Every voter in the both the Associated Press poll and USA Today/ESPN Coaches' poll received these facts supporting the Navy football team as a worthy member of the end-of-season Top 25.
Why Navy Deserves To Be In The Top 25
* Won 10 games for just the third time in school history. The 10 wins are tied for the 12th most wins in the country.
* Two of Navy’s four losses were to teams that will most likely finish in the Top 10 (Ohio State and Pittsburgh). Another loss came against bowl-bound Temple when Navy played without star quarterback Ricky Dobbs.
* Defeated three bowl teams (Air Force, SMU and Missouri). Air Force and SMU won their bowl games, while Navy blew out Missouri, 35-13, in the Texas Bowl.
* Went 5-3 against teams that finished .500 or better, including victories over three teams that won eight games (Air Force, SMU and Missouri).
* Scored 27 points against Big Ten and Rose Bowl Champion Ohio State, more than any other team this year. Navy lost at Ohio State, 31-27, when the Mids two-point conversion in the final seconds was intercepted and returned for two points. Ohio State held USC to 18 points, Wisconsin to 13 points (won 31-13), Penn State to seven points (won 24-7), Iowa to 24 points (won 27-24) and Oregon to 17 points (won 26-17).
* Defeated rivals Air Force (seventh time in a row) and Army (eighth time in a row) to win the Commander-In-Chief’s Trophy for the seventh-straight year (which is a Service Academy record). Navy has now won 15-consecutive games against the other two Service Academies.
* Defeated 19th-ranked Notre Dame, 23-21, in South Bend. Notre Dame entered that game 6-2 and was being talked about as a possible BCS Bowl team. It was the second-straight time Navy has defeated Notre Dame in South Bend after losing to the Irish 43-consecutive times from 1964-2006.
* Defeated Missouri (which finished second in the Big 12 North), 35-13, in the Texas Bowl. The Mids had 515 yards of total offense against the Tigers, including 385 yards on the ground. Only Nebraska (12 points) and Texas (seven points) held Missouri to less than 13 points.
* Junior quarterback Ricky Dobbs set an NCAA record for a quarterback with 27 rushing touchdowns, breaking the record held by Tim Tebow of Florida. Dobbs did this despite missing two games and playing six games with a broken kneecap.
* Gave up just 19.4 points per game on the year, the 18th best scoring average in the country.
Capital sports writer Bill Wagner shares items from his Navy notebook. E-mail Bill.
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