Yesterday was the first Saturday of the NCAA college football season for most schools, my alma mater included – the US Naval Academy. I remember the first game of my freshman (plebe) year. The opponent was Colgate. I had no idea there was a college with the name Colgate. I only knew Colgate as the family toothpaste (although I preferred Ipana and its mascot Bucky the Beaver).

Ipana was a Bristol-Meyers product that was popular in the 1950s and 1960s and heavily promoted on radio. With the advent of color television Bristol-Myers was slow to shift its advertising budget from radio to television and the Ipana brand died a slow death. It was finally put to rest in 1979. But I digress.

In any case, Colgate must have been a hugely important school to be associated with Colgate toothpaste. Right? What did I know? Where I grew up there was Southeastern Conference (SEC) football and who cares about the rest – except I was a Catholic kid, so Notre Dame was a default inclusion in my sphere of concern. On September 12, 1970 the US Naval Academy defeated the Mighty Colgate team 48-22. Clearly Navy was serious about football! Who’s next?  Penn State and the University of Washington? How good could they be, right? They weren’t in the SEC. The Penn State game was close … until kickoff. The final score was 55-7 with the Nittany Lions prevailing. Long story short, we lost nine games in a row until a final last-game-of the-season victory over Army West Point.

Why do I mention all this? Navy’s first game of the year was against Bucknell, a FCS [Football Championship Subdivision] school. In case you need a reference, Notre Dame, Penn State, Washington and Navy are in the FBS [Football Bowl Subdivision, aka the big football schools].  FCS is for universities and colleges with other budget priorities than football. These days Colgate is an FCS division football school.

Navy beat Bucknell by a score of 49-21. And so in the calculus of such things, here in this first week of college football Navy is 1-0 and technically tied for the #1 spot in the nation… technically… I have to remember to shake off that feeling of deja vu and know that there are more important things than college football. But then we never quite escape the past. And I am not referring to the Colgate game of lone ago – fearing Bucknell is a harbinger of things to come. I am referring to the quasi-religious experience of Saturdays in the South where the faithful gather at the great cathedrals of hope: Bryant–Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Sanford Stadium in Athens, Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn, Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, and The Swamp (Ben Hill Griffin Stadium) in Gainesville.

Where I grew up there was Southeastern Conference (SEC) football and who cares about the rest – except I was a Catholic kid, so Notre Dame was added – and now the United States Naval Academy’s Navy-Marine Corp Memorial stadium is included in the pantheon of the cathedrals of hope.

Go Navy! Beat Army.