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The Winning Streak Continues

Army came into the game against the Rice Owls favored by a touchdown; so it came as no surprise to see the Black Knights extend their current winning streak to 7, the second longest in NCAA FBS level football, just 1 win less than Missouri at 8 straight wins. The 23 point margin and the way the path to the victory came as a bigger surprise to Army fans.

Head Coach Jeff Monken’s disdain for the passing game is legendary in FBS football. One of his proudest accomplishments at Georgia Southern was upsetting highly favored Florida in his last game as an FCS-level coach without completing a single pass, and he has duplicated that achievement at West Point against lesser opponents. Shortly after his arrival at West Point, Monken had this to say about passing the football:

So it came as a bit of a surprise to see the Army offense pass for two of its four touchdowns in the game and earn 120 of its 408 total yards through the air. It wasn’t as though Rice was stopping Army’s ground game. Army averaged 5.1 yards per rushing attempt and scored touchdowns on 4 of its first five possessions. What we saw on Saturday, was something that a lot of Army fans yearned for in the early years of Monken’s days at West Point when Brent Davis was calling the plays, a timely blend of passes and runs that kept the chains moving and the defense back on their heels.

Army got off to a 14-point lead in a somewhat, but not entirely, traditional manner. They took the opening kickoff on their own 25 and, in traditional fashion, kept the ball on the ground for two first downs to the Rice 41. Then, in a departure from the norm, Quarterback Bryson Daily dropped back for play-action pass thrown perfectly to Slotback Noah Short for a Touchdown and an early 7-0 lead.

The Army defense came on to hold Rice to a 5-play 19-yard possession before regaining possession at the Army 10 on a Rice punt. The ensuing drive was classic Army offense as they marched 82 yards to the Rice 8 while taking the remaining 10 minutes off the clock to end the first quarter. After moving to the opposite end of the field to start the second quarter, they finished off the drive in two plays to lead 14-0.

Desperately needing to respond by putting some points on the board, Rice took the ensuing kickoff and launched a long drive of their own. Rice marched from their own 25 to the Army 14-yard line in 13 plays before the defense held, and Rice formed up for a 37-yard Field Goal Attempt. Elo Modozie broke through the Rice front line to block the kick and Casey Larkin scooped up the ball on the 18 and returned it to the Army 43 to set up the Army’s third scoring drive of the day, resulting in a commanding 21-0 lead.

Perhaps the single-best demonstration of the effectiveness of Army’s passing game on Saturday was the touchdown drive to cap Army’s scoring in the second quarter. After going ahead 21-0 as described above, Rice had the ball with 1:51 left on the clock and went to the air in their version of the two-minute drill. In what I consider the second decisive play of the game, Safety Max DiDomenico tipped the ball into the air, and Linebacker Andon Thomas juggled it a couple of times before securing the football and alertly dragging a toe to stay in bounds for the interception.

With 1:44 left on the clock and a 21-point lead and the ball at midfield, we might have expected Monken to keep it on the ground and run out the clock to settle for a 21-point lead at the half, but Monken and OC Cody Worley launched their own version of an Army two minute drill instead. With 3 time outs left to spend, Worley put together a masterful blend of passing and running the ball to move the chains quickly while keeping the Rice defense off balance.

It started with an incomplete attempt to the always dangerous target Noah Short who was well covered by a Rice defender. That was followed by an 8-yard run by Daily that may have been a designed quarterback draw or just an opportunistic scramble. On the next play, Daily ran for another 4 yards and a first down, which stopped the clock while they moved the chains. Daily followed up with a well-thrown pass to Hayden Reed (aka Swiss Army knife) on the sideline that was good for another 18 yards and a first down at the Rice 21. Daily next failed to connect on a long pass attempt to Reed followed up by a 4-yard run to the 17 where Monken took his first timeout with 33 seconds left on the clock. On the next play, Daily threw a strike to Casey Reynolds for Army’s 4th touchdown of the game which gave Army an insurmountable 28-point lead at the half. Barring a total meltdown, the game was over at that point.

Army special teams and defense combined to provide a good start to the second half, by stopping the kickoff runback on the 15th and then holding Rice to 7 yards on their first three plays to force a punt. The snap was a little high and the punter had to take a safety to extend Army’s lead to 30 points.

Rice made their free kick from their own 20 and Army started their 5th possession of the game at the Army 25 . The Rice defense held Army to 14 yards and a 4th down at the 39 to bring up the most controversial play of the game for Army. Faced with a 4th and 9 and a commanding 30 point lead, Monken called for a fake punt. When asked about it later, his response was that he had two fake punt plays designed for the situation and chose the wrong one. I think most of us were more interested in hearing why he opted for a fake punt at all in that situation. At any rate, it turned the ball over to Rice in good field position, and the Owls turned that into their first score of the game to close the lead to 30-7.

Army answered with another touchdown on their next possession to regain their 30-point lead before giving the starters a rest at the end of the third quarter.

If you had a hard time identifying the Army players by their numbers in the 4th quarter, you’re not alone. The offense featured several players who were listed in the second level of the depth chart, but one had to go beyond the depth chart to the numerical roster to identify several players on the Army defense. Baylor Newsome, the backup to Andon Thomas at ILB, came up with the most notable defensive play of the second half when he recorded Army’s second interception of the game.

On the downside, the reserves accounted for 4 of Army’s 5 penalties in that final quarter and allowed Rice’s second touchdown of the game, giving Monken some things to work on between now and Thursday when they meet Temple in Philly.

For the third straight game in a row, the Army team has performed far better than expected, and we can’t justify evaluating anything about the game as Ugly. There was a whole lot of Good and just enough Bad to avoid a total whitewash.

The Good

Plus 2 turnover margin: We can never stress enough the importance of winning the turnover battle to the outcome of the game. Ball control is a top priority for the Monken coaching staff, and the offense came through with a perfect performance in ball security this game, while the defense came up with two timely interceptions.

Blocked FG Attempt: As noted in our narrative, the blocked field goal was one of the two decisive plays of the game, and we firmly believe that was no accident. Monken puts a lot of emphasis on special teams play, and Special Team Coach Sean Saturnio has proven time and again to be one of the top special teams coaches in the country. We can be reasonably confident that Saturnio had a plan to get Modozie into the backfield for that block.

Semi-Balanced, Offense: 120 passing yards in a game is not going to raise Army West Point much above the bottom in passing yardage in the FBS. But as a complement to the Black Knight’s #2 standing in Rushing Yards, it gives defensive coordinators a lot more to think about, and Saturday’s game was an excellent example. The rushing yardage dropped off a bit from Army’s season average, but that was offset by more than double the number of passing yards from the Black Knights' first two games. Army averaged a solid 5.1 yards per rushing attempt.

Passing Efficiency: The 41-yard touchdown pass on the opening drive put Rice on early notice that they could not put all their focus on stopping the running game. We frequently mention the importance of Passing Efficiency as an indicator of the success of Army’s passing game and Daily was 6 of 9 for 107 yards, with 2 TDs and O interceptions for a rating of 239.7 for the game.

Solid Defense: Unfortunately, I don’t have access the statistics for each quarter; so I can’t differentiate between the performance of the starting defense in the first three quarters and the performance of the reserves in the 4th quarter, other than to note that the starting offense held Rice scoreless in the first half and allowed only one TD in the game. Monken and Woody put top priority on stopping the run, and the defense held Rice to an average of 3.2 yards per rushing attempt, which would put Rice somewhere in the bottom 25 in the NCAA on that metric. The defense held Rice to 235 yards passing and held Warner to a mediocre pass efficiency rating of 117.

The Bad

The Fake Punt: It had little to no effect on the final outcome, but we have to question the wisdom of faking a punt on a 4th and 9 inside your own 50 when enjoying a commanding 30-point lead.

The Out of Bounds Kickoff: Another minor blemish on what was, otherwise, a good performance by special teams.

Fourth Quarter Penalties: Judging from all the anger Jeff Monken was showing on the sidelines, we can assume that he was as disturbed about some of the penalties taken by the reserves in the fourth quarter as we were. Three of the four penalties were those pre-snap penalties that suggest a lack of discipline that the head coach hates, while the horse collar tackle was a bit less egregious. The starters had only one 5 yard penalty in the first 3 quarters, which was more acceptable.

The Ugly

Once again, there is nothing Ugly to report in this game.

Offense

Offensive MVP:

Joe’s Pick: QB Bryson Daily. Daily was a one-man wrecking crew with well over 100 yards rushing and passing and 3 rushing and 2 passing touchdowns.

A.M.’s Choice: QB Bryson Daily. I'm sorry, did I happen to mention that Bryson is my offensive player of the game {laughing}?

Gordon’s Pick: The obvious choice of Bryson Daily for the reasons stated above.

PFF’s Top Ratings: Reserve Tackle Henry Appleton got the top rating from PFF with an outstanding 93.4 rating on 15 snaps. Bryson Daily got the top rating among the starters with a 90.8 and Lucas Scott was close behind with an 89.9. Three of the five starting offensive linemen were rated in the high 80s.

Defense

Defensive MVP:

Joe’s Pick: ILB Andon Thomas - Thomas had a key pick shortly before halftime that the Black Knights converted into a TD to go up 28-0 at the break.

A.M.’s Pick: Andon Thomas, was the 2nd leading tackler in the game and made a great play on the interception

Gordon’s Pick: I’m casting my vote for Thomas as well, with the note that he got some major help on that big play from Max DiDomenico who broke up the pass in the first place and was the leading tackler in the game.

PFF’s Three Highest Ratings on defense went to reserves: Brett Gerena earned an 84.3; Jaxon Hammond was rated a 73.3; and Baylor Newsome received a rating of 71.6, no doubt boosted by his interception.

We couldn’t identify all the first-time players in the game, but a couple of them caught our eye:

Carson Smith made his debut at B-back with 2 carries for a net of 2 yards. He was also called for one of the illegal procedure penalties in the fourth quarter which will not help his chances for moving up on the depth chart.

Kavon Pointer played 9 snaps at WR and made his first career catch with a 9 yard reception in the 4th quarter.

**To chat with other Army fans about this article and more, please visit The 12th Knight message board**

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