No Labels.
Some might associate that name with a nascent political movement whose stated mission is to support centrism and bipartisanship. However, the term can also apply to the Navy football offense being installed by newly-hired coordinator Drew Cronic.
What Cronic has done in the past — and plans to do in Annapolis — cannot be defined by one name such as Wing-T, triple-option or run-pass option.
At every stop along the way, as both an offensive coordinator and as a head coach calling his own plays, Cronic has adapted and evolved the offense based on the talent available and the ability of the players to execute certain schemes.
Navy head coach Brian Newberry said Thursday he’s followed Cronic’s career and “admired” what he’s done, whether as offensive coordinator at Reinhardt and Furman or head coach at Lenoir-Rhyne and Mercer.
“He’s had success everywhere he’s been,” Newberry said. “He’s a guy that’s been able to adapt to his personnel, a guy that’s been able to do more with less, a guy that’s taken programs that were not doing well and turn them around quickly.”
Newberry noted that Cronic’s offense at Furman looked dramatically different from his offense at Mercer. However, many of the same concepts and schemes were in place. One constant over the course of Cronic’s career is that his teams pile up lots of yards and score plenty of points.
“I love the things Drew’s done offensively. He’s well-versed in a lot of things and he’s not a system guy who is so stubborn that he can’t work around and do different things,” Newberry said.
Cronic was introduced Thursday afternoon during a virtual news conference along with Newberry. He started off by telling a story about his father, who was a high school coach in Georgia for 35 years.
Danny Cronic was an ardent practitioner of what’s known as the Delaware Wing-T. Drew said his father was “always on the cutting edge of being creative” with the old-school formation.
Drew played quarterback for his father at East Coweta High in Sharpsburg, Georgia, then served as his offensive coordinator at Reinhardt University in Waleska, Georgia. Together, they have taken the base Wing-T and developed an entirely new offense that incorporates spread option principles, run-pass option schemes and much more.
“Over time it’s grown and evolved and gone in different directions,” Drew Cronic said.
Which is why Cronic chuckled when asked if the offense he will install at Navy has a specific name or could be encapsulated by one catch-all phrase.
“If you’re going to pin me down, we’ll call it the hybrid Wing-T slash Sling-T,” he said.
Cronic then suggested that another term might be the millennial version of the Wing-T.
“It’s going to be a hybrid Wing-T offense, but it’s going to marry up with the triple options and it’s going to marry up with the spread option. But you never know. You may see a few RPOs here and there,” he said. “It all depends on what the defense is giving us and what the players do well. Whatever we can do to make all 11 defensive players cover the whole field.”
Newberry would prefer to simply call it “the new Navy offense” and expressed his belief that no other college football team in the country will be employing anything like it. Newberry, entering his second season as head coach, said Cronic’s offense will be “a nightmare for defensive coordinators to prepare for.”
Cronic replaces Grant Chesnut, who was fired after just one season at Navy. The Midshipmen ranked at the bottom of the Football Bowl Subdivision in both total offense and scoring offense in 2023.
Before beginning the search for a new offensive coordinator, Newberry had to determine the direction he wanted to go on that side of the ball. In the final analysis, Newberry believes the formula for success at Navy from an offensive perspective has not changed.
“We want to be a team that wins the time of possession, limits the opposing offense’s possessions and takes care of the football,” he said. “We have to establish the run game from the inside and out and we have to be efficient when we throw the ball.
Newberry noted there are a lot of ways to skin a cat and was most impressed that Cronic achieved those aforementioned goals in a variety of ways at different schools. He described Cronic as a “master of adapting to the personnel” and loved that all his offenses displayed the same characteristics.
“You look at Drew’s teams and they’ve all been disciplined, they’ve all been tough and they all play hard,” Newberry said.
Navy football enjoyed tremendous success from 2003 through 2017 running the “flexbone” triple-option offense developed by former coach Paul Johnson. That system featured double slotbacks positioned just outside the tackle box and a step off the line of scrimmage.
It was a read-based offense designed to give Navy a numbers advantage to the play-side of the field and operated at a high level for a long time. Johnson’s version of triple-option, which was maintained by protege and successor Ken Niumatalolo, enabled the Midshipmen to level the playing field against more talented opponents.
Cronic believes his hybrid Wing-T can achieve the same results because it also is “unique and different.” His offense involves a ton of shifting and a lot of motion designed to distract defenses and keep them off-balance.
That said, Cronic envisions employing some read-based triple-option plays as well. Navy fans can expect to see the quarterback mesh with the fullback and pitch the ball to the slotback.
“I think what I’ve done over the years can hybrid up with that traditional option offense very easily
Cronic readily acknowledged that he likes to pass the football and that doing so is an important element of his offensive package. In an ideal world, Cronic would like to throw the ball 25% of the time and complete 75% of those attempts.
“Over the years with our system, when we’ve been efficient in the passing game we’ve been a problem,” he said.
That requires having a dual-threat quarterback who is equally dangerous running and throwing the ball. However, Cronic has succeeded with various style quarterbacks by simply playing to their strengths. He does believe strongly that a Navy quarterback must be an effective runner to keep defenses honest.
“Obviously we all want the biggest, fastest, most elusive quarterback who can throw it and hit every target,” Cronic said. “I think we’ve adapted to different types of quarterbacks pretty well. Sometimes it’s about getting the best football player and building around him. A lot of it is leadership, toughness and competitiveness at that position.”