One of the significant aspects of the annual matchup between Army and Navy is the fact that the two programs share the same advantages and disadvantages in competing under the rules imposed by the NCAA on its member institutions. The playing field is truly equal when Army and Navy meet on the field of friendly strife.

In a recent thread on the GBK 12th Knight Forum, our subscribers discussed their thoughts as to why Army West Point was having such a tough season. Navy’s season has been difficult as well, and we would like to add a few of our own thoughts as to why Army and Navy have faced bigger challenges this year.

I’d like to start this discussion with a fantasy. Consider, if you will, what the Army would be like if it could add the following players to the roster. On defense: Nolan Cockrill at Nose Tackle, Arik Smith at Middle Linebacker, Malkelm Morrison at Apache, Cedrick Cunningham at Safety, Julian McDuffie at Cornerback. On the offense: Jabari Laws and Christian Anderson competing with Tyhier Tyler at quarterback, Noah Knapp and Dean Powell on the offensive line, and Chris Cameron sharing snaps with Josh Lingenfelter at Tight End. On special teams add Zach Harding at punter for good measure. Knowledgeable Army fans will recognize these players as the losses to graduation from last year’s team.

I’m sure we’d all agree that Army would have had a better chance of winning more games with even a few of those players in the lineup.

Pure Fantasy? At West Point, Absolutely! I’m sure a Navy fan could create a similar fantasy team that includes recent USNA grads, and it would be just as much a fantasy. But a team loaded with 5th-year seniors is the norm at almost every civilian opponent Army and Navy face due to the common practice of redshirting. Just look at any opponent roster in recent years and count the number of RS Seniors. It’s a disadvantage that Army, Navy and Air Force have had to contend with for years.

It’s not that the NCAA doesn’t allow the academies to redshirt, and, in fact, the three academies field a small number of 5th year players almost every year, but Congress expects cadets and midshipmen to graduate and leave their respective academies 47 months after they enter on R-Day and the exceptions granted are very limited.

A few years ago, Troy Calhoun went so far as to suggest that Air Force Academy should add the 9th semester; so that the Falcons could take advantage of redshirting available at other schools. Of course, no one in Congress was interested in entertaining Calhoun’s suggestion. If anything, our congressional leaders would prefer to reduce the amount of time required to produce officers at the service academies. During wartime, West Point has graduated cadets in three years, and that has led some congressional leaders to question why we need 4 years to produce officers.

Obtaining a waiver from the NCAA to play a 5th year is seldom a problem, but getting USMA or USNA to delay graduation long enough to complete a 5th year in football is a much tougher challenge. In addition, the desire to graduate in June with one’s class is often a strong disincentive to sticking around for a fifth year of football.

Unfortunately, facing off against 5th-year seniors is one disadvantage that is only getting worse with recent changes to NCAA rules. A 2018 rule change allows football redshirts to participate in up to 4 games at any time during their redshirt season without sacrificing a year of eligibility. That has made redshirting a more attractive option for freshmen and their coaches, and it seems we’re seeing more redshirts on the rosters these days. For example, Coastal Carolina lists 14 RS Juniors compared to only 5 true Juniors and 22 RS Sophomores compared to 2 true Sophomores on their 2022 roster.

Redshirts also gain more experience than they did in the past. With the 4 games allowed in their redshirt season, an RS Senior may easily have played in 43 games before starting his fourth season of eligibility.

Consider the example of 22-year-old Kelechi Nwachuku a UTSA Safety who played in 41 games prior to 2022 including 3 as a redshirt freshman in 2018. He is playing out his 4th year of eligibility within the 5-year window allowed by the redshirt rules, but, as we’ll see in the next section, he won’t exhaust his eligibility this year and will be available to play at UTSA again next season.

Under normal circumstances, the NCAA rules only allow a football player four years of eligibility over a 5 year period of time starting when they first enroll in a college football program. In the past, we’ve seen a small number of players receive a medical waiver that allowed them the 6th year, but those were newsworthy circumstances. Army fans may recall playing against Brandon Doughty, who played quarterback for Western Kentucky from 2010 to 2015. He redshirted in 2010 and then received another medical redshirt season that allowed him to play in all 5 seasons from 2011 to 2015 before signing up for the NFL draft.

In response to the abbreviated 2020 season at many schools, the NCAA granted an extra year of eligibility to all players who were on the roster during the Covid season. That decision added a significant number of 6th-year seniors, some identified as Super Seniors, and others as RS Seniors who populated the rosters of our opponents in 2022. For example, Coastal Carolina listed 7 Super Seniors in addition to the 14 Redshirt (5th year) Seniors on their roster this year. UTSA identified their 6th-year seniors as RS Seniors, but we counted 9 of them who were in their 6th year of college football, including their starting quarterback Frank Harris. One of the Coastal Carolina 6th year seniors was working on a second master's degree has already completed a master's in Sports Management during his 5th year on the team.

All of these 6th-year seniors were on a college team in 2017, and they are often in their mid-twenties with a two-year advantage in college-level experience over Army’s cadets and Navy’s midshipmen. One might compare the situation to a junior college taking on a team from a 4-year school.

To put into perspective what parity would be like for Army, we’ll extend our fantasy a bit to include Jon Rhattigan as a 6th year senior, pairing with Smith at the other inside linebacker position. We could also add Mike Johnson and Peyton Reeder on the offensive line as and still have far fewer 6th year players than many of our opponents enjoyed playing this season.

The service academies have always been at a disadvantage when it comes to transfers, having to depend solely on recruiting good prospects out of high school and developing them into Division 1 competitors. Our opponents have always enjoyed opportunities for adding seasoned players through transfers, but, until recently, those opportunities were largely limited to graduate transfers and junior college transfers, both of which were not readily available options at the academies.

In the past, we saw very few transfers among FBS level schools, because a player who transferred from one FBS level school to another would have to sit out a year. That rule was dropped when the NCAA created the Transfer Portal, which facilitates transfers for athletes among all 4-year schools. Coaches and players are taking advantage of the new rules everywhere, and pre-season discussions of relative team strength nearly always include comparisons of their transfers.

The transfer portal is virtually a one-way passage at the academies. Players transfer out but no one transfers in.

Technically, Army and Navy can obtain players via the transfer portal, but in reality, it’s not a viable option for most athletes. West Point has had players transfer in from other schools in the past, including a couple of its more famous football figures. Red Blaik played 3 years at Miami of Ohio before transferring to play for Army his last two years. Doc Blanchard played on the freshman team at North Carolina before coming to West Point. The only transfer we can recall in recent years was Jared Hassin who transferred from Air Force to Army in 2009 and had to sit out his freshman season before starting at fullback in his yearling year. The main reason athletes (and college students in general) are not interested in transferring to the academies from other colleges is that they have to start over from scratch and complete all 4 years at the academy, and that includes Cadet Basic Training, commonly referred to as Beast Barracks.

So far the Black Knights don’t appear to have suffered any major losses to the transfer portal, although Army fans got a bit of a scare when Tyrell Robinson and Isaiah Alston briefly entered their names in the portal.

Our GBK Recruiting Analyst, A.M. Allan has been keeping a close eye on transfers, and he offered this opinion: “The young men the (Army) team has that want to leave, have an idea or know they will never play at West Point or wouldn't have made it academically anyway.” But he does note “The Black Knights' opponents have benefited greatly from the new transfer rules. Coastal, UTSA, Georgia State, and Wake Forest have used transfers to improve their rosters…'

No longer do coaches have to wait for their high school recruits to develop into “ready for prime time” players. They can go to the transfer portal to recruit players who are established college-level performers who fit their immediate needs. An examination of opponent rosters shows how those coaches have taken taking advantage of the liberalized transfer rules to restock their graduation losses.

Coastal Carolina lists 29 Transfers from 4-year colleges on their 2022 roster including 9 transfers from Power 5 schools. That’s in addition to their 7 Junior College transfers.

UTSA lists 13 players who previously played at Power 5 schools, another 6 from other 4-year colleges, along with 15 JC transfers.

ULM appears to have been slightly less successful in attracting players via the Transfer Portal with 15 transfers from 4-year schools, including 5 from Power 5 conferences.

Wake Forest has always carried several graduate transfers on their roster, but this season they also list 6 undergraduate transfers including a former Navy player. Wake had a lot of returning players from the 2021 team and didn’t have huge gaps to fill.

UMass with lots of gaps to fill lists 14 transfers from Power 5 schools, including 3 RS Sophomores they poached from nearby Rutgers.

Allen did note one factor that could potentially benefit service academy recruiting from high schools. “Fewer scholarships are available. More guys are being recycled.” With fewer scholarships out there, perhaps more kids will look to service academies.

Another set of rule changes that has had a negative impact on service academy football is the restrictions on cut blocks favored by the service academy teams in running their option offenses. The NCAA introduced some restrictions to cut blocks a few years ago and added further restrictions this past season. We’ve noted that this is one of Coach Monken’s pet peeves; so we thought we’d include it here. Cut blocking is a technique frequently used by smaller slotbacks to take out larger linebackers and safeties, and opponents frequently mention the challenge of preparing for the cut blocks when they are getting ready to play Army or Navy.

Coach Monken has had to make adjustments to limit the impact of the new rules, and we haven’t seen a rash of illegal blocks called against Army this past season, but we really don’t know how much impact the new rule has had on Army’s offensive success. We suspect that the rule change may have had some influence on the decision to use Tyson Riley at slotback. He doesn’t need to cut block.

At the start of the 2020 season, the Mountain West Conference decided to cancel its conference schedule, but then reversed its position and launched an abbreviated schedule starting in October.

All cadets at the Air Force Academy were offered the opportunity to return home for the year rather than remain at the academy to quarantine through the pandemic. Reports claimed that about 40 football players took the academy up on their offer, rather than sacrifice a year of football eligibility.

Did Air Force football benefit from all those players sitting out the 2020 season at home? We counted 9 seniors and 6 juniors on the 2022 Air Force roster who missed the 2020 season. The seniors are essentially fifth-year seniors without a redshirt designation. The juniors are in their 4th year but also not designated as redshirts and presumably will be back in 2023. They are a year older, but don’t have an additional year of football experience; so we don’t see that as offering the same level of advantage we see in other opponents who were granted an extra year of playing time. If Air Force gained an advantage it was a slim one.

**To chat with other Army fans about this article and more, please visit The 12th Knight message board**

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