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Navy quarterback Blake Horvath faces 'double trouble' as Air Force prepares to host undefeated Midshipmen | Air Force Sports

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Navy quarterback Blake Horvath faces 'double trouble' as Air Force prepares to host undefeated Midshipmen | Air Force Sports

A split second can mean everything in sports, and it is in these fragments of time that Navy quarterback Blake Horvath has found his niche.

Horvath completed 68.2% of his passes for 721 yards and seven touchdowns in just 44 attempts this year. He also passed for 450 yards and eight touchdowns while leading an offense that ranked fifth in the country.

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And he has Navy (4-0) just outside the top 25 in the country. The Midshipmen enter Saturday's matchup with Air Force (1-3) as 10-point away favorites for the 10 a.m. game at Falcon Stadium, which will begin competition for the Commander in Chief's Trophy.

“He’s a great athlete,” Air Force linebacker Osaro Aihie said. “When you talk about their great offense, you have a quarterback that can run and throw the ball really well. That's double trouble for you. He’s been outstanding for them this season.”

Horvath's background was fairly typical for a service academy player. As a freshman, he was on the scout team. He moved into the starting lineup as a sophomore, but an injury ended his season after six appearances. And now, as a junior, he's running the show. This isn't like the Navy's Keenan Reynolds or the Air Force's Tim Jefferson, whose talent put them in the driver's seat as freshmen.

But according to Air Force trainer Troy Calhoun, it's the subtleties that make Horvath so effective. Specifically, Horvath can anticipate a route becoming open and has the determination and accuracy to make big plays out of it.

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“Right now, almost every pitch is a first pitch…,” Calhoun said. “I mean, he's just so adept at trusting a delivery and letting the ball go. I mean, it's really impressive. So they don't have to last long and the linemen can really show run block instead of maintaining a pass pro for a long time.

“That’s half a second less that you have to protect. That gives him a little more room to make a throw and also allows those routes to go a little deeper.”

The 6-foot, 195-pound Horvath also ran a 4.47-second 40-yard dash as a recruit, so fractions of a second were an advantage for him as a runner, too.

Horvath did not play against Air Force because he was injured when the two teams met last year. This will be his first service academy game.

He has thrown for at least 100 yards in every game this season, although he has not attempted more than 12 passes in any of them. The Ohio native also has touchdown passes in every game. He also passed for 100 yards twice, including a season-high 211 yards and four touchdowns as the Midshipmen defeated Memphis 56-44 on September 21.

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“He’s getting better and better every week,” Navy coach Brian Newberry said. “He’s a great boy – super smart, very humble. He's having fun. He is happy with what we are doing. Just watching him throw the football, being an effective runner and making great decisions makes the guys around him better. And he’s got a really good supporting cast too, so he’s fun to watch and I’m just really happy with the way he played and led our football team.”

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