Navy Loads Up

Maplerock

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According to rivals.com, Navy football has 69 signed recruits for 2017. That ranks them at #76 of all division 1 schools. By my figures that's about 10% of the incoming male appointees (disregarding prior enlisted). That is putting a lot of emphasis on football.

Too much emphasis?
 
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I think it depends on how they are getting to that number. If they offered 69 individuals an appointment based mostly on football ability while passing on more qualified candidates in most other areas it is too many. I doubt that is the case though. This is more likely that these are folks that would have gotten in to the academy without being a recruit because they are well rounded individuals who played football and have a chance of making the team.
 
Not all of those will be direct admits. Maybe half. The other half will go to NAPS. Agree with 1994 on his comments. Maybe 20 of those are their top recruits. Less than half of those top recruits would be able to "blue chipped". Majority were marked as "football recruits" that the football team would like to have, but were not prioritized by the team. Essentially, they went through the regular admissions process. Remember that football team travels ~60 folks. Less than half of those 69 will make it 4 years of football. They will lose some at NAPS. 2 year ago my area had 7 football recruits. 2 were direct admits, 5 went to NAPS. 1 of the direct admits is playing today (and do very well). The other young man hung it up and is doing very well at USNA. Out of the 5 NAPS appointees, 1 left NAPS. The other 4 made it to USNA. Only 1 made the travel roster as a Plebe. I will be curious to see if the other 3 stick around or if they fall further on the depth chart.

I only call this all out for those who are being recruited by USNA or any SA... it is a tough road. No matter how great a recruit you are, you have to earn your place on a team. Plebe Summer and Plebe Year is a tough grind and takes it toll. For most teams, they have an attrition rate of over 50% from the start of Plebe Year to finish. My class started with 9. We finished with 3. Make sure you want to be a Mid or Cadet first and a future officer. There are more former athletes who decided to hang it up than there are who stick it out 4 years or were capable of making a roster (this can be challenging as with some teams you have huge recruiting classes with NAPS).
 
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Same number as each of the past five years, same number as this time next year. Same numbers as the others SAs too. Why single out Navy? This is how it works. The SA’s continue to compete at the D1 level, so they must bring in recruits. These threads never really go anywhere so they always crack me up. Recycle, rehash the same old points. If anyone truly has an issue with SAs in D1, take it up with academy leadership.
 
One additional item... USNA won't confirm or deny this number. Until I Day USNA cannot comment on recruits. I Day they usually release a full list of those who swore in. And if anyone sees pictures or video of those 'signing' their National Letter of Intents... for a SA it is just for show. No one signs a NLI for a SA. They sign an appointment letter like everyone else.
 
Why single out Navy


Because Navy was the only academy listed. I continue to believe that the academies should issue all appointments, then fill all teams from the available pool. Would we be as good? No, and divison 1 football and basketball would be no more.

Would our mission be better served? I believe so.

My opinion. Yours may differ.
 
Rivals and Scout both list all commits for all academies, for football and basketball. Just change the drop downs. It’s also really easy to search national commit lists for wrestling and lax through Google. (You’ll see current HS sophomores who have ‘committed’ to play lax at the academies. Always makes me laugh. Talk to me in two years, hon.)

The academies will continue on in D-1. Why? Because alumni demand it……and fund it.
 
Keep in mind the FSAs are exempt from the NCAA rule of 85 scholarships because they don't give athletic scholarships, the academies also have no limit on the number of players in the program; most Division 1 teams carry about 115 players while last time I looked Navy had 142.
 
DrMom is certainly optimistic. I do think Monken will raise Army to a new competitive level and start beating Navy regularly but just don't expect overnight miracles.
 
Conrack. Coach Monken is building a machine. This is the year. This is always the year. One is a trend. Go Army.
 
Rivals and Scout both list all commits for all academies, for football and basketball. Just change the drop downs. It’s also really easy to search national commit lists for wrestling and lax through Google. (You’ll see current HS sophomores who have ‘committed’ to play lax at the academies. Always makes me laugh. Talk to me in two years, hon.)

The academies will continue on in D-1. Why? Because alumni demand it……and fund it.

I knew 2 previous USNA Commandants, one from my fleet squadron as a LT and one I served with on a numbered fleet staff. When they selected as "Dant", I sent them a congratulations e-mail with this joking reminder of the 3 things that are important to a university president (or Commandant).

1. Sex, drugs and alcohol with the students.
2. Parking for the professors.
3. Winning football games for the alumni.

I'm and alumni and I don't care about the first 2...:)
 
Because Navy was the only academy listed. I continue to believe that the academies should issue all appointments, then fill all teams from the available pool. Would we be as good? No, and divison 1 football and basketball would be no more.

Would our mission be better served? I believe so.

My opinion. Yours may differ.

Mine does- From what I have seen (and I am no expert on the numbers, just observations)- many of the same qualities that football players (and many other athletes) have can translate well to the academies. Driven, physically strong, mentally tough, team mentality, time management - all qualities that serve them well in the service eacademies. If a large number of the appointees have played football anyways, why not pick out ones that can help the team at certain positions too? Plus a good football team will typically be a draw for most colleges and boost the donations from the alumni base - would think this translates to the academies also.
 
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