Army 5-7

If you asked me three weeks ago I would have said that the success of the season depended on Army winning against Navy and accepting a bid to the Eaglebank Bowl.

Of course, a bowl would be a nice way to top off Rich Ellerson's first season - and it wasn't an unrealistic goal considering the schedule and some of the early results. A funny thing happened as I watched the game on Saturday... up 3-0 at the half - a win was certainly within reach, and I reflected on the season, the teams - the wins, the losses. I came around to thinking about the bowl bid. For all the steps that the Black Knights have taken forward there have been just as many missteps. I thought if this team achieved a bowl after the Tulane debacle, after the Duke picks and the Temple game that this one win would overshadow those letdowns. I found that without the bowl I would more easily remember the best parts of the season and that with the possible bowl bid I would focus more on the games that Army could have and should have won. I guess what I'm getting at is that the success of this season didn't depend on beating Navy, but in the next few years I can pretty assuredly say that the future success of Rich Ellerson at Army WILL come down to winning that game. We all know this team has a long way to go to get where they can and should be, but leading Navy like they did and losing in that familiar fashion I think gives a better perspective of exactly what this team has accomplished this year: some, but not enough.

As for the Navy game, without talking about how Navy was very beatable on Saturday:
























... and without talking about how the Navy defense was climbing on Ali Villanueva like they were trying to scale the Herndon Monument























...and without talking about how - for Army - it was close, but no cigar...

























...well, I guess there's not much else to talk about.

Your Army/Navy story, stats and highlights.