[doug]

I grew up at West Point, my Dad played football for Army in the glory years of WWII, and Army is my second favorite team. The question as to the respective talent levels at Army vs. Navy and Air Force is interesting. To my understanding, Army is generally considered the "hardest" (purely subjectively in terms of the overall life of a cadet) and least compromising of the academies. Nevertheless, there has historically been a pretty good competitive balance between the academies, but that has changed. Army was at a competitive disadvantage during the Vietnam years and for some time after, but balance was ultimately restored.

There may be a new factor at play in Navy's ascension in the last ~15 years. The Washington Post did a long story about 2-3 years ago, tracing the slack (both athletic and other) Navy was giving football players. The point of the story as I recall was that Army and Navy usually recruit from the same basic pool but Navy was admitting and retaining guys that Army couldn't or wouldn't.

[doug]

I grew up at West Point, my Dad played football for Army in the glory years of WWII, and Army is my second favorite team. The question as to the respective talent levels at Army vs. Navy and Air Force is interesting. To my understanding, Army is generally considered the "hardest" (purely subjectively in terms of the overall life of a cadet) and least compromising of the academies. Nevertheless, there has historically been a pretty good competitive balance between the academies, but that has changed. Army was at a competitive disadvantage during the Vietnam years and for some time after, but balance was ultimately restored.

There may be a new factor at play in Navy's ascension in the last ~15 years. The Washington Post did a long story about 2-3 years ago, tracing the slack (both athletic and other) Navy was giving football players. The point of the story as I recall was that Army and Navy usually recruit from the same basic pool but Navy was admitting and retaining guys that Army couldn't or wouldn't.