College Football is here, friends. We’re into Week 1, and that means we’re got real Army Football this weekend. This in turn means that it’s finally time to bring our Season Preview series to a close.
If you missed any of the previous articles in this series, you can find them right here.
— Offense
— Defense
— First Quarter
— Second Quarter
— Third Quarter
By all accounts, Army’s dress rehearsal scrimmage went very well yesterday. This was starters versus scouts through the entire first half, so we would expect it to go well. Still, we’ve seen a few years in which things didn’t necessarily go to plan.
As we noted in previous weeks, we’re presenting would-be betting lines for the purpose of explaining expectations ahead of these games. When you look at these, remember that FPI weights a team’s conference while SP+ does not. FPI has the goal of predicting which teams will make the College Football Playoff in a process that manifestly tilts towards the Power 4, so weighting by conference makes sense. By comparison, SP+ tries to pick winners in games based on in-game statistics. We used a straight average of these metrics to develop the lines presented below.
Final scrimmage before the real thing next week! pic.twitter.com/huGcUb3hG6
— Army Football (@ArmyWP_Football) August 29, 2026
Season Preview: Fourth Quarter
Week 11: Bye
The Black Knights come off their Saturday night home game against Air Force with a Bye. They’ll have played seven straight weeks at that point, so this is reasonably well-timed heading into the season’s final stretch. The team might’ve preferred to take this week off before Air Force, but if they once again find themselves in the American Conference Championship Game, this week off will become critically important.
Week 12: East Carolina (9-4 in 2025; 6-2 in the American)
ECU finished a good but not quite great season in 2025 with a win over ACC Pitt in the Military Bowl. Unlike much of the rest of the American Conference’s top half, they managed to keep Head Coach Blake Harrell at the end of the season, though they lost plenty of players to the Transfer Portal. Still, in his second full season managing the program, Harrell should have all of his pieces in place.
The Pirates lost QB Katin Houser, two O-Linemen, a D-Lineman, and their best Safety over the offseason, but they might’ve compensated by bringing in former North Texas OC Jordan Davis. Reports say that Texas Tech transfer QB Mitch Griffis will start this week. Griffis started for Wake Forest waaay back in 2020 and has 10 career starts overall. Now heading into at least his seventh year of college, one hopes he’s got that degree in Advanced Brain Surgery almost finished.
FPI: -0.6
SP+: -1.9
Projected Line: Pick ‘Em
ECU has had good defenses for a while, especially against the run, and Harrell tends to be a defensive-minded coach. If his new OC can get that offense to meet its balanced, explosive potential, then ECU could be a problem in the American. At least on the surface, they seem to have all the pieces. But we’ve seen that a lot in the conference over the years, and sometimes all the new pieces don’t necessarily function as a unit.
ECU at Army looks like a true pick ‘em as of this writing. As with all Army home games, CBS Sports has coverage, starting at noon.
Make Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium Rowdy!
— ECU Football (@ECUPiratesFB) March 3, 2026
Get your season tickets today 🏴☠️ #ItTakesAllOfUshttps://t.co/rr2hK7Z7Wb pic.twitter.com/W715dSbzmb
Week 13: at Rice (5-8 in 2025; 2-6 in the American)
Rice didn’t qualify for a bowl bid last season but found themselves in the Armed Forces Bowl anyway after Notre Dame and what felt like half the teams in college football pulled out of bowl contention. They wound up dropping that game to Texas State, 41-10, in contest that provided a perfect metaphor for their season overall.
Head Coach Scott Abell brought a version of the triple-option to Rice in 2025, his first season with the team. Army fans may recognize some of what Abell wants to do on offense, though his scheme is probably closer to the Thatcher Gun-Option than it is to Army’s under-center variant. Despite taking too many negative plays, the Owls somehow managed to beat a really good UConn team in 2025, but mostly they struggled to stay consistent on both sides of the ball. They then lost all their best defensive players to the Portal, so this looks like it might be another tough year.
FPI: -13.4
SP+: -14.9
Projected Line: Army (-3.4)
If there’s good news for the Owls, it’s that they returned six of the eleven linemen that got starts in 2025 along with three of their running backs. They need to find a quarterback who can run their particular version of the option, but if they can do that, maybe they can start to figure a few things out.
As of this writing, Army at Rice is scheduled for Saturday, November 28, with both time and network to be determined. Unless the Owls have some breakout performances on offense, this game seems unlikely to get flexed into the American’s Black Friday slot. Unless CBS Sports buys it, it’ll probably wind up on ESPN+.
Another Day at the Office 💼#WE | #ReptheR pic.twitter.com/REMVDhK1em
— Rice Football (@RiceFootball) August 27, 2026
Week 15: Army-Navy (11-2 in 2025; 7-1 in the American)
Everybody in the world has picked Navy to win the American Conference and make the College Football Playoff this season despite their rather considerable offseason losses. So yes, the Mids have gone a very impressive 21-5 over the last two seasons, and indeed, former Navy QB Blake Horvath frequently made OC Drew Cronic look like a genius. Horvath was a legitimately great player, but it’s worth noting here that he played with a group of skill position players who’d been together through at least the Prep School — and all the way from high school in some cases. New starting QB Braxton Woodson has better measurables than Horvath, but the Mids will not immediately replace the chemistry their offense has had with an entirely new set of skill position players. That’s true even with them returning four of their five O-Linemen.
Navy also returns one of their better D-Linemen and their best linebacker. However, they also rank 134th out of 138 FBS teams in career snaps played by current members of the roster. Friends, that’s still a lot of turnover, even in the Transfer Portal Era.
FPI: -0.7
SP+: +1.1
Projected Line: Army (+3)
We’ve got an entire season of football to play between now and the Army-Navy Game, so it seems silly to try figuring all of this out now. A lot will change before 3:30 pm on December 12.
The Mids will be good in 2026. However, the AFF Crew remains a little skeptical of their ability to run the table in the American a year after losing a generational quarterback, a handful of exceptionally athletic offensive skill players who’d known each other forever, and an NFL-caliber defensive tackle. Maybe they can pull it off. Let’s play the games and see.
Chills.
— Army-Navy Game (@ArmyNavyGame) December 13, 2025
Another great open from @CBSSports. #ArmyNavypic.twitter.com/h0JVJjecks
Final Thoughts
This preview series is interesting every year, but we’re finally getting to the point that preseason predictions no longer matter. The Bryant Bulldogs won their first game of the new season at Stonehill yesterday, 24-6, by playing good red zone defense. Right now, we need to worry more about that than we need to worry about games in late November and/or Army-Navy.
Go Army! Beat Bryant!!!
