Perhaps the bigger contribution was a few moments earlier, when all thought left Eli Heidenreich’s head and instinct took over at the sight of a loose ball. The senior Navy slot back lunged after the fumble and landed on it, and because of that heroic moment, Heidenreich had the chance to be even more of a star two plays later.

The play call came in, giving quarterback Blake Horvath the option to throw to either of his two receivers running seam routes into the end zone. But Heidenreich, Navy’s all-time receiving leader, just wanted to be sure what Horvath was thinking.

“I was like, ‘Are you coming to me?’” Heidenreich asked Horvath. “And he gave me the funniest facial expression in the huddle, like, ‘Dude, come on. Obviously.’”

On fourth-and-8, Heidenreich beat his man off the line, popped his head up and caught the go-ahead touchdown pass midway through the fourth quarter of his final Army-Navy Game. The midshipmen in the stands just beyond that end zone at M&T Bank Stadium went ballistic, and Heidenreich further cemented his place in Navy football history — two plays that preserved Navy’s chances and then sealed a 17-16 victory.

“He’s clutch,” head coach Brian Newberry said. “He’s big-time clutch, and he’s been that way his whole career. That’s stuff you can’t coach.”

Navy’s roster is full of players whose instincts, teamwork and determination are uncoachable strengths. The Midshipmen — and the other service academies — are outliers in this new age of college sports, in which the transfer portal and name, image and likeness sponsorships have created a well-moneyed Wild West.

In the same vein, those at Navy see their lack of involvement as a benefit. The players build a “brotherhood,” Horvath said, that goes deeper than almost any other program that deals with ample additions and subtractions each offseason.

This senior class at Navy, including the likes of Horvath, Heidenreich and nose guard Landon Robinson, helped lead the Midshipmen to consecutive 10-win seasons for their first time in Navy’s history. They have one more game together when they play Cincinnati in the Liberty Bowl on Jan. 2, but there was no better way for this group to end their careers than with a win here.

That’s where Heidenreich came in specially. When the ball slipped out of Horvath’s grasp near the goal line on a second-and-goal keeper play, and bounced away backward, Heidenreich saw it out of his peripheral vision.

“That’s probably the last thing you want to see on the 1-yard line, when you turn around and the ball is just bouncing behind you,” Heidenreich said. “I think it’s every football player’s natural instinct that nothing else matters and you’ve got to go get on that ball, and that’s what happened. I was lucky enough to just be able to get on it.”

He received an assist from running back Alex Tecza, another senior, whose diving tackle attempt as an Army defender tried to scoop up the ball tipped the ball away, allowing Heidenreich to fall on it instead.

“It could’ve been a disaster,” said Newberry, whose team trailed by six points at the time.

Instead, two plays later, Navy still had possession. With under seven minutes to play, Newberry opted to go for it on fourth down from the 8-yard line. Asked later if Horvath knew immediately whom he’d be targeting in that situation, he smirked.

“Duh,” Horvath said.

After all, Heidenreich became the single-season record holder for receiving yards in a season earlier in this contest. He already held the career records for receiving touchdowns and receiving yards.

The Pittsburgh native is a pair of safe hands, and he’d prove it once more on fourth down with the Army-Navy Game on the line.

“Talk about an all-time Navy legend, right?” Horvath said. “We’re going to be talking about Eli Heidenreich for years and years and years. To cap off his career with that play to win this game, I don’t think a player could ask for a cooler career than what he’s done, to break all these records and then to win the Army-Navy Game his senior year. It’s amazing.”