Air Force opened their season with a 63-7 win over Morgan State. The following day, head coach Troy Calhoun said this:
As with most things that Calhoun says on Twitter, it was somewhat random. His reaction to a season-opening win was to warn against moving a home game to a neutral site? That’s out of left field, even for Calhoun.
Continue reading “Troy Calhoun Is Bad for Service Academy Football and Needs to Go”
Troy Calhoun really doesn’t want to run an option offense. He said as much when he was hired, claiming that modern defenses were too fast to for his team to rely on an offense that, in his opinion, spends too much time in the backfield. Instead, he wanted a “balanced” offense, mixing in more passing with a tailback that would get 20-25 carries per game. Continue reading “Can’t Have it Both Ways”
In news that will surprise nobody, I don’t like Air Force. There are certain corners of the Navy diaspora that take great offense to that; I’m frequently told that I don’t “get it.” We’re all service academies, after all. One team, one fight, right? If you say so. I’ve always felt that was a one-way sentiment on the part of some Navy fans, based more on wishful thinking than anything else. You never saw any Air Force fan upset over Fisher DeBerry taking cheap shots at Army or Navy, did you? Of course not. If you asked them, Navy fans like me were just bitter because Air Force won so many games.
That’s nonsense, of course. Those of us who grew up as Navy fans in the ’80s and ’90s were used to seeing the Mids lose to just about everybody, so there was nothing special about Air Force in that regard. No, this was different. When you talked to people in and around the Navy program, you would hear stories about some of Air Force’s recruiting tactics that really caught you off guard. Fans of every school have stories that they heard from a friend of a friend about how their rival does shady things, so it’s easy to dismiss these things. Besides, Fisher DeBerry’s gone now, so everything’s different, right?
One of these teams is 3-1. One of them is 2-3. Probably not the ones you would have expected back in August.
Does Rich Ellerson’s job hang in the balance on Saturday?
You didn’t think I was going to sit this one out, did you?
Screw you, DOD, for even bringing us to this point. Screw you right in the face.
I assume this only applies to the Air Force game and that the Duke game is still up in the air, but hopefully we’ll get word on that soon. For now let’s just beat the crap out of Air Force and figure out if there’s a way to blame Troy Calhoun for all of this.
The government’s fiscal year begins on October 1 every year, which means that any government shutdown caused by the inability to pass a budget will probably happen during football season. In the past, that didn’t make much of a difference to Navy football:
1976
The federal government was in partial shutdown from September 30-October 11.
10/02/76 – Navy played Boston College in Annapolis
10/09/76 – Navy played Air Force in Colorado Springs
1977
The federal government was in partial shutdown three times; from September 30-October 13, October 31-November 9, November 30-December 9.
10/01/77 – Navy played Duke in Durham
10/08/77 – Navy played Air Force in Annapolis
11/05/77 – Navy played Syracuse in Annapolis
1978
The federal government was in partial shutdown from September 30-October 18.
9/30/78 – Navy played Boston College at BC
10/07/78 – Navy played Air Force in Colorado Springs
10/14/78 – Navy played Duke in Annapolis
1979
The federal government was shut down from September 30-October 12.
10/06/79 – Navy played Air Force in Annapolis
1982
The federal government was shut down from September 30-October 2.
10/02/82 – Navy played Duke in Durham
1983
The federal government was shut down from November 10-14.
11/12/83 – Navy played South Carolina in Columbia
1986
The federal government was shut down from October 16-18.
10/18/86 – Navy played Penn in Annapolis
1990
The federal government was shut down from October 5-9.
10/06/90 – Navy played Air Force in Colorado Springs
1995
The federal government was shut down from November 13-19.
11/18/95 – Navy played Tulane in Annapolis
To be fair, not every government shutdown is the same. Regardless of the nature of the shutdown, though, Navy football was never forced to cancel a game. Contrary to some reports you might have read, Navy’s athletic department isn’t government-operated. There is no reason that the Navy-Air Force game should be cancelled this weekend. The order by the Department of Defense to cancel service academy athletic competitions is strictly a PR move.
One of the Mountain West’s biggest talking points through all the conference realignment turmoil has been their “stability.” That’s just spin, of course. All “stability” really means is that you don’t have anyone left in your conference that another league might want.
The American Athletic Conference doesn’t have that “stability,” which is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because it means that the conference still has some name-brand programs adding to its appeal. It’s a curse because, well…
The Birddog 