The Mids brought back former assistant and triple-option expert Paul Johnson from Georgia Southern, and he went 8-5 in his second season. Meanwhile, the Mids fired Charlie Weatherbie in 2001 as Navy went 1-20 during his final two seasons. They got worse basically every year."ĭecision 3: Berry, who coached Army to its last win over Navy, went 5-35 and got fired midway through a 0-13 season in 2003. "Well, even if you got any of those guys - and you weren't going to - they weren't going to last at West Point academically or militarily if they were that into football. "I remember Berry telling me, 'We're going to go out and recruit guys who can run 4.4 40s and we're recruiting guys against Georgia and Florida State,'" Feinstein said. C-USA opponents, of course, had far more speed than Army. Berry wanted to prove service academies could win with the spread offense and ended 16 seasons of Army using the wishbone. Everybody else was getting junior college players."ĭecision 2: Then-Army athletic director Rick Greenspan fired coach Bob Sutton, who went 44-55-1, and hired Todd Berry from Illinois State. "The only school like them academically was Tulane. "They joined a conference in which they couldn't compete," Feinstein said. The failed experiment lasted seven years. It’s ‘Go Army, Beat Navy.’ It’s everywhere.Decision 1: Fearing oblivion as more teams aligned with conferences, Army joined Conference USA in 1998 and 107 years of independence in order to play Cincinnati, East Carolina, Houston, Louisville, Memphis, Southern Mississippi, UAB and Tulane. Q: What do they tell you about the Navy game when you play for Army? What do they tell you about the importance of that game?Ī: They don’t even have to tell you. Sophomore year, I got hurt at the beginning of the season, and junior year was my first year playing. I haven’t even played in a game yet.’ Two years prior, my freshman year, I didn’t play on the varsity team. Like, you come in and everyone’s, ‘Well, Army football has lost 14 years straight,’ and you’re like, ‘That’s crazy. The big thing they preached before that game was we weren’t a part of those 14 games. Q: How important was it for you guys to do that?Ī: It’s a testament to coach (Jeff) Monken’s staff, just the culture change for sure. I don’t know who it was and I don’t remember the face, but I remember a grown man hugging me, crying, and thanking (us) for ending the streak. Q: Did anybody come up and give you a hug, by chance?Ī: I had a grown man hug me, and he was crying. But it was right there in the papers the next day. I think she was someone who (was) from the French military. That game attracts military personnel from all over the world. There’s a funny picture of that out there somewhere. One of my buddies, Mike Hiltner, our right guard, had a random lady come up and kiss him. It was awesome.Ī: Me personally, I was just trying to take it all in. More: Army Navy game by the numbers includes President Donald Trump attending for the third timeĪ: Just watching fans from even the upper decks in Baltimore just pouring down onto the field. In their words: Former Navy player recalls thrill of winning Army game 'all four years' I’ll have that one down for the rest of my life. I mean, it always is, but that one, oh man. It was the biggest focus point for the entire year. In a conversation with Bob McManaman of The Arizona Republic, he looked back on the day the Black Knights' losing streak to Navy finally came to an end.įollow every game: Live NCAA College Football ScoresĪ: A huge part of it was just coming into that program and we were on a 14-game losing streak. They've won every game against Navy since.Īrizona Cardinals offensive lineman Brett Toth started at right tackle for Army in that pivotal game. Then, in 2016, Army finally got its breakthrough. The Black Knights jumped to a 14-0 lead, then gave up 17 unanswered points before an Ahmad Bradshaw touchdown run with six minutes to play helped seal a 21-17 victory. Though the venue for the annual rivalry game changed repeatedly during that span, the result remained the same. The Black Knights lost 14 consecutive games against the Midshipmen from 2002 to 2015, with an average margin of defeat of 19.9 points. For 14 years, Army found itself on the wrong side of its heated rivalry with Navy.
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