Not a subscriber to GBK? There’s no better time than now, as the Black Knights begin the kick-off of their 2016 Army football season on Friday night versus Temple.
Army will start its season tomorrow as the Black Knights head to the Philadelphia (PA) to take on the Temple Owls, and hopefully return to West Point with a real sense of ‘Brotherly Love’ and a 1-0 record.
Already the injury bug has hit the team and will be without the services on Friday of one of the key defensive players in D-lineman Jordan Smith. That is the bad news, but the good news is at Tuesday’s pre-game press conference head coach Jeff Monken announced that junior starting strong safety Rhyan England is ready to go after being on the shelf for the previous week due to injury.
The 5-foot-10, 190 pounder told GoBlackKnights.com that he is both physically and mentally ready to jump start the 2016 football on Friday, as well as being excited about the product that the program will put on the field this season.
“Right now, I definitely feel like I’m 100% and if not, I am as close as you can be,” shared the native of Suwanee (GA). “I felt great today, really good this week and the training staff put a lot of time and effort into me, which has definitely paid off. So, I feel great right now and I’m excited about Friday and to see how this team gets after it.”
It was easy to hear and see England’s confidence as he continue to elaborate on the potential of this year’s team and its on-field senior leadership.
“I think it’s [confidence] as high as it has ever been at the academy ever since I’ve been here,” he explained. “Even though we have a couple of young players who will definitely get a lot of snaps this year .... I definitely feel like the people that they have brought in are great athletes and are great people of character. So, they take everything they do and do it with all their heart.”
“But not only that, there are so many senior leaders right now, that no one really gets by without doing the right thing. I mean, if you see a senior leader doing the right thing, then you start doing the right thing and I think right now our confidence as a team is ten times higher than it has ever been.”
Of course, part of what feeds England’s confidence is his game experience and if you couple that with him joining talented free safety Xavier Moss for their 2nd year together, it bodes well for the defense.
When asked how he compares where the two of them are now as a safety tandem versus this time last year, here’s how England explained it.
“I would say just strides ahead and not even half way our potential in where we are now to where we were last year,” stated England. “Because, he was learning the defense for the first time and it was my first year coming into the starter role at the beginning of the year and trying to lead that way. So, I think athletically we both got better and mentally we both got stronger and just overall I think the whole defense got so much better.”
“It allows us to focus in on our craft and our job, which has really just made ten times better this year than what we were last year,” he added.
England knows that the college football season is a long one, which offers many obstacles and variables that can easily determine if a team wins one week to the next. However, it is obvious that his expectations from this year’s team, as well as the defense are pretty high.
“The biggest thing for us is to play every single snap as if it’s the last play playing the toughest team in America and be the most mentally resilient,” he declared. “Not only that, but get out there and win every single game, because I think the only team that can be us is ourselves.”
“Especially for me, it’s fundamentals, mental toughness, it is getting after every single play and be the hardest working team.”
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