Navy’s perfect season was seemingly in jeopardy. Facing a fourth-and-1 on their own 49-yard-line, the Midshipmen trailed by seven points to Temple with 47 seconds remaining.
There wasn’t a phone booth on the field for him to change into, but Blake Horvath transformed into Superman. Out of the shotgun, he took the snap and buried the ball under his right arm as he looked for a path through the bodies ahead of him. He found one, squeezed through it, and then just kept on running — past Temple defenders and into the end-zone, 51 yards, untouched.
With little interest in taking the Owls into overtime, Navy went for a 2-point conversion and Horvath shrugged off a Temple defender and found Alex Tecza in the corner of the end-zone with ease.
Navy is now 6-0 on the season, bowl-eligible, and firmly in the race for the American Championship. And they wouldn’t be there without Horvath, who has made it a habit to wow audiences and pile up yards whenever and wherever the Midshipmen take the field. In this way, he follows in the footsteps of the great Navy quarterbacks that have come before him in the modern era of college football: Malcolm Perry, Will Worth, Keenan Reynolds and Ricky Dobbs.
But there’s something else he has in common with those guys too: He’s being overlooked in the conversation for the Heisman Trophy.
If that award was given out based on statistics and merit, Horvath would be in the race. He leads all quarterbacks and is ninth nationally in rushing yards with 640. He also has 980 passing yards this season, is completing 64.2 percent of his throws and has thrown seven touchdowns. After the win over Temple, he was named a Davey O’Brien Great 8 Quarterback of the Week and a Manning Award Star of the Week.
But so much about the Heisman is based on narrative. The preseason favorite was Texas quarterback Arch Manning, seemingly just because of his last name. He no longer looks like a serious contender for the award and the discussion — and betting odds — have shifted toward Miami’s Carson Beck, Alabama’s Ty Simpson and Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza. All three of those quarterbacks have had strong seasons, but their candidacy is more about their stories. Beck has powered Miami to the top of the ACC, Simpson has led Alabama’s resurgence after a season-opening loss, and Mendoza has Indiana in the mix for a second straight College Football Playoff spot.
None of those quarterbacks, it should be noted, are threats in the run game the way that Horvath is. And one might argue that Horvath isn’t the caliber of passer that they are, but he’s gotten much better, improving his completion percentage and yards-per-attempt this season by noticeable margins.
And if you ask Navy head coach Brian Newberry, it’s easier to teach throwing than it is to have the vision, speed and toughness Horvath possesses as a runner.
“You can develop a guy as a passer more than you can develop as a runner. So, that’s a God-given natural ability that he has,” Newberry said this week. “For what we do offensively, he’s exactly what you want back there… A true dual-threat guy, also very smart and intelligent.”
Indeed, to major in operations research at the United States Naval Academy, you have to be.
Unlike the quarterbacks at the top of betting odds for the Heisman, the story with Horvath is simply that he’s really damn good at football, and gotten a whole lot better since he first arrived in Annapolis as a plebe. And now he’s piloting the Mids to consistency and success in the American.
“He’s certainly not perfect, but he is a special football player, and he’s the guy that you want the ball in his hands when the game is on the line, for obvious reasons,” Newberry said. “When he was a freshman, I didn’t think he threw the ball well enough to play for us. So, to see the way he’s throwing it now, it’s pretty impressive.”
Horvath is on pace to have the best passing season by a Navy quarterback since the turn of the century. Dobbs’ 2010 season is the only time a Navy quarterback has topped 1,500 passing yards in a single year since 2000. Horvath is already two-thirds of the way towards topping that mark.
Last season, he tied Dobbs’ single season record for passing touchdowns with 13. His career yards-per-completion mark, 17.5, is already the second-best in program history to only Dobbs. If his current passer efficiency rating on the year of 186.9 holds, it’ll be the best by a Navy quarterback in a single season.
“I was really impressed with the way he threw the ball a year ago and the development then. I think now it’s just his comfortability in the offense and being able to make the reads really quick and see things a little bit faster,” Newberry said. “But you look at his mechanics, and I think those have even improved from a year ago. He gets the ball out really quick, His footwork is good on his drawbacks and all the things we’re asking him to do. He’s putting the ball in good places.”
Overall, Horvath is averaging 270 yards of total offense per game. That’s more than Beck and Mendoza, and only 19 yards less than Simpson.
The offense drawn up by Drew Cronic and conducted by Horvath is 26th nationally in scoring and is 15th in total offense. It is also, of course, the nation’s top rushing offense, averaging 305 yards on the ground per game.
Soon, Horvath and his teammates will face tougher tests.
Navy is one of five teams in the American with at least five wins. Two of those teams, Memphis and South Florida, are ranked in the latest AP Top 25 Poll, while the Mids and Tulane are receiving votes.
For Navy, the second half of their schedule is much more challenging. In a stretch of four games, they’ll face North Texas, Notre Dame, South Florida and Memphis. What follows then is the American Championship and then the Mids’ annual clash with Army in Baltimore.
How well Horvath runs and throws will be a large determining factor on if those games are wins or losses for Navy. If the Mids come out of that part of the schedule with more Ws than Ls, if they’re in the mix for the American title — and by extension, the Group of Five bid to the Playoff — Horvath should garner praise and credit.
And Heisman Trophy voters need to do the right thing and not overlook him in favor of Power 4 passers.
