After 15 seasons, Naval Academy’s winningest football coach is relieved of duty

This seems to change with every SecDef and almost every year with the way the wind blows because the SecDef got a gerble up his ass. I think this is specifically a tit for tat with Trump. Yet Shithead Lloyd doesn't have a good memory. This comes up anytime West Point or Navy have good players. Air Force hasn't been good in a long time, but if you remember the 90s...Air Force was really good.

2008 Caleb Campbell (USMA)
2015 Joe Cardona (USNA)
2016 Keenan Reynolds (USNA)

There are others. The difference before the 2019 NDAA that made it a law was that it was an administrative rule I think that was always a flip flop based the wind, err gerble living in the rectum of that service secretary.

We just got two players entering our league on service deferrals, USNA and USMA have two of the best programs in our sport. Would be really stupid to tell those young athletes they have 0 pathway to professionalism. Wouldn't kill those programs overnight, but it would probably have a massive affect eventually on USNA as they just went varsity this past season. The drain would be slower on USMA.
 
It appears to be both.

The guy had to know that his job was in jeopardy after several losing seasons and a couple of losses to Army. But to fire the guy, in the locker room, after a heartbreaking double-OT loss? Dude, yeah, that's SUPER shitty. Could have kept that shit until Monday. Or even after Winter Break. Could have set something up to allow him to leave honorably, even allow him to resign on his own.

Army-Navy is 5-5 over 10 seasons. It's not like Army has had the perpetual upper hand. This was extraordinarily shortsighted. He was a popular coach, decent. He won some games against vastly better teams even if they weren't always a great team themselves.

I agree that even if the Army game was the trigger, the execution flat out sucked. The AD should be canned just for his lack of ethical behavior.
 
I think the precedent was set by Napolean McCallum, who was allowed to play in the NFL before completing his commitment...and Dave Robinson went to the NBA without serving, if I recall...the coach is advocating for him because it will make it easier for him to get higher quality athletes if they think they have a reasonable shot at playing professionally after they graduate...that's what the cynic in me says, anyway...

Robinson served two years active, then six in the reserve. They were going to boot him from the Navy because his height was taller then Navy regs for commissioning, he actually fought for his commission, and the CEC as a civil engineer was a compromise.
 
Someone help me understand why it matters for the athletic programs to have world class athletes.

Athletics is just another form of marketing and your attempt to gain the best and brightest of a population to attend your college/university.

Interestingly, the service academies have extremely healthy endowments focused on supporting athletics. Even though they actually don't need that money since the DoD gives them almost unlimited budgets as it stands.

Also, the same reason why the Army, Navy, and Air Force have the World Class Athlete Programs.
 
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If being competitive across the D1 schools is the metric, the academies will be at a disadvantage because of the additional requirements the military places. Academics/academic quality really is not an argument when you have good schools field good teams (Stanford, Duke, etc.). I didn't mention state-supported teams that are also perennially good (Michigan, etc.) because they do allow for certain waivers.

The service academies recruit differently because their targets are not the same targets as Alabama. They should look at West Point and the AFA as their primary metric, and as stated, the AFA has had some really good teams.

99% of the academies players know they won't go pro, and they seem OK with that. Going pro isn't the outcome of going to an academy.

It's a difficult needle for the academies to thread because they ain't like everyone else.
 
I'll be honest here. I think the demise of inter-service athletics has led to a decrease in lethality. I'm not talking about stuff at the academies but what generally leads to selection in the World Class Athlete program.

I know some folks don't care for commanders cup stuff. But being selected to a Post team to represent the Division etc used to mean a lot. But now there really isn't a pathway at the company level to get selected and then possibly move towards "All-Service trials". The Army World Class Athlete program facilitates Soldiers who do get selected to compete at the highest levels. In 2020 we had 12 Soldiers make the US Olympic team. Inter-Service sports is still a major thing in the British Army, this elevates esprit de corps amongst personnel. Winning things matters.

But instead of say having Soldier go practice with the Battalion Rugby or Basketball team at 3PM for their second workout of the day, we keep soldiers twiddling their thumbs in front of their lockers until 1700 because the commander has nothing to do.
 
Fucking football is more important to Admirals and Generals than winning wars.

I wouldn't mind letting a percentage of Academy grads go Guard or Reserve, but only if their commitment was doubled.

Allowing reserve/guard commitment in lieu of allowing players go pro would attract a higher level of talent. I like the idea.

Part of the frustration is the inconsistency of how, who, and when they allow players to go pro. I think just having a consistent rule would be helpful.
 
Allowing reserve/guard commitment in lieu of allowing players go pro would attract a higher level of talent. I like the idea.

Part of the frustration is the inconsistency of how, who, and when they allow players to go pro. I think just having a consistent rule would be helpful.
The coach's statements are essentially made "for the team". He could have bailed from the Acadamy two years ago via the transfer portal, but didn't. Now we change the rules 5 months before graduation. I am not in favor of letting guys go pro, but would make an exeption in this case because we changed the rules after he passed the point of no return. I would apply the rules to incoming cadets, and freshman/sophomore cadets.
 
The coach's statements are essentially made "for the team". He could have bailed from the Acadamy two years ago via the transfer portal, but didn't. Now we change the rules 5 months before graduation. I am not in favor of letting guys go pro, but would make an exeption in this case because we changed the rules after he passed the point of no return. I would apply the rules to incoming cadets, and freshman/sophomore cadets.
Eh, and next NDAA it will change again because we'll have a different sec def. Actually wouldn't be surprised if Lloyd is still around because unlike the Obama and Trump administrations...accountability is not a thing under Biden.
 
We did a waiver for this guy so that he could take the position. And we got...?
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Air Force hasn't been good in a long time, but if you remember the 90s...Air Force was really good.
This isn't really true. While Mountain West isn't exactly the strongest conference in the NCAA, the Air Force has only 2 losing seasons (2017 and 2018) since 2014. They're 9 - 3 this year and will play in the Armed Forces Bowl, their 3rd Bowl game in 4 years - they won the previous two Bowl games.
 
It appears to be both.

The guy had to know that his job was in jeopardy after several losing seasons and a couple of losses to Army. But to fire the guy, in the locker room, after a heartbreaking double-OT loss? Dude, yeah, that's SUPER shitty. Could have kept that shit until Monday. Or even after Winter Break. Could have set something up to allow him to leave honorably, even allow him to resign on his own.
Yeah, complete dick move by the AD. He should be canned the same way.
 
This isn't really true. While Mountain West isn't exactly the strongest conference in the NCAA, the Air Force has only 2 losing seasons (2017 and 2018) since 2014. They're 9 - 3 this year and will play in the Armed Forces Bowl, their 3rd Bowl game in 4 years - they won the previous two Bowl games.
Army and Navy have dominated the Commander in Chief's cup for awhile, those two games are the only ones that matter.
 
Army and Navy have dominated the Commander in Chief's cup for awhile, those two games are the only ones that matter.
Air Force typically has a pretty good football team. The thing is, no one wants to watch them play one of the other Academies. That's why the Army/Air Force game can, for example, be played at Army's home stadium. In non-COVID times, the Army/Navy game has to be played in a major NFL-size stadium.

Air Force is the "WNBA" of Academy football. Sorry folks.
 
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