Mike Buddie spent much of the 1990s as a pitcher in the New York Yankees organization, working his way up from the minor leagues to appear in 26 major league games during the 1998 and 1999 seasons when the franchise won the World Series. When his playing days ended in the early 2000s, Buddie returned to his alma mater, Wake Forest, to take a role in the athletics department. He continued to climb in his new profession, too, ultimately becoming Army’s athletics director in 2019.

On Saturday night, Buddie’s two career paths will intersect, as Army plays Notre Dame in a college football game at Yankee Stadium, where Buddie created many memories. This time, he is hoping to have one more highlight and see the Black Knights pull off an upset and continue their unlikely season.

Army (9-0) is one of just three undefeated teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision and has an FBS-best 13-game winning streak. The Black Knights are 19th in the College Football Playoff rankings, yet they are two-touchdown underdogs against Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish (9-1) are sixth in the CFP and in prime position to qualify for the 12-team postseason field.

Still, for Army to even be in this environment and in contention for a CFP spot is an accomplishment considering its place in the sport’s hierarchy. At a time when the transfer portal and Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) deals are major recruiting tools and ways to build rosters, Army shuns both of those avenues.

Army has lost some players to the transfer portal, including freshman reserve quarterbacks Champ Harris and Larry Robinson after last season. But the Black Knights rarely have transfers enter the program.

Kyle Kloska, a backup sophomore center, is the only transfer on Army’s roster. Kloska, who had a 4.0 grade point average in high school and was a member of the National Honor Society, was a preferred walk-on at Central Michigan University, but he did not play in any games in his sole season there in 2022. His brother, Tim, is a freshman running back at Army.

While most schools are open to adding players via the transfer portal and coaches target players on other teams, Army does not accept course work from other colleges. As such, anyone wanting to transfer to Army starts as a freshman and must adhere to the strict requirements such as undergoing military training, taking mandatory classes in calculus, physics or chemistry and computer science, passing intense fitness tests and performing menial tasks like delivering laundry to upperclassmen. After graduating, they are required to serve as full-time Army officers for a minimum of five years and then an additional three years in the reserves on a part-time basis.

“Whether you’ve got three years of Harvard education under your belt or one semester of junior college under your belt, you come to West Point as a first day plebe,” Buddie said. “None of your credits transfer in, and so you’re essentially erasing all the college work that you’ve done leading up to this and you’re going to basic training with the rest of the freshmen class.”

Army athletes are also not allowed to accept NIL deals because they are considered federal government employees and active duty service members and are precluded from having outside employment, according to Buddie. All Army students, not just athletes, have free tuition, room and board and medical and dental coverage and receive a salary that covers their fees and leaves them with $225 to $625 per month. Still, that sum pales in comparison to what many college football players earn through NIL compensation at major programs.

“We’ll just make sure that they know, ‘Hey, (NIL) will never happen,” Buddie said. “If that eliminates us from your list, then no harm, no foul. But for the most part, kids understand that the education and the experience at West Point is going to open up a lot more doors.”

He added: “And to be completely candid, most of the kids that we recruit aren’t being recruited by many, if any, other Division 1 institution. We’re able to find young, tough kids who were willing to work themselves into a position to be successful. That’s worked for us so far.”

Indeed, Army’s recruiting class for this year was ranked 157th in the nation, per 247Sports. And that’s no anomaly. Army’s recruiting class ranked 116th in 2020, 114th in 2021, 154th in 2022 and 120th in 2023. There are 134 programs in the FBS, meaning some programs in the lower-tier Football Championship Subdivision (FBS) have ranked higher than Army.

Army coach Jeff Monken, now in his 11th season, embraces the limitations and opportunities that come with his role and identifies players across the U.S. who can fit into the Black Knights’ system. That’s not to say it’s an easy task. He noted that none of the 29 Texas residents on Army’s roster even secured a scholarship offer from the University of North Texas, a team the Black Knights defeated, 14-3, in its most recent game on Nov. 9.

“I don’t know what the (point) spread was by the prognosticators, but in my mind, that makes us an underdog,” Monken said. “Our guys have to embrace the fact that we have to execute our assignments and our fundamentals at a really high level and try to do that better than anybody else does that because some players can rely on talent.”

He added: “A guy might get caught with his eyes in the backfield, and he’s fast enough to recover and go cover a route or run a guy down. We don’t have guys like that, so that makes us an underdog all the time. We’ve got to practice and play with absolute exactness, because if we don’t, we’re going to get embarrassed. That’s who we are.”

Still, Army benefits from having continuity on its roster, as nearly all of its players stick around for four years. Plus, most of Army’s recruits spend a year enrolled in the U.S. Military Academy Prep School (USMAPS), where they play football, take classes and undergo military and physical training before enrolling at Army. Of the 182 players on Army’s opening day roster this year, 113 attended the USMAPS, including star quarterback Bryson Daily and many other starters.

Daily, a senior, is one of 16 semifinalists for the Maxwell Award and 20 semifinalists for the Walter Camp Award, both of which honor the sport’s best player. He is tied for second in the nation with 21 rushing touchdowns and fifth with 132.8 rushing yards per game. He is the catalyst for Army’s triple option offense, a run-heavy, methodical approach. The Black Knights lead the nation with 334.9 rushing yards per game and often befuddle opponents. Case in point: Army had a 21-play drive against North Texas this month that covered 94 yards and lasted 13 minutes and 54 seconds of game time, culminating with Daily’s two-yard touchdown run.

Army has committed just three turnovers (one interception and two lost fumbles) all season, the fewest in FBS, and intercepted 14 passes, tied for the sixth-most in the nation. And the Black Knights have allowed just 10.3 points per game, the second-fewest in FBS, and outscored their opponents by 23.6 points per game, the fifth-highest margin in the nation.

“If we had a combine, would they be as fast maybe or as tall and athletic and run the drills as good as maybe some of the other teams you face?,” Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman said. “Maybe not. But that has nothing to do with how good of a football team this team is. I mean, they are a dang good football team. They play hard. They take care of the football. They keep the ball away from you. They take the ball from you. It’s a challenge, man. It’s a really big challenge for us.”

Army has flourished in its first season in the American Athletic Conference, winning all seven of its league games by at least 11 points and already clinching a spot in the AAC title game on Dec. 6 against Tulane. Until the past couple of years, Buddie said “remaining an independent was the priority,” just like Army had been since starting playing football in 1891 save for a seven-year stretch in Conference USA from 1998 through 2004.

Early last year, then-AAC Commissioner Mike Aresco reached out to Buddie to gauge the school’s interest in joining the league. As Buddie and others thought about it, the move made sense because it was getting more difficult to schedule games as an independent and it would be nearly impossible to make the 12-team College Football Playoff without joining a conference. The CFP grants automatic qualifiers to the five highest-ranked league champions, so Army could have a shot at getting a bid. Plus, AAC stalwarts Cincinnati, Houston, Central Florida and SMU were all leaving the conference.

“All of a sudden we looked at that league and thought, Hey, we can be pretty competitive here,” Buddie said. “We just thought, Hey, it’s been great being an independent but now that the CFP is going to 12 teams and it’s pretty clear that you had to be a league champion to get an automatic bid, we really looked hard at joining a league Clearly, the American was the best fit for us on several levels. We felt fortunate to have that pathway and were able to work out the details to join the league.”

Those details include allowing Army to continue playing Navy at the end of the season following the conference championship games. Even though Army and Navy are both members of the AAC, their matchup on Dec. 14 and on an annual basis going forward will be considered non-league games.

By the time this year’s game takes place, Army could be heading to the CFP, although that remains a long shot. The Black Knights still have to face their two toughest opponents in Notre Dame on Saturday and Tulane in the AAC title game and still have some skeptics considering their weak schedule. ESPN ranks Army’s schedule 133rd of 134 FCS teams while analyst Jeff Sagarin has Army’s schedule 137th in Division 1 ahead of just three FCS schools and below five FBS programs.

Still, the Black Knights have been dominant all season, winning each of their games by double digits, something no other team has accomplished. They have been ranked in the Associated Press poll for the past six weeks, the longest stretch since 1958, and are 9-0 for the first time since the undefeated 1949 team finished fourth in the final AP poll. Over the next few weeks, Army may lose at least one game and miss out on a CFP berth. Regardless of how the season plays out, Army is bucking the trend in this NIL and transfer portal era.

“It’s this inflection point in college athletics where most people probably rightfully assumed whoever had the most money to pay the best players would win the most games,” Buddie said. “What we’re learning is that’s not necessarily the case…The fact that our young men have been able to do it nine times in a row here, while none of them are getting a penny, it’s kind of refreshing.”