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…
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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…
The 1963 Army-Navy game holds an established place in rivalry lore: Delayed a week following the assassination of President Kennedy, Roger Staubach led the No. 2-ranked Midshipmen to a 21-7 fourth-quarter lead, and the Navy defense fended off a late Army rally to secure a 21-15 victory. Despite that history, the game’s true place in the sports-viewing pantheon has almost nothing to do with the on-field participants and everything to do with Tony Verna, who died Sunday at age 81. Verna, then a 29-year-old director with CBS, had developed what was a then-unheard of bit of video genius, which he used late in…
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,…
The newly released iPhone 6 is getting all sorts of attention these days. And the Navy is using it to their advantage. In this Siri iPhone parody video, the “Go Navy, beat Air Force” spirit is in full swing before the Midshipmen take on the Falcons this Saturday at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Watch Siri’s sassy behavior shut down the conversation below: [HTML1]
If your idea of college football history is watching an ESPN special on the Miami Hurricanes of the 1980s or enjoying the occasional Dish Network commercial, sit this post out. The iconic Yale Bowl, which hosted the nation’s greatest college football teams years before the NFL existed, is celebrating its centennial this season, and the Army Black Knights — which also boast plenty of black-and-white photos in their media guide — will pay a visit Saturday, continuing a football series that’s even older than the stadium. Here’s a half-dozen ways the Bulldogs and Black Knights have been linked over the…
With less than a minute to play in Saturday’s game at Wake Forest, and with his team down by a field goal, senior Army linebacker Stephen Ricciardi may have gotten a bit desperate. First the video, then some background: [HTML1] The setup: The Black Knights led 21-14 going into the fourth quarter at Wake, but two late scoring drives gave the home team a 24-21 edge, and an Army fumble gave Wake the ball back with about four minutes to play. Army called its last timeout with 2:34 left, stopping the clock before a critical 3rd-and-8. But Wake Forest picked…
If you’re a service-academy football fan who doesn’t keep up with the pro game, or even if you just decided to spend your Labor Day doing something other than refreshing the NFL.com practice-squad page over and over, here’s a brief recap of where some academy standouts found themselves as NFL teams trimmed down to the 53-man roster limit: Ben Garland (Air Force): The former standout defensive lineman for the Falcons made the Denver Broncos roster, but not on defense. Garland, who was promoted to captain in the Colorado Air National Guard in May, switched to offensive guard last year. He first…
When he’s not busy riding a horse to training camp, Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly is entering heavy preparations for the 2014 college football season. That prep involves chalk talks, two-a-day workouts and, naturally, talking to ESPN reporters. Regardless of what Navy fans think of Kelly, or the Fighting Irish, or horses, they should be pleased with a response he gave to a recent ESPN poll, asking coaches of the so-called “Power Five” schools about scheduling preferences. A quick primer: The Power Five consists of teams in the Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 12, Southeastern and Pacific-12 football conferences…
Aside from the typical midseason TV-directed time changes (more on them later), the 2014 service academy slate is just about set. And as sweltering summer temperatures signal the beginning of full-pad practices and traditional preseason speculation, here’s a few things for the more-than-casual academy football fan to take notice of: 1. A normal Saturday slate. Aside from a trio of games in late November, including two on the day after Thanksgiving, every service academy game will be played during a time typically reserved for college football. Last year, Air Force alone played four non-Saturday games. 2. Mids going big time:…
