Even in this banner year for service academy football — complete with winning streaks, national rankings and a conference championship — the biggest goal for two teams among that group remains the same at the end of the regular season.
For Army: Beat Navy.
For Navy: Beat Army.
With the landscape for college athletics continuing to change at a furious rate, the significance of this matchup adds a dose of tradition to mid-December, even amid all that talk about the NCAA transfer portal and the Football Bowl Subdivision’s expanded playoff.
“We’ve had a good year. You make it a great year by winning this game coming up on Saturday. Frankly, that’s just the way it goes around here,” Army coach Jeff Monken said. “It’s a game and a season really all of its own. We don’t apologize for talking about it all the time. We talk about it all the time, and it’s 365 days a year.”
It will be more than talk Saturday in Landover, Maryland, where the old rivals will meet again at Northwest Stadium, the home of the NFL’s Washington Commanders and just a few miles away from the nation’s capital. CBS will televise the 3 p.m. game, which is accompanied by plenty of pageantry.
This is the 125th matchup between Army and Navy, and although both programs are long removed from their days of winning national titles and Heisman Trophies — although Monken advocated for Black Knights quarterback Bryson Daily as a candidate for college football’s most prestigious individual award, he isn’t one of the four finalists for Saturday night’s presentation ceremony in New York — this is still a historic moment in the series. The Black Knights and Midshipmen have combined for 19 wins this season, their highest total ever entering this game.
Army (11-1) is 19th in the current AP Top 25 poll after beating Tulane last week to win the American Athletic Conference, which is the first league title of any kind in the program’s 134-year history (although most of that has been spent as an independent team). Navy (8-3) was ranked earlier this season after starting with six straight victories to also contend in the AAC.
“I knew we were going to be an improved football team. Didn’t know exactly what that was going to look like,” said Brian Newberry, whose debut season as head coach of the Midshipmen in 2023 ended with a 17-11 loss to Army for a 5-7 record (the Black Knights wound up 6-6 with the win).
“I think certainly we’ve improved in a lot of different areas,” added Newberry, who was Navy’s defensive coordinator from 2019 to 2022 before being promoted to the lead role. “I’m excited about the season we’ve had.”
Navy’s closest game this season (win or lose) was a 56-44 victory over Memphis on Sept. 21. The Midshipmen are the only FBS team that hasn’t had a game this season decided by eight or fewer points, but that could change Saturday. Close contests have been frequent in recent editions of the series, with the past three decided by a total of 13 points.
This was Army’s first season in the AAC, putting the Black Knights and Midshipmen in the same league, although their annual matchup is considered a nonconference game. For a while, there was a chance the teams could meet twice, with a conference championship clash coming before the regularly scheduled Army-Navy game, but that didn’t happen.
Their most prominent common opponent came from outside the league. Powerful FBS independent Notre Dame handed both Navy and Army its first loss, beating the Midshipmen 51-14 on Oct. 26 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, and defeating the Black Knights 49-14 on Nov. 23 at Yankee Stadium in New York.
Within the AAC, both teams beat East Carolina, Temple and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Army beat Tulane and Rice, while Navy lost to those two teams.
Army and Navy also each won its game against fellow service academy Air Force, which competes in the Mountain West Conference. Those victories over Air Force, which started 1-7 but ended on a four-game winning streak, mean this season’s Commander-In-Chief’s Trophy comes down to the Army-Navy game. It’s the first time since 2017 that both teams enter this game with a shot at the trophy.
It’s also the first time since 2017 that both teams enter the game with bowl bids secured. Navy will face Oklahoma (6-6) in the Armed Forces Bowl on Dec. 27 in Fort Worth, Texas, and Army takes on Marshall (10-3) in the Independence Bowl a day later in Shreveport, Louisiana.
As usual, the offenses for both the Black Knights and the Midshipmen are balanced more toward running than passing, though much more heavily in Army’s case. While Navy’s average of 247.7 rushing yards per game is nearly twice its aerial average of 128.2, the Black Knights 314.4 rushing yards per game dwarf their 83.2 clip for passing.
Daily is a big reason why. The 6-foot, 221-pound senior quarterback has 29 rushing touchdowns this season, which is tied for the FBS lead with Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty, a finalist for the Heisman.
Only one quarterback in FBS history has run for more touchdowns in a season: Navy’s Keenan Reynolds scored 31 in 2013.
“You come here to play in this game. The biggest stage possible, millions of people watching and a sold-out NFL stadium. It’s awesome,” Daily said. “None of the games that happened before this matter. We’re going into this game like we’re 0-0, they’re 0-0 because that’s just how you have to come into this game.”
Army has won two in a row against Navy and six of the past eight meetings after the Midshipmen took control of the series by winning 14 in a row from 2002 to 2014. Navy leads the all-time series 62-55-7.