The Navy Midshipmen football team represents the United States Naval Academy in NCAA Division I FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) college football. The Naval Academy completed its final season as an FBS independent school (not in a conference) in 2014, and became a single-sport member of the American Athletic Conference, now known as the American Conference, beginning in the 2015 season. The team is currently coached by Brian Newberry, who was promoted in 2022, following his stint as the Midshipmen defensive coordinator. Navy has 19 players and three coaches in the College Football Hall of Fame and won the college football national championship in 1926 according to the Boand and Houlgate poll systems. The 1910 team also was undefeated and unscored upon (the lone tie was a 0–0 game). The mascot is Bill the Goat. Attendance of home football games is required for all students. Members of the Billy the Kid Club can attend home football games for free.
Navy competes with their historic rivals Army in the Army–Navy Game, traditionally the final game of the college football regular season. The three major service academies—Army, Navy, and Air Force—compete for the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy.
History
Early history (1879–1949)
The Naval Academy's football program is one of the nation's oldest, with its history dating back to 1879. There were two separate efforts to establish a Naval Academy football team in 1879. The first was guided by first-classman J.H. Robinson, who developed it as a training regiment to help keep the school's baseball team in shape. The team played the sport under rules that made it much closer to soccer, where the players were permitted only to kick the ball in order to advance it.Clary (1997), p. 9 The second effort, headed by first-classman William John Maxwell was more successful in its efforts. Maxwell met with two of his friends, Tunstall Smith and Henry Woods, who played for the Baltimore Athletic Club and officially challenged their team to a game with the Naval Academy.Clary (1997), p. 10 A team was formed from academy first-classmen, which Maxwell led as a manager, trainer, and captain. The team would wake up and practice before reveille and following drill and meals. The squad received encouragement from some of the faculty, who allowed them to eat a late dinner and skip final drill for additional practicing. This was against the direct orders of the school superintendent, who had banned football and similar activities.Clary (1965), p. 9
The year's sole contest was played on December 11 against the Baltimore Athletic Club. The opposition's team was reportedly composed of players from Princeton, Yale, Pennsylvania, and Johns Hopkins.Bealle (1951), p. 7 The Naval Academy hosted the Baltimore team on a temporary field drawn on part of the superintendent's cow pasture. Rules decided upon between the teams established that the game was to be played under rugby rules.
The game was closely fought and was finally declared a scoreless tie by the referee about an hour after it began. Navy reportedly never gained possession of the ball. However, the Naval Academy managed to keep the Baltimore Athletic Club from ever being in a scoring position. On three separate occasions, Navy forced Baltimore back into its own end zone for a safety; these were not worth any points until 1882, however, so they offered Navy no benefit. The American and Chronicle reported that Maxwell, Craven, and Sample of Navy gave the strongest performances, but were also reckless in their play and were repeatedly penalized for jumping offside or kicking the ball out of play, a form of delay of game.Bealle (1951), p. 8Clary (1997), p. 11
Some time after the game, Walter Camp, known as the "Father of American Football", credited Maxwell as the inventor of the first football uniform. After he was informed that the Baltimore team he was playing outweighed his by an average of ten pounds, Maxwell looked for a way to make the teams more evenly matched. Using his knowledge of sailing, he decided to design a sleeveless canvas jacket which would make his players "difficult to grasp when they began to sweat".Patterson (2000), p. 21Anderson (2004), "Chapter 10: The Game" He presented the design to the academy's tailor, who created the double-lined jackets which "were laced down the front and drawn tightly to fit snugly around a player's body". The weighted suits were worn by the team, which was confused by the "strangle, heavy, newfangled getups".
The Naval Academy would not produce another football team until the 1882 season. The 1882 team would be the first with a coach, being supported by Academy officials. The 1879 season was the last time that a Navy squad would play the Baltimore Athletic Club. Navy would finish the 1880s with four winning seasons, and an overall record of 14–12–2, with one of those ties being the game against the Baltimore Athletic Club. Navy would outscore their opponents 292–231, and would finish the 19th century with an overall record of 54–19–3. The lack of a coach for the 1879 season was one of the two times the Naval Academy squad lacked one, the other time being from 1883 through 1891.
Frank Berrien served as Navy's head football coach from 1908 to 1910, compiling a record of 21–5–3. He was the thirteenth head coach of the Naval Academy's football program and, under his tutelage, the Midshipmen compiled an undefeated 8–0–1 mark in 1910.
Three undefeated teams with nearly identical records would cause a stir among fans and pollsters today, but this was the case when Navy earned its lone national championship in 1926, as the Midshipmen shared the honor with Stanford and Alabama. A 7–7 tie between Alabama and Stanford in the 1926 Rose Bowl gave Stanford a 10–0–1 mark, while the Crimson Tide and the Mids each had identical 9–0–1 records.
The Midshipmen opened the '26 season with a new coach, Bill Ingram. A Navy football standout from 1916 through 1918, Ingram took over a Navy team that had only won seven games in the previous two seasons combined. One of the keys to Navy's 1926 squad was a potent offense led by All-America tackle and team captain Frank Wickhorst, who proved to be a punishing blocker for the Navy offense. One member of the Navy offense that appreciated the blocking of Wickhorst was Tom Hamilton. The quarterback and kicker had a pair of 100-yard rushing games en route to All-America honors.
Navy's biggest win that year was against Michigan in front of 80,000 fans in Baltimore. The Mids scored 10 second half points to upset the Wolverines, 10–0. Navy's offense tallied 165 yards behind the powering attack of Hamilton and Henry Caldwell who scored Navy's lone touchdown on a one-yard plunge. Jubilation from the victory continued after the game, as the Midshipmen tore down the goal post at each end of the field and carried away all the markers that lined both sides of the field.
Navy headed into its season finale against Army with a 9–0 record. The game was to be played in Chicago at Soldier Field, which had been built as a memorial to the men killed in World War I. It was only natural Army and Navy would be invited to play the inaugural contest there. James R. Harrison of the New York Times described the game as "the greatest of its time and as a national spectacle." Over 110,000 people witnessed the Midshipmen open up a 14–0 lead on the Cadets, only to see Army fight back to take a 21–14 lead early in the third quarter. The Navy offense responded behind its strong ground game led by running back Alan Shapley. On fourth down and three yards to go, Shapley ran eight yards for a touchdown to tie the game at 21. As the final quarter concluded, Army mounted a brief threat only to miss a 25-yard field goal.
The tie gave the Midshipmen a share of the national championship based on retroactive rankings by both the William Boand and Deke Houlgate mathematical poll systems.
Navy was one of the very few programs to field a football team during World War II, with John Whelchel leading the Midshipmen from 1942 to 1943 and Oscar Hagberg serving as head coach from 1944 to 1945. During those years, three of the four Navy teams finished ranked in the top 10 of the final AP poll.
George Sauer left his post as Kansas head coach and took over in Annapolis from 1948 to 1949. The Midshipmen struggled under Sauer's tutelage, posting a 3–13–2 record which included a winless 1948 season.
Eddie Erdelatz era (1950–1958)
Eddie Erdelatz returned to Navy, where he'd previously served as an assistant coach from 1945 to 1947, to take over a football program that had won just four games over the previous five seasons.
In 1950, Erdelatz led an upset of arch-rival Army. The Black Knights entered the game with an 8–0 record which had not lost in 28 contests. Army also had defeated Navy five times in the last six games. Although Navy had only a 2–6 record, an outstanding defensive effort resulted in a 14–2 victory for the Midshipmen.
After two years at Navy, Erdelatz's record stood at 5–12–1, but he would never again have a losing season in his final seven seasons and would finish 5–3–1 in his games against Army. In 1954, the team finished 8–2, losing close games to Pittsburgh and Notre Dame. Erdelatz labeled this squad, "A Team Called Desire" and then went on to shut out Ole Miss in the 1955 Sugar Bowl. Three years later, the Midshipmen competed in the Cotton Bowl Classic, where they knocked off Rice University, 20–7. The latter win came one year after Navy's bid to play in a bowl game was rejected despite having only one loss.
After the bowl victory over Rice, Erdelatz was courted by other schools and nearly accepted the task of replacing Bear Bryant at Texas A&M University. After the 1958 season, he was also seen as a candidate for the NFL's San Francisco 49ers head coaching job, but began spring practice the following year at Navy. On April 8, 1959, Erdelatz resigned as head coach of the Midshipmen, citing a number of factors, including the desire for an easier schedule.
Wayne Hardin era (1959–1964)
From 1959 to 1964, Wayne Hardin was the head coach at Navy, where he compiled a 38–22–2 record. His Navy teams posted five consecutive wins against archrival Army, a feat not surpassed until 2007 when Paul Johnson's Navy squad won their sixth consecutive contest in the Army–Navy Game. Hardin coached Navy's two winners of the Heisman Trophy, Joe Bellino, who received the award in 1960, and Roger Staubach, who did so in 1963. Hardin was the first to coach an African-American player at Navy when Calvin Huey earned a letter in 1964.
Hardin resigned as Navy's head coach following a 3–6–1 record in 1964.
Bill Elias era (1965–1968) Virginia head coach Bill Elias replaced Hardin, and the Midshipmen struggled mightily under Elias' leadership. Elias' Midshipmen posted a 15–22–3 record in his four seasons, which included three non-winning seasons. Elias was fired following a 2–8 season in 1968.
Rick Forzano era (1969–1972) Former UConn head coach Rick Forzano was hired as Elias' replacement in 1969. However, the Midshipmen's struggles continued, with Navy failing to post a single winning season, something that hadn't occurred in Annapolis in decades. Forzano's teams posted yearly records of 1–9, 2–9, 3–8 and 4–7. Forzano resigned after the 1972 season.
George Welsh era (1973–1981) Penn State assistant coach and Navy alum George Welsh succeeded Forzano as Navy's head coach. He inherited a Navy Midshipmen football program that had only had one winning season since the days of Roger Staubach. He led the Midshipmen to three bowl game appearances and their first nine-win season in 16 years. In nine seasons, Welsh compiled a record of 55–46–1, making him the service academy's most successful coach.
In 1982, Welsh left Navy to become the head coach at Virginia.
Gary Tranquill era (1982–1986)