With 3:59 left at Falcon Stadium on Saturday, sophomore safety Max Mustell dropped Navy's quarterback for a 10-yard sack, one quarter after he had already broken up a third-down pass; late in the third, Jayden Oquendo punched the ball loose and Alexander Perez fell on it. Blake Fletcher led the team with 10 tackles. Air Force won 14-9, beating Navy for the first time since 2023, and the number that explains the margin is Navy going 1 for 11 on third down while the Falcons held the ball 36:01 to 23:59.
That is the kind of day Air Force fans had been told to expect from this defense and had not consistently seen. Steve Russ, who coordinated UAB's defense in 2025 before returning to the Academy this year (Mike Thiessen stayed put as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach), is the coordinator whom safety Max Mustell said always emphasizes turning second-and-long into third-and-long, the plan the unit credited for the third-down shutdown. His first game back was similarly stingy. Duquesne managed 107 yards and threw two interceptions, to Mustell and Korey Johnson. The middle of the season was not.
So the Navy performance is real evidence, not proof. What makes this week interesting is that the opponent lets the defense show the same thing twice. Northern Illinois out-gained Georgia State 432-342 and held the ball longer in its last game, then converted just 3 of 13 third downs and lost anyway. That is precisely the failure mode that plan is built for. The Huskies rank 129th nationally in total offense and 126th on third down, with a rushing attack averaging 79.3 yards per game, while Air Force is second in the FBS in rushing at 297.3 yards per game and second in time of possession. If the Falcons' scheme is an identity rather than a good week, this is where it should look obvious. Short possessions for NIU, long ones for Air Force.
One caveat on the front is that Chaz Barnett missed the Nevada game with an injury, and Noah Daniels started in his place.
The offense is still the open question
Liam Szarka's two first-half rushing touchdowns were all the scoring Air Force got. He also threw two interceptions and hit Simon Kibbee for 23 yards on fourth down to set up the second score, and the offense did not put up a point after halftime. Fourteen points beat Navy. Against a defense allowing 386 yards a game, 14 would be a disappointment, and a clean passing game, or simply no giveaways, is the thing that would make this week feel like progress instead of a box checked.
Watch Szarka's legs early, too. He went down late in the third quarter with an apparent right calf injury, was looked at in the medical tent and missed one offensive play before returning. He is the run game.
Air Force at Northern Illinois
Kickoff is 7:30 p.m. ET Saturday on CBSSN, Northern Illinois's first Mountain West home game. The model gives Air Force a 71% chance to win. The conference-title-game math is lopsided in the usual way for a team in this position. A win leaves Air Force around 13.6% to reach the Mountain West championship game, a loss drops that to roughly 3%. Those are two different versions of Saturday night, not a sequence.
Context for why a routine-looking road trip matters. Air Force got to its second win of the season back in Week 4, far quicker than 2024, when the second win took until the ninth game, or 2025, when it took seven. And the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy, Air Force owns 21 of them and a 66-42 record in the competition, now comes down to one game, at Army on November 7. Beat the Black Knights and it is back in Colorado Springs. That makes the next five weeks about arriving at West Point healthy and playing well, which starts with not letting a winless homecoming crowd in DeKalb turn into a story.
North Dakota State at UNLV: root for UNLV
A 7 p.m. ET start on The CW Network, and the one outside result worth a glance. Every conference loss the Bison take is a game Air Force does not have to make up in the standings. UNLV wins this about 42% of the time; if the Rebels do, Air Force's title-game odds sit near 12.4% rather than about 9.1%. A swing of roughly 3.3 percentage points. Air Force does not play North Dakota State this season, so UNLV is the only team that can put a conference loss on the Bison on the Falcons' behalf.
Full numbers are in the interactive guide, and the model is explained in the methodology.