In their first year as actual conference rivals, Army and Navy joined forces to steal everyone's thunder.
Heading into the 2024 season, the sports books had Army and Navy projected to win about 12 combined games. SP+ said 11.6. Both programs had slipped in recent years; blocking rule changes targeted the type of cut-blocking common with service-academy option attacks, and the liberalization of transfer rules opened up a new way for all non-service academies to supplement their rosters. Army had gone just 12-12 in 2022-23, while Navy had gone 16-30 from 2020-23.
This time last year, you could pretty easily paint a picture of college football leaving both programs behind.