The 10 Most Notable Games from Navy-American Athletic Conference History: #1

On By MikeIn American Athletic Conference, navy football13 Comments

1949: Navy 21, Tulane 21

Among the members of the American Athletic Conference, no team has faced Navy more than the Tulane Green Wave. The two have squared off against each other 19 times dating back to 1949. Looking back on this list I’ve put together, Tulane is probably underrepresented. It wouldn’t be too difficult to come up with a pretty decent list made up of Navy-Tulane games alone.

Why don’t we give it a try?

Continue reading “The 10 Most Notable Games from Navy-American Athletic Conference History: #1” →

The 10 Most Notable Games from Navy-American Athletic Conference History: #2

On By MikeIn American Athletic Conference, navy football12 Comments

1960: Navy 26, SMU 7

The Naval Academy has produced two Heisman Trophy winners. While Joe Bellino was the first to win the award in 1960, he tends to be overshadowed some by Roger Staubach. Staubach’s professional accomplishments certainly contribute to that, as does the fact that he played quarterback, football’s most celebrated position. The 1963 team’s legendary status among Navy fans also plays a part. Navy has been blessed with other excellent running backs, too, like Eddie Meyers, Napoleon McCallum, and several fine runners in the current triple-option era, making it more difficult for some of Bellino’s statistical accomplishments to stand out. As ridiculous as it may sound, one could say that Bellino– the Heisman Trophy winner, Maxwell Award winner, and consensus All-American– is actually underrated.

It shouldn’t be that way.

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Navy defensive coordinator Buddy Green to take sabbatical – Capital Gazette

On By MikeIn navy football4 Comments

Navy defensive coordinator Buddy Green to take sabbatical – Capital Gazette.

Losing Coach Green in any capacity is a significant blow. Fortunately, if anyone can step in and call the plays on Saturdays, it’s Coach Pehrson, who has seen everything that’s worked and not worked at Navy since 1996. Game day duties are only one part of the equation, though. Coach Green is one of Navy’s best recruiters, covering the Carolinas. And while he will apparently continue his role in film study and game prep, he has additional responsibilities in coaching Navy’s secondary. Coach Jones, who also coaches the secondary, will presumably pick up that slack, but it remains to be seen how the staff will adjust to make up for Green’s absence during the week.

 

The 10 Most Notable Games from Navy-American Athletic Conference History: #5

On By MikeIn American Athletic Conference, navy football12 Comments

2008: Navy 33, Temple 27

The history of Navy’s football program over the last 60+ years has been one of extremes. When things have been good, they’ve been really good. The ’50s and ’60s were glory days by any definition, with the Mids producing multiple top-20 finishes, Heisman winners, and playing for a national championship. The George Welsh years ended with four consecutive winning seasons (five if you include Gary Tranquill’s first season), three bowl berths, nationally ranked defenses, and the occasional appearance in top-25 polls. Paul Johnson led the Mids to five straight winning seasons that each ended with a bowl berth, beat Notre Dame, finished ranked #24 in 2004, and never lost to Army.

Between those happier days were absolute deserts of futility. Navy played for the national championship in 1963, but only had two winning records over the next 14 years. Things were even worse after George Welsh left for Virginia, as the Mids could manage only three winning records from 1982-2002. They had twice as many seasons with two wins or less over the same period. Things got so bad that in 1994, Sports Illustrated suggested that Navy drop to Division I-AA. People weren’t exactly lining up to write dissenting opinions.

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The 10 Most Notable Games From Navy-American Athletic Conference History: 6-10

On By MikeIn American Athletic Conference, navy football16 Comments

The last decade of college football was defined by conference realignment. The ACC lured Miami and Virginia Tech away from the Big East in 2004 in the first moves that would eventually change the face of college athletics as we knew it. BCS conferences added schools that they hoped would drive up the value of television contracts coming up for renegotiation. Conferences had to attract more viewers if they wanted to generate more money from bidding networks.

For some, that meant expanding into areas beyond their traditional regions. For others, it meant adding whoever they could just to survive. The result in both cases has been a lot of seemingly bizarre partnerships. Rutgers shares the same conference home as Nebraska. West Virginia vs. Texas Tech is now an annual contest. The Catholics are going in halvsies with the Convicts. It’s a lot to get used to.

Fortunately, that’s not the case for the Naval Academy. While some American Athletic Conference members will be making their first appearances on a Navy schedule, others have been playing the Mids for years. Among FBS conferences, only ACC and Big Ten members have played more games against Navy than the schools in the American. The Mids have faced their new conference-mates 62 times, beginning in 1930 with SMU’s trip to Baltimore. That’s a wide spectrum of Navy history, and it includes some significant moments. Here’s a look back at the 10 that I think are the most noteworthy.

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Navy-Notre Dame Headed to San Diego In 2018

On By MikeIn navy football14 Comments

NAVYSPORTS.COM – The Official Web Site of Naval Academy Varsity Athletics – Navy-Notre Dame Football Game To Be Played In San Diego In 2018.

Navy has a long football history with San Diego. The Mids won the first Holiday Bowl in 1978 and played at San Diego State in 1994 and 1997. The large naval presence in the city makes it a home away from home for the Mids, so much so that when the San Diego Bowl Game Association created the Poinsettia Bowl in 2005, they did so with Navy in mind.

That thinking paid off. Navy has appeared in the Poinsettia Bowl more than any other team, and attendance has been much higher in those games. The average attendance for Poinsettia Bowls without Navy is 30,076. The average with Navy is 39,272, including the three highest-attended games.

Unfortunately for the bowl committee, Navy’s membership in the American means that they will no longer be playing in the Poinsettia Bowl; eligible Navy teams will instead be selected by one of the conference’s contracted bowls. By bidding on the Navy-Notre Dame game, the SDBGA is able to maintain their relationship with the Naval Academy, with the added bonus of tapping into Notre Dame’s traveling roadshow (which incidentally has never been to San Diego). 

We’ve known of San Diego’s interest in this game for a few months now, but so far there hasn’t been any news about the 2020 game. Baltimore has traditionally hosted most of Navy’s higher-profile games, but could that be changing? As an independent, Navy had a history of playing games around the country. Now that they are a member of the American, their schedules are going to consist of 8 conference games plus Army, Notre Dame, and Air Force every year. Maybe playing Notre Dame in more non-traditional locations is a way to keep that coast-to-coast element to Navy’s schedules.

We’ll find out when the 2020 game is announced. In the meantime, as a San Diego native living in Jacksonville, the last two weeks have been pretty good to me.

Can’t Have it Both Ways

On By MikeIn air farce, navy football9 Comments

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” →

What Happened to Stadium Expansion?

On By MikeIn American Athletic Conference, navy football11 Comments

Navy accepted the Big East’s invitation to join the conference as a football-only member 3 years ago, but didn’t officially become a member of the now-American until this month. That’s a long time compared to other schools joining new leagues. Instead of making it easier to join a new conference, being independent actually made things more difficult. Navy couldn’t just trade one conference schedule for another. Without those 8 fixtures every year, Navy had a lot of scheduled games that either needed to be played, bought out, or otherwise dealt with. They couldn’t have joined right away even if they wanted to.

While it might have been fun for the Mids to have been part of a BCS conference in that system’s last hurrah, the 3-year wait was probably better for Navy in the long run. Rather than jump into the league and work things out as they go, the program had the opportunity to evaluate itself relative to their new peers and target areas where improvement were needed. A good example of this is how Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium was brought up to Big East/American standards.

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Navy-Notre Dame Coming to Jacksonville?

On By MikeIn navy footballLeave a comment

The Gator Bowl and Jacksonville have been trying to bring a Navy game to town for years. In 2005 they tried to put a game together with Florida State, and when that didn’t work out, they set their sights on Navy-Notre Dame. It appears that the latter is finally going to happen, with a press conference reportedly scheduled for Wednesday. If so, it’s a big win for Jacksonville. When the Jaguars were trying to convince the Jacksonville city council to approve a renovation of EverBank Field, college football was a big part of the sales pitch. A more modern stadium, it was argued, would allow Jacksonville to bid for the national championship game, help return the profile of the Gator Bowl to its historical levels, and would help to attract more neutral-site regular season games. On that last point, Navy-Notre Dame was the one game specifically mentioned in the presentation. It took a couple of years to finalize, but it appears that it’s finally going to happen.

Paul Johnson made a couple of trips to Jacksonville when he was Navy’s head coach, doing the usual alumni wine-and-cheese tour as well as talking to the Jacksonville Quarterback Club. In each visit, he stressed the importance of scheduling games in Florida. Maybe that was just a way to throw a bone to the locals, but I don’t think so. One of the biggest reasons why Navy wanted to be placed in the American’s West division was to maintain a presence in Texas for recruiting. The Mids have tried to schedule a game or two with a Texas or Oklahoma team almost every year, and Texas players have been the cornerstone of Navy rosters for years. Navy recruits Florida just as hard, but it’s a tougher sell when recruits aren’t as familiar with your program. The Mids have played in Florida only 3 times in the last 40 years, with the most recent game being the 2000 Notre Dame game at the Citrus Bowl. That will quickly change thanks to Navy’s membership in the American, with future schedules now including regular games against USF and UCF. Playing Notre Dame in Jacksonville will only serve to make Navy’s Florida presence even better. The Mids will play games in Florida 4 times in the next 4 years, not including the potential of playing in one of the American’s several Florida bowl games.

Jacksonville isn’t as big as San Diego, but it takes just as much pride in being a Navy town. The large Navy presence combined with Notre Dame’s ability to draw anywhere should make this game a success. Most importantly, I live in Jacksonville, so neener neener I win.