Army-Navy Game 2011: 5 Greatest Navy Players in History

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When you think of the greatest football players in history, Navy isn't one of the top programs that comes to mind. There's a reason for that. As a service academy, they're severely hindered on the talent front.

Service academies don't have the same recruiting pool as everyone else. Correction, they don't have the same standards as everyone else.

When a service academy recruits a player, they're recruiting a soldier, sailor or airman. They're recruiting someone who will end their playing time with a commitment to their country in one of the branches of United States Armed Forces.

It's a rather steep admission fee, so to speak.

That's in addition to rather lofty admission standards. Despite some rather negative stereotypes regarding the intelligence of military personnel, Midshipmen of the U.S. Naval Academy (as well as members of the other service academies and virtually all leadership positions within the military) have to be highly intelligent individuals.

Stanford has nothing on the service academies.

Those things limit the available pool of athletes for the these academies. That doesn't mean that there haven't been some spectacular athletes gracing the Navy and Gold uniform of the Midshipmen however.

On the contrary, there have been quite a number of great athletes to compete for the Naval Academy. From the pool, it's hard to narrow it down to just five, but I'm going to try, in no particular order.

Ricky Dobbs, QB 2008-2010

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The thing about "greatest of all time" lists is that it's hard to put recent participants into context with those of the past. How do you compare what a guy does today with what someone did 50 years ago?

I feel confident putting Dobbs on this list, though. I believe time will defend this decision well.

In 2009, Dobbs rushed for 1,192 yards and 27 touchdowns. That touchdown mark is a record in FBS football for a quarterback.

On top of that, Dobbs compiled 49 career touchdowns, which stands as a Navy record. In total, he put together 5,535 yards. Of those yards, 2,665 came on the ground while 2,770 came through the air as Dobbs demonstrated his ability to burn opponents from multiple outlets.

Holding those records is more than enough reason for me to add Dobbs to this list.

Joe Belino, RB 1957-1961

Belino played in an era where it wasn't uncommon for players to take on multiple roles on a team. Particularly, this would have been true for a team like Navy, who (again) has such difficult recruiting standards.

In three seasons with Navy, Belino racked up 1,664 yards on 330 attempts for a five-yard-per-carry average as a running back.

While those aren't spectacular numbers by today's standards, these numbers came out of an option attack where Belino wasn't remotely the only one carrying the football.

He also averaged over 25 yards per return on kick return duties and received passes for over 600 yards.

In 1960, Belino was a consensus All-American, Maxwell Award Winner and Heisman Trophy Winner.

You can't keep a Heisman winner off this list.

Chet Moeller, S 1973-1975

from navysports.com

As a safety, Chet Moeller may not have the statistics you'd expect of an all-time great. Again, keep in mind the years he played.

According to collegefootball.org, Moeller was a two-time East Coast Athletic Conference All-Conference selection and was only the fifth Midshipman to be a unanimous All-American.

Moeller racked up 275 tackles during his career at Navy, was a second-team Academic All-American and following his collegiate career served as an officer in the Marine Corps.

Chet Moeller was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2010.

Napoleon McCallum RB, 1981-1985

photo from wikipedia

Napoleon McCallum was a serious threat on the football field between 1981 and 1985. He was a two-time consensus All-American and rushed for 7,172 yards over the course of his career.

That's a tremendous average of 1.793 yards per season!

An ankle injury early in his senior season could have ended his career, but McCallum was granted an extra year of eligibility by the NCAA and parlayed that opportunity into an NFL career with the Los Angeles Raiders.

McCallum was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2002.

Roger Staubach

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Virtually every fan of the game of football knows who Roger Staubach is. Maybe not everyone knows that he played his collegiate career at Navy.

The Super Bowl-winning quarterback was drafted out of Navy in 1964, but due to his commitment to the Armed Forces, he didn't begin play with Dallas until 1969.

In addition to his numerous professional awards, Staubach won both the Maxwell Award and Heisman Trophy in 1963. He is the last Midshipman to win the Heisman and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1981.

There has never been a face of Navy football quite as dominant as Roger Staubach.