It’s been an up and down season for Navy Football. They started the year getting blown out by Notre Dame in Dublin, Ireland. They’ve gone on to have near upsets of teams like Memphis and Air Force, been upset themselves by Temple, and had some great wins including last week’s 31-6 win of UAB.
They’re also the only school in the country to start four different quarterbacks. Tai Lavatai was the guy to start the season until he suffered an injury against North Texas. His backup Blake Horvath would also go down with an injury leaving the job to Freshman Braxton Woodson. Woodson was underwhelming in his start against Air Force, granted, he didn’t receive much help from the rest of the offense.
Then two weeks ago, an under utilized slotback would return to the quarterback room. Xavier Arline, who had started nine games over his previous three seasons at Navy, would earn a start in Philadelphia against Temple. While Navy would lose the game, Arline turned in an impressive performance. After another solid effort in his start against UAB last week he seems to be the guy at that position now to close out the season.
Arline, who also plays on the lacrosse team, has brought a much needed combination of experience, athleticism, and confidence to the position. While Woodson has a bright future with the Midshipmen, he’s shown too many nerves in his first few chances to give the coaching staff a lot of confidence in him going forward this season.
Arline is going to have to be on top of his game. It’s a little crazy that a player who up until a little over a week ago had only had one carry on the season. Now it seems as if Arline is entrusted with leading this program over the course of their final three games, including the biggest game of the season when the Midshipmen take on Army to close out the season.
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