Army-Navy Game Offensive Stars to Watch for Black Knights, Midshipmen

Here are some of the top offensive stars to watch for both the Army West Point Black Knights and the Navy Midshipmen in Saturday’s game.

Oct 26, 2024; East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA; Navy Midshipmen quarterback Blake Horvath (11) passes the ball during the second half against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish at MetLife Stadium. / Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

Offense doesn’t get much simpler — or harder to stop — that the Army West Point Black Knights or the Navy Midshipmen.

The annual Army-Navy game pits the two teams against one another at 3 p.m. eastern on Saturday at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Md. The game will be broadcast on CBS.

The Black Knights (11-1) enter the game averaging 32.9 points per game. Army gains 397.6 yards per game, with a split of 314.4 rushing yards and 83.2 passing yards. No team in the country rushes for more than 300 yards per game like Army.

Navy (8-3) scores 32.3 points per game, putting the Midshipmen on equal footing with the Black Knights. While Navy averages 375.9 total offensive yards per game, the split a bit more balanced — 247.7 rushing yards and 128.2 passing yards.

Here are three offensive players to watch for each team going into Saturday’s contest.

Army West Point

QB Bryson Daily

The American Athletic Conference offensive player of the year has some gaudy numbers. But two are relevant this week. He’s rushed for more than 100 yards in 10 straight games, which is a school record for both consecutive games (Trent Steelman, six, 2012) and 100-yard rushing games in a season (Mike Mayweather, eight, 1990). Want to slow down Army? Slow down Daily.

RB Kanye Udoh

Now a 1,000-yard rusher for the season, he saves his best for big games. He’s rushed for a career-best 158 yards twice this season. The first time was against Air Force. The second time was last week against Tulane in the American Athletic Conference championship game. And he can break long runs, too.

SB Tyrell Robinson

The charm of Robinson is that you can use the fifth-year senior anywhere. As a running back and returner, ranks 10th on Army’s all-time all-purpose yardage list with 3,100 yards (rush, receiving, kick/punt return) in his career. He can move up that list as he has two more games remaining.

Navy Midshipmen

QB Blake Horvath

Daily has company when it comes to re-writing record books. With 105 rushing yards Horvath can become the first 1,000-yard rusher for Navy since 2019 when Malcolm Perry rushed for 2,017 yards. He’s already thrown more than 1,000 yards, making him the first Navy quarterback to do that since Perry in 2019 (sensing a pattern?). He’s already thrown for more yards (1,154) than Perry did that season.

FB Alex Tecza

Count on Tecza and his Pittsburgh-based teammate, Eli Heidenreich, to score. One of the two has scored a touchdown in 16 of Navy’s last 21 games. In fact, the pair have scored in the same game five times. In that span, Tecza — who is the Midshipmen’s second-leading rusher this season — has 12 rushing touchdowns and two receiving touchdowns.

SB Eli Heidenreich

Heidenreich is a real wild-card in this game because he’s a big reason why the passing game is so potent. He has 13 touchdowns in his last 21 career games and nine of them have come through the air. There is no one close in this game to his ability to consistently break a game open as a receiver. He’s the first Navy receiver with back-to-back 100-yard receiving games in a decade.