at the hands of Ohio State twice (once in Columbus and once in Baltimore), Maryland (Baltimore) and Notre Dame (Dublin, Ireland)

-Via Navy Athletics

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