College Football Betting: Army vs. Navy

There’s virtually no college football scheduled for this week but the only FBS level game on the board is one of the biggest rivalry in sports. Army and Navy have faced each other on the football field 113 times and will renew the rivalry for the 114th time Saturday in Philadelphia. Historically, the series has been highly competitive with Navy winning 57 times, Army 49 times and 7 ties. In recent years, however, it’s been all Navy with the Midshipmen winning 11 straight games.

Statistically, it’s hard to make a case for Army. The Cadets lost talented quarterback Trent Steelman to graduation and while junior quarterback Angel Santiago has looked OK running the option they haven’t produced results on the field. Most significant, however, is Army’s pointspread troubles in recent season. 14-21 ATS overall since 2011. An even bigger issue has been their play away from West Point-on the road the Black Knights are 0-15 SU/1-14 ATS since 2011. The only game they have covered in this timeframe was in a 24-14 loss at Air Force in 2011 where they took the money as +16′ point underdogs. These numbers include a SU/ATS loss at Hawaii but could have helped change Army’s football fortunes going forward-in that loss QB A.J. Schurr came on in relief and led the team to five touchdown drives in the hard fought loss.

Navy quarterback Keenan Reynolds has drawn comparisons to another Navy QB, Dallas Cowboys’ legend Roger Staubach and is definitely one of the best quarterbacks in program history. The Navy defense is nothing special, however, and that puts a lot of pressure on the offense to keep the chains moving and keep scoring points. The defense will catch a break due to their knowledge of the triple option offense. On paper Navy is probably the better team but the last two games in the series have been very competitive with Army covering both. We think that the Hawaii experience may have given the team the boost and they’ll keep this game close. The weather is expected to be bad but we look for a lot of points scored with a pair of competent offenses and mediocre defenses.

BET ARMY +13 OVER NAVY
BET ARMY/NAVY OVER 52′