CONTINUED FROM PART 2, in CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER, The Top 10 Army Football Teams of the Past 50 Years:
5. 1988 – 9-3 – Head Coach: Jim Young
College Football Hall of Famer Jim Young’s third and final team on this list.
Maybe not Young’s best team, but 1988 was the capper of a remarkable 5-year run for his program (he would retire two years later after one last win over Navy).
Beat Air Force and Navy to win the CIC,
went undefeated at home,
collected a couple of “Power Five” scalps (beat Northwestern without completing a pass, and beat Vanderbilt on Senior Day),
and took an SEC Blueblood to the limit.
Hard to ask much more from an Army team in the modern era.
Like 1984, they played a game internationally (against Boston College in the “Emerald Isle Classic” in Dublin), but didn’t fare so well.
In the Sun Bowl, they came up 2 minutes and 2 points shy of beating a ranked Alabama squad, captained by future Pro and College Football Hall of Fame linebacker Derrick Thomas (Army actually lead for most of the game). And, in a weird twist of fate, Alabama’s offensive coordinator that season was Homer Smith, who coached Army’s 1977 team.
As I said, tough to ask for more than what they earned.
6. 1995 – 5-5-1 – Head Coach: Bob Sutton
The “worst record” of any team on this list, but not for lack of trying; and made famous by John Feinstein’s book A Civil War, which I can’t recommend highly enough, so I won’t go into too much detail.
Call ’em snakebit, jinxed, or downright cursed.
However you want to say it, the 1995 Army squad got screwed in a bunch of close games, which especially hurt because they knew they’d have to win at least 8 in the regular season to achieve their goals (thanks to rule changes on bowl eligibility)
Even still, they managed to go to the Meadowlands and put the fear of God into a ranked Notre Dame team. Army scored a TD to make it 27-28 with 39 seconds left and the PAT pending, went for a two-point conversion, and if not for a 5’9” 161 pound Cornerback making an insane tackle on a 6’3” 240 pound Tight end, Army would have won.
But, give them credit, they got up off the mat the next week and went up to Chestnut Hill to destroy Boston College 49-7.
Oh, and they beat Navy 14-13 with a 99-yard 4th quarter touchdown drive (“THE Drive“), becoming the first Senior class since the Class of 1948 to go 4-0 against the Squids.