Today’s the day!

Beat ARMY!

Should be an interesting game this year. So long as you don’t need to see brilliant field work when you watch football on TV. Because while the teams and their supporters don’t lack anything in the way of enthusiasm, especially for this game – when I was a mid we were told that a 1-12 season could be considered a winner, so long as the “1″ was against Army – you prolly won’t mistake either team for a PAC-10 powerhouse.

Army is clawing their way up from a terrible 2003 season (0-13) with a renewed investment in the team, and while only 4-6 coming into the Big Game, has great momentum – after getting skunked through the opening half of the season, they’ve won their last four games straight. As for Navy (6-4), winning this year would ensure that the mids keep the Commander-in-Chief’s trophy – given to the the team with the best inter-academy record between Army, Navy and the Bus Driver Academy – for a record third consecutive year. Interestingly, not one of the 18 seniors in today’s game has ever witnessed a loss to Army during their playing years. As if any more motivation was required, the woops (as West Point cadets are known in Crabtown) permitted by a refined sense of naval oblesse oblige to skulk around on campus exchange to the Hallowed Halls of the United States Naval Academy made off with the CINC’s trophy for a few days, probably because they were pretty sure that was the only way to get it into Army hands, the mere rogues.

Historically, the teams are pretty evenly matched with a record of 49-49 for the series and seven ties. So a good game to watch, so long as when watching a game, you do not necessarily need to watch good football.

Almost forgot: Here’s a vid worth loading, courtesy of alert reader Dan.

Might as well run the roundup:

Blogdaughter has her priorities straight. So does Bou. Class does show, after all. You can’t hide it. She also points us to a little classical music, to get us all ready for the show.

Matt does not quite get it, but we forgives him, so we does. Some people fly airplanes, and some jumps out of them, even when they’re operating well within spec. This qualifies them as a little tetched in the head, and such folks are forgiven much.

The artillerist is strangely silent on the issue. Having been made a very kind offer over there, I’m strangely tempted to put up a thoughtful and balanced “GO NAVY!” posting. But some sense of delicacy, not to mention self-preservation stays my hand.

Kat remembers how it was in Philly, in 1996. Which seems an awful long time ago, when you put it like that.

Smash, meanwhile, makes the funny.