The Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy has resided at West Point for the past two years, and Army travels to Colorado Springs, Colorado this weekend to take on the Air Force Falcons in Round Two of the 2019 CiC competition with the goal of winning three in a row.

In the opening round of the CiC competition, Navy kicked a field goal in the closing seconds of the game to eliminate the Falcons chances of winning the trophy; so Air Force can only hope for a three way tie with a win in Colorado Springs and a Navy loss to Army in December. The Black Knights need to win this game to capture the trophy outright, but will retain possession with a win over Navy in December, regardless of Saturday’s outcome.

When and Where: 3:30 PM (EST) at Falcons Stadium in Colorado Springs, CO.

Series Record: These two service academy rivals have met 53 times since their inaugural game in 1959, which ended in the only tie in the series. Air Force holds a commanding lead in the series with 36 wins to Army’s 16, but the Black Knights have won the last two games in the series.

Last Meeting: November 3, 2018 at West Point: Army jumped out to a 14-0 lead in the first half before allowing Air Force to score 6 on a touchdown and missed PAT in the third quarter. An Abercrombie field goal increased Army’s lead to 17-6 at the start of the 4th before Air Force stormed back with a 75 yard drive and a 2 point conversion to close out the scoring with Army on top 17-14.

Air Force Record in 2018 (3-5 in MWC 5-7 Overall)

The Falcons suffered their second losing season in a row in 2018 with wins against Stony Brook, UNLV, New Mexico, Colorado State and Navy and losses to Army, Florida Atlantic, Utah State, Nevada, San Diego State, Boise State, and Wyoming.

Air Force Record in 2019 (4-1 in MWC 6-2 Overall)

The Falcons have made a widely anticipated comeback in 2019 and have already qualified for a bowl game with just two losses to Navy and Boise State, while posing impressive wins against Colorado, San Jose State, Fresno State, Hawaii, and Utah State along with the expected win over Colgate.

Troy Calhoun has always protested the media’s description of his offense as being triple option, but like Navy and Army, the core of the Falcon offense is the triple option running game with more emphasis on the tailback and slightly more passing than either Army or Navy, although both Navy and Army are passing the ball more these days as well. The Falcons rank 4th from the bottom of the FBS in Passing Offense, one notch ahead of Navy and 2 notches ahead of Army at 129th.

The Falcons are averaging 36.6 points per game and are second only to Navy in Rushing Offense with 322.5 yards per game and when you toss in their 120 per game passing, they rank 35th in the FBS in Total Offense.

Probably the biggest advantage that Air Force had over Army and Navy at the start of the season was their depth at quarterback. They returned two quarterbacks with starting experience in Isaiah Sanders, and Donald Hammond III. Hammond has started 7 of the 8 games this season and has played 440 snaps with a PFF rating of 86.9. Saunders has played in just 4 games with 47 snaps, while Mike Schmidt has played 53 snaps for the Falcons; so they still have some depth in reserve, but Hammond has taken the dominant role at QB. Hammond is just a decent passer with 32 completions in 66 attempts (48.8%) with 5 touchdowns and 3 interceptions. He is the 4th leading rusher on the team with 327 net yards in 52 attempts for a 5.7 average per carry.

Their leading rusher from last season is tailback Kadin Remsberg who has rushed for 623 yards in 105 attempts, but the Falcons have increased their reliance on the fullback with Taven Birdow carrying the ball 121 times for 550 net yards. The tailback in the AFA offense plays out of what Army and Navy call the A-back in the broken bone lineup but gets a lot of carries inside the tackles unlike the slotbacks for Army and Navy.

Senior Geraud Sanders is the go-to receiver for AFA with 20 receptions for 479 yards, but Benjamin Waters has 11 catches for 316 yards as well.

The Falcons defense was the main reason for their losing season in 2018, but their weakness was mostly against the passing attack. The Falcons rushing defense is still better than their passing defense, holding opponents to an average of 3.3 yards per attempt and 92.8 yards per game. The Falcons have given up an average of 216 yards passing and 7.7 per pass attempt. They have allowed 21.88 points per game.

Players to Watch on Defense

Calhoun must have found a solution to the weight restrictions he used to complain about continuously. This season he has 330 pound Mosete Fifita at NG flanked by a couple of big DEs in Jordan Jackson 270 lbs) at one end and 260 pound Jared Blair at the other end. He has his top LB, Lakota Wills is back, along with free safety Jeremy Fejedelheim, and the Falcons have added another good linebacker in Demonte Meeks, who leads AFA in tackles with 57.

Jake Koehnke handles the place kicking duties for the Falcons and is 8 of 8 in FG attempts this season with a long of 57 yards. The rarified air of the Mountain West lends itself to long kicks.

Charlie Scott does the punting for AFA and is averaging 41.06 with a long of 53 yards and 7 of 16 landing inside the 20.

Army has done better on turnovers than Air Force with a +.13 per game to AFA’s -.38

Air Force ranks 2d in the FBS in Fewest Penalty Yards per game with an average of 31.6, while Army has averaged a disappointing 43.8.

On the surface, all the indicators seem to point in favor of Air Force in this game with the Falcons coming in with a far better record and better statistics in almost every category. But this game is unlike most of the games Army has lost this season. This game will be won by the team that moves the ball better on the ground and makes the fewest mistakes.

The passing game is not likely to have nearly as much influence as it has in recent Army losses. The last four teams that have beaten Army have had a QB with high completion percentages. Ty Storey from WKU ranks 9th in the FBS at 70.3% ; Dan Ellington of Georgia State ranks 24th with 66.4%; and Josh Love of SJSU ranks 74th with 59.4%. For some reason Justin McMillan of Tulane is not included in the NCAA rankings despite his 62.2% completion rate. The Black Knights have not defended the pass well since losing starting safeties Cam Jones and Jaylon McClinton, but it will be the defense against the run that will be tested this week. Cornerbacks Elijah Riley and Jahvari Bourdeau are both solid defenders against the perimeter run, and we think that inside linebackers Arik Smith and Cole Christiansen are likely to play better when they aren’t called on to blitz as often.

A lot may depend on who is healthy enough to play, especially at quarterback where Kelvin Hopkins and Jabari Laws were both knocked out of the game this past Saturday against San Jose State.

Another major factor will be whether the Black Knights can avoid shooting themselves in the foot with careless penalties and fumbles ... we’ve seen too much of in recent games.

This is the start of a season within the season, and the Black Knight have an opportunity to salvage this season with a win against the Falcons. After losing to Army at West Point in 2018, Donald Hammond III promised it would never happen again. Will the Black Knights make him eat those words?

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