re: I’ve noticed the service academies have started to win more in recent years

Nah, just gaming the system like everybody else with their
feeder programs

quote:

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the 1980s, Navy noticed that the Air Force Academy, which was regularly trouncing it in football, was placing recruited athletes in its prep school. Indeed, in 2003, Fisher DeBerry, the longtime coach of the Falcons, told The Colorado Springs Gazette that the prep school “has had a major impact on the success of our football team.

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quote:

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Eager to turn the tide against its rival, Navy began to copy DeBerry’s methods. Sure enough, NAPS is now a means by which Navy launders underqualified athletes into the Naval Academy.

Jim Kenney, a retired Navy captain who was the commanding officer of the Navy prep school from 1978-82, recalled that in his era maybe four football players had been enrolled. “Today,” he said, “it is dominated by athletes.”

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Army followed suit after an extended losing streak in the '00's that was finally broken in '16