The Bryant Bulldogs square off against Army in West Point on Saturday September 5 and, according to Bryant Vice President of Athletics and Recreation Bill Smith, J.D., it’s no exaggeration to say that it will the biggest stage the team has played on in the program’s 27-year history.
“There is nothing quite like a football game day at West Point,” says Smith, who played the Black Knights on their storied home field twice during his football career at Colgate University. Citing such traditions as the Corp of Cadets parading into Michie Stadium and the game ball arriving by parachute, Smith called West Point “truly one of the great settings in all of college football.”
“Playing at Army is a tremendous opportunity for our program, and it’s an experience that our student-athletes will remember for a lifetime,” Smith says.
Bryant Head Football Coach Chris Merritt understands that his players need to be prepared for the atmosphere of a West Point game as well as their opponents on the field.
“Army presents a completely unique challenge for several different reasons,” says Merritt, ranging from the atmospherics of a military flyover to the thousands of uniformed cadets packing the stands for opening day of the Black Knights’ 2026 football season. “They are a bowl team, and they are going to test us in all different facets from the first quarter to the fourth,” says Merritt.
Merritt points out that Bryant and Army tend to draw from a similar pool of players, and that the Bulldogs are fresh off a dominant, 24-6 win against Stonehill College in their opening game.
“This is going to be a good marker for us,” he says. “The military academies do a great job of finding academically sharp kids who are good football players, and typically those are the kinds of players we’re looking for, too.”
That, plus the fact that Bryant starts the season with an experienced quarterback, Brennan Myer '28, under center and a strong running attack hints that the West Point game could be more competitive than prognosticators expect.
Merritt points to last year’s win over the University of Massachusetts — a team that plays in the NCAA’s FBS, the highest level of competition in NCAA Division I and a step above Bryant’s FCS status — and the experience of playing in the atmosphere of the University of Nevada Las Vegas’ 53,000-seat stadium in 2023, to suggest that his team is ready to pull off an upset win against a good team in a highly charged environment.
Merritt says once the pregame jitters settle down and the competition on the field begins, Bryant’s big challenges will be to stop Army’s running game and score points on the Black Knights’ defense.
With a defensive line that averages about 6’3 tall and 315 pounds, Bryant has the size to avoid getting pushed around, says Merritt, but Army has an edge in experience.
“Putting Army in [long yardage situations] is the golden ticket, because it puts them in the situation of doing something they're not comfortable doing all the time, and that’s throwing the football,” adds Merritt. “If we can be consistent doing that and score points, then we’ve got a shot.”
Merritt says his team, which arrived early in West Point to tour the stadium and soak up the atmosphere of the academy, is excited for this weekend’s challenge. "They really want to measure their talents and abilities at the FBS level on that stage," he says.
The Bryant-Army game kicks off at noon on Saturday and will be televised nationally on the CBS Sports Network.