Follow this service academy trend and back Navy to cover Thursday vs. Memphis

While most eyes will be fixated on Thursday Night Football, the college football die-hards will be sweating out an AAC showdown between Navy and Memphis at Liberty Stadium.

The Tigers are a 14.5-point favorite over the Midshipmen under the lights in Bluff City.

Things didn’t go to plan for Navy in its season opener against Notre Dame. The Midshipmen were a three-score underdog, but plenty of punters thought that Navy would give a decent account of themselves in Dublin for Brian Newberry’s coaching debut. But the Fighting Irish raced out to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter and never looked back in a 42-3 throttling.

The Midshipmen had a week off after Week 0 and were able to make light work of Wagner, an FCS school, to the tune of 24-0. With two very different opponents to open the season it’s fair to say we haven’t learned all that much about Navy for 2023. The Midshipmen were overmatched in Ireland and then did the same to the Seahawks.

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You could make the same claim about Ryan Silverfield’s Memphis Tigers, who routed two terrible teams (Bethune-Cookman and Arkansas State) to get to 2-0 on the season.

We do know that Memphis’ quarterback, Seth Henigan, is steady and has plenty of upside for a Group of 5 signal-caller, but the team did lose its two top receivers from 2022. The Tigers didn’t seem to miss them in their first two games, but Navy represents a bump up in class compared to an FCS school and an Arkansas State team that could end up as the worst team in FBS.

We can also feel pretty comfortable with what Navy’s gameplan will be in this contest. The Midshipmen are expected to put more balls in the air this season compared to what we’ve seen from them over the years, but the bread and butter for this squad remains in the trenches. Navy wants to get the running game going and wear defenses down. There’s no secrets there.

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That gameplan has made service academies terrific bets as big underdogs over the past 20 years. Keeping the ball on the ground means that the clock will be moving a lot more than it would in a contest that features two more traditional offenses. That shortens the game and makes it a lot harder for teams to cover big spreads.

Since 2005, Navy, Army and Air Force are 42-23-2 Against the Spread when they are catching at least 14 points. That’s good enough for a 62.6% win rate.

Don’t overthink this one, take the points and back the Midshipmen to keep things tight against the Tigers.

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