Navy Midshipmen stats, records, schedule, and standings

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Navy Midshipmen

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Navy Midshipmen

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As we continue our football series, today we’ll take a look at the Navy Midshipmen Football team. One of the more storied college football programs, the Midshipmen compete each season in one of the biggest non-Bowl games, the annual Army-Navy game.

Here, we’ll look at all you need to know about Navy Midshipmen football.

Navy Midshipmen Standings

The Navy Midshipmen have a long and proud tradition of success in college football, with a solid record of wins and losses in recent years. Their current stats and standings place them among the top teams in the nation, with a talented roster of players and a dedicated coaching staff.

The Midshipmen are known for their disciplined and physical style of play, making them a tough challenge for any opponent on the field.

Navy Midshipmen Betting Trends

Brief History of the Navy Midshipmen Football Team

The Naval Academy football team is one of the oldest programs in the nation, joining the college football ranks in 1879 as a way to keep cadets in shape. They only played one game in their first season – a contest against the Baltimore Athletic Club, which was made up of players from Johns Hopkins, Princeton, Pennsylvania, and Yale.

Known affectionately as “the Mids,” Navy enjoyed extended periods of success throughout school history, though the 1980s and 1990s are the worst stretch of the program. Entering the 2021 season, Navy has an all-time record of 725-577-57, ranking 59th among the 130 NCAA Division I programs with at least 100 games played.

From 2000-02, Navy won just three games while losing 30. However, they’ve righted the course since then. Since current head coach Ken Niumatalolo took over during the 2007 season, the Midshipmen have finished the year with a winning record in 11 of 14 seasons.

Championships by the Navy Midshipmen

The Navy Midshipmen won the National Championship in 1926, the only Championship in program history, posting a 9-0-1 record over the campaign. One of three undefeated programs, Navy shared the National Title with the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Stanford Cardinal. Alabama and Stanford tied 7-7 while playing in the Rose Bowl, giving Stanford a slight advantage at 10-0-1 (Alabama and Navy were both 9-0-1, sharing the title).

With the explosion in bowl games in recent years, Navy’s bowl appearances have become more frequent. Since Niumatalolo became the coach, Navy has been to 11 bowl games, winning six of them. Overall, the Midshipmen have a 12-11-1 bowl record. The tie came in the 1923 Rose Bowl in a 14-14 tie with Houston.

Though not technically a championship or bowl game, the annual Army-Navy game has the feel of such an event. The Army and Navy service academies compete every year to close out the college football regular season. Navy holds the all-time advantage with a 61-53-7 record. However, Army has won four of the last five matchups after 14 straight wins for the Midshipmen.

Key Stats for the Navy Midshipmen

Historically, Navy football has played an “old school” style of football, built around a hard-nosed defense and a ground-and-pound rushing attack. As such, the school’s all-time leader in passing touchdowns, Keenan Reynolds, threw 31 passing touchdowns in his career. In 2019, 13 college football quarterbacks exceeded that total.

Because the ground game is such a focal point, seven Navy players have more rushing touchdowns in their careers than Reynolds’ 31 passing touchdowns…including Reynolds himself! Beyond setting the academy record for passing touchdowns, Reynolds racked up a remarkable 88 rushing touchdowns, shattering the previous record of 49, held by yet another quarterback, Ricky Dobbs.

However, it is another quarterback, Malcolm Perry, who holds Navy’s single-season rushing record of 2,017 yards. Perry’s total is good for the 30th highest single-season total since 1956 (when statkeeping became more formalized), and he is one of 35 rushers in college football history to reach the 2,000 rushing yard mark.

Top Players in Navy Midshipmen History

Because the Naval Academy is a service academy, very few players advance their football careers to play in the NFL. As such, most of the perceived greatness of players tends to stay within the college ranks.

However, that doesn’t mean such football success is impossible. One of the all-time great NFL quarterbacks, Roger Staubach, is an alumnus of the Naval Academy. Staubach is the last player at a service academy to win college football’s top honor, the Heisman Trophy. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1981, and in 2007, Staubach was listed as No. 9 on ESPN’s list of the Top 25 Players in college football history. He went on to lead the Dallas Cowboys to two Super Bowl wins, earning MVP honors in Super Bowl VI, and was the NFL’s Man of the Year in 1978.

As you may have guessed by the school records, Keenan Reynolds is another one of the top players in school history. Reynolds set the NCAA record for career touchdowns (88) and set an FBS record 4,559 rushing yards by a quarterback. Reynolds was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in the sixth round of the 2016 NFL Draft; however, he did not play an NFL game for any of the three teams who had signed him (including Washington and Seattle). Reynolds did play for the Seattle Dragons of the XFL before that league folded.

The most recent Midshipmen to be drafted was Malcolm Perry, selected by the Miami Dolphins in the seventh round of the 2020 Draft.

Top Coaches in Navy Midshipmen History

Since the team formed in 1879, Navy’s football program has had 37 head coaches, one interim coach, and two separate instances where the team went without a coach.

Coaches do not need to have served in the Navy, or any other service branch, to become a coach.

Navy’s current head coach, Ken Niumatalolo, is the winningest coach in program history by win total. Entering the 2021 season, Niumatalolo has led the Mids to 99 wins and should get to the 100 win mark this fall. His career record is 99-66, and Navy is 6-5 in Bowl Games with Niumatalolo at the helm.

Among those with at least 30 games as Navy’s head coach, Paul Dashiell holds the best win percentage at 25-5-4. Dashiell coached the Mids from 1904-06.

Vaulx Carter has a perfect 1.000 win percentage, though he only coached one game, Navy’s first game with a head coach, in 1882. Navy defeated the Clifton Football Club 8-0 in that contest.

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