Ties Gone By

Army football is mentioned twice in Ivan Maisel's ESPN piece on the college football tie.
I have long stated that ties are necessary for the good of the game, and this article is notable for highlighting some memorable tie ballgames.

The two Army football mentions are the Notre Dame/Army tilt from 1946 and the 1948 Army/Navy game.

2. No. 2 Notre Dame 0, No. 1 Army 0, 1946: Historians of the postwar era consider it the greatest game ever played. They may be right. The tie snapped a 25-game winning streak by Army, which ultimately swapped places in the AP poll with the Irish and lost the national championship. Notre Dame didn't suffer another blemish on the football field until the last game of the 1948 season.


4. No. 3 Army 21, Navy 21, 1948: Given that the Black Knights were 8-0 and the Midshipmen 0-8, this may be the greatest upset in the history of the sport. Army had been slowed by food poisoning that felled 42 players at the Thanksgiving meal two days before the game. Navy historians don't care for that fact at all.

If you go, make sure to check out the comments after the article; the argument is many sided and the spirit of the debate on this article is a lot less poisonous than typical ESPN comment boards.