Navy +7 -125 5.5% max pod buy up to +7
These games are always tight, because the level of familiarity. Navy comes into this game fully rested and getting their QB Horvath back, which is a huge deal. I think we are getting quite a bit of line value based on that. Army on the other hand has had a wonderful season, and I know they'd like to continue that here today, but they had 3 games in a row that took max effort. Notre Dame, UTSA to get to their first ever conference championship, and then Tulane to win it. The Navy game is more important obviously, but this game which is played on a neutral is going to be a battle, and looking at the previous versions and spreads of this match up we have value. Looking at their 3 common opponents the oddsmakers agreed that these teams were pretty even or a slight edge to Army. Navy was +7 vs. Tulane at home without their QB, while Army was +5. Both teams were +14 vs. Notre Dame on neutral fields.
Just looking at a simple stat like yards per play over the years in this match up. It is easily both of these teams best marks as Army +1.2 ypp vs Navy +0.7, with the strength of schedule edge being on Navy's side. Many of the other match ups had both teams negative in yards per play differential. Army was around a 7 point favorite in 2020 and 2021, and had a much larger gap on bad Navy teams. This is going to be a battle, and one of the more exciting games of the year.
