This past Saturday, in Week 16 of NCAA football, we saw the annual rivalry game between two of the USA Military Academies, the Army Black Knights 4-8 (FBS Independent) play their Rival the Navy Midshipmen 7-5 (FBS Independent) this time the Navy beat Army 13-10 for the 13th straight win in this annual series, that began back in 1890.
With this win their Coach Ken Numatalolo ended his tie with George Welsh for the most wins in the Navy athletics programs history, and Numatalolo now has seven wins against the Black Knights of Army. In this series the Navy is up in the series at 59-49-7, while in the previous 12 game they managed to outscore the Army 400-32 which included their win 34-7 in 2013.
Statistically, this game was very close as the Black Knights made 15- 1st downs for 235 yards, while the Midshipmen had 16-1st downs for some 282 offensive yards. Army made 37 yard passing and 198 rushing, while Navy had 77 yards passing and 205 rushing. Both teams had 1 turnover and Navy managed to possess the ball for 6:44 minutes more in the game than Army did.
The offensive leaders in the game for the Navy were QB Reynolds, who completed 6 of 8 passes for 77 yards and 1 TD. RB Swain & QB Reynolds compiled 35 carries for 147 yards, with Reynolds scoring 1 TD. Receivers Tillman & Jenkins combined for 4 receptions for 63 yards with Tillman scoring 1 TD. For the Navy, their offensive leaders in the game were QBs Schurr & White who completed 2 of 5 passes for 37 yards. RB Dixon & QB Schurr had 23 carries for 117 yards, while Receivers Dixon & Walker had 2 receptions for 37 yards and no touchdowns. The amazing statistics in this game were that only 15 passes were attempted in the game by Army with 7 and Midshipmen with 8 attempts. And that turns out to be the fewest passing attempts in any NCAA football division 1 game since back in November of 2012. Previously this season 2014, the low for attempts was with West Carolina playing Wofford and they only had 18 attempts.
The scoring in the game started with Army getting on the scoreboard first, as they scored a TD & EP for 7 points, while Navy was scoreless in the 1st quarter. In the second quarter Navy scored a TD & EP for 7 points, while the Navy was scoreless, thus the game went to half-time with Navy 7 and Army 7. In the 3rd quarter the only points scored was a FG for 3 points by Midshipmen , while in the 4th the quarter the Army scored a FG for 3 points and Navy scored a TD & EP for seven points with the final score in the game Navy 17 Army 10.
With the season now over for Army, fans who bet on college football at sportsbooks, take note that the Navy Midshipmen 7-5 will play in a Bowl game, the Poinsettia Bowl on the 23 of Dec. 2014 against the San Diego State Aztecs 7-5 at 9:30 PM ET and on ESPN TV.