I went to the Navy-UAB game in Birmingham back at the end of September. This was the same weekend as the Georgia-Alabama game in Tuscaloosa, so I was surrounded by college football fans at the airport the following morning. My flight was at 5:30 a.m., and when I arrived, the TSA gates hadn't opened yet. I waited in line next to a bunch of Alabama fans. One of them saw my Navy hat and started a conversation with me. "Hey, you guys have a good team this year! Army-Navy is going to be huge!" After I got through security, I sat down at my gate and pulled out my laptop to get a head start on the game debrief. Another Alabama fan was sitting across from me and echoed that sentiment. "Were you here for the game? I saw the score! Army-Navy is going to be something, huh?"
Army-Navy is already popular, but when you have Alabama fans talking about it in September, you know people are paying attention. That's what happens when both teams are very good. Navy is 8-3. They're 4-1 against the top half of the American Athletic Conference, including a win over #25 Memphis. Army, of course, is 11-1 and champions of the AAC after dominating Tulane on Friday night. It's the first time since 2017 that both teams have entered the game with a winning record, and only the fifth time in the last 50 years.
One of those occasions was the 1996 game, and this year has a similar vibe to me. The '96 game was similarly in the national spotlight. Only two years earlier, Sports Illustrated had published a column calling for both Army and Navy to drop to I-AA because they were no longer competitive. But 1996 was a rebound in grand fashion. Navy entered Army-Navy with an 8-2 record, fresh off a win over Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Army was 9-1 and ranked 23rd in the AP Poll. Neither team's situation was quite as dire coming into this year, but they were both in a period of uncertainty coming off of a lackluster 2023. Both teams hired new offensive coordinators after their previous adjustments to the cut blocking rules were unsuccessful, and those coordinators have revitalized their teams. And like 1996, both teams beat Air Force, which puts the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy on the line.
Army won that game 28 years ago, and if Navy wants a different outcome this time around, they'll have to get past the best Black Knight team in a generation. Quarterback Bryson Daily is the American's Offensive Player of the Year, rushing for 1480 yards and a whopping 29 touchdowns. He isn't the only 1,000-yard rusher in the backfield, either, with fullback Kanye Udoh adding 1064 yards and 10 TDs of his own. All five offensive linemen are on the all-conference first or second team. Defensively, Army is led by all-conference safety Max DiDomenico, while linebackers Andon Thomas and Kalib Fortner have combined for 154 tackles. Outside linebacker/rush end Elo Modozie is fourth in the conference with 5.5 sacks.
With all these playmakers, it’s no surprise that Army went through their conference schedule unblemished. But that’s just it: it wasn’t a surprise. Did Army beat anyone that you wouldn’t have picked them to beat at the beginning of the season? Maybe Air Force and UTSA, since those teams were both disappointing. But Army had beaten those two even when they were at their best. Tulane is the obvious answer, especially after the beating they put on the Mids. But even that game lost some of its shine after the Green Wave lost to Memphis. Throughout the year, you rarely got the sense before a game that Army was about to be challenged.
I know some people will read that and think that’s meant as a slight, but that’s not really what I’m driving at. In a way, it simultaneously shows where Army and Navy are both similar and different. Army has a better record than the Mids, but I don’t think they are as different as their records would indicate. But I also think this accentuates the one area where they are. There is something to be said for winning all the games that you’re supposed to. Most teams don’t. Navy didn’t. What Army does as well as any team in the country— and frankly, better than Navy— is play with a relentless, inevitable consistency.
One of the most common (and irritating) questions I get as the publisher of this site is, “What’s the difference between Army and Navy?” Usually, the person asking this is referring to the schools’ offenses. And indeed, both offenses do very similar things. But while Navy tends to compliment their option game by spreading out and getting to the perimeter, Army prefers to compliment the option with power. Not that Army doesn’t also spread the ball around, but the power game is their bread and butter.
That power-running identity is everything to Army. Jeff Monken caught some minor heat on Twitter after the loss to Notre Dame when he was asked if he schemed up anything special for that game. I saw some surprised reactions when he said he hadn’t. But if you understand what his team is all about, that’s the answer you should have expected. It’s about more than just having a mindset or some intangible thing. It’s at the very core of their consistency. There are practical reasons for what Army does.
Let’s look at their first drive against North Texas, which was a great example of Army doing what Army does. UNT’s defense lined up in a basic six-man front, with no stunts and nothing unusual in the secondary. The dive key always took the fullback. When that happens, the middle linebacker usually scrapes outside since the fullback should be accounted for. Instead, the MLB here stepped up to play the A or B gap, anticipating a run up the middle. When Army got the keep or pitch read, there was plenty of room outside.
Army adjusted by turning to their power game. After seeing the MLB running to the playside A or B gap, Army started running to the C gap, bringing as many blockers as they could.
Army would consistently gain 4-5 yards that way, which forced more UNT defenders to come in from the backside to help. And that’s when Army hit them with a counter.
It’s a simple formula, but it works. Army’s power forces defenses to adjust, and when they do, they get set up for a big play, whether it’s a counter, a pass, or Noah Short on the perimeter. If they don’t adjust, then Army just keeps running power, and next thing you know, they’ve driven 70 yards in eight minutes. And because they don’t make mistakes, they are okay with doing that as often as they have to. They stay on schedule by avoiding penalties (third-fewest in the country) and tackles for loss (second-fewest).
Army’s consistency also gets into their opponents’ heads, and there may not be a better example of this than in the conference championship game against Tulane.
One could argue that Tulane’s game plan against Navy wasn’t very good. If Navy could have found a way to handle the Green Wave’s defensive line, they might have had some success. Against the Mids, Tulane lined up in a 3-4, with their best player, defensive tackle Patrick Jenkins, in a 0 technique. He was a two-gap player who was difficult to move, while the defensive ends were athletic enough to beat cut blocks and run ballcarriers down. Against Army, though, they took a different approach.
Tulane used the same basic plan in the championship game, but to better defend against Army’s power game (in theory), they went with three DTs along the defensive line. For reasons I cannot understand, they moved Jenkins out of the 0 technique and to defensive end. Maybe they thought this would help against some of those off-tackle plays like we saw in the North Texas clips, but it had the opposite effect. All it really did was make their defensive line less athletic laterally and make Jenkins much easier to deal with. They could simply run away from him:
Or option off of him:
Or double-team him:
Or, since he wasn’t playing head-up on the center anymore, you could get an angle on him in the zone scheme rather than having to figure out a way to get movement from him. Here’s a simple inside zone play where the guard is able to get leverage on Jenkins, who is lined up on his outside shoulder. Without the defensive line to disrupt plays at the line of scrimmage, Tulane’s pedestrian game plan was exposed. The playside safety was playing man defense on the motion slotback and ran himself out of the play.
Tulane made their best player less of a factor in the game, all because they tried to meet Army's power running head-on.
Army's consistency isn't limited to their offense, either. Their defense has a similar mindset. They're seventh in the country in scoring defense and tenth in total defense, both tops in the conference. But they didn't get that way by being a big-play, high-pressure unit; they're 76th in sacks and 115th in tackles for loss per game. Some of that is due to not being on the field since the offense leads the nation in time of possession. But it's also a reflection of their general approach. Army doesn't miss with their eyes very often. They don't take chances because, as well-trained as they are, they don't need to.
A defense that's well-prepared for things like misdirection is a problem for an option offense like Navy's. But that's nothing new in service academy games, where defenses practice against the option all spring and fall camp. They know what look they're presenting to the other team. They know the offense's rules against that look, so they can anticipate the offense's adjustments. But with both teams having new offensive coordinators, will this be the case on Saturday? All these things could have been said about the Air Force game, but we saw how the Falcons struggled against Navy's new looks. They performed slightly better against Army, but Daily didn't play in that game, so you probably can't read too much into that performance. For a series that has been so predictable in recent years, this year's game has a lot of unknowns.
Army is good at what they do, but they aren't infallible. Tradeoffs exist on the pendulum of Navy's spread and Army's power. Tulane shut down Navy because their technique and athletic ability matched up well against a more spread-out approach. But that didn't do them any good when Army just steamrolled them. On the other hand, Army couldn't overpower Notre Dame. But Navy generated some big plays against the Irish, and had more yards before pulling their starters when the game got out of hand. Both approaches have their plusses and minuses depending on the matchup. The question now is which approach is best for this week.
The answer may be both of them. Navy's defense has come on strong lately, especially against the run. But asking them to match Notre Dame's physical power is not a game plan. On the other hand, Navy has already shown that their new offense has changed their fortunes in one service academy matchup. Is it possible that this year's Army-Navy game might be... high-scoring?
Ok, ok, let's not get crazy now. But I do think the ingredients are there for a game that plays out differently than in years past. The offenses aren't the only difference, either. The two schools are in the same conference, and we spent most of the season wondering if the game would be played twice. The game feels like it stands out more when every other school is losing players to the portal and negotiating NIL deals. Just as college football has changed, this feels like the beginning of a new era of Army-Navy, too. We'll see if the Mids can start the new era on the right foot.
