Army requires all its cadets to pass the APFT and height weight twice annually (only academy to do so). Air Force and Navy have athletic exemptions which generally allow their athletes to (for practical purposes) defer height weight standards and run requirements till after their final season. Conversely Army's lines can never get to big since they only have a couple months before the season to bulk up and then have to be mindful of cutting down as soon as the season ends. There is no benefit to playing them.

USMA should either wave the annual PFT and height weight requirements for athletes (like the other academies do) or drop down to division II. Personally I would wave the requirements and allow cadets who get drafted to defer their service commitments, or do what the Navy and Air Force do & put them to work as recruiters during the off season.

I went to AOBC with a USMA Offensive Tackle, he was big for a tank but tiny for a D-1 offensive line man. Hung out with a USMA basketball player during ACCC who said it hurt them as well. Seems like a Sisyphean task to keep competing with such stringent self imposed restrictions. I fully understand the ideology that everyone is a cadet first, every one will serve. If that is the case they should drop to DII. The alternative is to keep getting embarrassed every week, which cant be good publicity.

The issue lies somewhere between pride and history. Every athlete is a cadet first (but not really for the football program, as a lot of their other graduation requirements are altered, including not having to take the IOCT until their last semester), and changing that would greatly erode the Corps to a point that would detrimental to the Academy's future. The large donors (and there are a lot of really, really wealthy people in the long gray line) want Army to remain in D1 because they point to history and to Navy/Air Force as proof that Army can still compete. The most logical decision would be to drop to FCS, where Army could still make its yearly trips to Stanford, Penn State, etc but would play the balance of its games against athletes of similar size. The donors won't allow that to happen though, unless Navy went first.

It's too bad, really. Army is competitive in every other sport except football and men's basketball, and its certainly not for a lack of effort from the cadets. Unfortunately, even at USMA the donors only care about football.

Navy football players have 6 months after graduation, 11 months after football season ends to meet weight, iirc.

So you're saying that the USMA is the only academy that makes the lineman, etc 'make weight' once every year as opposed to only making weight once at the end of their football career in order to begin their military career?

That's ridiculous.

I didn't know they did it like that. Late 90s one of my best friends was an O lineman and I remember him getting huge his last season but not necessarily the others. Busted his rear to get back down to weight and took a lot of flak along the way if I recall. I'll have to ask him about that. I know they got all the food they could eat...until they didn't.

They need to do something to get competitive again. I agree on letting them defer/out of their contracts for the NFL. What better marketing for their program is there than that?

The Old Grads want to be competitive and would pay to win. Big time college football has passed by the mission of educating student athletes - it is counter indicative of USMA's mission for America to play D1 football to win. As it is they blur the lines with taxpayer dollars to get what they get.

And the players have to make height/weight each semester and "pass" the APFT each semester as well

It might help if they would stop running an offense from the 1970's. Run the same offense that the kids are running in high school.

The system Army runs is because of the weakness of their lines. If they had FBS sized line men then you might see a greater variety of styles.

Tango has the right of it. I do not think it would unduly undermine the USMA's mission (any more than it has the USNA's) to allow revenue sports (men's Basketball and Football) cadets to defer on their height weight and fitness requirements until after their final season. Still require them to pass. Still require them to commission. If they go pro let them be a recruiter, or have them serve in the IRR first.

Do you have a link? I'm not doubting you, and I have no first hand knowledge, but this runs counter to what I've heard (by purple w/o who would know) about the great weight purge by some o-linemen at West Point in their final spring.

A very quick review shows that Army is similar or a bit heavier than Navy, at least on the rosters.

It does undermine USMA's mission, I think. The football players have different summer military training experiences, and surveys done with field commanders show they are significantly less prepared. It also creates quite a schism between football players and every other cadet.

Allowing drafted athletes to forego their obligation is a terrible waste of taxpayer money. USMA continues to exist because congress is persuaded that it creates top tier lieutenants worth the $400,000 price tag. If even one athlete is allowed to go be a recruiting company XO (a position that doesn't exist on the MTOE/TDA), it would prove that USMA football is more important than the Army it is supposed to serve.

USMA is bending a lot of rules to have a winning football program, to the point that football players aren't branched normally.

Endo - No links. I ended my career teaching at USMA, and am returning next year as a visiting civilian professor. I served as an "officer representative" (OR) for the football team for 2 years. ORs are the military liaisons for the varsity athlete teams - responsible for ensuring they pass classes, take PT tests, make weight, etc.

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It does undermine USMA's mission, I think. The football players have different summer military training experiences, and surveys done with field commanders show they are significantly less prepared. It also creates quite a schism between football players and every other cadet.

Allowing drafted athletes to forego their obligation is a terrible waste of taxpayer money. USMA continues to exist because congress is persuaded that it creates top tier lieutenants worth the $400,000 price tag. If even one athlete is allowed to go be a recruiting company XO (a position that doesn't exist on the MTOE/TDA), it would prove that USMA football is more important than the Army it is supposed to serve.

USMA is bending a lot of rules to have a winning football program, to the point that football players aren't branched normally.

Endo - No links. I ended my career teaching at USMA, and am returning next year as a visiting civilian professor. I served as an "officer representative" (OR) for the football team for 2 years. ORs are the military liaisons for the varsity athlete teams - responsible for ensuring they pass classes, take PT tests, make weight, etc.

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Tango Mike, I have heard that the service acadamies have "different standards" in regards to incoming student athletes than the "normal" incoming freshmen. It is at Rice, Stanford, Vanderbuilt and other "Academic" schools. Rice entrance standards are 2 points higher than the NCAA minimum. (19 vs 17) . A regular student's is something like 32.

Is this true?

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Tango Mike, I have heard that the service acadamies have "different standards" in regards to incoming student athletes than the "normal" incoming freshmen. It is at Rice, Stanford, Vanderbuilt and other "Academic" schools. Rice entrance standards are 2 points higher than the NCAA minimum. (19 vs 17) . A regular student's is something like 32.

Is this true?

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Yes, the data for recruited athletes are statistically significantly lower than other cadets, with football being absurdly different. Applicants are scored on a system divided among SAT/ACT scores, HS class rank, leadership experience, athletics experience, and a very small boost is given to enlisted Soldiers. Imagine each of these is worth 25% and the Army experience is worth about 3-5 points.

The typical applicant needs to score around 87-90% total to get an interview. That means they need to be a 28+ ACT/1300+ SAT, top 20% HS class rank, played some HS sport or some club sport or runs weekend races etc, and served in some leadership capacity (4H club president, student council, etc).

Recruited football players need to have a 50% and are not required to sit through the interview. Football players are maxed out in athletics points (no other sport is) and are maxed out in leadership points if they "served in a team leadership role" - this is defined as loosely as "leader of the running back group".

There are some athletes at USMA that have enormous potential for future service and will be ACOM officers. The great, great majority of football players, however, had marginal test scores and wouldn't be commissioned if a holistic review was completed.

Tango, you are exponentially more dialed in to the situation than myself. What makes you say it creates quite a schism? What field commanders are saying they are less prepared & how? I have had this conversation with a couple dozen (mostly combat arms) former West Point officers over the last decade or so, including a few former football players. Most (but not all) tend to agree with either of my proposed options for waiving height weight or dropping to FCS. All the former varsity athletes think the USMA should wave the height weight requirements (unsurprisingly none of them think they should drop to FCS or DII). Admittedly the option to serve as a recruiter if drafted is the most controversial & I think least important to fielding a more competitive team. Mine is a relatively small sample size compared to the hundreds (if not thousands) of current cadets you have interacted with. I would not be surprised to learn in the one to twenty plus years between graduation and discussing these ideas with me, former cadet's opinions change.

All that said, former varsity athletes (not just football) have spoken about how much harder it is to be a USMA varsity athlete rather than a normal cadet (although both are very demanding compared to a typical undergraduate program). Conversely none of the normal cadets seemed to have a problem with the special exceptions made for the varsity athletes. Once again I have a fairly small sample size & may have ran in to the exceptions. Additionally (you may disagree) I never noticed any* school producing noticeably better or worse officers, especially 2LTs. Although again I am dealing with a relatively small sample size compared to the Army as a whole.

Ultimately when it comes to tax payer dollars I do not think participating in USMA varsity athletics adds much to the quality of an officer. I can readily agree athletics in general improves officer quality, and former varsity athletes at other schools tend to make great officers, I just never saw anything to readily differentiate former West Point varsity athletes from other USMA grads. However I readily support the expense of revenue sports at the service academies for many of the same reasons I support the National Guards NASCAR, commercials, & other events: marketing. I believe having a competitive FBS football team and D-1 basketball team significantly improves recruiting. The demographics we target significantly overlap with high school football and basketball fans. I have nothing to base this on, but I also think fielding a continuously anemic cellar dwelling teams hurts recruiting in those same demographics. It might not, but I imagine a winning team gets more young men in recruiter's offices than a losing one. For that reason I see waiving height weight & APFT requirements until after a cadet's final season as a cheap way of improving our return on investment. They should still be required to meet all the graduation requirements and commission on graduation, just given a little more flexibility while they are there. Finally while a football player may not otherwise get in to the USMA with out the special exceptions made for them, almost all of them could easily get ROTC scholarships and acceptance at State schools where they would eventually commission just like if they had attended West Point. Thus while there entry may dilute the USMA it does nothing to dilute the US Army officer corps as a whole.
I am very interested in your thoughts.

*As much as it pains me to admit this.