Podcast: All things Navy football with Mike James of The Birddog

We're now just a few short weeks from our long, national nightmare of no Buckeye football being over. The Buckeyes will head to Baltimore to battle the Navy Midshipmen on the first game of the season, and it's time to get a little more familiar with the Middies, beyond "hey, they run the option".

In order to get up to speed on service academy football, we chatted with Mike James, of the popular Navy blog, The Birddog. You can follow Mike on Twitter at @navybirddog. I think I learned more from talking to Mike than I have any of my other podcast guests so far, and I hope that you find this discussion as informative and interesting as I did.

As always, you can subscribe to HITHL via iTunes, or check out our previous episodes here. Or, you could just listen below:

On this podcast, we discuss:

• What makes Navy QB Keenan Reynolds so special, and how he compares to other recent Navy QBs
• The real reason why Navy football has been so much more successful than Army in recent memory, and why it goes beyond just coaching.
• The processes Navy goes through while recruiting to overcome their structural disadvantages and remain competitive.
• The other offensive playmakers Ohio State should be aware of besides Reynolds.
• The strengths and weakness of Navy's defense this season, and where they hope to improve on from last year.
• How confident Navy fans are that they can retain head coach Ken Niumatalolo, and the only school he may seriously look at if he leaves Navy.
• What the reasonable expectations are from Navy fans for this year's team, and what they need to do to be considered a success.
• How the Ohio State/Navy game will go.