Joe Walker, Army’s senior running back by way of Fayetteville, is not tired of answering the 500-pound question that arises every December about this time:
Is this the year you break that oppressive streak and finally beat Navy?
No, not tired.
“Extremely tired,” Walker said this week.
“You hate to hear it: ‘Is this going to be it? Is this the year?’ I’d rather not speak about it and answer that question with our actions as a unit on the field. Yeah, I’m extremely tired of it.”
Saturday is the 117th meeting between the two proud service academies, a bone-marrow deep rivalry still commonly known as the Army-Navy Game. Even if in all fairness the billing should be flipped. Navy has taken sole ownership of the series, having won the past 14 in a row. It is by far the longest such streak of dominance/despair — depending upon the branch to which you or anyone in your family is connected — since that first game back in 1890.
A hint to how this rivalry differs from any others on the vast plain of college football can be found in how Army has chosen to outfit itself for Saturday.
It will appear in some new gun-metal dark uniforms featuring tributes to one of its most storied divisions, the 82nd Airborne. In unveiling the new look Sunday, Army also imported 99-year-old James “Maggie” Megellas to address the team. Megellas, Lt. Col. (obviously retired), was the most decorated officer in the history of the 82nd Airborne. The well of inspiration upon which these service academies can drink is just a bit deeper than most.
“What I liked about him — his courage,” said sophomore Army linebacker Kenneth Brinson, who was a three-sport standout at Marist.
“He talked about a friend of his who didn’t make it out on one of their missions crossing the Rhine River (WWII),” Walker said. “He said he had a premonition about that, one of the few times in his life where he felt God gave him a sign of things to come.
“On that day he came to speak with us he said he had a premonition that the tide was turning and we were going to be on the other end of things for Army-Navy this year.”
(Another example how this game and these players are separate from the trivialities of college football: The boxscore from the last time Army won, 2001, includes the name of Navy receiver J.P. Blecksmith, with a single 13-yard reception. Three years later, Marine Lt. Blecksmith was killed by a sniper in Iraq.)
How much will the cool uniform translate to actual performance on the field, though? “It doesn’t,” said Army’s pragmatist and coach, Jeff Monken. “It doesn’t matter.”
If the name sounds familiar, there’s good reason. Monken was a long-time acolyte of Georgia Tech’s Paul Johnson — his assistant at Georgia Southern, Navy and Tech for a bit — and a head coach at Georgia Southern before taking the Army job in 2014.
Monken’s third team at Army has been his most successful, at 6-5 it could with a victory over Navy (9-3) lock down only its second winning record since 1996. Yeah, times have been lean at West Point, football-wise.
Such is the scope of the losing streak to Navy that the last four — yes, four — Army coaches before Monken came and went without beating the Midshipmen.
“Everybody wants to turn it around (specifically against Navy); I think that’s why they hired me,” Monken said. “Likely if we don’t get it done, they’re going to hire somebody else. That’s just the nature of the game. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to come here.”
The Navy winning streak began, not coincidentally, when Johnson arrived in Annapolis as head coach in 2002. There have been various theories posited as to why Navy has taken ownership of the series — from Army’s ill-fated move from independent to Conference USA (1998-2004), to Army’s dependence upon federal funding (Navy football went to 501 (3) non-profit status) to recruits’ more favorable perceptions of the Navy as a military destination. One reason above all is the stability of leadership. While Army has gone through coaches like it does bullets, Navy has employed just Johnson and Ken Niumatalolo since 2002.
Having studied both sides of the rivalry, Monken has pretty well concluded that the losing side of the relationship is, “not worth a damn.”
The streak wears on them all. The coach whose Georgia connections are written all over the Army roster — he has signed two dozen players from the state in the past two years. The senior running back from Fayetteville whose diminished role in Monken’s rebuild has not diminished his hunger to beat Navy before he reports to his new assignment, the infantry. The sophomore linebacker who has done Marist proud — Brinson was top of his class in his first semester at West Point. Everyone.
“You know what game you have circled on that calendar every day of the season. Dec. 10 has been circled on our calendar for a while now, ever since we played that game last year and walked off that field,” Walker said.
The past two years Army has come within four and seven points of winning, and arrives at this year as a six-point underdog. Tantalizingly close, yet as this team may know particularly well given its affiliation, that only counts in hand grenades.
What will it require to at last beat Navy, a team that lost both its starting quarterback and starting slotback on the same play in a loss to Temple last week?
“Play physical, fundamental football. If everyone does their assignments I think we’ve got our shot,” Brinson said.
“Execution, that’s all it takes,” Monken said. “We had as good a chance to win the game last year as they did. We didn’t make a play at the end (throwing two fourth-quarter interceptions). They made some plays they needed to. That was that.”
So, back to the question: Is this the year?
Army would love it if you didn’t feel the need to ask in 2017.
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