(04-09-2024 12:11 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  

(04-09-2024 11:28 AM)tf8693 Wrote:  

(04-07-2024 10:20 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  

(04-07-2024 10:50 AM)tf8693 Wrote:  You might not expect a ND fan to say this, but I don't think the service academies are particularly attractive to the M2 conferences. First, they play an option style of offense which is unique to them and preparation for that can disrupt an entire season (to be fair, this probably gives them their best chance of winning with the players they can get.). Further, their coaching staff, particularly Navy's, teaches a cut blocking technique that can cause career-ending injuries to opponents. It's telling that Notre Dame has kept DL with NFL potential out of the Navy game. And while I'm not suggesting that this will happen, there is a growing segment of ND's fanbase calling for cancellation of the Navy series for this reason.

I realize that decisions on matters like this often do not take these types of considerations into account. But if I were the ACC, I would think long and hard before taking any of the service academies.

Regarding the bolded....NAME ONE
Name one DL held out of Navy for injury fears.


I'll go on and say, name one ND defender who didn't post the next game, and then let's look at the injury. What's funny is the subway alums come up with offensive players injured and claim "cut block." Or name a guy who got rolled up on by his teammate in the open field.

Don't get me wrong -- I am happy to make money off of subway alum fans for my tickets for the meadowlands

Louis Nix was definitely held out. I believe Stephon Tuitt was as well

"Notre Dame's defensive front will enter Saturday's contest against Navy without star nose guard Louis Nix III, who will miss his second straight game because of knee tendinitis"

https://www.cbssports.com/college-footba...-for-navy/

And here is an article about Tuitt missing a lot of time in 2013 after off season hernia surgery.
https://www.nfl.com/news/notre-dame-s-st...0000259142

(04-07-2024 03:22 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(04-07-2024 09:47 AM)GTFletch Wrote:  I think the Service Academies fit well into the MWC or AAC.
in 2017 Army, Air Force, Navy started outsourcing athletics, however the level is at the G5 not P5. I am not sure that they could compete in the NIL era of A5/P5.


Link
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/20...820130001/

It's weird, AFA literally can't recruit the big 300 lb lineman to compete in the P4. That's why they didn't want to join the Big 12 in 2012, and I think it was a smart move. Army and Navy can (I think?), but they're struggling to compete at a g5 level. Perhaps it's NIL, perhaps it's lack of the Soviet Menace we had in my day, I dunno, possibly, however, it's the transfer portal. They're hamstrung, kinda like Stanford is, only without the ability to easily change their policy in the future.

Whatever the reason, I think that they're better off sticking around where they are now, competition-wise.

Army and Navy can build those lineman up to the size, but that weight must be lost before they can graduate and be commissioned. A lot of lineman will graduate in December, not May so they have time to drop the weight.

I still foresee Army, Navy and Air Force as possible eventual members of the same league (either an existing conference or one to be created in the future). And assuming that league (existing or future) is the best all-round conference outside the all-sports P4, I hope Memphis is a member. It is a major positive for this Tiger fan to see the University of Memphis affiliated in AAC football with Army and Navy.

(04-09-2024 12:22 PM)jacksfan29! Wrote:  

(04-07-2024 03:22 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(04-07-2024 09:47 AM)GTFletch Wrote:  I think the Service Academies fit well into the MWC or AAC.
in 2017 Army, Air Force, Navy started outsourcing athletics, however the level is at the G5 not P5. I am not sure that they could compete in the NIL era of A5/P5.


Link
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/20...820130001/

It's weird, AFA literally can't recruit the big 300 lb lineman to compete in the P4. That's why they didn't want to join the Big 12 in 2012, and I think it was a smart move. Army and Navy can (I think?), but they're struggling to compete at a g5 level. Perhaps it's NIL, perhaps it's lack of the Soviet Menace we had in my day, I dunno, possibly, however, it's the transfer portal. They're hamstrung, kinda like Stanford is, only without the ability to easily change their policy in the future.

Whatever the reason, I think that they're better off sticking around where they are now, competition-wise.

Army and Navy can build those lineman up to the size, but that weight must be lost before they can graduate and be commissioned. A lot of lineman will graduate in December, not May so they have time to drop the weight.

They shouldn't.
Four years to graduate is four years to graduate. Barring hardship, of course. Injury bad enough to withdraw is up there with family crisis, or LDS mission as an exception. Maximizing playing weight then not commissioning on time is unacceptable.

Here's a Washington Post story on Navy's program, starting the day after the bowl game or Army-Navy
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/co...story.html

And contemporaneous thread on the AAC board:
https://csnbbs.com/thread-775874.html

And yes, I mean four years only, even if that proposed extra semester is off the field. Army and Air Force having numerous fifth-year seniors and fourth-year juniors playing is another atrocity and conversation altogether.

Nope.

(04-06-2024 12:58 PM)mturn017 Wrote:  Navy & Army at least would be FB only, they play olympic sports in the Patriot and couldn't hope to compete in the ACC. They most definitely would dilute basketball more than the new additions.

But I say yes, maybe. They'd be more palatable to members academically and prestige wise and bring more value for media than a lot of their other options. I think the ACC would have to be gutted pretty good to get to that point though.

Agree that the service academies look good in the ACC. And Air Force makes a fine stop between the east and west coasts. But yeah... how much do things have to shake that the ACC is talking about the Falcons and not Colorado State or Colorado? The ACC has traditionally worked well as an all-sports league, and the coming 'pro prep' structures invite a new world of complication.

(04-09-2024 12:22 PM)jacksfan29! Wrote:  

(04-07-2024 03:22 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(04-07-2024 09:47 AM)GTFletch Wrote:  I think the Service Academies fit well into the MWC or AAC.
in 2017 Army, Air Force, Navy started outsourcing athletics, however the level is at the G5 not P5. I am not sure that they could compete in the NIL era of A5/P5.


Link
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/20...820130001/

It's weird, AFA literally can't recruit the big 300 lb lineman to compete in the P4. That's why they didn't want to join the Big 12 in 2012, and I think it was a smart move. Army and Navy can (I think?), but they're struggling to compete at a g5 level. Perhaps it's NIL, perhaps it's lack of the Soviet Menace we had in my day, I dunno, possibly, however, it's the transfer portal. They're hamstrung, kinda like Stanford is, only without the ability to easily change their policy in the future.

Whatever the reason, I think that they're better off sticking around where they are now, competition-wise.

Army and Navy can build those lineman up to the size, but that weight must be lost before they can graduate and be commissioned. A lot of lineman will graduate in December, not May so they have time to drop the weight.

Even with the alternate conditioning that they can now do -- which is a relatively recent modification of requirements -- the alternate conditioning does make it harder to hold 300 pounds than a lineman that does not have a physical conditioning requirement that everyone attending the school has to pass.
____________

(04-09-2024 12:22 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  

(04-09-2024 12:11 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  "Notre Dame's defensive front will enter Saturday's contest against Navy without star nose guard Louis Nix III, who will miss his second straight game because of knee tendinitis"

https://www.cbssports.com/college-footba...-for-navy/

And here is an article about Tuitt missing a lot of time in 2013 after off season hernia surgery.
https://www.nfl.com/news/notre-dame-s-st...0000259142

In other words, exactly the scenario of holding a player out of the lineup for a health caution that ND would be likely to do with any Go5 opponent.

(04-10-2024 10:22 AM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(04-09-2024 12:22 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  

(04-09-2024 12:11 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  "Notre Dame's defensive front will enter Saturday's contest against Navy without star nose guard Louis Nix III, who will miss his second straight game because of knee tendinitis"

https://www.cbssports.com/college-footba...-for-navy/

And here is an article about Tuitt missing a lot of time in 2013 after off season hernia surgery.
https://www.nfl.com/news/notre-dame-s-st...0000259142

In other words, exactly the scenario of holding a player out of the lineup for a health caution that ND would be likely to do with any Go5 opponent.

I dunno. To me it isn't even a debate between held out to avoid cut blocks vs held out because of nagging injuries and you're still confident against a lesser opponent.

It's just plain injured in previous game. When a guy misses two straight it isn't strategizing, he's injured.

(04-07-2024 10:21 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  

(04-07-2024 03:25 PM)DawgNBama Wrote:  

(04-06-2024 12:51 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(04-06-2024 12:41 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  You forgot Marines!

Only West Point is a single service academy ... :coffee3:

... the Marines are served by the Naval Academy and the Space Force is served by the Air Force Academy.

(Edit: among FBS Academies that is ... IIUC, the Coast Guard Academy is single service as well.)

I have no clue what the Merchant Marine Academy does or who they are affiliated with.

USCGA and USMMA are both fine institutions. Have loved serving with grads of both and can think of numerous offspring of friends and colleagues at both now or recently.
They are both D-3 for sports (about 1/5th the enrollment of the bigger three service academies).

USMMA in particular, a lot of the grads go US Navy Reserve...in addition to the nationally critical role of our Merchant Marine.

I had the chance to speak this week with a USMMA faculty member (himself a USAFA grad). Last year 27% of USMMA grads took an active duty commission, so 50-60 new active duty officers from Kings Point. Navy led the way, then Coast Guard, with Army in a dead heat with Marine Corps, and finally Air Force.

In case it wasn't clear, the three FBS academies all have cross commissioning programs. One of my classmates is an Air Force three-star, and I've worked with USAFA grad SEALs.

(04-11-2024 08:18 AM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  

(04-10-2024 10:22 AM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(04-09-2024 12:22 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  

(04-09-2024 12:11 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  "Notre Dame's defensive front will enter Saturday's contest against Navy without star nose guard Louis Nix III, who will miss his second straight game because of knee tendinitis"

https://www.cbssports.com/college-footba...-for-navy/

And here is an article about Tuitt missing a lot of time in 2013 after off season hernia surgery.
https://www.nfl.com/news/notre-dame-s-st...0000259142

In other words, exactly the scenario of holding a player out of the lineup for a health caution that ND would be likely to do with any Go5 opponent.

I dunno. To me it isn't even a debate between held out to avoid cut blocks vs held out because of nagging injuries and you're still confident against a lesser opponent.

It's just plain injured in previous game. When a guy misses two straight it isn't strategizing, he's injured.

For Tuitt, to be sure ... for Nix, it's up in the air, since there's no way to tell whether they would have been back after one week for a more critical game, but it's a distinction without a difference in this context ... "holding out because of cut blocks" doesn't work if they were also held out the previous week, no matter how cautious they were being in holding him out for a second week.

They could be looking at East Carolina if they are not careful.

(04-07-2024 04:33 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I think the academies are aware of the sizable talent gap between them and even the brainy ACC programs. Just look at him may good teams had to leave the AAC before Army would join. The academies would do very poorly even in a reduced ACC.

I don't know. There are 3ish ACC teams who would be expected to regularly beat Army/Navy/AFA. Outside of those 3, the ACC is pretty much the MAC.

(04-15-2024 01:12 PM)CoastalJuan Wrote:  

(04-07-2024 04:33 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I think the academies are aware of the sizable talent gap between them and even the brainy ACC programs. Just look at him may good teams had to leave the AAC before Army would join. The academies would do very poorly even in a reduced ACC.

I don't know. There are 3ish ACC teams who would be expected to regularly beat Army/Navy/AFA. Outside of those 3, the ACC is pretty much the MAC.

The first major fact to bring to people's attention is that in 2011-12, Navy said "yes" to a BCS Auto-Qual conference. The Big East's "power" status didn't last long past that as the CFP structure excluded it, but when Navy was asked (and took a few months to get to yes) it still was. There was a lot of hand wringing around Annapolis about stepping up in weight class, but the decision was taken for the strategic objective of staying at the highest level of D1 football. "In college sports there is a storm getting ready to come, a hurricane getting ready to come, and those that are in homes don't really worry about it. But it's the people that are on the outside looking in that need to find a place of refuge."

Pitt, Syracuse, and West Virginia were already on their way out, but the Big East that Navy joined still included Louisville, Rutgers, Cincinnati, South Florida, etc in terms of relative football strength. It was somewhere between a power conference of today and any hypothetical zombie-ACC of brainy schools.

I looked at Navy's independent conference schedule from 2003-2014. Navy played Duke, Stanford, BC, Pitt, Wake, and SMU a total of 23 times with a record of 14-9. As I said in post #25, smaller versions of the GOR jailbreak might leave members that are less of an institutional / strength of schedule fit. But those six? Add Cal and GT? Yeah, Navy football only is just fine with the "brainy ACC programs" / "reduced ACC"

If a change is coming, ND, Army, Navy, and Air Force should be the only Indys allowed in FBS.

(04-15-2024 04:46 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  

(04-15-2024 01:12 PM)CoastalJuan Wrote:  

(04-07-2024 04:33 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I think the academies are aware of the sizable talent gap between them and even the brainy ACC programs. Just look at him may good teams had to leave the AAC before Army would join. The academies would do very poorly even in a reduced ACC.

I don't know. There are 3ish ACC teams who would be expected to regularly beat Army/Navy/AFA. Outside of those 3, the ACC is pretty much the MAC.

The first major fact to bring to people's attention is that in 2011-12, Navy said "yes" to a BCS Auto-Qual conference. The Big East's "power" status didn't last long past that as the CFP structure excluded it, but when Navy was asked (and took a few months to get to yes) it still was. There was a lot of hand wringing around Annapolis about stepping up in weight class, but the decision was taken for the strategic objective of staying at the highest level of D1 football. "In college sports there is a storm getting ready to come, a hurricane getting ready to come, and those that are in homes don't really worry about it. But it's the people that are on the outside looking in that need to find a place of refuge."

Pitt, Syracuse, and West Virginia were already on their way out, but the Big East that Navy joined still included Louisville, Rutgers, Cincinnati, South Florida, etc in terms of relative football strength. It was somewhere between a power conference of today and any hypothetical zombie-ACC of brainy schools.

I looked at Navy's independent conference schedule from 2003-2014. Navy played Duke, Stanford, BC, Pitt, Wake, and SMU a total of 23 times with a record of 14-9. As I said in post #25, smaller versions of the GOR jailbreak might leave members that are less of an institutional / strength of schedule fit. But those six? Add Cal and GT? Yeah, Navy football only is just fine with the "brainy ACC programs" / "reduced ACC"

FWIW, I don't think Navy ever has to really worry about its status. Navy is never going to be a major football player like it was many decades ago, but the powers that be will never boot it out of the highest level of football either, whatever that is called. Navy athletics is ultimately backed by the federal government, and the powers in CFB, for political reasons, will always IMO have a home for it in their ranks.

So to me, what Navy does should be driven more by tactical concerns than strategic concerns. That means looking at conference configurations that provide the most visibility for Navy, in terms of geographic dispersion and prominence of opponent brands. In that regard, I think Navy is fine whether it remains in the current AAC, joins a trans-continental 2PAC MW-AAC hybrid of some kind, or somehow falls in to the lap of a reduced brainy ACC league. Navy, IMO, just doesn't have the same existential concerns for its athletic department that state and private schools have.

Just MO.

(04-19-2024 08:38 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(04-15-2024 04:46 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  

(04-15-2024 01:12 PM)CoastalJuan Wrote:  

(04-07-2024 04:33 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I think the academies are aware of the sizable talent gap between them and even the brainy ACC programs. Just look at him may good teams had to leave the AAC before Army would join. The academies would do very poorly even in a reduced ACC.

I don't know. There are 3ish ACC teams who would be expected to regularly beat Army/Navy/AFA. Outside of those 3, the ACC is pretty much the MAC.

The first major fact to bring to people's attention is that in 2011-12, Navy said "yes" to a BCS Auto-Qual conference. The Big East's "power" status didn't last long past that as the CFP structure excluded it, but when Navy was asked (and took a few months to get to yes) it still was. There was a lot of hand wringing around Annapolis about stepping up in weight class, but the decision was taken for the strategic objective of staying at the highest level of D1 football. "In college sports there is a storm getting ready to come, a hurricane getting ready to come, and those that are in homes don't really worry about it. But it's the people that are on the outside looking in that need to find a place of refuge."

Pitt, Syracuse, and West Virginia were already on their way out, but the Big East that Navy joined still included Louisville, Rutgers, Cincinnati, South Florida, etc in terms of relative football strength. It was somewhere between a power conference of today and any hypothetical zombie-ACC of brainy schools.

I looked at Navy's independent conference schedule from 2003-2014. Navy played Duke, Stanford, BC, Pitt, Wake, and SMU a total of 23 times with a record of 14-9. As I said in post #25, smaller versions of the GOR jailbreak might leave members that are less of an institutional / strength of schedule fit. But those six? Add Cal and GT? Yeah, Navy football only is just fine with the "brainy ACC programs" / "reduced ACC"

FWIW, I don't think Navy ever has to really worry about its status. Navy is never going to be a major football player like it was many decades ago, but the powers that be will never boot it out of the highest level of football either, whatever that is called. Navy athletics is ultimately backed by the federal government, and the powers in CFB, for political reasons, will always IMO have a home for it in their ranks.

So to me, what Navy does should be driven more by tactical concerns than strategic concerns. That means looking at conference configurations that provide the most visibility for Navy, in terms of geographic dispersion and prominence of opponent brands. In that regard, I think Navy is fine whether it remains in the current AAC, joins a trans-continental 2PAC MW-AAC hybrid of some kind, or somehow falls in to the lap of a reduced brainy ACC league. Navy, IMO, just doesn't have the same existential concerns for its athletic department that state and private schools have.

Just MO.

I have never subscribed to the idea that just being a service academy ensured the desired inclusion at the top level if college football.
If the powers that be at Navy felt in 2011 that just being star-spangled studs, riding eight straight winning/bowl seasons going into that season was enough, we might not have said "yes" to the Big East.
If the powers that be at Army West Point felt that way just six months ago, they would have stayed independent.
The evidence suggests that the accelerated systemic change in college football has academy decision makers more convinced that they need to continue working to position themselves on the right side of the future schism (up to the point where that schism is defined primarily by amateurism vs employer/employee).

The hand wave of political backing is misguided. There are voices and drivers and opportunism on both sides of the aisle that would be against the service academies being perceived as football factories.

And finally, maybe diving into semantics, but it seems to me that conference configuration IS the strategic not the tactical level. Tactical is deciding on the cities bidding to host the Notre Dame game, or schmoozing boosters at the Rugby national championship match, or picking the home game opponent for that twelfth football game, or maintaining relationships with those mid-tier bowl executives.

Likewise, that's just my opinion.

No

(04-23-2024 09:31 AM)orangefan Wrote:  No

LOLz.

My carrot-colored friend, you need to begin to prepare yourself mentally for the possibility of a certain future. A future where the ACC GOR jailbreak includes seven or eight schools desired by the bigger predators, and Syracuse is #9 or #10 on their lists. Your coast-to-coast nerd BFFs are going to have Navy football-only high on their lists.

That's just a possibility- requires a very Goldilocks-sized jailbreak. It's not a high probability, but it is a greater than zero chance.