Charlotte 49ers decimated by No. 25 Navy on the road

CHARLOTTE SPORTS INFORMATION

Charlotte receiver Duane Thomas snares a pass in the 49ers' 51-17 loss to Navy Oct. 19, 2024 in Annapolis, Maryland. Charlotte fell to 3-4, 2-1 in the American Athletic Conference with the loss while No. 25 Navy improved to 7-0, 3-0.

The Charlotte 49ers were never competitive in a 51-17 loss to No. 25 Navy.

Charlotte didn’t have the rhythm of two weeks ago when they cruised past East Carolina, with turnovers the primary factor early. Coming off an idle week, the 49ers were anything but sharp against the No. 25 Midshipmen.

“God never does anything to you; he does it for you,” Charlotte coach Biff Poggi said. “He is always in control. We learned a lot of things tonight. Our players learned a lot of things tonight and so did the coaches. Congratulations to Navy, I think they have an excellent football team. They are incredibly well coached and what they do, they do it well. If you are going to get the tar beaten out of you, you mind it less if it’s the United States Naval Academy.”

Charlotte inserted quarterback Max Brown into the lineup, who missed the last four games due to injury. The rust was evident: he tossed two touchdowns, but also two early interceptions that led to Navy points, and three total on the game.

“I thought Max showed a lot of rust,” Poggi said. “He showed what it looks like when you haven’t played in four and a half weeks. This is a high-level league with good coaches and good players. There was some rust there. I think the thing with that was just being able to pull the trigger. He really had trouble doing that and we had receivers down there open.”

Poggi credited the Midshipmen’s defense although Charlotte’s issues were self-inflicted. Navy made things difficult for the 49ers to get rolling on offense.

“[Navy’s defense] played hard, and they are a good defense,” he said. “But, we had almost 400 yards of offense in rushing and passing. What we left on the table was significant in the pass game, very significant.”

After leading Charlotte to the 49ers to a pair of wins, freshman quarterback Deshawn Purdie didn’t get into the game when Brown was struggling. As it turned out, he sustained an injury against East Carolina two weeks ago.

“Deshawn actually broke his thumb against East Carolina,” Poggi said. “So, he had surgery the Monday of the bye week. It was his non-throwing hand, but we weren’t going to risk playing him. We weren’t going to risk it if he gets [his hand] hit on a helmet. He will be ready to go within another week.”

Navy quarterback Blake Horvath imposed his will on the 49ers, throwing for three touchdowns and rushing 13 times for 56 yards, which was second on the team. Navy’s triple option attack allows Horvath to do many things that no one has been able to contain.

“No one has been able to stop [Horvath],” Poggi said. “He does it all. He runs, he throws, and he makes great decisions. I thought he played great. I think he is a really good player. I will say this; holding Navy to 288 [yards of offense] is pretty dang good. Holding them to under 200 yards rushing is pretty good. You can’t play a one-sided football game and our offense didn’t give our defense any help. As a matter of fact, our offense really hurt our defense today.”

The road doesn’t get any easier for the 49ers, who play at Memphis next week.

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