Why the Army-Navy Rivalry Is Still One of College Football’s Best

Each year, there is only one game that ends the college football regular season. That’s the annual Army-Navy game played in late November or early December between two of our country’s three military academies. It also represents one of the greatest college football rivalries of all time. 

While the action on the field is intense, what makes the Army-Navy game so special is that it’s about so much more than football and the tradition that goes with it. And that’s what has made it appeal to sports fans who may not even have a rooting interest in either team. 

Even when you take the emotional aspect out of it, the game has objectively featured some ballers on both sidelines — a total of five Heisman Trophy winners have played in the game. 

Here’s a look at what makes the Army-Navy football game such an amazing part of not just college sports but also part of our American sporting lives. 

The first Army-Navy game was played on Nov. 29, 1890, in West Point, New York — with a 24-0 win by Navy, the team that leads the all-time series 62-53-7. 

The biggest break in playing the game was a two-year absence in 1928 and 1929, but it has been played every year since 1930 in a variety of locations, with the majority of the games happening in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 2020, the game was played in West Point for the first time since 1943. It has only been played once on the West Coast when it was held in Pasadena, California, in 1983. 

Beginning in 2021, the game was scheduled to be played in a different location for five consecutive years; East Rutherford, New Jersey (2021), Philadelphia (2022), Foxborough, Massachusetts (2023), Landover, Maryland (2024) and Baltimore, Maryland (2025). 

From the game’s inception in 1890 through 1962, the Army-Navy football game was routinely played with national championship implications. 

Navy won its only national championship in 1926, and Army won three consecutive national championships from 1944 to 1946. After 1963, the game has kept its panache because of the military academy aspect, but the product on the field has left quite a bit to be desired — it was 33 years before both teams entered the game with a winning record again in 1996. In the last 60 years, there have only been four times when both teams had winning records entering the game — 1996, 2010, 2016 and 2017. Brutal. 

The Army-Navy game has featured the Heisman Trophy winner five times in its history. No team featuring a Heisman Trophy winner has ever lost the Army-Navy game. 

One U.S. President has played in the Army-Navy game — Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th President, was a starter at halfback and defensive back for Army in 1912 when the Black Knights lost to Navy 6-0. It was also the last year of Eisenhower’s athletic career, as he tore his knee in a game against Carlisle University while trying to tackle legendary Carlisle running back Jim Thorpe.  

“Here and there, there are some people who are supremely endowed,” Eisenhower said at a luncheon for the Republican National Committee on Jan. 6, 1961. “My memory goes back to Jim Thorpe. He never practiced in his life, and he could do anything better than any other football player I ever saw.”