re: How can Navy build a good football team but not Army?

it hasn't even been that long since the AFA was very competitive. I was pretty young when TCU first joined the MWC and I remember seeing them play a few times and was impressed. May have even been before the frogs left the WAC I can't remember. I'm only 24. saw them a few times in the Armed Forces bowl too. that bowl game was awesome

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it hasn't even been that long since the AFA was very competitive.

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They are competitive right now.

They are 8-3 and will be facing San Diego State in the MWC title game.

Besides having a superior coaching staff and overall program management, Navy is a little more lax in their standards for football.

Just look at their roster: they have more than double the 300 pound players that Army and Air Force do combined.

Navy players are treated like kings in Annapolis compared to what Army and AF players experience. They get away with a lot more than Army and AF players do.

Navy also pulls some shenanigans with their prep school and takes players that Army and AF won't touch.

It's pretty well-known, and I know the administrations at West Point and Colorado Springs have problems with the way Navy does things.

This isn't new, either.

I my opinion it is a combination of 1) Serving in a post 9/11 world 2) recent success of Navy's program 3) Coaching

1) I'm not trying to make this about me story, but my theory is based on my personal experience over 20 years ago. When I was 17 and recruited to play football by both Army and Navy it was right after the original Desert Storm War. The Army as a whole had a ton of great press as a result of the success it had liberating Kuwait. At this time both programs were equal with Navy winning the 1991 match up to tie the series. Army went on a run to win five straight from 92-97. For my graduating class the armor branch ran out of spots at around the 500th cadet to choose, which was unheard of prior to my class. Before my class you could typically choose armor towards the bottom of the class.

Fast forward 10 years and you are choosing b/w Army and Navy. Choose Army and you are guaranteed to be going on patrols in Iraq, Afghanistan, or both. Choose Navy and you can spend your service time in the Marines, flying incredible Navy planes or being part of the cool technology that is part of our current Navy's fleet. In the media today everything is about the Navy Seals there was a movie about Annapolis. Tom Clancy's books are primarily about Naval Operations, etc.

From my experience most of the players play at the service academies go there to play football first and don't really care about being part of the Corps or joining the service afterwards. The ironic part is that I have seen the same individuals that didn't care about the academy or the Army are the ones that became lifers and went into special forces or Ranger units.

Knowing this I firmly believe that given the choice today most recruits deciding b/w the two would choose Navy assuming all things were equal.

2) I think that my theory previously mentioned has contributed to Navy's success. Now the programs are no longer equal footing. There are only a certain number of recruits that qualify for and are willing to play at a service academy. I would imagine that at this point Army is getting what is left after Navy and Air Force make their selections.

3) Coaching- when I was playing Army was lead by Bob Sutton and running the triple option. Although I had more faith in my high school coaches at the time, it turns out the coaching staff was pretty good. Army fired Bob Sutton to move away from the antiquated triple option to migrate towards a more prolific passing attack. Only to realize that it can't recruit the athletes to run the spread offense and 15 years later has hired a coach to bring them back run the option.

How does Army get back on equal footing? Our participation in two war fronts seems to be diminishing. Give the current coach time to rebuild the program. Eventually Navy will make a bad coaching hire that will negatively affect their program.

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Only to realize that it can't recruit the athletes to run the spread offense and 15 years later has hired a coach to bring them back run the option.

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That was a disastrous experiment by Army. Not only did they make the switch to a spread passing attack but they compounded that by joining Conference USA and that was back when C-USA was a fairly salty little conference.

After that they tried to go with a pro style power running game... despite well and truly not having the players to just run people over. That didn't work out too well either.

Then Ellerson and his Wing-T/triple option hybrid offense had a go. When it clicked they were an offensive juggernaut, watch the game where they kicked Northwestern all up and down the field as an example. Unfortunately hand offs are particularly tricky in a Wing-T type set up and Army had an enormous number of turn overs.

Now they are back using a true triple option offense but they are trying to catch up to two schools who've been using that offense for a while and with tremendous stability in the HC spot as well.

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You're right.

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You should've stopped here. "Spending time overseas" is not "guaranteed to go on patrols", especially for Army officers.