You gotta believe

Sign up for a credit card at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium and receive a free shirt that says “I Believe That We Will Win.”

The slogan comes from a chant the Brigade of Midshipmen started last season. When a Navy victory is no longer in doubt, the chant starts, “I — I believe — I believe that,” and so on until slightly less than 4,000 Mids dressed in uniform chant “I believe that we will win” in a controlled pandemonium.

“The level of enthusiasm is something I’ve never seen in four years here,” said Midshipman 1st Class Travis Amerine, the brigade commander. “I grew up an Arkansas fan and never saw anything like this. We could give the Cameron Crazies a run for their money.”

Navy’s football program is in the midst of a remarkable revival under third-year coach Paul Johnson. After years of losing and more losing, the Mids (5-0) are creeping into the national spotlight — not for losing streaks or blowout defeats but for winning.

And everything started with Johnson’s commitment to reversing the psychological trend in Annapolis. Before these Mids could win, they had to believe.

“I think the attitude here has changed,” Johnson said. “I think that they truly believe we can be successful if we do things right. The assistant coaches have done a nice job with that.”

That attitude will be put to the test today at noon when Navy faces Notre Dame (4-2), a team against which it has dropped 40 straight games, at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.

Navy has won 14 of its last 19 games dating to a historic thrashing of Army to end the 2002 campaign. One more win will make the Mids eligible for a bowl bid for the second straight year. After the tremendous fan support at the Houston Bowl last season (25,000 Navy fans accounted for nearly half the attendance), the less glamorous bowl games with openings probably will line up to woo the Mids.

It is a stark contrast from the stretch of three wins in three seasons that proceeded last year.

Johnson’s triple-option offense, considered the great equalizer for programs that can’t recruit top talent, racks up yards and points that traditional offenses using the same players could not. But the great equalizer for Navy has been the defense, led by defensive coordinator Buddy Green.

The Mids switched to a 3-4 alignment last season, and the results have been dramatic. Teams are scoring 16.6 points a game against Navy this season. To contrast, the Mids held two teams to less than 17 points in 2002 — the only two games Navy won. In nine of the 10 games that year, the opposing team scored at least 30.

There is improvement from last year as well, particularly for nose tackle Babatunde Akingbemi. His progress has allowed Navy’s inside linebackers, Bobby McClarin and Lane Jackson, to move more freely and make plays. The pair is one-two on the team in tackles — last season the safeties finished first and second.

The offense isn’t scoring more points, but it has proved to be more diverse. Quarterback Aaron Polanco is not as gifted afoot as previous stars like Craig Candeto and Chris McCoy, but he more than compensates with a superior throwing ability and awareness in the pocket.

Polanco’s strength also allows him to shed tacklers, whether they are pass rushers or in the open field. Polanco is considered a playmaker, and when Navy’s offense stagnated against Air Force, he rescued it. First he threw a 69-yard pass on third down, and later he ran for 32 yards on a draw to set up a game-winning field goal.

The response in Annapolis has been electric. Players had teachers and fellow classmates congratulating them on the Air Force win for more than a week afterward. This is the latest into a season Navy has been undefeated in 25 years.

“I’m a pretty low-key guy. I try not to get caught up,” said Johnson, who led I-AA Georgia Southern to two national championships before taking the Navy job. “This is more of the norm for me. The first year I was here was awful. This is more of the norm. This is what I’m used to.”

Amongst the congratulatory back slaps and phone calls, left tackle Tyson Stahl received an e-mail from a friend, a 2003 graduate of the academy.

“He said he’d just gotten back to the ship after running operations for who knows how long but he pulled himself out of bed at 2:30 a.m. to watch the Air Force game,” Stahl said. “He went to watch the game, and every academy graduate on the ship was in the room watching the game. It was nuts. He said the motivation it’s had on his guys and the Marines and even the enlisted guys out there — it just gets them fired up because they know they have a football team to root for and be proud of.”

There are 17 senior starters on this Navy team. They have been a part of or watched three losses to Notre Dame — two were excruciatingly close — and could join a long line of former players who never experienced a win over the Fighting Irish.

The last Navy team to beat Notre Dame was the 1963 squad, whose quarterback was Roger Staubach.

“It’s been in the back of our throats for so long, and now it’s on the tip of our tongues,” linebacker Lane Jackson said. “We’ve come so dang close. This is our last opportunity.”

There will be 4,000 Mids in Giants Stadium today. The football players already are in New Jersey, and the rest of the academy will wake up at 3:30 this morning to board buses at 4:15 bound for East Rutherford.

Across the globe on different ships in different oceans and time zones, there will be academy graduates and former football players huddled together in front of televisions at all hours of the day and night to watch this Navy team try to end 40 years of futility.

This team has united the Brigade after years of friction between the football players and the other students. And it has united members of the Navy — past, current, and future — because of one thing.

They all believe.