Army is undefeated. Navy is undefeated. What happens next?

Army and Navy are dominant for the first time in forever—and a peculiar College Football Playoff scenario could put a newfangled spin on this old-fashioned rivalry.

This is the first time anybody has been able to read about Army and Navy being good at the same time on the internet.

The last time the Army and Navy started 5-0 in the same season was 1945. You probably would’ve heard about their play from a radio the size of a fridge or a newsreel at the beginning of a movie you paid five cents to see. History buffs might be aware that the United States military was having a bit of a moment in the early 1940s, and top talent flocked to service academies. Army had arguably the best college football season ever in 1945, going undefeated while outscoring opponents 412-46. Navy’s only loss that year was… to Army. The Cadets and Midshipmen finished 1-2 in the polls. (And tied for first place in the war.)

But over the decades, Army and Navy have gone from college football powerhouses to old-fashioned oddities on the outskirts of a rapidly changing sport. They’ve been left behind by large-scale shifts to modern society (their teams thrived during eras when most American males served in the military, making a stint at an academy an attractive career option for young athletes) and specific tweaks to college football (did you know Army and Navy players are literally federally forbidden from accepting NIL deals? More on this later.)

But now here you are on Substack, reading about 6-0 Army and 5-0 Navy, ranked 23rd and 25th in the country. (First time they’ve both been ranked in the same AP poll since 1960—you probably would’ve read about it in an evening newspaper.) It’s inexplicable. Neither program has changed anything about the way they operate. They play Time Warp Football, ever-constant in their playing style, their recruiting pitch, and their primary goal: Army wants to Beat Navy, and Navy wants to Beat Army.

Even when you look in the stands, you see academy students wearing dress uniforms that predate camo by hundreds of years, who march in formation like it’s still the 1800s.

And quite frankly… both teams seemed like they’d be kinda bad this year. Even in comparison to other Army-Navy football teams.

But these ancient programs have sprung to life at the strangest time, a pair of galloping ghosts and storming through the 2024 season in spite of all the changes that should have left them in the past. Their success alone would set up an incredible season-ending showdown which would drive the sportswriters of 1952 into a feral frenzy. But a perfect storm of conference realignment and playoff expansion could lead to a peculiar, newfangled scenario which has never happened to any two rivals—let alone America’s favorite old-timey rivalry.

What’s going on in West Point and Annapolis—and how does it affect the larger college football picture in 2024?

Army and Navy are simultaneously good for the first time in forever.

Army is 6-0, and the record is underselling how dominant they’ve been. The Black Knights have yet to trail in a game this season, and have won every game by at least 17 points. Their average margin of victory is 28.8, #3 in the nation behind just Texas and Ohio State. Plus, QB Bryson Daily is stiff-arming defenders into dust:

Remember how I said the 1945 Army squad was one of the best in college football history? This one is actually keeping pace with that one in some ways: that team averaged 359.8 rushing yards per game, and this one averages 369.8. They’re one of just two teams allowing fewer than 10 points per game, alongside Texas.

Navy is 5-0 and #5 in the nation in scoring offense, averaging 43.6 points per game. And while the Midshipmen have been a bit less statistically dominant than the Black Knights, their wins have been against better opponents. They whooped Air Force, typically the most successful of the three academy teams, in a dominant 34-7 win—Navy’s biggest W over Air Force since Air Force was coached by Bill Parcells in 1978. (And therefore their biggest win over Air Force since they decided to make Top Gun and Top Gun 2 about naval aviators instead of Air Force pilots.)

And Navy is the “1” in Memphis’ 5-1 record, winning 56-44 in Annapolis just after the Tigers popped into the AP Poll rankings. QB Blake Horvath ran for 211 yards and four touchdowns, and the USNA student body stormed the field after the game. (You might think Navy would be bad at storming things, but USNA grads to go the Marines, too.)

This was totally unexpected in 2024…

Navy has been on unsteady ground in recent years. In 2022, they fired Ken Niumatalolo, the winningest coach in program history, after 15 years as head coach and almost 30 on staff. Normally, you fire a longtime coach when you’re looking for significant change, which was reasonable—Navy had gone 11-23 in the last three seasons. But the Navy job requires such a specific personality and skill set that they couldn’t functionally change that much. So they hired Niumatalolo’s defensive coordinator, Brian Newberry, looking for new direction from a part of the old regime.

Army went went 6-6 and it looked like that might have been their peak. They returned just seven out of 22 starters from last year’s team. That is bad. Like, if you told me any team in college football was returning just seven starters, I would say “OK, they’re going 3-9.” But that lack of returning production seemed especially troublesome at a service academy, where success is almost entirely dependent on continuity, player development and familiarity with the system.

And there have been significant concerns about the feasibility of the option-based offenses the service academies have run for decades. (If you’re curious why Army and Navy run these unusual offenses, here’s a good explainer. It stems from military weight restrictions, and can be really effective for disciplined teams—and Army and Navy are famously quite disciplined.) After NCAA rule changes outlawed downfield cut blocking, Army’s head coach Jeff Monken toyed with a shotgun passing offense in 2023 rather than continue running the option under the new rules. He decided it wasn’t working and is back to basics now, but still. Niumatalolo is now the head coach at San Jose State, where he has decided not to run the option after utilizing the system for his entire coaching career. So that’s two long-time option coaches who have waffled about the modern-day usefulness of the only offense that seems to give the academies a chance.

Vegas projected Army for 6.5 wins and Navy for 5.5 before the season. They’re both a win away from popping the over in October.

…And, generally unexpected in modern football.

There aren’t many talented football recruits willing to do the service academy thing—early wakeups, marching in formation, rigorous coursework, no special treatment for athletes, extremely limited partying opportunities, a 3-to-1 male-to-female student ratio, flip-flopping policies about whether you can go pro after graduating, and—in case you forgot—a commitment to serve in the military after school.

Now imagine three separate academies all trying to put together competitive teams from that relatively small player pool. How could any one be good? How could two be good at the same time?

Now consider that Army and Navy can only lose players in the transfer portal. Players leave the academies all the time—Army and Navy lost players to Iowa State and UCLA this past year. Baseball superstar Paul Skenes transferred from Air Force to LSU, won the national championship, got picked first in the MLB draft, won rookie of the year, and now makes millions of dollars and has a superstar girlfriend while his ex-teammates are getting deployed, so you can see why transferring out is appealing to some. But athletes can’t really transfer in to these schools. Hypothetically, they could, but every new student at West Point or Annapolis must complete four years at the school—even if they’re a transfer with years of college credits, they have to start over and undergo basic training. This Army football blog could only recall one incoming transfer in recent years—a player who went from Air Force to Army all the way back in 2009.

And you can’t lure players with NIL cash. Students at service academies are technically federal employees, and therefore forbidden from using their public office to endorse products for personal gain. (I think this is also why the USAA has ad campaigns with Rob Gronkowski complaining that he’s not eligible for their coverage.) It’s a shame, because there’s clearly a market for it—if you watch Army and Navy play football, the commercials in their games will be specifically targeted towards a military audience, and the military is always looking to spend money on new recruiting campaigns. In a strange twist, various military branches have done NIL campaigns with athletes at normal schools like Paige Bueckers and DJ Uiagalelei and not the athletes at the academies.

They could play each other for a conference championship for the first time ever.

ESPN’s Bill Connelly had Army and Navy as the two most likely champions of the American Athletic Conference after Week 6, projecting the Black Knights with a 35.2 percent chance to win the league and the Midshipmen with a 25.7 percent chance. So that’s a 60 percent chance that one or the other wins the league. And that was before Army’s most recent win, so it should be higher.

Army’s coast to the championship game is clear. Remarkably, their conference schedule didn’t have any of the top three teams in the league—Memphis, Tulane, and Navy. (Technically, Army-Navy is considered an out-of-conference game which won’t affect the standings—more on this in a bit.). The Black Knights are already 5-0 in league play, and will be favored in their three remaining league games against East Carolina, North Texas, and UTSA. They’ve had one of the easiest schedules in the country, and it doesn’t get a lot tougher down the stretch.

Navy did have to play Memphis and Tulane—but they already beat one, and will play the other at home. If the Middies lose to Tulane, they probably won’t play for the conference championship, since they’ll also lose a critical tiebreaker to Tulane. But they’re literally the Navy and should be well-trained in handling Waves, green or otherwise.

And if Army and Navy are both championship contenders, well, Army and Navy might play in a conference championship game. That’s obviously never happened before. It’s actually the first year that the two programs are in the same conference, and even when separate, neither school has ever won a football conference championship.

Although both are full members of the Patriot League (get it? because military) for most sports, the two programs have historically been football independents. But independence has become increasingly unsustainable with conference affiliation determining so much about modern college football. Last year, Army had to play two teams from the second-tier FCS just to fill out a schedule, leaving them a game short of bowl eligibility at the end of the year. Navy has been in the American (get it??? because military!!!!) since 2015 and played in the championship game in 2016. Army spent a few years in Conference USA (GET IT???? BECAUSE MILITARY) earlier in the century, but was pretty bad the whole time. They went back to independence until joining the AAC this year, and are contenders in their first year.

In 2024, that means means Army and Navy are in the College Football Playoff hunt for the first time ever.

This is the first year of the 12-team College Football Playoff, which has a format that guarantees playoff spots to the five highest-ranking conference champions. At least one of those champions is guaranteed to come from outside the four power conferences, which has opened up the possibility of a national championship to teams outside the usual powerhouses. It’s my favorite part of the season so far.

Right now, Boise State has emerged as the favorite to take that slot. They’re 4-1 with a close loss to Oregon, which has them ranked 15th in the AP Poll. If the Broncos win the Mountain West, they’ll likely get the non-power champion slot. I’ve got no qualms with that—Boise State is awesome, and Ashton Jeanty should win the Heisman. They deserve to be in the driver’s seat.

But it’s not over by a long shot. Boise State has a tougher road forward than Army and Navy. And Army and Navy both have non-conference matchups with Notre Dame (both, oddly, at New York-area pro arenas—one game is at MetLife, the other at Yankee Stadium.) That probably means that their undefeated seasons will end, because Notre Dame is good and has long winning streaks against both programs….BUT!!!! If Army or Navy beats Notre Dame and goes undefeated, you can’t leave them out. I’ll take 13-0 Navy with wins over Notre Dame, Memphis, Tulane, and Army over 12-1 Boise State without hesitating.

The specifics of Army-Navy could led to a uniquely weird scenario.

Army-Navy is America’s Game®. It has a special place in the football world—and a special place on the calendar. Since 2009, Army-Navy has been played a week after every conference plays their championship games, the only college football game played that week. This ensures massive viewership numbers on CBS, and has preserved the game’s status as a showcase for these two time-honored programs.

But that unique treatment sorta banked on the premise that neither program would be relevant in the national picture. And it might lead to an unwieldy, complex scenario which has never happened to these two programs—or any two programs in the sport, for that matter.

Army and Navy are currently scheduled to play on December 14th at the Washington Commanders. Even though both are in the same conference, this will be considered a non-conference game with no effect on conference standings. If Army and Navy both make the conference championship game, they will also play each other on December 6th, a home game for the team with the better regular-season record. So we’ll have two games in eight days between teams that spend a year dreaming of playing each other. Already weird.

But what makes it weirder is the timing of College Football Playoff’s official bracket selection, which will take place on December 8th—in between a hypothetical Army-Navy championship game and the regularly scheduled Army-Navy game. The committee has always announced the field a week before Army-Navy, right after the conference title games, dating back to the very first year of the Playoff in 2014.

This was a lot more sensible in the four-team playoff era. There was little possibility that Army or Navy could finish the season ranked in the top four, and with just two rounds, there was a lot of wiggle room built into the schedule for various contingency scenarios that never played out, like potentially delaying selection of certain bowl games until after Army-Navy. That’s not really an option anymore, since the 12-team playoff starts several weeks earlier than the four-team playoff used to. Everything will need to be sorted out by the time Army and Navy play.

Army AD Mike Buddie wrote a letter in March to the Playoff’s management committee asking them to figure out a solution. But they didn’t. The Playoff apparently asked Army and Navy to move the game before essentially agreeing not to consider the regularly scheduled game.

I don’t think they’ve caught enough flak for this. Army-Navy does not count in the national championship picture. Like, officially. They had years to come up with a workaround and decided it was too much work, officially ruling that one of the most beloved rivalries in the sport between two of the most historically successful teams should not matter under any circumstances, even in a preposterously unlikely season where both teams are undefeated.

I know there are contracts and logistics and all sorts of consideration but… come on. This is your job. I don’t care if you have to spend an extra night at the fancy Marriott by the Dallas airport. Make it work.

Now, that preposterously unlikely season may be coming to pass. Army and Navy might have to play twice. Army-Navy #1 will count towards the conference championship and the playoff, while Army-Navy #2 will be a dead rubber in a standalone TV slot. Good job, everybody.

College football tried avoiding scenarios like this for years.

If a conference had two major historic opponents that traditionally play a big season-ending rivalry game—think Ohio State-Michigan—they were typically placed in the same division to prevent a scenario where they might play in a conference championship.

This led to a lot of lopsided conference championship games—we got Ohio State-Northwestern twice—but avoided a scenario where two rivals could play the same game in back-to-back weeks, potentially diluting the meaning of their regularly scheduled rivalry game.

However, conferences have largely ditched divisions to ensure their best two teams would play in a championship game and make the best possible argument for inclusion in a playoff. The AAC has been division-less since 2020, making an Army-Navy repeat possible if Army and Navy are the league’s two best teams.

And the specifics of Army-Navy actually make the rematch even more likely: Ohio State and Michigan can’t both go undefeated in the Big Ten regular season standings, because they play each other, and definitionally, one must lose. Because Army and Navy don’t play their usual matchup until after the conference title game, there’s no automatic head-to-head loss for one of those teams, and they very easily both go 8-0 in AAC play.

Luckily, Army and Navy are Army and Navy.

Let’s play this out. Imagine Army beats Navy in the AAC championship game at West Point on December 6th. They sing second and celebrate the league championship on the field at home. On December 8th, they get selected as the 12-seed in the playoff, earning a matchup against 5-seed Georgia. Then they head down to Maryland the next week to play the regularly scheduled Army-Navy game on December 14th. Regardless of whether they win the second Army-Navy game, they’ll be heading to Athens to play the Bulldogs on December 21st.

How would they handle this? Having beaten their biggest rival in the biggest game of the year, would the winner of the first matchup take it easy, knowing their toughest opponent of the year was waiting With a playoff matchup looming, could Army look past Navy with dreams of a Natty?

Not.

Freakin.

Likely.

If any other two teams were in this scenario, I could imagine one prioritizing their playoff success over winning a rivalry game. But I don’t think Army or Navy could stomach it. They’d rather win a “meaningless” game against each other than the most “relevant” game in program history against someone else.

The winner of Army-Navy #1 will have the chance to be the first team to go 2-0 against the team they live to beat. And the loser? They’ll be sweating spite from their pores. Letting your biggest rival into the playoffs? Bad. Letting them walk over you again a week later and becoming The Team That Lost Twice? That’s a nightmare they’d never wake up from. A second game between Army and Navy would mean nothing, and it will still mean everything.

Trust me. I’ve seen it happen. (Kinda.)

Last year I went to two Army-Navy games: One sold out an NFL stadium:

And one filled some bleachers on a field by the Hudson:

Army and Navy actually have two football teams per school—the big one, and the sprint football team, where players have to weigh under 178 pounds. Sprint football has the same field size and rules as the standard game, but smaller players. The sport is totally dominated by Army and Navy—they’ve won or shared the Collegiate Sprint Football League title in 23 of 26 years, with Penn and Cornell winning the other three.

Last year Army went 6-0 in the regular season, including a 10-3 win over Navy. That put the league championship game in West Point. I decided to head up during my Big Stupid Road Trip, since I was already in New York the day before. I tailgated with some of the families of the Army players and watched the game with them, learning how their kids ended up playing sprint football and what the culture around the team is like.

Navy won, 28-23. Their players were overjoyed. Army’s looked like they’d spend the rest of their lives thinking about it.

So here’s the gist I got. Army and Navy played twice in sprint football that year, and twice the year before that, and will probably play twice again this year. (Army sprint football is undefeated, Navy is 3-1 with a regular loss to Army.) Nobody cared about the repetition. When you’re Army, you live to Beat Navy, and when you’re Navy, you live to Beat Army. The details don’t matter.

Army and Navy have played games rendered “irrelevant” by how bad they are. There have been years when they enter their rivalry game when one has a 1-10 record and the other is 2-9. Didn’t matter—still Army-Navy. The sprint team has shown that games rendered “irrelevant” by both teams being good still matter a hell of a lot. I believe the big teams will keep the same energy.

No matter what happens, Army and Navy will make it special.

There have not been many scenarios where the United States military are the underdogs in the last 200 years or so, but college football is strange. It is run by people who romanticize the Good Ol’ Days when college athletes sought a quality education rather than financial compensation—while simultaneously driving the sport at hyperspeed into a C.R.E.A.M.-y future where money is more important than all those values they were just talking about.

Army and Navy football have been left behind by this sport because they actually play the idealized version of college football everybody else talks about. People at the academies genuinely treat the purpose of their intercollegiate athletics programs as developing better officers by recruiting talented, intelligent, athletic young people and cultivating their leadership through sports. Sure, the programs generate some TV cash and generate free PR for the military—but if that was the whole point, they could cut a lot of self-imposed corners to win more games. Instead, they ask their players to overcome disadvantages by using unusual tactics, specialized training, and top-tier discipline to outperform better-on-paper forces. You can see how that helps them do their jobs later.

The power-holders in college football love to talk about how much they love Army-Navy. It gives them something to point to when they claim college football is about Patriotism and Honor and Molding Young Men and America. But they don’t actually respect Army-Navy. They see it as a solemn sideshow rather than a living, breathing part of the college football ecosystem, and when building out the sport’s championship system, they quite literally excluded Army-Navy.

But Army and Navy fought back. (They’re good at fighting! Sorta the whole deal.) Against all odds, they became good enough to set up a ludicrous scenario the sport’s designers carelessly assumed would never play out.

The people in charge of this sport should be grateful that Army and Navy are Army and Navy. Their own laziness and clumsiness will be redeemed by two teams that are the opposite of lazy and clumsy; two sets of players whose fire and fury will make a thrilling, meaningful moment out of an embarrassing oversight by people paid well to avoid oversights.

Go Army, Go Navy. Beat everybody else.