giftpool.blogg.se

Having that relationship with Chet, there was a level of trust.” They just needed to know what was happening and where we were going. They were all in and never showed any hesitation. “They just needed to be reassured no one else was leaving and things weren’t going to blow up. “I told them I thought this conference would be fine and we’ve got a chance to build something,” Aresco said. The friendship between Gladchuk and Aresco went back decades, dating to Aresco’s time at CBS, when Navy and CBS worked out television deals.ĭuring a tumultuous time period of realignment, Aresco traveled to Annapolis to assure the academy. Navy, still independent in football at the time, decided to stick with the plan and join the American, in large part because of commissioner Mike Aresco, who had become commissioner of the Big East a few months after Navy agreed to join. What was left became the American Athletic Conference. The league added some more schools, but Rutgers and Louisville announced they would leave for Power 5 conferences, and seven Catholic schools that didn’t sponsor FBS football broke off and took the Big East name with them. But before the move could happen, the Big East blew up and reshaped. Most of its other sports would remain in the Patriot League. In January 2012, Navy announced its football program would join the Big East, beginning play in 2015. I could see the evolution of the process and knew we had to be aligned somewhere.” “Understanding the business, knowing independence was a dinosaur, it was a dying breed,” Gladchuk said. Athletic director Chet Gladchuk said Navy had conversations with multiple conferences for a decade, including with the ACC.īy 2011, it became clear it was time to make a move. The program has a long, proud history, including a claimed national championship in 1926 and two Heisman Trophy winners: Joe Bellino in 1960 and Roger Staubach in 1963.īut as conference realignment began to take shape at the beginning of this decade and the Big East lost members, the academy felt it had to find a landing spot. The Midshipmen had played as a football independent since forming a team in 1879. “You want to go on the court with the best players. “You can stay on one court all the time, but the competition isn’t as good,” he said. Still, it doesn’t affect Niumatalolo’s thinking about the decision. But things have trended downward since, with the Midshipmen posting 7-6 and 3-10 records the past two years - the latter being Navy’s worst season since 2002. Navy got off to a fast start, winning 11 games in its first season in 2015 and winning the West division outright in 2016.

Going into their fifth year in the American, results have been mixed. “It forced us to raise the bar,” Niumatalolo said.