Army vs Navy – December 14
posted December 13
updated 3:10pm
The Game
It’s one of the best events of the year in any sport. It’s the Army/Navy game.
In addition to all the pageantry and prominent displays of patriotism it also appears that we could see one of the most entertaining games in recent series history. The Army Black Knights (11-1) are in the midst of a fantastic campaign in which they rolled over the vast majority of their competition on their way to an AAC Championship. Their only slip up came vs mighty Notre Dame. The Navy Midshipmen (8-3) began the season on a 6-0 run but they’ve faded recently losing three of their last five games.
The Details
Army -6.5 Navy (39)
MEGALOCKS LINE – Army -7
“Vegas” Implied Projected Score: Army 22.75 Navy 16.25
Army offense vs Navy defense
Army has been an absolute BEAST on the ground this season (314 YPG rushing, #1 FBS) and that’s the first time the Black Knights have averaged 300+ rushing YPG since the 2018 campaign. Not surprisingly, Army had a lot of success during that season (11-2, beat Houston 70-14 in the Armed Forces Bowl). QB Bryson Daily is one of the best players in the country and he’s close to unstoppable running the football (1,474, 5.6, 29 TD!), and don’t sleep on RB Kanye Udoh !1,064, 10 TD), and the versatile SB Noah Short (533 rush, 8.2; 19.6 YPC) who might be the fastest man alive **. Daily doesn’t throw the ball often, but when he does, he prefers to do it efficiently (58%, 8-1 TD to INT, 11.2 YPC). Navy’s defense has been average this year (#79 total defense) and they’ve had more trouble than usual stopping the run (160 YPG, #85) compared to the L3Y (129/89/130). That probably spells trouble for the Middies but at least they’ve got a lot of experience defending the triple option.
** Think “cheetah” with rocket boosters.
Navy offense vs Army defense
Navy’s offense has shown yuuuge growth under new OC Drew Cronic (32 PPG, 18 PPG LY) but they were a lot more explosive in the first half of the season (45 PPG!) than they’ve been over the L5G (17 PPG). That drop-off in production can be attributed in large part to the injury status of starting QB Blake Horvath (11-4 TD to INT, 895 rush, 13 TD) and it remains to be seen if he’ll be at 100% in this game. Backup Braxton Woodson has looked good at times but he’s not Blake Horvath. Yet. The good news for Navy fans is that Woodson is coming off a fine game vs East Carolina (165 pass, 125 rush) so he should be ok if called upon on Saturday. RB Alex Tecza is a grinder and not much of a big play threat (489, 4.9) and Navy relies heavily on SB Eli Heidenreich to generate big plays (402 rush, 7.2; 597 receiving, 16.6). Army has been phenomenal on defense this season (#10 total defense) and they’ve been especially stingy vs the run (104 YPG, #11). Navy will have to get back to their ways from earlier in the season and use a balanced attack if they want to move the ball consistently on the Black Knights.
Trends, Intangibles, and More!
This has clearly been an ‘under’ series and note that we’re not too far off from a 16-game (!) stretch in which ‘under’ bettors went home with the cash every time (2006-2021)…..However, Army wasn’t led by a QB like Bryson Daily during that stretch of games and Navy had a traditional triple-option attack…..Both teams played Notre Dame…..Navy got drilled 51-14 whilst Army got cremated to the tune of 49-14…..The underdog is 22-6 ATS (!) in service academy games (1-1 in 2024) since 2017…..The Black Knights played last week in the AAC title game vs Tulane….Navy hasn’t played since November 30th when they took down the ARRRRRRRR Pirates from East Carolina.
Summary
Army is clearly the better team on both sides of the football but the spread doesn’t provide us with any implied ‘value’. We’ll take a deeper dive into the total and report back before 5pm on Friday!
Conclusion
Holding pattern – Stay tuned!
UPDATE
The consensus line is now -6/40. Implied score 23-17.
Lean – Army Team Total over 23
Posted 2:55pm Dec 13
You can find anywhere from 22.5 to 23.5. 22.5 is quite easy to locate if you have multiple books.
‘Official play’ means that this is one of our favorite plays of the week (perceived value, match-up, coaching, trends, etc.). We’re currently investing 25% more on these plays vs our ‘leans’. We’ll normally have two or three of these choices per week.
‘Lean’ means that we’re placing a standard size wager on the game. We’ll normally have about ten of these plays per week. Many members prefer to pick and choose amongst these games when finalizing their weekly investment cards so we’ll continue to refer to them as ‘leans’.
‘No leanage’ means that we won’t have any action on the game.
Team totals – We’ll list the implied number based on the point spread and total when our analysis is posted. If a team total ends up being an ‘official play’ we’ll post a widely available number at the time of pick release.