Wanna read the most comprehensive explanation

[OldTac]

My dear Dad, Class of '49 and now in Heaven, took one of my brothers, now deceased, our parish priest and me to that game. I was 10 years old.

I remember that Jim O'Toole pass to Joe Albano clear as a bell, 55 years later. A simple down and out. Albano broke a tackle, lost one of his cleats, but got it to Navy's 10 and the great Charlie Jarvis took it in on the next play for his third TD, redeeming himself and the Cadets from that devastating '67 fumble and loss.

We drove home listening to Notre Dame and Theismann vs. USC.

My favorite A-N since I started following them in '66 (another great one!).

Go Army, Beat Navy!

[ARMORMAN]

Great reminiscences!

[PrideandDream]

Well how we feeling about this new offense now?

Before you respond with any of the most common excuses like:

"Monken needs time to get his recruits for this style"
"The most improvement is between week 1 and week 2"
"It takes time to learn the system and turn the tide"

While all three of those might have some real truth to them the reality is that we just played a ULM team that has had 2 winning seasons since 1980 and one of those was 2012 coached by Todd Berry keep it in perspective.

PD

[Dong Fong '09]

I’ve said this before, the only way we could be worse offensively this year was if we turned the ball over. Multiple interceptions in the red zone cost us points and that fumble later in the game killed us.

Seemed like we started to get things going in the third quarter, and can hopefully build on that. Need to protect the balls and score toucdowns

when our plays developed quickly we seemed to move the ball. The slow developing play in the backfield not as much.

[ArmyRoadFan7]

Well how we feeling about this new offense now?

Before you respond with any of the most common excuses like:

"Monken needs time to get his recruits for this style"
"The most improvement is between week 1 and week 2"
"It takes time to learn the system and turn the tide"

While all three of those might have some real truth to them the reality is that we just played a ULM team that has had 2 winning seasons since 1980 and one of those was 2012 coached by Todd Berry keep it in perspective.

PD

Talk to your boy. He was the only one saying that the offense was going to work.

[ARMORMAN]

To answer your question P&D, if that game was an accurate sample of "the new offense", I was utterly underwhelmed and unimpressed.

- There was precious little ball distribution to our faster or more powerful runners, which was and is inexplicable to me. Why have Daily run the ball over and over and over when you have faster or more powerful runners? Daily is not a bad runner, but he's just not the best we have and they started keying on him. Besides, what did he get, 25 or 30 inside carries??? He'll get hurt that way; 100%.
- There was no "option" evident. We didn't fake one carrier and pitch very often, if at all. Where is the deception or misdirection? Even when Daily did fake to another runner, he frequently followed him into the same hole, not even outside it a little! Yeah, you get another blocker, but the D quickly just adjusts and stuffs more guys in there. Come on! This ain't complicated....it's physics...
- When we DID go outside with jet sweeps or a quick toss, Marshall got huge yardage. 40 or 45 on each carry! But we didn't capitalize. Our playbook said, "Daily inside". WTF????
- When we did throw a quick slant to Alston, we got 15 yards 2 or 3 times.
- We seem ridiculously fumble-averse by not pitching or quick-tossing. Unable or unwilling to take risk. The irony is that we turned it over 5 times anyway!
- The O line was not dominant. We moved the pile somewhat, sometimes, but not to the point where we could and should have run the same inside play over and over and over. As you have pointed out time and again P&D, perhaps this is our biggest problem.... Getting heavier doesn't solve lack of execution.... What's the problem? Missed assignments? Bad fundamentals?
- The offense generated a grand total of THREE points on their own. That alone speaks volumes to the ineffectiveness and/or play-calling of this system. We scored 3 points on a very bad team.
- Ball security??? Where did that concept go??? 5 turnovers for crissake. Daily had 3 himself. Unacceptable!!
- We punted on 4th and 1 from midfield late in the game. What!!!??? Is there a better way to say to your players, your opponent, and everyone watching "We have zero confidence in this offense"??? Punting on 4th and 1 from midfield says it all. It may have been the right call, because I think we stopped em on their next possession, but still, punting on 4th and 1 from midfield speaks volumes, and not in a good way.

Once again, if this is an accurate sample, this "offense" was a huge step backwards. Cut-blocking or no, a true under-center TRIPLE option, where the QB READS and REACTS, where the line fires out, and where we have counters and/or reverses to stifle defensive flow, would have likely been way more successful.

I said "if this is an accurate sample" 3 times. I hope and pray it is not. I hope Jeff has a heart-to-heart with Thatcher. Jeff deserves our faith, as I've said all along. None of us knew what this offense would look like, we just trusted our HC. Still do. I hope there's more and better plays to come; if not, we are in for big trouble and this program just took a large step back to the post-Sutton days, because we're like the pig at breakfast, we're committed...

The Defense almost pulled this out for us, like special teams did vs navy last year, but they wore down with 5 minutes left. The offense was totally AWOL, again. Despite a new coordinator and a completely new system, we had no offense. I'm very disappointed and discouraged. Berry and Davis must have been laughing their asses off.

[PrideandDream]

I think the lack of creativity was most interesting to me. We all know the turnovers are a death knell. I just didn't see us creating much confusion for the defense with misdirection or options that put the defender in conflict. Maybe there's more to it and maybe we get better over time but what I saw last night was uninspiring and I can't get away from the fact that we've had a lot of hype to hear about this new offense and then they don't score a single touchdown.

I damn sure hope we beat Delaware State.

PD

[gabn92]

Turnovers, mistakes, not going for it on 4th and 1...Army beat themselves. Even as disappointing as the new offensive scheme was, the defense played well enough for most of the game to get the win. Fell apart in the end and not helped with that TD pass call, but should have never been in that position except for the special teams penalty which was in effect a 6th turnover.

The offense looked so SLOW to me for most of the night. No "snap" or crispness. Most plays were very slow in developing. Are we trying some kind of "slow mesh", but without the talent to pull it off? The playcalling was uninspiring...very conservative (playing not to lose vs. playing to win) like we don't trust the players. And maybe there's good reason for that, given all the turnovers.

Missed Robinson and his game-breaking speed for sure.

Feeling like there's not much hope for this season based on what the team showed last night, but that's emotion speaking (I hope). It was a bad night for sure, but it was 1 game.

[kfan12]

Good article

https://www.recordonline.com/story/spor ... 683688007/

[Oliphant]

I think the lack of creativity was most interesting to me. We all know the turnovers are a death knell. I just didn't see us creating much confusion for the defense with misdirection or options that put the defender in conflict. Maybe there's more to it and maybe we get better over time but what I saw last night was uninspiring and I can't get away from the fact that we've had a lot of hype to hear about this new offense and then they don't score a single touchdown.

I damn sure hope we beat Delaware State.

PD

Del State lost to Division II Bowie State