Ugly Game Just Beautiful To Navy<

PHILADELPHIA - - On Broad Street, the main thoroughfare leading to Lincoln Financial Field, scalpers were holding up fistfuls of tickets to the Army-Navy game an hour before kickoff.

Business appeared to be slow.

Maybe people sensed what was coming.

What finally happened after nearly 3 1/2 hours on a chilly Saturday was an ugly - there's no way to sugarcoat it - 17-3 Navy win, its eighth straight over Army in this storied rivalry.

At least Army put up a fight in this one, something it hasn't done much in the recent past and something the Navy players - and maybe CBS, the poor network televising this game - appreciated.

"It kind of takes away from the game when you beat them 34-0 and 38-3," Midshipmen guard Osei Asante said after the game, referring to the two previous drubbings Navy had administered to Army.

For CBS, though, the first half had ratings disaster written all over it. Even for the sellout crowd of 69,541, it was a total snooze.

Army led 3-0 at halftime on a 23-yard field goal by Alex Carlton, which is great only if you're there to see a skinny guy from Wilmington, Del., kick a football.

Even in the press box, you could hear the sound of thousands of remotes clicking to another channel all over the country.

Maybe those who didn't click to something else - LaSalle-Kansas college hoops, "Seinfeld" reruns, adjustable-bed infomercials - were still marveling over the usual pre-game pageantry.

Oh, that was first class.

You had the stirring sight of the Corps of Cadets and the Brigade of Midshipmen marching into the sun-kissed stadium in their crisp uniforms.

You had parachutists from both academies floating out of the heavens trailing red smoke and landing on the field with varying degrees of artistry.

(One slid about 20 yards and came to an inelegant stop on her butt; another stuck the landing so hard he looked like a human lawn dart.)

You had Navy midshipmen in the stands singing lustily and Army cadets smacking around a ball in the shape of Navy's goat mascot.

(At first, on the Jumbotron screen, it looked like the severed head of a real goat. I remember thinking: "Boy, they really take this game seriously if they're slaughtering farm animals.")

What you didn't have was a very good football game.

Navy was lucky to be trailing by only a field goal at the half, given the dumb mistakes the Mids made.