Navy's Bryant Has No Regrets

EagleBank Bowl Will Cap a Senior Season That Hasn't Gone as Planned

There are moments, of course, when Jarod Bryant looks back on his senior season at Navy and thinks about what might have been. What if he had been able to make the switch from backup quarterback, the position he played as a sophomore and junior, to starting slotback, the position at which he practiced during the offseason?

Navy Coach Ken Niumatalolo has no doubt that Bryant would have excelled at the playmaking slotback position: "He's got good moves, he's strong, he's tough. He would've been great," he said.

Bryant, however, never got a chance to play slotback during the regular season; he was thrust into the starting quarterback role after senior Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada injured his hamstring in August. But this week, Bryant has been practicing at slotback once again, and Niumatalolo expects him to play there Saturday, as Navy faces Wake Forest in the inaugural EagleBank Bowl at RFK Stadium.

"I can't complain [with how the season played out]. I got my chance to play quarterback, and that's what I came here to do: to play quarterback," said Bryant, who was named Alabama's Mr. Football as a high school senior. "It's kind of funny to look back, and think, 'What if?' But who knows? I think you can say 'what if?' about a lot of things."

When preseason practices began, Kaheaku-Enhada was entrenched as the team's starting quarterback and Bryant was practicing at slotback because Niumatalolo wanted to find a way to get Bryant, a dynamic athlete, on the field. That plan was abandoned once Kaheaku-Enhada got hurt, and Bryant started six games at quarterback.

He has rushed for 481 yards and six touchdowns and completed 51.4 percent of his passes for 275 yards, and the Midshipmen went 3-3 in the games he started. But Bryant was eventually supplanted by sophomore Ricky Dobbs, who excelled off the bench. Bryant was limited to holding for field goals and extra points in Navy's final two games, against Northern Illinois and Army.

"It was tough," Bryant said. "Of course I wanted to be playing quarterback, but I wasn't upset at the coaches. They gave me my chance, and it didn't work out. The only finger I could point was back at myself. Now they're giving me a chance to try some slotback, so I'm going to do that."

Kaheaku-Enhada will start against the Demon Deacons (7-5). Dobbs has not practiced this week because of illness, but Niumatalolo is hopeful that he will be available on Saturday. Kaheaku-Enhada has also had a trying season; he considered quitting after he was unable to finish the game against Temple on Nov. 1. He told Niumatalolo and offensive coordinator Ivin Jasper of his plans, but Jasper refused to let Kaheaku-Enhada walk away from the game.

"I feel like I've done a lot since I've been here, but throughout this season, I haven't done anything," said Kaheaku-Enhada, who is responsible for 246 points (25 rushing touchdowns and 16 passing touchdowns) in his career, the third-highest total in program history. "It's disappointing, especially for me. I do hold myself to a higher standard, and I was nowhere near it this season. It just hurt. I can't explain it. It hurt, and I couldn't stand it."

Kaheaku-Enhada took a month off, and against Army on Dec. 6, he felt as healthy as he's been all season. He played from start to finish in the 34-0 victory, only the second time this season he had done so, and posted modest numbers, rushing for 43 yards and completing 3 of 10 passes for 62 yards and one touchdown. But Navy, as a team, had one of its best offensive performances of the season, piling up 430 total yards, its highest output against a division I-A opponent this year.

Dobbs was listed as the backup quarterback against the Black Knights, but he told Niumatalolo that if there came a point when the second-string offense went in the game, Bryant should get the call ahead of him.

"Ricky had come to me and said: 'Coach, I know Jarod is a senior and it means something to him. Put him in there before me,' " Niumatalolo said. "It just shows the kind of kids we have here."

It also shows the kind of respect that Bryant's teammates have for him. Unfortunately, the Midshipmen's first possession of the fourth quarter started on their 1-yard line, so Niumatalolo opted to keep the starters in. Navy never got the ball back.

Bryant, however, will get his chance to run around on the field on Saturday against Wake Forest. His goal is to have fun. It's his last football game; after graduation, the economics major will begin training as a pilot with the Marine Corps.

"Jarod would do anything for the team," Kaheaku-Enhada said. "He truly is a team player, and he's a captain. I'd really like to see him get on the field and play."