The Army-Navy game has made some rare offseason headlines in the last few weeks — not for any on-field reasons, but as an inconvenient outlier for college football’s new playoff system. For Army West Point and Navy fans whose college football season begins and ends on the same Saturday in December, here’s a quick primer: The rankings that determine which teams will play in the College Football Playoff, and the four other top-tier bowl games played on or before New Year’s, come out the weekend before the Army-Navy game. Last year, this simply meant the rankings ignored the game, but that…
Browsing: Army
Two military men — one a senior at the Naval Academy, one an Army combat vet — hope to land a spot on a professional football roster this season. Then, if all goes well, you might never hear their names again. Joe Cardona of Navy and Nate Boyer of Texas both seek to join the fraternity of NFL long snappers — men who fire a football between their legs at north of 40 miles per hour and rarely receive any notoriety unless something has gone very, very wrong. Cardona is ranked atop the NFL.com special-teams prospect list. Boyer’s play at Texas and his inspirational story (Green Beret-turned-Longhorn who never played…
To older football fans, Chuck Bednarik was “Concrete Charlie,” the last of the two-way pros who played on two championship teams with the Philadelphia Eagles and hit Frank Gifford so hard in 1960 that the New York Giants’ superstar didn’t play again until 1962. To a younger generation, he was the gruff throwback who once said Deion Sanders, a two-way star in a different era, “couldn’t tackle my wife.” He was a grandfatherly figure who was once approached by a video game maker for permission to use his likeness, which he granted only after the agency “actually had to explain that he would not…
Duke head coach and U.S. Military Academy graduate Mike Krzyzewski makes no secret that his time as a cadet and as a 20-something head coach of the Army basketball team molded him into a college basketball icon who has amassed more than 1,000 career wins. He even brought Team USA to West Point last year in the hopes that some of the academy’s lore would rub off. But the early days of Coach K regularly take a back seat to his impressive accomplishments a few hundred miles south, where his Blue Devils will again enter the NCAA tournament later this week with…
You’ve heard the one about the priceless painting bought at a yard sale, and the one about the classic muscle car found in the old barn out back. The most recent entry in trash-into-treasure lore comes courtesy of the Army football program, a coaching legend and a Goodwill clothing outlet in Asheville, North Carolina. A West Point sweater once worn by Army assistant coach Vince Lombardi netted $43,020 at a New York City sports-memorabilia auction Saturday night. Its owners, vintage clothing sellers Sean and Rikki McEvoy, picked it up at an Asheville Goodwill for 58 cents, Asheville’s Citizen-Times reported. Lombardi coached under…
Army, Navy and Air Force have locked in their season-opening football games, all starting the year at home against teams outside the top-tier Football Bowl Subdivision. Navy announced today that it will host Colgate at noon on Sept. 5 with the game televised on CBS Sports Network. It will be a nonconference opener for the first-ever conference football season at Annapolis; the Midshipmen will play in the American Athletic Conference, which has not released its league schedule for the year. The Mids’ nonconference slate is set, and Colgate is the only team on it that won’t make a yearly appearance. Navy hosts Air…
After Action broke the big news last year that set the sports world on fire: The Army-Navy game would be the only top-tier college football contest that would not at all influence the College Football Playoff selection process. Sure, neither the Midshipmen nor the Black Knights were on anybody’s national-championship radar. And yes, that radar hasn’t covered Annapolis or West Point since the 1960s. Still, the fact that the contest takes place with the CFP field already locked in creates the possibility of a highly regarded service academy team earning a chance to play for the national title … then getting demolished…
One had his first UFC fight in 2011. The other has never fought professionally outside of Alaska. One will tip the scales in Las Vegas at 135 pounds, give or take a few ounces. The other weighed 300-plus pounds a few years back. One fought less than two months ago, knocking out a Chinese fighter in Australia in front of a global audience. The other hasn’t fought since last January, when he edged out a 40-year-old via five-round split decision. Saying Marcus Brimage and Jared Cannonier have taken different paths to the preliminary card at Saturday’s UFC 182 event would be a bit…
Navy head football coach Ken Niumatalolo stands one win away from a third-straight postseason bowl appearance, remains unbeaten against Army and is poised to lead the Midshipmen into football conference play for the first time in school history. Can you put a price on that? Yes: $1,574,810. That’s Niumatalolo’s 2014 salary, according to USA Today’s annual college football pay roundup, ranking him 60th out of the 121 Football Bowl Subdivision coaches listed. He easily outpaces Air Force’s Troy Calhoun ($892,750 in total compensation, 74th) and Army first-year coach Jeff Monken ($834,667, 77th). Niumatalolo’s pay would rank fourth among coaches in the American Athletic Conference,…
While the rest of the hockey world focused on the Sochi Olympics earlier this year, a group of NHL players who weren’t after medals were instead at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, staying sharp with the help of a special guest from the Special Forces. Michael Cathcart, who went by “Sgt. Mike” with his training partners from the Carolina Hurricanes, skated alongside the pros for 45 minutes at Cleland Ice Rink in February, led them in a team stretch, even notched a goal and an assist during the practice, according to a write-up on the team’s official website. “It was great…
