Senior quarterback Braxton Woodson rushed for a career-high 200 yards and three touchdowns as Navy piled up 506 rushing yards in a 42-15 season-opening win over Towson on Saturday before a crowd of 32,654 at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium — Navy’s largest home-opener crowd since 36,208 turned out against Delaware in 2013.
Woodson carried the ball 23 times for an 8.7-yard average, scoring on runs of 38, eight, and four yards. It was the most rushing yards by a Navy player since Blake Horvath ran for 211 against Memphis in September 2024. “I thought he ran the offense today and made good decisions,” Navy head coach Brian Newberry said. “I think Braxton’s got a chance to be a really special player for us. The way they were playing us defensively today, they were pretty loose, so there wasn’t a need to really throw the football. We kind of took what they gave us today, and I’m proud of a lot of things that we did offensively.”
Navy’s 506 rushing yards on 73 carries were the 12th-most in program history and the most since the Midshipmen ran for 559 against SMU in 2017; the 73 attempts tied for the eighth-most in school history. Navy finished with 527 total yards and 30 first downs — its most first downs since 32 against SMU in 2022 — while converting 7 of 12 third downs and all three fourth-down tries. The Midshipmen controlled the ball for 39:50 to Towson’s 20:10 and scored on six of nine possessions. “We’re super fired up about that,” said senior offensive lineman Hoke Smith II. “That’s a goal of ours, rushing for 500 yards a game. That’s an offensive lineman’s dream come true, getting to run the ball 73 times and going for over 500 yards. It doesn’t get any better than that.”
Navy struck first after forcing a three-and-out, with Woodson capping a six-play, 75-yard drive with a 38-yard score for a 7-0 lead. The Midshipmen made it 14-0 on the next drive when senior running back Vic Listorti, who entered the game with just three career carries, broke off a 35-yard touchdown run — the first of his career — on the way to a career-best 81 yards on 11 carries. Towson answered on the first play of the second quarter when quarterback Andrew Indorf hit Aaron Enterline for a 48-yard touchdown, though a missed extra point kept the deficit at 14-6.
Navy pushed back to 21-6 when junior quarterback Jackson Gutierrez scored his first career touchdown on a three-yard run, but Towson answered again 1:42 later on a 30-yard Indorf-to-Jacob Zollar strike, with a failed two-point try trimming the margin to 21-12. Navy closed the half in style: after forcing another Towson three-and-out, the Mids drove 50 yards in eight plays, with Woodson finishing an eight-yard touchdown run with 24 seconds left for a 28-12 halftime lead.
The Midshipmen took full control to open the second half, chewing 7:14 off the clock on a 13-play, 75-yard drive that Gutierrez capped with a two-yard touchdown for a 35-12 lead. “It’s such a blessing to be able to score a touchdown and be able to play in that game,” Gutierrez said. “Braxton got the ball down the field and I was lucky enough to punch it in the end zone. We did a lot of good things, and I’m super excited for next week.” Gutierrez finished with 31 yards and two touchdowns on eight carries; he and Woodson became the first pair of Navy quarterbacks to each score multiple rushing touchdowns in the same game since Malcolm Perry and Zach Abey did it in the 2017 Military Bowl.
Towson trimmed the deficit to 35-15 on a 40-yard Zaydaan Faridi field goal with 3:14 left in the third, but the Tigers didn’t score again. Woodson capped his day early in the fourth quarter with a four-yard touchdown run to finish a 12-play, 65-yard drive, making it 42-15 with 8:39 to go. Towson head coach Pete Shinnick credited Navy’s quarterback afterward. “We knew containing their quarterback was going to be difficult, and it turned out to be difficult,” Shinnick said. “He’s a very good player. We overran him a couple times, we were tight on him a couple times, he’ll go inside or he’ll go outside. You have to be perfect. Credit to him, credit to Coach [Drew] Cronic and his offense. They do an amazing job.”
Navy’s defense held Towson to just 39 rushing yards on 20 carries and 246 total yards. Junior linebacker MarcAnthony Parker led with nine tackles, senior cornerback Ira Oniha added six, and Marcus Bleazard, Aiden Lyczek, and Connor Young each recorded a sack. “The run defense, everybody was just doing their job,” Parker said. “We all just stayed in our gaps. Communication-wise, they came out a little different, stuff we expected, but I think for the most part, we did pretty good on the run defense. I think it’s just communication that we have to be better on.” Indorf finished 13 of 18 passing for 208 yards and two touchdowns for Towson, but the Tigers converted just 2 of 8 third downs and scored only three points after halftime.
Despite the 27-point margin, Newberry saw plenty to clean up. “There are things you worry about going into game one, some jitters and things like that that we certainly had a little bit today at times,” he said. “I thought defensively we were a little bit sloppy. Some miscommunications, guys not getting the call. But I told the guys in the locker room, never get fooled by an outcome and think that we’re something we’re not because we got a way to go, and we just got to really continue to get better each week.”
The win gives Navy its third straight season-opening victory, the program’s first such streak since 2015-17, and its fourth consecutive home-opener win, the first time that’s happened since a five-game run from 2015-19. Navy, which received 10 points in the preseason AP poll, travels to Florida Atlantic next Saturday for its American Conference opener.
