By John Feinstein
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, October 6, 2008; 4:16 PM

There really is nothing quite like college football.

Let's forget for a moment the pox that is the BCS. There are reasons why thousands and thousands of people deal with the headaches of getting into and out of stadium parking lots each Saturday; why so many of them sit on benches without chair-backs in the heat of September and the cold of November; why they plan their tailgates so elaborately and feel as if a place they go to six times a year is something akin to a vacation home.

Some of it has to do with enjoying seeing their team win. But there's a lot more to it. While television focuses on the big-money, big-stadium programs, it is actually the teams playing the sport at the non-BCS levels that make it fun. In that sense, it isn't all that different than college basketball. What makes college basketball unique are the two weeks before the power schools line up for the sweet sixteen: first the conference championship tournaments in the one-bid leagues, where winning means everything; then the opening week of the NCAA tournament, when the little guys get their chance to shine. George Mason is a once-in-a-lifetime story; Davidson not as rare though highly unlikely. But San Diego, Siena and Winthrop are stories that happen every March.

College football ¿ sadly -- doesn't have that. But it does have Appalachian State going to Michigan and winning, and it does have playoffs well worth watching at every level below division I-A. A national college football writer recently wrote after LSU routed Appalachian State to start the season, "now Appalachian State can return to the obscurity of division 1-AA."

He misses the entire point. The "obscure" games played by non-power programs matter to those involved every bit as much as the big-money games do. Maybe more, since NFL futures aren't at stake, only the competition that day and that year is at stake.

No game (except Army-Navy and Army-Air Force) embodies that kind of emotion more than Navy-Air Force, which is played well below the radar of those who care only about who may play for the national championship. But is played with all the fervor and intensity you could possibly want in any game.

I know I have a bias here, having written about the Army-Navy rivalry and having done color commentary on the Navy radio network for the past 12 years. This, though, is what I say to people who scoff when I say Army-Navy is the best sporting event there is every single year: go to the game once, and then you will understand.

When the three military academies play one another there is nothing quite like it. Dick Vermeil once described Army-Navy this way: "It is the only game where you will see 22 players knock each other down on the opening kickoff."

But there's no bitterness, no anger. Occasionally there's trash-talking because kids are still kids, but not much. For years, the players at Army and Navy thought the players at Air Force were cocky. In truth, they were simply better, which is why they dominated the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy for 20 years, holding onto it for 17 years during that period. Now Navy has won it five straight years and took a huge step towards making it six straight by winning at Air Force (for a third straight time) on Saturday.

The Midshipmen won the game with their starting quarterback sidelined with a nagging injury; with their offense sputtering; with Air Force running up 411 yards of offense. They won by blocking two punts for touchdowns and by making key plays when they absolutely had to make them, including holding Air Force to three points on two drives inside the 10-yard line in the second quarter. If the Falcons had scored touchdowns there, they would have taken control of the game.

But here's why these games are different. It would have been easy for Air Force Coach Troy Calhoun to agree with Navy Coach Ken Niumatalolo after the game, when Niumatalolo said, "I take my hat off to Air Force. We got lucky. We'll take it, but we got lucky."

Calhoun didn't do that. He said Navy was better and Navy deserved to win. The irony is that Navy won the game the way Air Force used to win when it was the dominant team in service academy football: special teams, turnovers and big plays at key moments. Calhoun, who played at Air Force when the Falcons almost never lost to Army or Navy, understands that. Good teams don't get lucky, they make plays. End of discussion.

One of the many things people don't get about these games is why they are different. The people at Versus, who televised the game, simply couldn't wait another five minutes to get to their postgame show so that some ex-jock talking head could shake his head and say, "Wow, that was some game."

If they had skipped that analysis, they could have shown one of sport's best postgame traditions: the playing of the alma maters. At Army, Navy and Air Force, they play the alma maters after every game. When the teams play one another, all the players and coaches line up in front of the losing team's student body and band first and then walk together across the field to do the same thing in front of the winning team's students and band.

They stand at attention, often shoulder-to-shoulder, in a show of respect for one another. They make it clear that they are not ordinary football players, and their futures likely won't play out like the guys at big-time programs, who will drop out of school as soon as the season is over to prepare for the NFL draft.

It is to the credit of some civilian schools that they understand this tradition when they play Army, Navy or Air Force. The players and coaches at both Rutgers and Wake Forest stood behind the Navy players during the playing of Blue-and-Gold after suffering difficult defeats last month. I wish I could say the same for the Duke players and coaches who pranced and preened after their win over Navy and couldn't stop for 60 seconds to show respect for what was going on a few yards away from their celebration.

What made that scene even more embarrassing was that Kevin White, Duke's new athletic director, came from Notre Dame, a school that plays Navy every year and frequently plays Army and Air Force. He was fully aware of the postgame tradition. Clearly, he didn't make anyone on the field aware of it.

What is most remarkable about Navy and Air Force is how competitive they are on a consistent basis against schools that have dozens of advantages -- like being able to say to recruits, "No, you won't have to go to war when you graduate." Edges like that should make it impossible for the academies to beat civilian schools.

And yet, both Navy and Air Force won at Notre Dame last year. There is no way that should happen, even in Notre Dame's worst seasons. They both went to bowls last year and may very well do so again this year. Army has lagged behind badly because of the mismanagement there the last 11 years.

Navy has been to five straight bowl games, has undergone a coaching change this year and is still 4-2, even though quarterback Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada has only played one game from start to finish all season. Air Force is 3-2, with losses against undefeated Utah, 30-23, and to Navy, 33-27.

After a week off, Navy next plays Pittsburgh, which is coming off a win at then-No. 11 South Florida. The Panthers are 4-1 and perhaps headed for a BCS bowl as the Big East Conference representative. A year ago, before the Midshipmen played at Pitt, I was on the field talking to Matt Cavanaugh, Pitt's offensive coordinator. Cavanaugh has nothing but respect for the kids who play at service academies; he has a son who is in the Army and has served in Iraq. Even so, he was amazed by the life the players lead at the academies.

"So they have to do everything all the other students do?" he asked. "No special privileges, nothing?"

Well, he was told, they do get to miss class on Fridays when they have to fly to a game on the road. Of course they're expected to make up anything they miss.

Cavanaugh shook his head and said: "They have to be remarkable young men."

Navy beat Pitt that night in double overtime. The Mids also beat Wake Forest, unbeaten and ranked 16 th at the time, on the road two weeks ago.

Wake Forest is ranked 21 st in both polls this week. Navy didn't receive a single vote in either poll.

My bet is that those who are voting just aren't paying much attention -- which is too bad. They are missing a lot of very good football, played, as Matt Cavanaugh pointed out, by some remarkable young men.