One subject that I can absolutely yap about right now is the current state of college football.

I can go on and on about the stupidity of having a transfer window that opens before the postseason, a first in the history of free agency in sports.

Imagine if before the NFL playoffs began that Patrick Mahomes announced he was leaving the Chiefs for the Dolphins. 

Absurd.

I have thoughts about the missteps by the playoff committee in how they’ve created problems for themselves with how the teams are seeded in this first ever 12-round bracket for qualifying teams.

Why not just seed the teams based on who is best, not who won their conference championship game. Boise State deserves to be in the field, but they do not deserve a first round bye.

I do believe that players deserve to be paid, as their labor and the resulting millions that it generates in television revenue is worth a wage, but the need for some type of limitations or guides on the process is more apparent every day.

There was a linebacker at Florida that went viral this week for requesting $45,000 a month and playing time guarantees in order to remain in Gainesville. 

Again, absurd.

I’ve written before about the failures in leadership at the NCAA that opened the door to the wacky world of NIL, the transfer portal, and guys playing for a new team every year like hired mercenaries.

Coastal Carolina coach Tim Beck was quoted this week talking about how the era of “building a program” in college football is over. Instead, Beck said that we are in a time where each year the coaches and personnel department within their program must “build a team.”

Like the NFL, but without salary caps or rules in general.

Beck’s sentiment is mostly true, but with a few exceptions as Army and Navy both first come to mind.

The two schools that we most associate with “the team, the team, the team” in college football today, the Army Black Knights and the Navy Midshipmen, take their place on center stage this weekend with their annual rivalry game.

I for one am looking forward to seeing the matchup between the two service academies that will be played Saturday in Washington, D.C.

It is the 125th meeting of the schools and it’ll kick off at 2 p.m. CST and will be broadcast on CBS.

Army comes in ranked No. 22 in the nation and 11-1, with its lone loss coming to a Notre Dame team that is in the playoffs. Navy is 8-3 and trying to beat Army for the first time since 2021.

I know the families of Brookhaven natives Sam Arnold and Bryce Smith will both be watching as they have rooting interest in the game.

Arnold is a junior at Army who has run varsity cross-country during his time at West Point. Smith is a freshman in Annapolis who played Sprint Football this year for the Midshipmen. Both are graduates of Brookhaven High School.

I can remember reading The Daily Leader for a stretch while growing up when longtime Sports Editor Tom Goetz kept everyone back home updated on Maurio Smith, an Ole Brook alum who played in the game for Army during his football career.

Smith started at cornerback for the Black Knights in the 2001 edition of the game. He, Sam Arnold, and Bryce Smith are part of a long, proud tradition of Brookhaven and Lincoln County sending the cream of our crop to serve the nation.

You’ll have to go pretty far back in the history of the rivalry, past the days of Maurio Smith suiting up, to find a game in which both rivals come in with so much momentum.

Army won the American Athletic Championship Game with a 35-14 thrashing of Tulane and the Black Knights were a dark horse contender for a playoff spot all season behind the dynamic play of quarterback Bryson Daily. Daily ran for four touchdowns and 126 yards in the win over Tulane.

Navy started the season 6-0 before losing games to Notre Dame, Rice, and Tulane. The Midshipmen will play in a bowl game against Oklahoma while Army is scheduled to face Marshall in a bowl.

If you are looking to read something about the game before kickoff, I can’t recommend the piece by ESPN this week, titled “Inside Army-Navy: A day in the life of the students at the service academies,” strongly enough.

Authors Heather Dinich and Chris Low focus on one leading player from each of the schools and follow them through their full routines, showing just how little unoccupied time there is for student-athletes that cram being a college football player into a rigorous load of college classes and all the other tasks that are specific to being at a service academy.

All of the other stuff that goes into molding young men into warriors.

It’s also a piece about how all the stuff that we associate with college football in 2024 is absent from the programs in West Point and Annapolis.

There is no NIL money. There are no transfers. There aren’t even redshirts, as the point is to graduate and serve, not stick around at a military school.

My guess is that we’re going to see Army and Navy outperform many of their league foes in the coming years.

When chaos rules, like it does in college football right now, consistency is what can set a program apart. Consistency is something that both schools excel at, especially with their unique triple-option offenses that few other programs run.

We could be entering into a new golden era of service academy football.

I’m sure the Arnolds will be cheering for Army to beat Navy and my friends Brett and Erin Smith will be surely pulling for Navy to beat Army.

Who wins won’t matter to me, but after reading that ESPN story earlier this week, I think we’re all winners, to have our best and brightest ready to step up and serve as their country needs them and to also remind us that college football doesn’t have to always be so complicated.

Cliff Furr writes about sports for The Daily Leader. You can reach him by stopping him on the street at any time to talk about college football.