Navy head football coach Ken Niumatalolo announced that raider Nizaire Cromartie, linebacker Paul Carothers, center Ford Higgins and quarterback Malcolm Perry have been named team captains for the 2019 season. The captains are elected by a team vote of returning players. This will mark the first time in 139 seasons of Navy football that the Mids will feature four team captains.
“This year we waited to elect our team captains instead of announcing them at the team banquet in January,” said Niumatalolo. “We wanted to go through winter conditioning, our fourth quarter workouts and spring practice before our team voted to give everybody ample opportunity to select captains based on who earned that privilege. I couldn’t be more excited about the captains that our team selected.”
Cromartie is a three-year letterwinner for the Mids and started all 13 games last year at outside linebacker. He finished the year with 58 tackles, 5.5 tackles for a loss and 3.5 sacks. He also forced two fumbles. Cromartie led the team in tackles for loss and was second in sacks a year ago.
Carothers has been mostly a special teams player, seeing action in nine games a year ago and making six tackles. He had an outstanding spring and made a strong push to be a starter in the fall.
Higgins has earned two varsity letters and, like Cromartie, started all 13 games in 2018. Higgins will anchor the line for the second-straight year at the center position.
Perry is a three-year letterwinner and has started 25 games in his career, including all 13 games a year ago. He has made 17 career starts at slot back and eight at quarterback. Perry enters the 2019 campaign with 2,342 career rushing yards, the eighth most in school history, and needs 658 yards next fall to become just the fourth player in school history to rush for 3,000 yards in a career. He is just the fifth player in school history to rush for 1,000 yards in back-to-back seasons and can be just the second to do it three-straight years, joining Keenan Reynolds, if he can accomplish that feat again this year. Perry is one of just four Navy players to have three or more games of rushing for 200 yards or more, while he has two of the five runs in Navy history of 90 yards or more.
Navy opens up the 2019 campaign at home vs. Holy Cross on Saturday, August 31. Season ticket information is available here: http://tinyurl.com/yywb97lx
