ARMY WEEK

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for Navy fans, what with conference realignment starting again and Arizona State receiving a bid to the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl. We’ll get to all that stuff in due time. Right now, only one thing matters. You know what it is.

This Week in Service Academy Football

Army (2-7) defeated Air Force (5-4), 41-21. The Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy is still up for grabs, but we do know one thing: it won’t be in Colorado Springs a month from now. Army made a weird week even weirder by topping Air Force in a game that wasn’t as close as the final score made it look. Maybe weird isn’t the right word, since Air Force people running their mouths is hardly unusual. Stuff like Alex Means channeling Chance Harridge and saying that he can’t imagine losing to Army is pretty standard. The weird part came when Troy Calhoun started talking about all the advantages that Army has over Air Force as a program; stuff like coaches’ housing and Heisman winners from 60 years ago. Whatever you say, Howdy Doody.

Anyway, that’s all just a sideshow. In the main event, Army’s offense did what they’ve been doing all year yardage-wise, rushing for 314. What they didn’t do was turn the ball over. Air Force, on the other hand, has had its own issues taking care of the ball this season, and they went above and beyond in reinforcing their pro-turnover platform by losing two fumbles and throwing three interceptions. It would be easy to just point to the turnovers and say, “see, that’s why they lost,” but that isn’t even close to the whole story. The truth is that Army throttled the Air Force offense. I have been fairly complimentary of the Air Force offensive line this season, but they were absolutely manhandled in this game. Army lived in the Air Force backfield and held the Falcons to only 103 rushing yards.

We might have to take a closer look at this game later down the road.

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Army (1-7): Lost to Ball State, 30-22. This game was a bit of role reversal for Army. Usually their offense plays pretty well, but just can’t keep up with the gobs of points that the defense gives up. Against Ball State, though, the Army defense was sort of decent. That’s relatively speaking, obviously. Giving up 413 yards isn’t good, but it was good enough to at least keep the game within reach. Ball State went up 14-0 after their first two drives, but they were never able to pull away. Army didn’t give up another touchdown until the 4th quarter, and by Army standards, that’s a pretty big deal. That was probably as good a performance as Rich Ellerson is going to get out of his young defense this season.

Unfortunately for Army, the offense couldn’t respond. In some ways, this was like the Eastern Michigan game. Ball State even used the same defense: the 4-4 cover 3 with the free safety playing the pitch. While Army was able to run for 341 yards, they weren’t very consistent in moving the ball. Just like against EMU, lousy blocking doomed the offense and led to four 3 & outs. On top of that, Hayden Tippett fumbled away a scoring opportunity at the end of the first half after Army had moved to the Ball State 30. Nevertheless, Army still had a chance to make it a one-score game with a little more than 2 minutes left, but Dan Grochowski’s FG attempt from 43 yards sailed wide left.

Both the offense and defense have had their individual moments this year, but neither have shown that they are good enough to carry the team when the other is struggling. Air Force has shown that it’s capable of losing to one-win teams, though, so maybe there’s a little hope for Army this week. But only a little.

Air Force (5-3): Beat Nevada, 48-31. This was probably Air Force’s best performance of the season, seen by DOZENS of people in Colorado Springs on Friday night. Nevada is a pretty good football team, and Air Force outgained them by 220 yards even without the services of Cody Getz. Filling in for Getz as the Falcon’s go-to back was Wes Cobb, who ran for 152 yards and a touchdown on 30 carries. Nevada’s defense appeared completely lost at times, and Air Force never had to punt. Not that the Wolf Pack didn’t have their opportunities. Nevada pulled to within a field goal after recovering a fumble near midfield in the third quarter, but Air Force responded with a pair of long drives on their next two possessions to regain a two-score advantage that they would hold on to the rest of the way.

The loss to UNLV is killing Air Force in the Mountain West. At 4-1, the Falcons are tied with Fresno State and San Diego State in second place in the league standings, and have yet to play either one. They could have controlled their own destiny for a share of their first MWC title since they don’t play Boise State. Instead, they have to hope that the 4-0 Broncos trip up somewhere along the way. Boise State already beat Fresno State. They get SDSU at home this week and hit the road to play Nevada at the end of the year. Meanwhile, Air Force plays both SDSU and Fresno State on the road. It’s a tall order.

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Army (1-6): Lost to Eastern Michigan, 48-38. Every Army game is pretty much the same. The offense piles on the yards and points, but makes too many mistakes to bail out a horrible defense.

This might be the worst one yet for Army, who fell to a previously winless Eastern Michigan team. EMU’s defense used the ol’ 4-4 cover 3 with the safety playing the pitch man, and Army was able to score every single time they were able to make their blocks. That isn’t hyperbole, either; the Black Knights had touchdown runs of 55, 73, and 75 yards. The problem is that they just weren’t able to carry out their blocking assignments consistently enough. This is the second week in a row where that has been the case, and it cost them. Army also fumbled the ball 5 times (losing 2), including a botched snap on a punt that gave EMU the ball on the Army 13. That put Army in a 14-0 hole right off the bat, and they were never able to recover.

Still, when you score 38 points and roll up 413 rushing yards, that should be good enough to win most games. Unfortunately for Army, Eastern Michigan’s offense appears to be hitting its stride. They were able to put up over 600 yards on a very good Toledo team a week ago, and followed that up with 577 yards on Saturday. Army’s defense is just plain slow.  They gave up 13(!) plays of 20+ yards, including three touchdowns.

This game was Army’s best shot at a win the rest of the year. Looking at their schedule, things don’t get any easier, starting with a 5-3, pass-happy Ball State team coming to Michie this week.

Air Force (4-3): Beat New Mexico, 28-23. I said last week that this game would be a big test for Air Force, but I didn’t think it would be this interesting. New Mexico RB Kasey Carrier set the Mountain West record by rushing for 338 yards. New Mexico’s pistol-based option offense rolled up 409 rushing yards, and the Lobos outgained Air Force by nearly 80 yards.

So how on earth did Air Force win this game? Three reasons. 1. New Mexico drove all the way to the Air Force 1-yard line on their first possession, but settled for a field goal. 2. Alex Means was able to tip and intercept a swing pass as New Mexico was driving late in the 2nd quarter, returning it 65 yards for a touchdown. 3. New Mexico played the entire second half WITHOUT A QUARTERBACK. Seriously. The Lobos only have two scholarship QBs on their roster, and Bob Davie told the sideline reporter after halftime that neither would be available the rest of the game due to injuries. They basically ran nothing but “wildcat” plays the rest of the way, rotating three different players at the quarterback position.

The craziest part is that it almost worked. After recovering an Air Force fumble on their own 40, New Mexico was able to drive 60 yards to take the lead in the 3rd quarter. Air Force scored on its next two possessions to take a two-score lead, but New Mexico was able to cut it to 28-23 after Kasey Carrier ran for a 37-yard TD. Another Air Force fumble gave the Lobos the ball with a chance to take the lead, but they couldn’t convert on 4th & 4 from the Air Force 12. Air Force ran out the clock after that.

I assume that Nevada (6-2) will have a quarterback when they visit Colorado Springs on Friday night.

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Army (1-5): Lost to Kent State, 31-17. Unfortunately for Army, they couldn’t turn an exciting win over Boston College into momentum for the next week. Kent State spent most of the game in the “wishbone defense” (4-4 with a single safety deep to play the pitch). It’s a very beatable scheme, but Kent State defenders were able to make up for it by winning most of the individual 1-on-1 battles. Army’s offense did a little better in the second half and actually ended up gaining more yards than Kent State, but it was too little, too late.

If there’s a silver lining for Army, it’s that their defense really didn’t play that badly. They had no answer for Dri Archer, who ran for 222 yards on only 12 carries (including an 87-yard TD run to put the game away in the 4th quarter), but Kent State only managed 84 passing yards. The defense kept Army in the game while the offense was held scoreless in the first half. Army even had a chance to make it a one-score game in the 4th quarter, but couldn’t convert on a 4th down from the Kent State 11 yard line. The game might have been even closer if Rich Ellerson didn’t make a somewhat desperate decision to go for it on 4th & 1 from his own 38 in the 3rd quarter. They failed to convert, and it led to a Kent State field goal.

My impression while watching this game was that the Army offense just had a bad day. They’ll get back on track soon enough. If their defense really is improving, then the second half of their season could get a lot more interesting.

Air Force (3-3): Beat Wyoming, 28-27. Wyoming blew a 27-14 lead and fell to 1-5. The turning point in the game came in the 3rd quarter, when Connor Dietz ran for 48 yards on a draw play on 3rd & 8 that kept alive what would become a 95-yard touchdown drive. Air Force’s defense held Wyoming to their only 3 & out after that, and the Falcons took the lead with a 16-play, 67-yard drive on the ensuing possession. Air Force’s defense continued to struggle, as the Cowboys actually out-rushed Air Force, 252-230. Wyoming was also starting a freshman backup quarterback, with starter Brett Smith out with an injury. Jason Thompson went 23-for-36 for 195 yards and a TD.

It might be a Pyrrhic victory for Air Force, depending on how badly Cody Getz is hurt. Getz left the game on the go-ahead TD drive with an ankle injury and did not return. His status for this weekend’s game against is unclear. Once upon a time that wouldn’t have been too big of a concern against New Mexico, but Bob Davie’s Lobos are born again hard and will be a big test for Air Force.

Getting more attention than the game itself is the postgame non-handshake between coaches. Dave Christensen chose instead to hurl a few choice words at Troy Calhoun. When asked about the confrontation after the game, Christensen said that he felt that the Air Force coaches told Connor Dietz to fake an injury in order to avoid having to call timeout. On what would turn out to be the game-winning drive, Dietz lost his helmet on 2nd & goal. By rule, that meant that he had to leave the game, and he started walking toward the sideline. Then, for some reason, he decided to sit down and have the trainers come look at him. Christensen claims that Air Force coaches told Dietz to sit in order to have extra time to set up the next play with his backup, Kale Pearson.

It certainly looked shady the way Dietz left the field, and there’s no doubt that the extra time was a big advantage for Air Force. If you’re on defense, you want nothing more than a backup quarterback rushed onto the field to call & run a play in that situation. I couldn’t see on television whether or not the Air Force coaches told Dietz to go down, so the coaches themselves are probably the only ones who know the truth. What we do know is that now Troy Calhoun is using the incident to reflect on the First Amendment, which makes him the biggest tool on earth regardless of whether or not he actually cheated.

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Army (1-4): Beat Boston College, 34-31. Army had 595 yards of total offense– 516 on the ground– in winning their first game of the season. BC’s defense has been terrible all year, so despite the attention-grabbing numbers, Army’s offensive output shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. The real story from this game was the play of Army’s defense, which had been every bit as bad as BC’s. They weren’t exactly good in this game either, giving up 420 yards of offense (including a 99-yard TD run). But they were good enough. Army’s defense forced 6 punts, which is a huge win for them; as well as the Army offense is playing, they only need so many stops to be able to keep the team in the game. After Army was stopped on 4th & goal from the BC 1-yard line, the Army defense forced a 3 & out that got the ball back to the offense in great field position with 1:03 left to play. Three plays later, Trent Steelman ran 29 yards for the game winner.

Boston College is a bad football team, but the rest of Army’s schedule leading up to the Navy game isn’t exactly filled with the Monsters of the Midway. Kent State is surprising, Ball State’s offense is pretty good, and Rutgers is undefeated; still, Army should be able to move the ball on all of them. If they can get even mediocre effort out of their defense, they can head into the Navy game with a few more wins. If nothing else, the Boston College game showed that at least the winning template is there.

Air Force (2-3): Anyone catch the Air Force game this week? Did I miss anything?

This Week in Service Academy Football

Army (0-4):

Q: What do you get when you combine the 2011 Army offense with the 2012 Army defense?

A:

Air Force (2-2): Beat Colorado State, 42-21. Air Force took the kickoff and came out in a no-huddle, hurry-up offense on their first drive that had the Colorado State defense all kinds of confused. It paid off with a 52-yard run by Cody Getz on a simple toss sweep that the Rams just weren’t prepared for, which set up a touchdown on the next play. On Air Force’s second drive, CSU’s safeties bit hard on play action and left Drew Coleman all alone downfield, resulting in a 53-yard TD pass. Air Force’s third drive was a 16-play, 80-yard meat grinder. CSU starting quarterback Garrett Grayson injured himself on an option run on the ensuing possession, and that was pretty much the ballgame. Backup quarterback M.J. McPeek actually played pretty well, throwing for 292 yards and two TDs. It just wasn’t enough to overcome a miserable defensive performance.

This Week in Service Academy Football

Army (0-3): Lost to Wake Forest, 49-37. Remember back in 2007, when Navy’s defense was so bad that the first time the offense didn’t “hold serve,” the game was pretty much over? That’s Army now. The Black Knights went into halftime with the lead, and Wake Forest responded with a touchdown on the opening drive of the second half to take it back. On Army’s next possession, and errant pitch gave Wake Forest the ball on the Army 25. Three plays later, Wake Forest had a two-score lead that they never relinquished.

You can make a very legitimate argument that right now, Army’s offense is playing the best out of all the service academies.  If you were to rank the defenses, though, it’d look like this: 1. Air Force 2. Navy 3. Merchant Marine 4. Coast Guard 5. Navy Sprint 6. Royal Military College of Canada club team (12 players make all the difference) 7. Army. As bad as Army’s defense is playing, though, keep one thing in mind: Navy’s lousy 2007 defense played their best games against Air Force and Army.

Air Force (1-2): Lost to UNLV, 38-35. The Falcons’ trip to Las Vegas was sort of like the Army game, with both teams’ offenses moving the ball almost at will in the first half. Air Force had the lead at halftime, but their offense wasn’t the same after losing a fumble in the third quarter. While the Falcons finished with 352 rushing yards, more than half of that total came in the first quarter. They were out-rushed by UNLV 199-172 over the last three.

The dirty little secret in service academy football is that the Air Force defense is as bad as the other two, even if perception is otherwise after they managed to keep things close against Michigan. Giving up 422 yards to Wolverines isn’t all that bad in the big picture, but Air Force also gave up 431 to Idaho State in week one. That UNLV was able to pick up almost 450 probably shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.

This was a UNLV team that was starting a freshman quarterback and was 0-3 going into the game, including a loss to Northern Arizona. They are not good. Navy fans know after last year that close losses to BCS programs don’t mean anything. If any Air Force fan didn’t learn that lesson in 2006, they have by now.

Big East hung up on 14th member

… says Brett McMurphy. He follows that up with the usual talk about BYU, Air Force, and Army. For the most part it’s everything you already know. But at the end, we get this bit:

When the Big East grows to 14, league officials already have had discussions how to split the divisions. The most popular 14-team model, sources said, would be “Red” and “Blue” divisions that are non-geographic.

The Red Division would consist of Louisville, South Florida, Connecticut, San Diego State, SMU, Navy and Memphis. The Blue Division: Cincinnati, Central Florida, Rutgers, Boise State, Houston, Temple and the 14th team.

Each team would play six league games within its division and two games against the other division, including one permanent cross-division rival game. Those annual cross-division matchups would be: Louisville-Cincinnati, USF-UCF, UConn-Rutgers, San Diego State-Boise State, SMU-Houston, Navy-Temple and Memphis versus the 14th team.

Well there’s something new to talk about.

Geography-based divisions were off the table pretty early. Neither Cincinnati or Louisville wanted to be in a “West” division, and the new conference members didn’t want to play in a division by themselves without really integrating with the “old” Big East. This is the first report we’ve seen of a possible divisional alignment, and while it’s possible that it’s subject to change, I like this setup. For Navy, anyway. We’d keep our developing rivalry with SMU (GANSZ TROPHY FOREVER!), gain a permanent presence in California, and have the fringe benefit of playing in places where there are a lot of Navy fans when we hit the road (San Diego and Memphis). I don’t mind playing Temple as our cross-divisional rival, although I might prefer Rutgers only because they’ve become more of a rival recently. That’s splitting hairs, though, since we’re no stranger to Temple either. If Air Force becomes the 14th member then it wouldn’t matter either way since we’d play them instead.

The only downside in this alignment is not having an annual game against UCF. I was hoping to start a rivalry with them, with the trophy being George O’Leary’s severed head on a stick. It’s not too late to make it happen, Big East!

What would your ideal divisions look like?

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Air Force (1-1) – Bye. I think they were supposed to play Nicholls State or something but Troy Calhoun cancelled the game because of “academics.”

Army (0-2) – Lost to Northern Illinois, 41-40. NIU’s option defense was as vanilla as it gets, lining up in a 5-man front and not giving Trent Steelman much to think about as far as reads go. Army’s offense took full advantage, running for 486 yards while Steelman, Larry Dixon, and Raymond Maples all topped the 100-yard mark individually. Even if NIU’s defense was lacking, Army gets credit for doing exactly what good offenses should do to bad defenses, and for once they did it without turning the ball over. They did put the ball on the ground three times, though, which is still troubling.

The real story of the game was the Army defense, which did not look good at all. Whenever NIU found themselves in a pickle, they just lobbed the ball downfield and let their wide receivers run past Army’s DBs to catch up to it. Four of the Huskies’ six touchdown drives consisted of five plays or less, and while one of those drives was capped by an 88-yard run by NIU quarterback Jordan Lynch, they also averaged a whopping 19 yards per completion.  The Army secondary was left in a lot of one-on-one situations and just wasn’t fast enough to keep up. It isn’t unusual for Army’s secondary to be short on speed, but in the past they have been able to make up for it somewhat by putting pressure on the quarterback. They weren’t able to do so on Saturday.

Stat of the game: TOP – Army 42:33, NIU 17:27. That’s not a lot of time to pile up 515 yards. Pretty much tells you how the game went.