Tired of NIL and transfer portal? Consider pulling for Army or Navy

Are you, as many, disillusioned with the current state of college football?

Join the club.

You don’t like the transfer portal because your favorite player this season might score his touchdowns for your arch-rival next year?

Rick Cleveland

I feel you.

You say you don’t care for the NIL because you don’t think 20-year-old quarterbacks should make twice as much money as college presidents and heart surgeons? 

You are not alone.

You liked it far better when college players mostly played for the love of the game and not for the almighty dollar?

Boy oh boy, do I have two teams for you: Army and Navy.

Take your pick. Both are undefeated. Both are nationally ranked. Neither pays its players. Neither recruits players from the transfer portal. The Army Black Knights and the Navy Midshipmen are true student-athletes. They go to class and make their grades or they don’t play. Many were honor students, if not valedictorians, at their high schools. They don’t leave school after three years to go to the NFL. No, they become military officers and serve their country after four years of a rigorous, world-class education. 

Army, ranked No. 23, defeated East Carolina 45-28 Saturday to move to 7-0. No. 25 Navy clobbered Charlotte 51-17 to move to 6-0. 

I should tell you that my appreciation for Navy and Army football goes back all the way to childhood, when the annual Army-Navy football game was required viewing at my daddy’s house. He served in the Navy in World War II, so we cheered for the Midshipmen. Then, in our backyard after the game, I imagined I was Navy quarterback Roger Staubach, throwing passes to my brother, who was Navy halfback Joe Bellino. Both were Heisman Trophy winners. Both then served their country. Staubach delayed his Hall of Fame NFL career four years, serving as a Naval officer, including one year in Vietnam.

The six-plus decades since have been mostly lean times for both Army and Navy. Most blue-chip college football prospects dream of playing in the NFL, not fighting for their country. That both Navy and Army would experience this amazing resurgence just as college football has been turned upside down by NIL and the transfer portal seems almost far-fetched. 

But maybe it shouldn’t. While most college football teams’ rosters now experience a yearly fruit basket turnover, Army and Navy rosters don’t change except for graduates being replaced by new recruits.

“This is how we build our team here, and it’s how college football teams over the course of the history of college football history have built their teams,” Army coach Jeff Monken told reporters. “Recruit high school players, retain them in your program, develop them and hope you can put a team together that can win. That’s just how we do it here.”

You will hear TV commentators say that playing college football is like a full-time job. If that’s the case, Army, Navy and Air Force players are working three full-time jobs. They play their sports. They take a heavy, heavy academic load that does not allow for easy grades. And they also learn to be soldiers.

For the all-time best description of the rigorous schedule athletes face at the military academies, do yourself a favor and purchase author John Feinstein’s book “A Civil War.” In it, you will learn that the easiest two hours of each day for Army and Navy players are the time they spend at practice. Their days begin long before sunrise and end after required study late, late at night, if not into the wee morning hours.

The legendary Ole Miss All American Barney Poole played on national championship teams at Army before returning to Mississippi to play at Ole Miss. I called Barney in 1998 before a trip to West Point to cover a Southern Miss-Army game. I was taking my 12-year-old son and wanted to make sure he saw all the sights. Barney, one of the nicest men I’ve known, told me all of what my son and I should see, and then he said, “You show him all that, but you makes sure to also tell him, it’s a lot prettier from the outside looking in than it is from the inside looking out.”

How so, I asked, and Barney replied, “West Point isn’t for everybody. Those young men go through hell and back. Believe me, I know.”

Mississippi is represented on both the Army and Navy teams. Chance Keith, a former Biloxi High player, is a senior defensive back at Army. Sophomore tight end Jake Norris of Madison Central and freshman cornerback Noah Short of Madison-Ridgeland Academy both play for Navy.

Navy plays host to Notre Dame this Saturday. Army has an open date before playing Air Force on Nov. 2. Most college football players visit home or enjoy some down time during an open date. Bet on this: Most Army players will play catch-up on their studies and make up for any drills they might have missed because of football.

The annual Army-Navy game is slated for Dec. 14 this year. There’s also a chance the two teams will meet the week before in the American Athletic Conference championship game. The top two teams in that league play for the championship. Currently, that would be Army and Navy.

Wouldn’t that be something?

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