It hardly was the most efficient snow-removal system, but certainly the most precise. Thousands of feet synched as a single pair – left, right, left, right – clearing tracks in the newly dusted field.
Shoulder to shoulder, company by company, the 4,400-member corps of Army cadets marched first into Lincoln Financial Field on Saturday, nearly three hours before kickoff. Leading the way was their cadet captain, Simone Askew, who grew up watching from the stands and marveling at this smart procession. And now here she was, occupying the highest student position at West Point, running point on the traditional parade, the first African-American woman ever to do so.
At the Army-Navy game, you miss too much if you stay outside enjoying the pregame tailgate.
An equal number of young Midshipmen followed with their own march-on. And leading their brigade was a Navy swimmer by way of Snellville, Brigade Commander Austin Harmel. A perfect candidate to be a Navy Seal it would seem, given his sport of choice. But Harmel instead will soon report to flight school.
While the light snow gathered on the shoulders of the Midshipmen’s long, blue bridge coats and the crest of the Cadets’ dark peaked caps, they left a clear footprint on the game soon to be played in their name and that of their country.
The marching would continue unabated throughout the game. The fact that there is no arm in Army proved no obstacle. On the Black Knights’ 49th rush of the game, quarterback Ahmad Bradshaw burrowed into the end zone from a half-yard out with 5:10 left to play and secured a 14-13 victory.
(Let the record show that Bradshaw did attempt a single pass this day. He threw it while careening backward; the ball possessed the aerodynamic majesty of a wet newspaper; but it did amount to a 20-yard gain.)
Navy would spend the closing minutes staging a synopsis of its disappointing season – underscoring how it could lose now six games in often maddening fashion. A drive to manageable field-goal range was sabotaged by a pair of false-start penalties, leaving the Midshipmen no option but to attempt a last-gasp 48-yard kick from a snowy and treacherous lie.
Navy kicker Bennett Moehring lined it up, aware no doubt that the next moment would establish him in sailors’ lore as either something of an Admiral Halsey or a Gilligan. His kick drifted just a bit wide left. It surely would have been good had Navy been able to reclaim those 10 penalty yards.
“So close, and our kids fought hard, so give them credit,” Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo said.
“In a close game, it is the team that doesn’t make mistakes, and those penalties hurt us.”
The result shouldn’t lessen the performance of Navy’s Swiss Army Knife of a player, Malcolm Perry. Who would start at quarterback for Navy was perhaps the most closely guarded military secret of the past week. For all but a few token plays, it was Perry who got the job. That’s the same player who has two runs of 70 yards or more this season, a catch of 75 yards, and has nine starts this season at slotback.
In the two games he has started at quarterback, Perry has rushed for 282 yards vs. SMU and, now, 250 yards against Army. That accounted for all but 48 yards of the Middies’ total offense Saturday. There just might be a future for the sophomore in the role of point guard who basically does all the shooting.
So little had Perry been thought of as a quarterback that in one game his freshman season he had to be called down from the stands during a game against Fordham after injuries had depleted the Navy quarterback ranks. After quick change from his uniform whites into his football suit, he carried a handful of times for 30 yards. The stars of service-academy football have always worn multiple uniforms and reside equally in the seats and on the field.
Army arrived dressed for success on a day such as this. Symbolically and practically, it had the clear uniform advantage. Its game wear commemorated the 10th Mountain Division, born for winter warfare in WWII. White as new-fallen snow from helmet to shoes, its players blended in with Saturday’s frigid landscape, perfectly camouflaged for the occasion.
It hardly would be an artful game, not a game in step with the modern tastes for football. For its part, Navy threw only two passes, completing one for a lordly sum of two yards. But it would be a taut game, in keeping with five of the past six meetings decided by a touchdown or usually less.
After suffering the indignity of 14 consecutive losses to Navy, Army has now won two consecutive. The Black Knights also picked up the Commander-in-Chief’s trophy emblematic of service-academy superiority (the first time it held that hardware since 1996). This also was the first Army victory in 11 meetings with Navy at Lincoln Financial Field.
Forget the conditions. It was a relative march in high clover for the Army lads.
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