Years ago, the United States Army was as much a power on the gridiron as it is on the battlefield. Ardent fans considered the Army-Navy game the peak of a college football season, often deciding the national champion. Even the perennially mighty University of Notre Dame needed a prayer and memories of the Gipper to win games against the military powerhouses of football.
The first half of the 20th century were the glory years for Army football. From 1907 to 1939, the Cadets did not have a losing season. During the 1910's and 20's Army went undefeated in four separate seasons. The Army-Navy game was almost always exciting, with most final scores within seven points in either direction. West Pointers saw countless stars go through the program, a young Dwight Eisenhower not the least among them.
The following decades proved to be the most successful ever for Army. The Cadets had three Heisman trophy winners: Glenn Davis and "Doc" Blanchard in the '40s, and Pete Dawkins in 1958. In 1944, the Cadets went into the final game ranked No. 1 in the nation, while Navy was second. A 23-7 Army victory ushered the Cadets to their first of three consecutive national championships, to date their only titles.
Navy, too, had its chance to shine during this era of military power. It put forth two Heisman winners of its own in the 1960s in Joseph Bellino and the legendary Roger Staubach. The Midshipmen were no strangers to major bowl games, either, as they played in and won the Sugar, Cotton, and Orange Bowls during the same time period.
Now, 38 years after the United States Military Academy's last undefeated season, things are a little different. Instead of battling for the national title each year, the military academies compete for the Commander-In-Chief's trophy, which is awarded to the best of the three Division I-A service academy teams. Where they would have once been campaigning for positions in major bowl games, they now are lucky to earn places in the Copper or Independence Bowls.
The best of the three in recent years has been the U.S. Air Force Academy. It is a comparatively young team: The Falcons have only been playing the game since 1955. It took only four years for it to make their way to a major bowl game, the Cotton Bowl. But it was unable to defeat an inter-service opponent until its 14-3 victory over Army in 1965.
Since then, however, the Falcons have managed to build the most successful program of the three. They have won the Commander-In-Chief's trophy a total of ten times to only five times each for Navy and Army, including winning at least a share of the title the last seven years straight. The Air Force Academy has even enjoyed success as a member of the Western Athletic Conference. Last year, the Falcons earned a share of the conference championship and played in the Copper Bowl.
For the Cadets and Midshipmen, college football has changed dramatically in the last few decades. Since 1980, the Naval Academy has a record of 62-114-2, with its last winning season in 1982. During that same time period, Army has gone 85-90-4. The teams once known as the best in the nation are now considered to be "fluff" on the schedules of upper-echelon teams.
The reason for this dramatic drop seems obvious. The military academies simply cannot recruit as many of the nation's best players as they once did. Navy head coach Charlie Weatherbie attributed some of the problems to a shortage of student-athletes.
"The major thing that you run into at the academy, or maybe even at Duke, is a lack of students that are athletes, guys that are good students, that score high on the SAT or ACT tests, that have good GPA's," Weatherbie said.
He mentioned, however, that he believes that those who do choose the academies will be more successful after graduation.
"When you get a guy to come to the Naval Academy, I think what you've got is you've got a real mature, thinking person, a guy that's thinking ahead in his life," Weatherbie said. "We equate the Naval Academy as being like a Harvard, or Yale, or Duke or Stanford academically, but we equate it also as having great leadership training. Out in the business world, they want somebody that is a self-starter, a great leader and will take the bull by the horns."
Another difficulty faced by today's academy coaches is recruiting players who are afraid of the post-graduation commitment, when they might have hopes of being drafted into the National Football League. Weatherbie said that the military environment itself holds an appeal for some players, while the academies work to hold the NFL as a valid option for graduating Midshipmen.
"You've got a few [athletes] that are still very patriotic, very 'God, Country, Apple Pie' type of people," Weatherbie said. "So you've got a few out there that are still high-echelon athletic that are very interested in the academies because of the opportunities that lie ahead for them.
"If a person has an opportunity to get drafted into the NFL, a lot of the service academies will work with those people now, and lessen their commitment time."
The full-ride scholarships offered to every cadet or midshipman may have drawn top prospects in the past, but today the best players are guaranteed similar scholarships at any university, and without the military commitment.
The military academies rarely find themselves ranked in the top 25 anymore. They are never considered to be national title contenders, and not one of the three has had a Heisman winner since the 1960's.
To turn this statistic around, college football will need to see another drastic change. Perhaps this could come in the form of more top-level 'God, Country, Apple Pie' players, perhaps in the form of more student-athletes or perhaps in a realization of players that the NFL is a more difficult goal than expected. Army, Navy and Air Force have tradition and history unrivaled in this country. Perhaps, one day, they will see a return to their glory days.
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