Navy Midshipmen football the national championship based on retroactive rankings by both the William Boand and Deke Houlgate mathematical poll systems. † Co-champions Navy has participated in 23 bowl games, garnering a record of 11–11–1. The Army-Navy Game, played annually on the last weekend of the college football regular season in early December, pits the football teams of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York (Army) against the Navy Midshipmen. It is one of the most traditional and enduring rivalries in college football, and is televised every year by CBS. It was in the 1963 Army–Navy game that instant replay made
A Civil War: Army vs. Navy by a total of five points (25–24 in 1992, 16–14 in 1993, and 22–20 in 1994). Heading into 1995, Navy replaced previous head coach George Chaump with Charlie Weatherbie after going 3–8–0 in 1994. Navy started the season slowly, going 2–4, before winning three out of their next four games to enter the Army–Navy Game at 5–5. Despite the fact that a win over Army would give Navy a winning record, they would not be bowl eligible, as two of their five wins (Villanova and Delaware) were against teams from Division I-AA, which meant they did not count for bowl