In era of NIL and transfer portal, Navy and Army are thriving without either. How are they pulling it off? ‘We are a unicorn’

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — On a sun-splashed Tuesday afternoon, along the banks of a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay, the Naval Academy’s football team practices in their shimmering gold helmets, blue tops and white pants.

The Midshipmen are one of nine teams in college football’s highest division to have not lost a game at the midway point of the 2024 season. They are 6-0 for the first time since 1979, ranked in the top 25 for the first time in five years and are competing in an ABC nationally televised game this Saturday against No. 12 Notre Dame at Metlife Stadium in New Jersey.

Their quarterback, Blake Horvath, is one of two QBs in the country to have at least 10 passing and 10 rushing touchdowns; their offense is the No. 1-ranked red zone-scoring unit; and their defense has given up more than 21 points just once.

But amid all of these accomplishments, there is something else of interest here in Annapolis.

Not a single Navy football player earns compensation from their name, image and likeness (NIL). None of them have struck an agreement with any booster-led NIL collective (in fact, Navy has no such entity). No player has any deals with a big shoe company or a giant apparel brand. And, perhaps the most startling figure of them all, of the more than 160 players criss-crossing this surface on Tuesday, there is but one, single transfer.

“We are a unicorn,” said Brian Newberry, in his second season leading the program.

There are actually three unicorns in college football: Navy, Army and Air Force — the three service academies within the Football Bowl Subdivision whose players are enlisted men paid by the government to attend school and prohibited from accepting other forms of compensation.

In an age of NIL cash signings and constant player movement, two of those programs are currently undefeated.

No. 23 Army and No. 24 Navy — or is it Navy and Army? — are unbeaten this late into a season for the first time since World War II, are both simultaneously ranked in the AP poll for the first time since the 1960s and are capable of triggering season-ending mayhem that is unprecedented in the era of the College Football Playoff.

Now in the same conference, Army and Navy are on a collision course to meet in the American Athletic Conference championship game; the winner has a legitimate shot to qualify for the expanded playoff as the Group of Five’s representative during a selection process that is scheduled for a day after the conference title games; and then both teams — potentially one heading to the playoff and one not — would meet again on Dec. 14 in the annual Army-Navy game a week before the College Football Playoff begins.

“My common refrain to the American Athletic Conference is, ‘Wouldn’t that be a great problem to have?’” said Mike Buddie, the Army athletic director. “The mathematical odds of Army-Navy being the top two teams were slim and, yet, here we are.”

As college football transforms into a more professional entity, as it maneuvers through the murky waters of an unregulated NIL system, as it braces for an uncertain future of direct athlete revenue sharing, the Black Knights and Midshipmen are isolated from all of it.

They cannot recruit using big NIL paydays, nor can they mine the portal for better players. In addition to that, they will opt out of any future revenue-sharing tied to the House antitrust case settlement.

They are exempt, perhaps even protected, from the industry’s evolution.

“You’re looking at the last frontier of amateurism before your eyes!” Navy athletic director Chet Gladchuk said from his office this week, arms spread wide and a smile across his face.

Are they winning despite not having the ability to offer NIL money or transfer portal access? No, says Gladchuk. They are winning because of it.

“It is a novelty,” he said. “It is the exception.”

How Army, Navy keep players: ‘The NIL for us is on the backend’

Between them, Army and Navy have two transfers.

Those transferring into a service academy are required to start over as a freshman, no matter the credits accrued at their previous college. It is an obvious deterrent.

However, the schools don’t have many players leave either, especially those upperclassmen who have blossomed into sought-after prospects. After a student’s second year here, they are required, if they wish to continue, to sign an agreement binding them to complete their junior and senior years, plus five years of active duty. The fine for breaking the agreement is in the six figures. It is an obvious incentive to stay.

“Once those kids go to school and get locked in, they are not very apt to leave. They have such a bond,” said Paul Johnson, the now-retired former Georgia Tech coach who worked at Navy for eight years as an assistant and head coach.

The bond goes beyond the football field. They live together, fight through grinding military training together and attend classes together (online classes are not an option).

They have all committed to a single goal, as well.

“Our guys play for the United States Military Academy and also play for the 1 million men and women who served in the U.S. Army,” Army coach Jeff Monken said. “It’s a sense of responsibility that everyone part of this institution has. When the people of America send the U.S. Army out to do a job in the world, they expect the Army to win. They fight our nation’s wars. That’s what we represent here.”

Navy and Army each have a small handful of former players scattered across the country. But few if any were real impact players, their coaches say.

They rarely lose top talent. For instance, former Army linebacker Andre Carter, now playing for the Minnesota Vikings, fielded more than 40 monetary offers to leave the school after his third year, when he finished second nationally in sacks. He never left.

Two years ago, Rayuan Lane III, Navy’s current starting safety and possibly the best draft prospect on the team, was lured into the portal by power conference coaches in a tampering incident, Newberry says. Lane took visits to Notre Dame and UCLA and had a host of other offers from the likes of LSU.

Ultimately, he returned to the team.

This happens across college football. In fact, more than 3,000 players entered the transfer portal last academic year, many seeking more playing time, a spot on a power conference roster or/and a bigger paycheck. Some returned to their original school for more money or other promises.

Lane returned for no additional money. There was no new car awaiting him, no keys to a new home.

Navy has no collective doling out cash to recruit and retain talent; no general manager to distribute salaries to its roster; and no college scouting department to evaluate potential transfers.

There is one selling point here.

“You sell your school,” Newberry said. “The NIL for us is on the backend: a degree from the No. 1 public school in the country, a guaranteed job when you graduate and you’re making six figures three years into your service.”

Why NIL (or lack thereof) isn’t a factor at Army, Navy

The average NIL collective affiliated with a Group of Five program distributes $500,000-$1 million annually to their rosters, according to industry experts familiar with the financials.

Earlier this season, the Midshipmen beat a program in Memphis that recently partnered with FedEx in a deal where the shipping giant — founded by Memphis booster Fred Smith — is committing $5 million annually to the school’s NIL fund. Most recently, Navy beat Charlotte, a program with more than 60 transfers, many of them from power conference programs.

Those within college athletics wonder aloud if teams assembled quickly through more transactional relationships can consistently win. They often describe it as “building a roster, not a team.”

Will reloading a roster each season work? Will paying millions to certain players produce wins?

Three years into the NIL era, the jury is perhaps still out on such questions. But for those spending millions at the highest level, there have been examples of both failure (Texas A&M under Jimbo Fisher, for instance) and success (an assortment of current highly ranked teams, such as Miami, Oregon, Ohio State and Texas).

“People assumed that with NIL, everybody with the most money would win,” Buddie said. “That’s maybe a reason at the SEC and Big Ten level, but at the Group of Five, it’s different.”

The money isn’t as big in the G5 conferences, and the talent gaps are not as wide. Some believe that the importance of team chemistry, cohesion, trust and effort has never been more of a differentiator.

“What you’re seeing with us and Army is a reflection of developmental programs with players that are selfless, play for each other, play for a team, play for a country,” Newberry said. “It’s a challenge — not saying you can’t do it — to create a really strong culture in this day and age with the rosters being flipped semester to semester.”

Alex Tecza, Navy’s starting running back, says he witnesses the dysfunction from disjointed teams on the field. There is too much “individualism” in the sport, he says. It leads to assignment breakdowns, failures in focus and communication, and a mentality of quitting.

When teams get behind, “they tap out pretty fast,” he said.

“We all got here with hard work, not money,” Tecza said.

But money would be nice, right?

Well, yeah, Tecza says, “Everyone wants a Lamborghini.” But, he asks, is it best at this age within a team environment?

Starting next July, if approval of the House settlement is granted in April, schools will be permitted to distribute upwards of $23 million annually to their athletes. The military academies — along with many FCS and basketball-only playing schools — plan to opt out of settlement terms. While they will not be able to share revenue with athletes, they are also exempt from changes to the roster and scholarship structure under settlement terms, school officials say.

Their rosters can remain as is, giving them the ability to retain their walk-on players. This is a positive. But there are negatives.

“There is some frustration. I do feel like our student-athletes deserve some of the piece of the pie,” Buddie said.

“Obviously, we are missing out,” said Eli Heidenreich, Navy’s do-it-all slotback, who referred to in the offense as the snipe.

“Some kids are getting money and cars at other programs,” he continued, “but our way makes the game of football about football and not all the other things that people get focused on and distracted by.”

But there’s something else behind the success of Army and Navy: an offensive scheme from a bygone era.

How they’ve stayed competitive with option offenses

For years, military academies have used option football to combat their size disadvantage, specifically on the offensive lines. Recruits committing to military academies are often undersized and, sometimes, undervalued.

The option is a way to level the playing field — a slow-moving, run-heavy scheme that, when blocked soundly, can be almost impossible to stop for defenders accustomed to pass-heavy spread offenses.

The option is built around a technique where offensive players block defenders below the waist. However, starting with the 2022 season, the NCAA prohibited such blocking — the cut block — beyond 1 yard of the line of scrimmage.

Option-based coaches believe the move was meant to eliminate the option from the game. Years later, that decision still rankles Johnson, now completely out of the business.

“They kept saying they made the change for injuries, but they never showed data,” he said. “People just didn’t want to play it. They didn’t want to play against it.”

The change necessitated an evolution in option schemes.

Monken, now in his 11th season at Army, and coordinator Cody Worley, operate out of a traditional option formation but feature more power-run concepts than actual option plays. Navy, under first-year coordinator Drew Cronic, uses a variety of shifts, motions and formations in a scheme that melds option and Wing-T football.

Each program runs just enough traditional option plays — the triple, midline and veer — to force opponents to prepare for it during the week of practice, says Johnson. That is a win in itself.

They each possess a quarterback who is a competent passer, excellent runner and hard-nosed, smart player who makes accurate and quick decisions.

Monken describes quarterback Bryson Daily as a “tough, Alpha leader” who commands the locker room, is tough to tackle and is a fierce competitor. Similar descriptions are used from Navy coaches to describe Horvath.

The two quarterbacks have true option statistics. For starters, they each have more rushes than pass attempts. As for passing, they each produce explosive long ball plays, something synonymous with some of Johnson’s best option teams. The quarterbacks are averaging a whopping 21 yards a completion and have tossed 17 combined touchdowns.

“They mean it, when they throw it,” he said. “In the option, you don’t throw it to get 3 yards.”

Daily and Horvath have run for 29 touchdowns and average about 7 yards a carry. Their running style and speed has even surprised each of their coaching staffs.

“He’s had some runs where I thought they’d catch him,” said Monken of Daily.

“He ran by Memphis,” said Cronic of Horvath.

Cronic is a 50-year-old Georgia native whose experience is mostly on the FCS and lower levels. He won 75 games in six years as head coach of Lenoir-Rhyne and then Mercer before joining Navy this offseason as coordinator.

He’s an old Wing-T coach who’s meshed that scheme with an option offense, added wrinkles of the shotgun spread, a dash of jet sweep motion, plus screen plays and normal play-action for a scheme that’s left opposing players confused.

“We hide a lot of things we do,” Tecza said. “Most of our success comes from a team thinking we are running another play. On the field, you’ll go and block a guy and they’re like, ‘What the heck are you guys doing? I thought he had the ball!’”

For Monken, this season is about returning to his bread and butter.

He moved away from the option attack almost completely in 2023 after his team struggled in adjusting to the cut-block rule in 2022. During that ’23 season, the Knights lost five straight and Monken switched back midseason.

Says Johnson with a chuckle: “I don’t think they’ve lost since they got back to it.”

It’s true: The Knights have won 11 straight — the longest active streak in the country.

This weekend, 36 buses will transport nearly all of the Naval Academy’s Midshipmen — 4,000 of them — some three hours north to New Jersey for the game against the Fighting Irish.

The brigade is required to attend every home football game. They stand there in full military attire rooting on their squad. It’s hot or it’s cold. It’s rainy and it’s sunny. Shivers and sweats. They brave it all.

After four straight losing seasons, the winning makes it much easier, especially since now there is a bonus: With each Navy football win, the students receive an additional weekend to travel off the base. They’re up to six extra free weekends.

“People are excited for the first time in a while about Navy football,” said Heidenreich, Navy’s junior slotback. “It’s the first time since I’ve been here that the brigade of the Midshipmen have respect for us.”

What’s on the horizon could be significant, perhaps even historic.

The 12-team expanded College Football Playoff reserves at least one spot for a Group of Five champion. The format features five automatic qualifiers for conference champions but none of them are tied to a specific league. In most cases, that leaves a qualifying spot for each one of the four power leagues and a fifth spot for the highest-ranked champion of one of five conferences: the American, Sun Belt, Mid-American, Mountain West and Conference USA.

The race for the Group of Five spot is coming down the stretch. Those unbeaten or one-loss G5 teams include: three from the American in Army (7-0), Navy (6-0) and Memphis (6-1); two from the Mountain West in Boise State (5-1) and UNLV (6-1); two from the Sun Belt in Louisiana (6-1) and UL-Monroe (5-1); and one from Conference USA in Liberty (5-1), which lost Wednesday night.

Things will get sorted out soon enough. On Friday night, Boise State travels to play at UNLV. UL-Monroe hosts Louisiana to end the regular season. On Nov. 16, Navy gets Tulane, still undefeated in the American, and on Nov. 9, Army travels to North Texas (5-2, 2-1).

For the two programs, Army and Navy, to meet in the conference title game, “there is a lot of mileage left,” Navy athletic director Chet Gladchuk said as a reminder. But, oh, wouldn’t that be fun, especially if it is a battle for a playoff spot.

In April, during meetings in Dallas, leaders of the College Football Playoff — the conference commissioners — determined that the selection of the 12 teams would happen as it does now: on the first Sunday in December after conference title games and a week before the traditional playing of Army-Navy.

If Army and/or Navy are in contention for a playoff spot, selection members will still choose the best Group of Five champion on the normal selection date, rendering the Army-Navy game insignificant to selection — a contentious matter for some. In the spring, before the commissioners’ decision, the schools argued that if either Army or Navy were in contention, the CFP committee make all other selections but delay the G5 pick until the game’s completion.

“Everyone in that CFP room sat around and thought, ‘What’s the chance of Army and Navy being undefeated?’” said one person with knowledge of the discussion. “Well, here they are.”

Navy players are aware that they have a shot to advance to the playoff, possibly by beating Army in the American title game.

“The playoff wasn’t one of our goals to start the season,” Tecza said with a smile. “It is now. But this week is huge.”

The game against the Irish (6-1) on a neutral field presents an interesting opportunity. The Midshipmen are 13-point underdogs. Few expect them to win. But can they play a competitive enough game that may sway selection committee members during deliberations in December?

There is another wrinkle here too: Army meets Notre Dame on Nov. 23.

All of this is quite wild. It could produce one of the craziest season-ending scenarios in college football history: a military service academy — without NIL cash and devoid of transfers — advancing to the game’s top stage.

“We are facing a lot of challenges in college athletics, but the academies are kind of immune to that,” said Tim Pernetti, the commissioner of the American.

“Army and Navy being undefeated is a story that every college football fan can get behind. It’s inspiring in a climate like this, where all the talk is transfers and money. We all get caught up in all this stuff and they don’t.”