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America’s Team becomes an American Team
It had been nearly 20 years since the Black Knights won a game against a conference opponent. The year was 2004, Bobby Ross was the head coach at Army, Carlton Jones was the featured running back, and the opponent on that day was another Florida Team, South Florida. Army won that game by a score of 42-35, and at the end of the season, they reverted to Independent status after a 6-year dismal record of 9 wins and 41 losses in C-USA.
Fast forward twenty years, and Army was back in south Florida playing their first conference game against the Owls of Florida Atlantic. FAU was favored to win the game after their strong performance against the Spartans of Michigan State the previous week. GBK prognosticator, Joe Iacono had predicted a one-point Army win while admitting that he might be slightly optimistic. The predictions among our normally optimistic subscribers were all over the board, with a few predicting a close loss and others predicting a slim win, Of the tons of viewers on GoBlackKnights.com, only one of our subscribers came close to predicting the actual margin of victory.
It is often said that the biggest improvements in football come between the first and second games; so we were hoping to see significant improvements on defense this week.
A Really Good Start
Army won the toss and elected to defer; so FAU took the opening kickoff, and we had an early chance to see if the defense had made any improvements. The defense held FAU to a three-and-out on that first series, something they had only managed to do once against Lehigh the previous week. So far so good.
Then the offense continued where they had left off the previous week, launching a classic Army 82-yard 8-play touchdown drive capped by an 8-yard run by running back Kanye Udoh. FAU was relatively successful at stuffing the inside runs on that first possession, but slotback Noah Short found some daylight on the perimeter for two explosive third-down runs of 13 and 49 yards to keep the chains moving for Army.
FAU managed to get as far as the Army 34 on their next drive, but the defense held once again to force a turnover on downs.
The Army offense then launched a 64-yard touchdown drive capped by a 44-yard play-action pass from QB Bryson Daily to WR Casey Reynolds to take a 14-0 lead at the end of the first quarter.
A Temporary Shift in Momentum in the Second Quarter
The FAU defense made some defensive adjustments and Army and FAU exchanged punts on each of their first two drives in the second quarter, but FAU forced an error on Army’s third drive that could have changed the outcome of the game. A forced fumble by Kanye Udoh ended a promising Army drive on the FAU 34, which appeared to be a drive that would have netted the Black Knights 7 points and a very comfortable 21-1 first-half lead.
However, FAU drove the ball to the Army 8, aided by a rare defensive holding call on NT Kody Harris-Miller. What appeared to be an interception by CB Donovan Platt in the end zone was ruled out of bounds after an official review, and FAU scored on the following play to close the gap to 14-7 at halftime.
Special Teams Seized the Day in the Second Half
Army took the opening drive of the half and drove to the 18-yard before Trey Gronotte was called on to kick his first career field goal from 35 yards out, to extend Army’s lead to 17-7. Army fans were wondering whether we had a suitable replacement for Quinn Maretski this season, and Gronotte answered on his first attempt.
FAU threatened again on their first possession of the half, but Max DiDomenico intercepted a long Fancher pass at the Army 4 to stop the FAU drive.
The offense proceeded to launch a long 14-play drive that appeared to stall on the FAU 23 after a personal foul call on Udoh set Army back 15 yards from the 16 to the 31. Army could only recover 8 of those 15 lost yards, and Gronotte was trotted onto the field to kick his second field goal of the game. But Special Teams Coordinator, Sean Saturnio had a more novel play in his bag of tricks and rather than attempt the kick, holder Matthew Rhodes caught the snap and ran the ball in for a 23-yard touchdown to put Army up 24-7.
With a 3 score lead and 14 minutes left on the clock, Army was able to play bend not break defense for the remainder of the game. On their next possession, FAU drove the ball to a 4th and goal at the Army 1, but the goal line defense held and the Black Knights took over on downs deep in their own territory with 8:44 left in the game. The Owls appeared to have Army stopped at their own 15 after they were called for their second chop block of the game, but an off-sides penalty on the ensuing punt gave Army a first down and they were able to run out the clock.
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
There’s nothing ugly to report when Army comes into a game as the underdog and wins by 17 points. What we saw was mostly Good with a little bit of Bad. We’ll be happy if Army continues to play at this level for the remainder of the season.
The Good
Special Teams Play: It’s not unusual for a placekicker to be among the top scorers on a team, but it’s highly unusual to see the Holder up there among the top scorers. Special Teams accounted for 12 of Army’s 24 points on offense with a TD, a field goal and 3 PATs.
Ball Control: For the second straight game Army dominated time of possession with 38:39 compared to FAU’s 21:21. Army had two long possessions when it counted most; a drive of 10:33 in the third quarter and a drive of 8:44 to finish the game. Army had the ball for 62 plays compared to FAU’s 53.
Rushing Offense: Army’s crew of running backs continued to roll up rushing yards as the Black Knights ran for 405 yards in 58 attempts for an impressive average of 7.0 yards per attempt. Noah Short led the team with 160 yards on 11 attempts for an average of 14.5 yards per carry. Daily finished with 117 yards in 18 attempts for a 6.5 average. The FAU defense seemed determined to stop the fullback dive but Udoh still managed to gain 70 yards in 14 attempts for a respectable 5.0 average and Reed added 37 yards in 8 attempts for a 5.3 average.
Greatly Improved Defense: We were hoping to see an improvement in Army’s defense which gave up 172 rushing yards and 110 passing yards to Lehigh a week earlier, and we were not disappointed. The turnaround was most apparent in the rushing defense, where Army allowed FAU just 42 yards in 16 attempts for a paltry 2.6 yards per carry. The pass defense was not quite as impressive, but still quite good, holding Fancher to 25 completions in 37 attempts for 193 yards with 1 TD and 1 INT. Granted, Michigan State did somewhat better containing Fancher, but that’s to be expected. The defense is still relatively inexperienced but we saw significant improvement across the unit in this game and expect to see more improvement going forward.
The Bad
A couple of Dropped Passes: We may be getting a bit picky here, but Army doesn’t pass the ball much; so we put a great deal of emphasis on getting completions out on those few attempts. Daily attempted just 4 passes in the game. One was the beautiful completion to Casey Reynolds for Army’s second TD, but TE Parker Poloskey dropped a short pass that was right in his hands. We didn’t get to see a replay, but it looked like one he should have hauled in, and Monken spoke to him about it when he came off the field. Noah Short was wide open when he failed to haul in a catchable pass in the end zone. The pass was not perfectly thrown but Noah had a good chance to catch it. There was a third failed pass attempt when Reed failed to get a foot in bounds after making a nice catch on the sideline. We can’t complain about that effort. BTW, those dropped passes didn’t hurt Daily’s Pass Efficiency rating which was 199.9 for the game.
Six Penalties for 45 Yards: Once again we may be getting a little picky but after last week’s performance in this area, we were a little disappointed with the number of Army penalties in the game. We’re not too concerned about the 2 chop block penalties, and it’s hard to figure out how a Nose Tackle gets flagged for holding on a running play, but there were a few pre-snap penalties as well, and those are the ones that drive Monken crazy.
The Ugly
Nothing Ugly to report in this game.
Notable Performances
Offense
Offensive MVP:
Joe’s Pick: Noah Short’s 160 yards on 11 carries was a performance for the ages, especially since Army’s option typically revolves around the FB and QB. Bryson Daily added 117 but he also got Army out of multiple long-yardage down & distance situations and had a career game.
A.M.’s Choice: Slotback Noah Short put on an offensive show with an impressive 160 yards on just 11 carries. You have to think that his offensive play, along with the Army rushing attack played a huge role in Bryson Daily’s 44-yard touchdown play action pass to WR Casey Reynolds.
Gordon’s Choice: I also go with the choice of Noah Short with honorable mention to Daily.
PFF’s Top Ratings: PFF’s top three ratings on offense went to Lucas Scott with an 85.9, Casey Reynolds with an 82.8 and Bryson Daily with an 82.7.
Defense
Defensive MVP:
Joe’s Pick: Sr. Safety and Captain Max DiDomenico came up with the lone turnover for Army on the 4 yard line. He added 4 total tackles including a TFL and helped coordinate an effort by the Army secondary in which they only gave up a few long completions and no long touchdown passes.
A.M.’s Pick: Captain and Safety Max DiDomenico’s time INT was a key defensive play for the Black Knights. Today, he led a secondary that had a very solid afternoon, especially when it came to their pass coverage.
Gordon’s Pick: A good defensive performance by the defense as a whole, but I’ll concur with Joe and AM on DiDomenico, while noting that Chance Keith showed remarkable improvement at his NB position. If he continues to improve at this rate he’ll be another Jimmy Ciarlo.
PFF’s Highest Rating: went to Jabril Williams with an 88.8 rating on 9 snaps, followed closely by Dre Miller with an 88.1 on 12 snaps. The highest grade for a defensive starter went to Elo Modozie with an 82.0
Special Teams
A.M.’s Pick for Special Teams MVP: This is a pretty easy one and it goes to holder Matthew Rhodes, whose timely 23-yard fake FG touchdown run gave Army a much-needed 24-7 lead.
Joe and I agreed with A.M.’s choice.
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