Chris Dufresne’s preseason college football top 25: No. 24 Navy

The Times’ Chris Dufresne unveils his preseason college football top 25, one day (and team) at a time.

No. 24 Navy

Some year Navy is going to win 10 games, beat Notre Dame, steamroll a major-conference school in a bowl game and produce a quarterback the human-being caliber of Roger Staubach.

What … it happened last year?

It’s sometimes easy to forget Annapolis because it’s the independent not named Notre Dame. Navy doesn’t get caught up in public relations and lacks the coordinated blogger campaigns so popular these days with many fanatical bases.

Navy is on a more important mission, yet is rekindling memories of the days when service academies were part of major college football’s heart beat. Army’s national title in 1945 was a long time ago, though, and so was Navy man Staubach’s Heisman Trophy year of 1963.

Navy is in the midst of a throw-back run and must be saluted for seven straight winning seasons, headed for No. 8.

The good works program started by former coach Paul Johnson, and maintained by Ken Niumatalolo, has kept Midshipmen engines at full steam ahead.

Last year’s squad finished 10-4, defeated Notre Dame for the second time in three years, walloped Missouri by 22 points in the Texas Bowl and boasted a quarterback, Ricky Dobbs, who appears cut from Staubach swath.

Leading Navy’s feared triple-option attack, Dobbs rushed for 1,192 yards and 27 touchdowns while playing the last six games with a cracked kneecap.

Navy has become a nightmare matchup for opposing defenses. Ask Ohio State, which had to summon everything it had to hold off Navy last year in Columbus.

“We weren’t surprised,” Ohio State linebacker Ross Homan said after the game. “They play everyone tough. They keep coming no matter what the score is…”

Dobbs, a senior, returns with ambitions that extend beyond the field. His goal, after his military commitment, is to win a Super Bowl and then run for president. He has even picked out the year: 2040.

For some reason, they don’t award Heismans to service academy players anymore, so Dobbs is going to have a tough time matching Staubach’s Heisman and two Super Bowl rings.

Staubach, though, never made it to the White House.

Navy is poised for another double-digit victory year, with a chance to make early noise against Maryland in Baltimore on Labor Day night.

Navy lost four games last year by a total of 27 points, denying the Midshipmen something really special.

Who knows, if Navy breaks out to a 10-0 start, maybe Dobbs will even garner some Heisman attention. It wouldn’t be against the rules to vote for him.

Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis won back-to-back for Army in 1945 and ‘46, and Navy has had two winners: Joe Bellino winning three years before Staubach.

Any quarterback who scares Ohio State in Columbus and beats Wake Forest, Notre Dame and Missouri in the same season is playing Heisman-worthy competition. That’s what Dobbs did last year — and didn’t even finish in the top 10.

So stand at attention when Dobbs trots by.

Then pay attention.

The countdown so far: 25. Washington; 24. Navy.

chris.dufresne@latimes.com