The message was sent at the end of the first half. It came on the day the 1989 national champion Navarro Bulldogs, known for their all-time best defense, were celebrated at halftime of Saturday’s clash of No. 1 Blinn and No. 2 Navarro.

The messenger, Navarro linebacker Brad Graham. The message was sent to Blinn quarterback Cam Newton, the Florida transfer and Jamarcus Russell look-a-like at 6-6, 245 pounds.

The message? Not this year.

Graham put a lick on Newton in the waning seconds of the first half that sent Blinn’s quarterback and his offense on a 19-minute spiral of descent.

“It was a momentum change,” Bulldogs linebacker Brandon Joiner said.

Trailing 17-7, the Buccaneers went the entire third quarter and the early part of the fourth without a first down.

It allowed a sputtering Navarro offense to score the touchdown that ultimately proved to be the difference, even though Newton did get the Bucs’ offense going late in the game with two fourth-quarter touchdown passes as Blinn almost pulled off a late rally for the second straight regular season.

Now the Bulldogs have to make sure and follow through on Graham’s message. They have to come back in two weeks, after they win next week, and hit Newton again.

The Bulldogs were all over the Blinn gunslinger on Saturday, even as he was trying to rally his team with two possessions in the final minutes needing a field goal to tie the game.

It all started with Graham’s sack of Newton late in the first half. Graham broke through and tackled Newton low, the kind of hit that is legal, but will also be squawked about by the opposing players and coaches.

Newton limped off the field and missed Blinn’s final possession of the first half. Graham celebrated the hit, a move that got under Blinn’s skin.

In this writer’s eyes, the impact of the play was huge, though Bulldogs coach Nick Bobeck didn’t agree.

“I really don’t think that,” Bobeck said. “Our kids had a beat on him all day and he came and played in the second half like we knew he would. It was late in the half. I don’t think it was a letdown to them at all. Our defense was doing that to him before he got hurt.”

I’ll agree with Bobeck that his defense was all over Newton for 60 minutes. I’ll respectively disagree about the impact of Graham’s play.

Graham’s hit, or Navarro’s inspired defense in the first half, carried over into the second half when Blinn couldn’t do anything on offense. The pressure on Newton continued in the final minutes as he never was able to get comfortable.

“It’s not uncomfortable in the pocket,” Joiner said. “We want him to feel us. We want him to know we’re there.”

On Blinn’s four plays, the Bulldogs were all over Newton, knocking him down three times and then pressuring him into a throw that never had a chance on fourth-and-10 from his own 17.

The Bulldogs won Saturday on defense. They had a few busted assignments in the fourth quarter, but the Bucs was under tremendous duress.

These Bulldogs can win the national championship and not gain the accolades of that 1989 defense. And that’s fine.

The numbers that group put up — 26 yards rushing per game, 56 points allowed all season and four shutouts — may never been duplicated.

But in today’s college football, what the Bulldogs did to Newton and the Blinn offense is the way you play championship defense.

Don’t give up the big play. Stuff the run. And hit the quarterback -- again and again and again.

The Bulldogs have to do it again in two weeks.

“He’s going to dream about us,” Joiner said. “Nightmares about us.”