Navy junior safety Giuseppe Sessi understands the allure of the new, lucrative world of college football. He has former teammates and friends from his high school playing days in Texas, he says, who are cashing in.

One former teammate “was at UConn and then went to North Carolina with Coach [Bill] Belichick, and he was getting paid handsomely,” Sessi said this week. “One of my buddies is a walk-on at a Big 12 school. He gets paid a decent amount. I’m happy for him, but at the same time it’s like, ‘dang I wish we could get that too!’”

Sessi lets out a good-natured laugh at that last comment. Uniquely among high-level Division I football programs, the three military service academies do not allow players like Sessi to be paid as varsity athletes.

“It is nice for those guys,” he says. “Whe

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