Game 608: Navy blasts Army, 31-7, in traditional regular season finale as Perry runs for 304 yards
Philadelphia – In traditional fashion, Army and Navy battled in the final game of college football’s regular season as Navy Senior QB Malcolm Perry rushed for 304 yards and two TDs to top arch-rival Army, 31-7. Perry carried 29 times and never threw a pass. The Mids passed only once and for one yard and a touchdown at that. For Perry and his classmates, the victory came in their senior season to snap a three-game losing streak to Army and to avoid going winless against the Cadets during their four years at USNA. For Collegefootballfan.com, this twelfth meeting we’ve seen between these two traditional marked our final regular season game as we now plan to attend two good bowl games right after Christmas.
Army breaks the ice
Army scored first late in the first quarter as sub-QB Christian Anderson finished a 78-yard drive with a five-yard touchdown run. Navy came right back with Perry’s 55-yard TD run to start the second period. With six ticks left in the half, Navy threw its only pass as Perry pitched the ball to SB Chance Warren on a reverse and he lofted a pass in the right corner to Soph FB Jamale Carothers for a one-yard score. The Mids went into halftime with a 14-7 lead.
Mr. President
President Donald Trump presided over the coin flip which Navy deferred to start the game. His presence raised cheers from throughout the packed stadium of 68,075. The President changed seats at halftime crossing the Lincoln Financial turf from the Army side to the Navy side.
Trump continues to press for the opportunity to allow Cadets and Midshipmen that play football to start pro football careers right after graduation and to defer and shorten their military service afterward. He believes that it would be a great public relations ploy for the academies. Collegefootballfan.com thinks the service academies should continue what they do to graduate military officers first.
Mission Statement
Besides, what better way is there than to promote the academies than to recruit true student-athletes to compete among other programs and win at a high level as Navy does today? In addition, with the very liberal transfer rules now in place, what would stop other programs from trying to pry away top players the academies may get? Temptations would be too great to lure away disgruntled student-athletes in a high-pressured environment to say the least to a less-demanding focus primarily on football. Sending players to go on to pro football should not be an academy’s primary mission.
Navy dominates
Carothers scored on a five-yard run after the Mids started at the Army 45 in the third. The Navy defense which knows the triple option well but can struggle against a top passing attack, held the Cadets averaging 331.7 rushing yards per game to only 123. The Mids (10-2), who lead the nation in rushing average finishing at 363.7 ypg, corralled 395 against their similarly familiar foe coached by former Navy assistant, Jeff Monken.
In the final period, Navy PK Bijan Nichols booted a 37-yard FG and Perry capped the scoring with a 15-yard run with 1:42 remining to settle the score, 31-7. The Mids captured the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy for Academy football supremacy in 2019 with wins over Army (5-8) and over No. 24 Air Force (10-2) who we watched the Mids defeat on October 5 in an exciting last-minute victory, 34-25.
Broken records
USNA HC Ken Niumatalolo became the winningest HC in Army-Navy history with his ninth win exceeding eight wins by Army’s Earl “Red” Blaik. Perry, the game MVP, became only the fourth QB in FBS history to run for over 300 yards in a single game. He set the individual mark for the most rushing yards in this greatest of rivalries that was played for the 120th time this afternoon.
Next!
Army who had high expectations entering the season stumbled at 5-8 losing surprisingly to some lightly regarded competition. Their season is over. Perry and company head to the Liberty Bowl to face Kansas State (8-4), a team we saw fall to Texas on November 9, 27-24, on a last play, game-winning FG. We saw Navy defeat three bowl teams this season in the final minute of play in each game at home versus Air Force, Tulane, and SMU. Navy will be seeking its 11th win of the season and a chance to finish in the Top 25 for only the third time in the last 56 years. Their game in Memphis will be on December 31 at 3:45 EST.
Follow us
For Cff.com, we’ll be back in Annapolis with some of our usual tailgate suspects on December 27 to see North Carolina (6-6) play Temple (8-4) in the Military Bowl under respective first year but experienced Head Coaches in Mack Brown and Rod Carey. The next day, we’ll be in Atlanta for our final game of the season in the CFP semi-final game at the Peach Bowl between No. 1 LSU (13-0) and No. 4 Oklahoma (12-1). In our CFP history, we saw the Sooners come up short against Clemson in 2015 and against ‘Bama last season. Sooner QB Jalen Hurts will make it interesting here, but we’ll look for a stalwart performance by Heisman winner Joe Burrows of LSU in this one.
Oh well…
We had a short-term goal this past week to eventually have seen all four NCAA football champs play this season, but we’re now down to only two possibilities, LSU being one of them. No. 1 North Dakota State (14-0) of the FCS defeated Illinois State last week 9-3 and hosts Montana State (11-3) this weekend in the semi-finals. Winner plays the winner of James Madison and Weber State. We saw the Bison defeat Delaware early this season.
Our D-2 and D-3 possibilities both lost badly at home in respective semi-final games on Saturday. Slippery Rock (13-1) defeated Kutztown in the PSAC championship game we attended a few weeks ago, but they were no match for Minnesota State in their semi losing, 58-15. State plays West Florida in the championship this Saturday. In D-3, Muhlenberg (13-1) who we saw a week ago triumph impressively over Salisbury, fell handily to North Central of Illinois, 45-14. NC plays UW-Whitewater for the D-3 title this Friday night.
Merry Christmas and
Happy Bowl Season!