Part I - Evolution of Army Coaching: 1890-2000

In 2014 Jeff Monken became the 6th Army football coach in the 15 years since the turn of the century. None of the 5 previous coaches had a winning record and only one produced a winning season. In this two-part series, GoBlackKnights.com examines the evolution of coaching in Army football. Part I takes a brief historical look at the changes in college football from the first Army football game in 1890 to the end of the 20th century along with factors that have effected the success of Army coaches. In Part 2 we will address West Point's attempts to meet the challenges of of 21st century football through its choice of Army coaches.

Army Coaches in the Pre-Blaik Years

Army West Point had 22 head coaches in the 47 years between the time the first game was played by Army and the hiring of Red Blaik as head coach in 1941. The first few coaches were young part timers. Dennis Michie was still a cadet when he coached the first Army team in 1890, and the next 4 coaches at Army were all recent college graduates who were less than 25 years old. Army's second coach, Harry Williams, taught school in Newburgh and left Army for medical school after one year of coaching. In those early years, college football was a chaotic and risky version of Rugby with no standard rules and a lot of injuries. Most college coaches were players and scheduling was usually impromptu.

In 1897, Herman Koehler became the first of 17 active duty officers to coach the Army team prior to Blaik's arrival. Most were career soldiers and 6 of them eventually became general officers. None of them had any previous coaching experience before they coached at Army and only one of them went on to coach football after leaving Army. Army averaged a new coach every 2.1 years, but not due to lack of success on the field. Although they were all novice coaches, only three of those 22 coaches before Blaik had an overall losing record and Army had only 6 losing seasons from 1890 to 1941, including the inaugural 0-1 season in 1890 when the only game they played was against Navy. The number of games played in any one season ranged from 1 to 11 with the mode being 8 or 9 throughout most of that period.

By the mid thirties, college football had matured to a popular sport, with modern football conferences in place, 5 post-season bowl games, and professional (if not highly paid) coaches, but West Point continued to employ career Army officers as head coaches until 1941.

The Blaik Years

Earl "Red" Blaik was the first head coach who came to Army with any legitimate coaching experience. He graduated from Miami of Ohio in 1918 where he earned letters in three sports and then accepted an appointment to West Point, where he again played football and earned his commission in 1920. With WWI over, and the future looking bleak for officers, he resigned his commission in 1922 to join his father in the home-building business while volunteering as an unpaid graduate assistant coach at Miami. In 1926, he took 2 months off to become an assistant coach at Wisconsin and then accepted a job as an assistant coach at West Point from 1927-1933. He left Army when he was passed over for the head coaching job because of academy rules requiring the head coach to be an officer on active duty. He was hired as the head coach at Dartmouth from 1934-1940, where he compiled a record of 45-15. The West Point administration, disappointed with the losing record of Bill Wood, a career officer with a losing record, decided to drop their rule about coaches being career officers and extended an offer to Blaik to return as head coach. Blaik accepted the job and coached Army for 18 years from 1941 to 1959.

At the time Blaik came to West Point, the success of Army football was hampered by the Surgeon General's height and weight limitations on all cadets. A six-footer could not weigh over 176 pounds and at 6-4 an incoming cadet's weight couldn't exceed 198 and at graduation couldn't exceed 208 with no exceptions for athletes. Fortunately for Blaik and Army football, General Edwin Watson, a top aide to President Roosevelt, and a West Point graduate and Army fan was able to persuade the Surgeon General to revise his restrictions, increasing the max weight for a six-footer to 201 and the max weight at 6-4 to 226. That would exclude most football recruits today, but at the time it was enough of a change to improve the fortunes of Army football.

Blaik compiled a record of 164 wins, 121 losses and 33 ties for a winning percentage of .768. Army was the consensus national champion in 1944 and 1945 and Blake produced 3 Heisman Trophy winners. He had 6 undefeated seasons and only one losing season in 1951 when an honor scandal led to the dismissal of 51 football players including Blaik's son.

From Blaik to the end of the 20th Century

Dale Hall was the last West Point graduate to become head coach at Army. He played for Blaik at Army in 1945 and held assistant coaching jobs at Purdue, New Hampshire and Florida before becoming Blaik's first assistant at Army. Hall was promoted to head coach when Blaik retired and left Army with a winning record, although not as good as what Army fans had come to expect under Blaik. Army looked around for a coach with demonstrated success, and found one in the Southeast Conference.

Paul Dietzel was the first non West Point grad hired by Army since 1900. He was a former assistant to Blaik who had gone on to coach LSU to a national championship in 1958. Dietzel coached at Army for 4 years and finished with a winning record of 21-18-1. He left Army to become head coach and athletic director at South Carolina.

Tom Cahill began his college coaching career as the plebe football coach at Army from 1959-1965, and when Dietzel left in 1965, Cahill was promoted to the head coaching position in what many thought would be an interim assignment. Cahill produced three straight winning seasons before dropping to 4-5-1 in 1969 and 1-9-1 in 1970. He bounced back with 6-4 seasons in 1971 and 1972 before ending his Army career with a dismal 0-10 record in 1973. He coached during the Vietnam years when rising anti-military sentiment led to problems attracting candidates to West Point. Despite the change in Army football fortune, Cahill left with a career record of 40-39-2, the last Army coach with a winning record for the next 10 years.

Homer Smith was the first of three straight Army coaches to post losing records. He coached at Army 3 years and finished with a disappointing 22-33-1 record with one winning season in 1977. During his tenure, the NCAA increased the football season from 10 to 11 games, dropped the rule against freshmen participating in varsity sports, and divided Division 1 football into Divisions 1A and 1AA.

Lou Saban was hired as head football coach in 1979. By the time Saban came to Army, he had developed a reputation as a "job hopper," who was nevertheless respected for rebuilding teams in poor condition. Saban vowed to stay at Army "until they put me out to pasture" but left after one 2-8-1 season saying he was unhappy with the academy's unwillingness to invest more in its football program. Saban's resignation left Army without a coach and no time to go out and hire one.

Ed Cavanaugh was promoted from offensive line coach to head coach in 1980. Cavanaugh produced three straight losing seasons, finishing with an overall record of 10-21-2 at Army. Unhappy with 3 straight losing coaches and 9 losing seasons out of the last 10, West Point began looking for a proven coach who could revive the program.

Jim Young came to West Point in 1983 with a winning record in Div 1A football having gone 31-13 at Arizona and 38-19-1 at Purdue. He arrived two years after Army began scheduling 3-4 Div 1AA opponents each year, and Young took advantage of the weaker schedule and good option football to build a winning record. After a shaky 2-9 inaugural season, Young's teams posted 3 straight winning seasons and he finished his 8 year tour at Army with a record of 51-39-1. His winning percentage of .566 was the best for an Army coach since Dale Hall left in 1960. Young was the first coach to take Army to a bowl game with a win against Michigan State in the Cherry Bowl in 1984. Young's teams made 3 bowl appearances with 2 wins and 1 loss although none would have been eligible under the current rules which allow just one FCS game to count toward bowl eligibility.

Bob Sutton became the last Army coach of the 20th Century when he was promoted from defensive coordinator to head coach following Young's departure at the end of the 1990 season. It was Sutton's first head coaching job but his 9 years as the Army head coach was second only to Blaik in longevity. Unfortunately, Sutton did not come as close to Blaik in winning percentage. After two losing seasons in 1991 and 1992, Sutton produced a winning 6-5 season in 1993 capitalizing on wins over Colgate, Lafayette, and VMI. By that year, the number of bowl games had increased to 18, but his 6-5 record was not enough to get a bowl bid. Sutton dropped back to 4-7 the following year and broke even with a 5-5-1 season in 1995 before achieving the best season in Army football since Blaik's 1958 team record of 8-0-1. His 1996 team posted a 9-1 regular season record before losing a close game against Auburn in the Independence Bowl by a score of 32-29. The following year, Army posted a 4-7 record despite wins over 1AA teams Colgate and Lafayette, and a decision by West Point to join Conference USA in 1998 removed the 1AA games from the schedule and sealed Sutton's fate as Army posted back to back 3-9 seasons to close out the 20th Century.

External Factors that have Influenced Army's Fortune

The service academies have had both advantages and disadvantages over their civilian counterparts at various times in history, and GBK takes a look at how external factors have impacted on Army in football over the years.

Television Revenue: The first television broadcast of a football game was in 1939, but it was not until the early 1950's that television had a significant impact on college football. The NCAA attempted to limit the impact, at first by banning televised games outright and then by monopolizing television contracts and limiting the number of games that could be broadcast regionally and nationally. In 1984, the Supreme Court declared the NCAA's control of TV a violation of anti-trust laws and opened the doors for conferences to negotiate their own TV contracts. That worked to the advantage of the major conferences and Notre Dame, which has its own TV contract. Increased revenues from TV have widened the gap between the haves and have-nots in college football. Few, if any teams outside the Power 5 can compete at the level of better teams from the major conferences.

Increased Number of Games in a Season: With the growth in popularity of college sports and televised games came a demand for more games, and the NCAA accommodated their desires. Army played 9 games a year until 1959, increased to 10 games in the regular season from 1960-1973, 11 games per season from 1974 to 1983 and 12 games per season ever since. In addition, the number of post season bowl games increased from 6 in 1940 to 39 this year providing bowl berths for about half the teams in the FBS lengthening the season by several weeks for those teams. The increase in the length of the regular season combined with an increase in bowl games has created additional conflicts with cadets already-busy schedules and virtually eliminated the multi-sport athletes who were common at West Point in years past. Despite NCAA rules to the contrary, football has become a full-time job for most players and cadets don't have as much time to compete. By contrast, the Ivy League chose to limit the number of games each year to 10 and banned post season competition for their football teams.

Increased Size and Speed of the Players: Prior to 1941, virtually all football players played both offense and defense. Red Blaik adopted a 2 platoon system in 1946, but in1954 the NCAA put a rule in place that allowed only one player to be substituted between plays, essentially mandating one-platoon football. The requirement to have players who could play both ways created a demand for players with the speed and stamina to play both defense and offense, which effectively limited the size of players and put more of a premium on all-around athletes. The 1964 Army team, for example, had no one who weighed over 245 pounds and at least one guard/linebacker who weighed less than 200 pounds, and yet Army was able to compete with the likes of Penn State, Pitt and Syracuse. In 1965 the NCAA dropped the limited substitution rule and teams went to specialized offensive, defensive, and special teams. As a result, teams recruited more specialized players, and 300 pound offensive linemen became common place. That change has worked to the disadvantage of the service academies who have to contend with height and weight standards as well as annual physical fitness requirements.

Military Service: Many fans point to the military service requirement as a detriment in recruiting players, especially those top high school recruits with pro ambitions, but that hasn't always been the case. Red Blaik, for example, accepted an appointment to West Point after graduating from Miami because he wanted to be an officer. During WWII, the draft made it likely that any physically qualified young man was likely to be called into service, and the prospect of going in as an officer was appealing. The Vietnam War with the elimination of the draft and mandatory ROTC at Land Grant colleges eliminated mandatory service and made West Point less appealing for many young men; while patriotism stirred by 9/11 probably increased the appeal for a few years after 2001. Military service may be seen as a requirement or as an opportunity but it is always a factor to be considered in recruiting. Army competes with Air Force and Navy for the same type of recruits, and service options can also be a factor as the nature of service changes over time.

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