CiC MVP: Navy’s Malcolm Perry wins AAE’s final CiC award of the regular season

Every week during the regular season, the Against All Enemies staff picks one player from the three FBS service academy football teams as that week’s Commander-in-Chief’s Most Valuable Player. Naturally, there is debate and controversy after every Saturday regarding who is the most deserving. Friendships have almost been lost, at times, among the staff.

However, after the 2019 Army-Navy Game, for which the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy was actually played, there was absolutely no doubt who was earning the last CiC MVP of the regular season.

Navy’s senior quarterback, Malcolm Perry, absolutely stole the show in this year’s version of the greatest rivalry in all of sports. Perry rushed for an astounding 304 yards. Yes, you read that correctly. He averaged 10.5 yards per carry on his 29 carries, finding the endzone twice.

Malcolm Perry has been instrumental in the turn-around season that the Navy Midshipmen have put together. Perry’s ride to this moment has been quite spectacular, although rather unusual.

In the fall of 2016, as a freshman, he made his first appearance under center in Navy’s opening match against Fordham. Perry started that game as a spectator in the stands, but after a torn ACL to the starting quarterback Tago Smith, Coach Ken Niumatalolo had him pulled from the stands and put in the game during the fourth quarter. After Will Worth established himself as the starting quarterback that year, Perry was transitioned to A-back (Navy’s running back position).

In his sophomore season, he started the year as an A-back, but eventually became the starting quarterback. In 2018, Coach Niumatalolo decided to start Zach Abey at quarterback and played Malcolm back at A-back. However, Niumatalolo wised up by the start of this season and stuck with Perry to run the offense for the entirety of the year.

Malcolm Perry has 4,146 career rushing yards, which is only 33 yards behind Napoleon McCallum for second place on Navy’s all-time rushing list. Keenan Reynolds holds the top spot with 4,559 rushing yards. Perry’s list of accolades will be complete after he leads the Midshipmen in their bowl game against Big 12 opponent, the Kansas State Wildcats in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl on December 31st.

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