Army hosts San José State looking to break 3-game slide
WEST POINT, N.Y. >> Army’s threeseason run of respectability is being challenged. Returning home to play at Michie Stadium might just be what the Black Knights need as they seek to break a three-game skid.
“It’s nice to come back home,” Army coach Jeff Monken said. “Michie Stadium has been really good to our program recently. It’s just a great source of pride to play in front of the Corps (of Cadets) and to be here in this historic stadium.”
Since losing five straight to complete a 2-10 season four years ago, Army (3-4) has gone 15-2 at home and hosts San Jose State of the Mountain West Conference on Saturday. The Spartans (3-4) are coming off a 2717 homecoming loss to San Diego State , their second straight setback.
“I think they’re a really good football team and I think they play their best football at home,” San Jose State coach Brent Brennan said. “The cadets in the stands and the environment there that they’ve created by rebuilding a winning football program makes it incredibly challenging.”
The Black Knights won 29 games under Monken from 201618, the most wins in a three-year span in academy history and the best performance since the heyday of Earl Blaik, who won two national championships in the mid-1940s, stringing together three straight unbeaten seasons with one tie.
Last year’s squad finished 112, an academy record for wins in a season. That all seems like
the distant past now. Tulane snapped Army’s 15-game winning streak at Michie Stadium three weeks ago to start the slide, and road losses to Western Kentucky and Georgia State followed.
For senior Elijah Riley, besides all the injuries, missed blocks, and turnovers, there’s another reason, and it’s tied to the team’s recent success.
“I think, as opposed to years in the past, teams are really preparing to play us,” said Riley, named this week as a semifinalist for the Jim Thorpe Award, given annually to the top defensive back in the country. “We’re not going to surprise anybody this year. If Army is on the schedule, in the past it would have been, Army, no big deal. Now, it’s like, OK, we’re playing Army. They’re a legit team. We’ve got to give them everything we’ve got.”
All of the losses this season have come against teams that now stand at 5-2 and have placed Army in a tough spot if it hopes to play in a bowl game for a fourth straight year.
“The most important
thing is to play our brand of fundamental football,” Monken said. “Football is blocking and tackling. We have to do that as well as we are capable of doing it. If we do it as well as we are capable of doing it, it will be good enough.”
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
Army’s triple option tends to create close games because it usually dominates the clock, making each possession critical for opponents, and the Black Knights have excelled in close encounters. In the previous three seasons they were involved in 16 games decided by seven points or fewer and won 11 of them, going 3-1 in overtime. This year, they’re 1-2, including a doubleovertime loss at then-No. 7 Michigan.
Just how close has it been this year? Army has outscored its seven opponents by just 28 points (180-152). Throw out its Championship Subdivision win over Morgan State (52-21) and it’s pretty much a dead heat — 128131 — the difference Michigan’s game-winning field goal in extra time.