Army coach Stan Brock had a Q&A recently with Sal Interdonato of the Times Herald-Record. Navy fans might be drawn to the last line where the coach proclaims that he is “very, very close” to winning the CIC Trophy. If he says so. I was more interested in this snippet:
Is there an area you’ve tried to focus your recruiting efforts on?
“I’ve tried to build this program through our prep school. So every year, we recruit a full team to our prep school. So we will have 50 kids down there and we will have a limited amount of kids come in directly. We’re not like USC, the big schools, who have a couple of needs. We really try to build depth. We have very little depth. So, you are always trying to get the best players you can get at all the positions.”
Fifty kids at the prep school? Really? How is this possible? This sounds remarkably similar to Air Force’s modus operandi in the 80s and 90s that almost got all three service academy prep schools shut down once Congress got wind of it. It might have been within the letter of the law at the time, but those bastards on Capitol Hill decided that a taxpayer-funded redshirt isn’t what the prep schools were designed for. Now I’m not even entirely sure that it’s still within the letter of the law, and I really don’t want to find out on 60 Minutes one day. I sure hope the Woops are treading lightly on this one.
I don’t know if Navy ever has a full team of recruited players at NAPS. We’ve always had a lot of walk-on types on the prep school team as long as I can remember– someone correct me if I’m wrong here. Navy players are sent to NAPS only if they need to strengthen their academics before enrolling at the Naval Academy. Coaches don’t even like sending kids to the prep school because there’s no obligation on their part to come to Annapolis afterwards; coaches from other schools can still recruit NAPSters.
Anyway, this looks like something to keep an eye on.
The Birddog 
If their recruiting for MAPS is so great, maybe we ought to start poaching from MAPS. Or is there a prohibition to enter a different service academy than the prep school?
tbd,
Technically if a USNA candidate’s grades (SAT/ACT scores & H.S. GPA) are high enough, … then they will not be offered to attend NAPS. Like you stated, NAPS provides an academic boost/refresher to those Academy candidates that are otherwise highly qualified, … but whose academic background in math/verbal areas either were lacking @ their respective H.S.(ie … no calculus/physics courses offered) or need bolstering to prepare them to handlle the Plebe year academic load. Obviously there are a fairly good number of athletic recruits who probably fit under this “umbrella”. Since the USNA JV team actually plays NAPS twice every year, … it goes to reason that they actually field a full team (+) there.
From what I understand, … the NAPS football team runs the same “O” and “Dee” schemes that the Navy Varsity does, … so doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that it’s a great place for a football recruit (or even “walk-on”) to learn/familiarize himself with the TO “O”, … and certainly gives him a leg up on the direct input Plebes @ summer practice.
Of course the negative side of NAPS is adds on another full year of the Academy restriicted lifestyle to the 4 years @ USNA & then minimum of 5 in the fleet. —> Not exactly a “big selling point” to a young 17/18 year old kid.
I know that NAPS fields a team. What I’m saying is that I don’t think that everyone on the NAPS football team was recruited to be there. I had a lot of friends that played football for NAPS that just walked on once they got there. They rounded out the roster. Brock says that he’s sending almost all of his recruits to USMAPS, with only a few direct admits. At Navy it’s usually pretty evenly split between NAPSters and direct admits.
At Navy it’s purely an academic decision. If what Brock says is true, then that isn’t the case at Army.
I concur w/ you there —> Sure sounds like he is stock-piling (aka … “red-shirting”) players with I guess the intent to build up team depth for the future. Either he is too ignorant to know that’s “illegal” for the SA’s, … or just arrogantly defing the rules (under the guise of “lowering” West Point’s academic standards to bring in better players for future Army teams)???
I think the biggest concern here isn’t really lowering academic standards, exactly… It’s guys getting sent to the prep school for the sake of football when they are otherwise academically qualified for direct admission that worries me.
tbd, … We are both reading from the same sheet of music here —> Obviously it would almost be like “SA Prep School suicide” if in fact Brock/Army tries to replicate what the AFA did back in the ’80s/90s by slotting academically qualified recruits directly to MAPS, … So unless he is really “DUMB” … I’m thinking the ploy may be that Army will be going after “better skilled” players who will not make the “minimum” academic standards that USNA/USAFA normally set the bar at???
Maybe. Or along those lines, maybe the USMA administration is giving the football program a lot more “blue chip” slots in the admissions process.
Or maybe I’m just reading way too much into all of this.
Gotta think about the mindset here —> Stan Brock is an NFL “only”guy whose probable only “goal” is to make Army into a winning program … academics be damned!
You gotta believe that the West Point alums are pretty much sick & tired of Army losing to Navy every season, … and have put forth the dictum to “fix it”!
Just another thought.
GO NAVY!!!
I think that if what you say is true, Brock probably had nothing to do with it. It probably would have come from one of the two “study groups.”
IF it’s true.
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070623/SPORTS/706230343
Theyve been saying they are close to beating Navy and winning the CIC for a few years now and each year we beat the C- -P outta them!
Yawnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
Brock says a lot of silly things. He says Army is very close to winning the CIC yet in same article can’t tell the reporter what type of offense Army will run. Brock is a joke.
Sending otherwise academic qualified students to MAPS and NAPS is serious fraud, waste and abuse.
Examples
Navy is sending two such recruits to NAPS next year. The first one has a 4.2 weighted grade point average, 2100 on the combined SAT’s (in other words the lowest he could have gotten on his verbal/math is 1300 combined) and member of the the National Honor Society. Navy according the Feb. 11, 2008 The Capital article wants him to play offensive tackle because of his quickness, but reading between the lines he is small at 245 lbs but tall at 6’4″ and only started playing football in high school. Apparently, until Navy came calling, this student was thinking of attending Washington and Lee which is always in the top 15 small liberal arts colleges.
The other NAPS recruit is the brother of Kyle Eckel. According to the Feb. 18, 2008 artilce, Kyle was the “anchor” of the 2005 class and was discharged from the Navy and playing for the New England Patriots. If you want to know the horrendous background to one of the Naval Academy’s greatest football players in recent years you can look at this link from the Navy Times http://www.navytimes.com/legacy/new/0-NAVYPAPER-2346524.php . Not pretty.
Anyway his brother is now going to attend NAPS next year as running back. He appears according to the article to be an excellent student going to Archbishop Carroll and has a 3.9 grade point average. He is also very fast with a 4.41 sec. 40 yd, but small at 199 lbs.
Note – the Feb. 18 article lists 38 Navy football players who will attend NAPS next year.
At least two of these players academically should not attend this school. This is joke and real waste of the taxpayers money. This is pathetic and makes both academies appear to have totally lost focus on producing leaders during a war. Why would two academies postpone producing qualified officers to lead soldiers, seaman and marines by a year during a war? How do the academies answer this?
So, SF1865, did you sit on the admissions board for the two examples you cited? Do you know anything about their high school curricula? How heavy in math and science were they? Without knowing that information, how can you possibly declare that they don’t need an additional year to reinforce their academics?
W&L is a fine LIBERAL ARTS school. The Naval Academy is a fine ENGINEERING school. That’s where you should focus to understand why these two are allegedly going to NAPS and not direct admits. I’d venture the opinion that both candidates have been assessed as needing strengthening in their math and science backgrounds before attending USNA. Period.
It’s the admissions board that makes the decision on direct entry or NAPS, not the football staff. Don’t believe everything you read in the papers.
I fail to see how Kyle Eckel’s past is at all relevant to the USNA candidacy of his brother. Nice attempt at trying to drag Navy football through the mud, though. Makes it clear what your actual agenda is with your post.
Yeah, that.
Lost in all this hullaballoo is that Navy football coaches don’t want to send players to NAPS if they don’t have to. Unlike Army and Air Force, Navy’s prep school is 900 miles away. Players can lose touch with Annapolis, and there’s always a lot of attrition. Besides, any supposed weight gain disappears during plebe summer anyway.
No matter how you slice it, it’s a far cry from a football coach clearly stating that he wants to send almost all of his class to the prep school.
Good point PHAT, but MAPS is pretty close to WP. FT Monmouth to WP is about 90 mins.
I know, that was my point.