Navy sticks with successful formula with new head coach

By: BRIAN HIRO - Staff Writer | Sunday, December 16, 2007 10:24 PM PST ∞

SAN DIEGO ---- If it ain't broke, why fix it? That's the sort of homespun, Southern-fried wisdom that was the calling card of former Navy football coach Paul Johnson. It's also the theory to which the Naval Academy subscribed in replacing Johnson, a North Carolina native who returned to his roots when he left to take the head job at Georgia Tech earlier this month.

Five years ago, Johnson inherited a program that had gone an abysmal 1-20 in the previous two seasons and that many college football observers assumed could never again compete in a modern era dominated by ever larger and faster athletes.

All Johnson did was compile a record of 45-29, beat rival Army each of the six times he faced the Cadets and lead the Midshipmen to five consecutive bowl games ---- including this year's Poinsettia Bowl, Navy's second appearance in the game's three-year existence.

So when it came time to hire a successor, Navy wasn't about to start from scratch. The day after Johnson departed on Dec. 7, the academy promoted 42-year-old assistant Ken Niumatalolo, who will lead the Midshipmen out of the tunnel when they play Utah on Thursday night at Qualcomm Stadium.

"He's done a great job as far as easing the transition," senior slot back Reggie Campbell, who scored five touchdowns against Colorado State in the inaugural Poinsettia Bowl two years ago, said Sunday following Navy's first practice at UC San Diego. "There has been no drastic change."

More accurately, there has been virtually no change whatsoever. Missing from the team is Johnson's folksy wit ---- he memorably told a reporter this season, "If you could ever find one time that I said we won the game because of brilliant strategy, I will kiss your butt at city dock and give you two days to draw a crowd" ---- but little else is different.

For both this week's game and the future, Niumatalolo will retain the cold-bloodedly efficient triple-option attack that led the nation in rushing each of the past three seasons (an unprecedented feat in Division I-A), as well as most of the assistants responsible for making it hum.

"It's been good to us," Niumatalolo said. "We've had success. We're going to try to keep as many coaches here as we can and try to keep the continuity of the program."

Niumatalolo was a natural choice to step into Johnson's shoes, because their intertwined history suggests that they share one football brain. It all goes back to the late 1980s, when Niumatalolo was a quarterback at Hawaii running the option for Johnson, then the school's offensive coordinator. After Niumatalolo graduated in 1989, a recommendation from Johnson helped him catch on as a graduate assistant, and Hawaii hired him full-time in 1992.

When Johnson became Navy's offensive coordinator in 1995, he brought Niumatalolo with him, and the young coach replaced his mentor in that post after Johnson left to take over the Georgia Southern program two years later.

Out of Johnson's considerable shadow, Niumatalolo helped Navy go 7-4 in 1997 ---- the academy's second-best record in almost two decades ---- then went to Nevada Las-Vegas to install the triple option in a conference known for its aerial circuses.

He returned to Annapolis, Md., as assistant head coach and offensive line coach at Johnson's behest. Ever since, Niumatalolo has been instrumental in the implementation and operation of the country's most consistently unstoppable rushing offense.

"He's been everything to me," Niumatalolo said of Johnson, eight years his senior. "If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have gotten into coaching. A lot of the things I do are from him ---- a lot of my philosophy, a lot of the football schemes."

When Niumatalolo surveys the field Thursday, he will do so as the first Polynesian head coach in Division I-A history, which is inspirational for Navy's Polynesian quarterback, Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada.

"It gives hope to a lot of Hawaiians that, hey, there's one of our people out here making it," Kaheaku-Enhada said. "It helps people to dream of bigger and better things."

Johnson taught plucky Navy players to dream of bigger and better things. This season, he even helped them realize the impossible dream, knocking off Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., to end the Irish's NCAA-record 43-game winning streak in the series.

Niumatalolo knows that's a tough act to follow. If he fails, however, it won't be because he altered a winning formula ---- that much is for certain.

"The core of everything that we do is the same," he said. "... Hopefully, we can keep it going."

Contact staff writer Brian Hiro at b_hiro@hotmail.com.