Navy Sinks Its Own Ship?

The U.S. Naval Academy is talking tough about its frosty relationship with the University of Maryland. According to the Baltimore Sun, Maryland has approached Navy about playing a neutral site game in 2010--but the Middies still have their feelings hurt from an event in last December.

In 2005, the two teams met for the first time in 42 years (a 23-20 Terp win) in Baltimore. It was a great success and both AD's talked about repeating it. However, last year when Navy committed to the Meineke Car Care Bowl in Charlotte, they had hoped that Maryland would choose to meet them there. However, Maryland chose to play Purdue in the Champs Sports Bowl in Orlando instead. Now, Navy is holding steady that the Terps could have chosen to help the relationship by heading to North Carolina and that they had their chance to play Navy.

Tap the breaks on this. First off, while this pits two local schools against each other, keep in mind this isn't Notre Dame vs USC. Maryland has sported 6 losing seasons in the past decade. Navy is 5 years off of a 2 win season, which followed a winless season. The Terps have been hit by the strengthened ACC, while Navy's independent status allowed them to feast on Stanford, Duke, E. Michigan & Temple (wh0 combined for 3 total wins last year).

Second, Maryland has a responsibility to its conference to provide quality bowls. While Navy didn't share the proceeds of the Meineke Car Care Bowl, the Terps had to split up their revenue with the other 12 members of the ACC. The teams are obligated to help the bowls, since the bowls provide such large cash inflows to the conference.

Also, Maryland Coach Ralph Friedgen said that he was simply going where his players wanted to go. Not a hard choice there. Bowls are supposed to be rewards for good seasons. His players wanted to spend the holidays in sunny Florida, not in Charlotte. The Meineke Car Care Bowl plays one day later in Charlotte, N. Carolina with the ACC squaring off against the Big East or Navy. The Champs Sports Bowl matches up the ACC with the Big Ten. Let's see: To play in Charlotte and visit The Billy Graham Library or head off to Orlando and enjoy sun, surf and Walt Disney World?

Finally, let's look at the cash--- the Champs Sports Bowl pays out $2.25MILLION to each team. The Meineke Car Care Bowl pays $750THOUSAND. Yes, the Champs money is spread amongst the conference after bowl expenses, but Navy's asking Maryland to take 1/3 of the cash on the table.


Anyway, this shouldn't seem like a surprise in reality. The two schools don't exactly get along. Yes, they are close--a little over 30 miles--but in two different spots. One is part of the DC Metro area, the other is in Annapolis/Baltimore. One's the big state school, the other is a service academy. Still, they played frequently in the 1930s , 1950s and 1960s, until a tense game in 1964, when Navy won 27-22 on the road. The game had brawls in the stands and a Maryland linebacker told the Navy crowd that they were #1 in that oh-so-subtle way. The series stopped the next year until the 2005 game.