History hangs heavy over this weekend’s massive showdown between Army and Notre Dame. It was once the most famous rivalry in the country, a war that captivated the entire country. Americans eagerly awaited the papers, gathered around radios, stared into the glow of massive early television sets to learn which of these titans would announce the best and most important game of the year.
Army-Notre Dame inspired both – Grantland Rice’s “Outlined in a blue-gray October sky, the four horsemen rode again” – and Knute Rockn’s plea, “Win one for the Gipper.” It is the source of sports as myth, coaches as strict but loving fathers and players as doomed or noble heroes.
So it’s kind of perfect from the narrative that this rivalry, which has fallen so far from its 20th-century heights, could once again change the trajectory of the entire sport. The business of college football today would be unrecognizable to Rockne, Red Blaik, Ara Parseghian and other legends of the Notre Dame-Army rivalry, but the main goal is to evaluate the man on the other side of the line, beat him and let the cards fall where they may — it would be warmly familiar.
Army and Notre Dame combined for 16 national championships in the 20th century, including seven in the 1940s alone (technically six since they share a year of 1946). Since then they have fallen far; Army’s last title season was in 1946 and Notre Dame’s in 1988. The Irish have since clawed their way back to the top, using unlimited resources, a de facto personal broadcast network and a national recruiting footprint.
A much more interesting transformation is taking place at West Point, where the Army is in the midst of making history on multiple fronts. The 9-0 Black Knights are one win away from their fourth double-digit win total in the program’s 131-year history. To find Army’s last undefeated season, you have to go all the way back to 1958. Except for one seven-year stint in Conference USA at the turn of the millennium, Army was a proud independent until this year, when it joined the AAC and took control of the joint.
The wonder is how Army got to this position despite failing to utilize two of college football’s formidable weapons: the NIL and the transfer portal. The military doesn’t allow their players to take NIL money, and one doesn’t jump to West Point for just one mercenary season.
But it’s not hard to see that the military’s old-school ethos is a counterintuitive asset. While other AAC schools were raiding their top talent or trying to put together a bunch of disposable bounty hunters, Army is building a team. (Yes, that sounds like an ad. That doesn’t make it any less true.)
For example, quarterback Bryson Daily went exactly one game as a freshman without throwing a pass. As a sophomore, he played five games and scored two touchdowns on 12 rushing attempts. He took over the starting job as a junior and now, as a senior, he leads all FCS quarterbacks in rushing yards and is second in rushing touchdowns with 21. That’s the wait-your-turn, be-ready-when kind of thing. mindsets that the portal and NIL have already devastated across the country.
As Florida State showed to chilling effect, it’s not enough to bring in star recruits, throw them the ball and expect them to win games. Team cohesion helps too, the kind of cohesion you get from living, eating, exercising and bleeding together for three or four seasons. The NIL can cover a lot of college football’s sins, but it can’t replace it.
Army defeats its opponents by grinding them into dust, holding the ball for massive stretches of play and using opportunistic turnovers and a conservative ball-control attack to control the tempo. It is a way to defeat a physically superior opponent; stay in the conversation long enough and you can control it … in game and in season.
Admittedly, despite the military’s flawless record, the strength of the plan is truly troubling. The Black Knights are currently ranked 19th in the CFP behind a number of one-, two- and three-loss teams. The SEC and Big Ten can argue over who is the better conference; there are no such discussions with the AAC.
That’s what makes this weekend’s Notre Dame rematch so compelling and crucial. Army now has a chance to change the entire structure of the playoffs. Just snap a 15-game losing streak dating back to 1958 and surpass the projected 14.5-point margin. But if Army pulls it off, it opens things up — a new Group of Five team fights its way into the playoff conversation, and the Irish are either completely out of the picture or trying to justify their entry as a two-loss SEC team. . And when the playoffs begin, who knows what might happen next? We are in uncharted territory throughout the plan.
Sure, Army-Notre Dame may never return to its glory days when it determined the fate of the college football universe. But it comes back to the must-watch decisive game, and that’s one of the many elements of this season worth celebrating.