Navy offensive coordinator Ivin Jasper was disappointed and somewhat frustrated as he stood in the visiting locker room at Ford Stadium and answered questions about his unit’s performance that afternoon.

Navy’s offense had just committed three turnovers and a slew of mental mistakes that proved crucial during an excruciatingly close 31-30 overtime loss to SMU. Jasper had a pained look on his face as he reflected on what had just happened.

“First and foremost, I always look at myself and ask what am I doing to help our players be successful out on the football field?” Jasper said during a somber post-game interview. “When we don’t play well it always comes back to me. I have to go back and look at myself and ask am I calling the right plays, am I giving our guys a good game-plan, am I making things clear?”

While Jasper stood up and accepted the blame, it wasn’t just play-calling from the press box that hampered the Midshipmen against the Mustangs. There were all sorts of issues that day in Dallas, some of which were detailed by Mike James of the Mid Report.

James runs the Navy website on the Rivals network and puts together an in-depth review of each game that uses video clips and analysis to explain why certain plays did or did not work. There was plenty to choose from for the “SMU Debrief” when showing why certain plays were derailed.

In one instance, an offensive tackle fired off the line and reached the second level, but ultimately did not block any defender – running right in-between two linebackers. On another play, backup quarterback Garret Lewis failed to recognize a mesh charge by the defensive end and was thrown for a loss. Starting quarterback Malcolm Perry was tackled for a loss because a wide receiver whiffed on the cornerback he was supposed to block.

Of course, slotback C.J. Williams and fullback Anthony Gargiulo were involved with a chop block penalty that wiped out a 50-yard touchdown pass from Perry to wide receiver Zach Abey.

“We’ve put the SMU game behind, but at the same time we know there were a lot of mistakes during the game that we could have avoided that would have made a big difference,” Jasper said this week. “You take the bye week to self-evaluate and try to get better. “I didn’t coach well and I didn’t call plays very well so I’m focusing on myself. As a football team, we need to get better at our skills, taking care of the football and being assignment-sound.”

Navy is one-third of the way through the 12-game regular season and usually the offense is clicking on all cylinders by this point. That has not been the case as the video clips from the SMU loss clearly show.

“It comes down to execution and normally we’re pretty good at doing that. You play an opponent and it’s their defensive scheme against your offensive scheme and you have to find a way to out-execute them,” Jasper said. “You have to block them properly, make the right read and get the ball where it’s supposed to be in order to gain positive yards. We’ll do it on some plays and not on others.”

Of course, SMU defensive coordinator Kevin Kane deserves credit for out-witting Jasper in the chess match that goes on during every game. Kane used a variety of strategies to thwart the Navy triple-option and in some cases was a step ahead of Jasper.

For instance, Kane had middle linebacker Richard Moore scrape to the outside to defend the perimeter element of the triple-option. Jasper recognized that ploy and dipped into his bag of tricks for ways to combat it, primarily employing misdirection plays. However, Kane picked up on that and suddenly stopped scraping the middle linebacker.

“I always say – there are smart coaches out there that know what they are doing. SMU had a good scheme and out-executed us,” Jasper said. “We turned the ball over and I didn’t call plays that we could execute. I have to do better in order to help this team win football games. That’s my job to put our guys in position to be successful.”

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