That was ugly...

[gabn92]

Like most (all?) of us, I figured this was going to be a bloodbath...but it was worse than I imagined it could have been. I think I predicted 56-6, but was hoping we might find a way to hold them under 50.

To lose 62-0 was an utter failure and embarrassment for this program. Nothing is working. Army looked like a JV squad out there, not competitive in any phase of the game.

While there have been frustrating points of every game except for Delaware State, there were also some glimmers of hope and some good things:

1) We literally snatched defeat from the jaws of victory against ULM...there was enough there to win...they just didn't execute.

2) The UTSA game was a very good performance overall: zero turnovers, zero penalties, 400+ yards of offense...

3) Had the lead in the 4th quarter against BC, a team that seems to be improving as the season goes along...

4) Moved the ball at times against Syracuse

But now, 8 quarters of scoreless football...sloppy play, multiple turnovers, inability to move the ball with any consistency. Losing Daily is a factor, but for a program to have that much of a dropoff from QB1 to QB2 (and 3 and 4), that is an indictment on the coaches.

Next week is a winnable game...hope the coaches can figure out how to get some things straightened out and find a way to move the ball.

[wpgrad]

Yesterday was in large part thr culmination of our genius scheduling of 3 power 5’s plus 2 very good G5 teams 5 straight opponents

This is what we’d look like in the AAC

[Oliphant]

Have you seen the current AAC? It is batting under .400 against fellow G5 teams.

Our schedule was hardly a murderer's row.

[ARMORMAN]

Sorry, not sorry.

Yesterday was not about scheduling. Yesterday was a Complete Systems Failure.

gabn92 was spot-on accurate: We looked like a JV team, and we were not competitive, period. It was worse than embarrassing, it was downright humiliating. The LSU players, sensing that we were 100% not competitive, literally began laughing and celebrating after the first quarter, for crissake. The announcers were doing their best to try and make this "contest" seem relevant, but they too resorted to jokes and side stories. I just hate it when they "compensate" for Army's lack of solid play by saying how patriotic or how dedicated we are to a larger cause. Of course we are, but that doesn't cover or explain or justify the horrid field performance.

Many of us have rightfully harped on the offense, which went scoreless for the second straight week yesterday, (here's an aside: last time we went scoreless 2 straight weeks was during Berry's famous 0 and 13 season...) but in case anyone's not paying attention, our "defense" got absolutely torched........again. Gun vs Triple is getting all the oxygen, understandably, but our defense went AWOL in the second half vs Syracuse, the first half and the last 2 minutes vs BC, the entire game vs Troy (sorry, "holding" them to 4 FG's and a TD doesn't count as good; they still put up 400+ yards and literally ran at will) and the entire game vs LSU.

I think it's fair to say that one is related to the other; in other words, part of the triple option strategy was to grind out 8 and 9 minute drives, 3 and 4 yards at a time, and keep the opposition offense off the field. That way, our defense (usually outmanned) is fresher and knows they only need a couple or maybe three stops and we are in the game to the 4th quarter. But 3 and out with the gun don't work down heah law dog. 4 turnovers don't work down heah. Crappy passing, crappy blocking, fumbling, and eventually, resorting to ONE play - Udoh up the gut - to gain ANY yards until they stack him, don't go down heah. Eventually and almost inevitably, it seems like our despondent D became as bad as our O.

So yeah, Total Systems failure (unless you count no shanked punts for once).

And that's on Coach Monken. Sorry.

LSU was very good, no doubt. JM said they were "fantastic" and "NFL" caliber. Dunno about that. Either way, they deserved to win, no doubt. BUT NOT SIXTY-TWO TO FREAKING NUTHING. More trivia: When were we last beaten that bad? Uh, you guessed it, Berry's 0 and 13 year. I think the score was 51 to 0 vs navy. Sorry, the similarities are piling up: Ditch the triple and go for wide open fields....

I've been JM's strongest supporter, and I still am, but fair is fair: he owns this fiasco, just like he owned winning the Lambert Trophy (which now seems like forever ago). And the worst part is that if speculation is correct, and he made this switch to be more marketable for a Power 5 job, then he bet the ranch with us on the table. Or maybe the worst part is that there's no way out now. He's got to ride this lame pony through this year and likely through next year before he can cry "Uncle" and bring us back to the future with the offense we hired him to run here.

Finally, and again sorry, the "cut block" excuse don't hold water as long as air force continues to ram their triple down everyone's throats. They looked awesome yesterday, again. Total Systems are Green, and their coaching staff, starting with Calhoun, are ridiculously more experienced and tenured in every position group, so their players are naturally better skilled and more effective. They found a way to score yesterday, on a long pass which is invariably available to a triple team when the D starts sneakin up. And now they are on track to go undefeated if they can beat CSU next week, be the best G5 team in the nation, and get to a New Year's Day bowl. Not too shabby, for a triple-option team.

They will own us in 2 weeks, and win the CIC again, as they deserve to. They never seem to be their own worst enemy, as we do. They just reload their HC every decade or so (Hatfield, DeBerry, Calhoun) after they have taken a secret blood oath not to screw with what freaking works!

I really hope I am dead wrong about most of all the above. After we beat a miserable UMass team, I hope we don't lose out the rest of the year and end up 3 and 9. Minimum, I hope we can find some ridiculous way to beat the squids, like we did last year. And I hope by some miracle that this dumpster fire of an offense ends up being effective and we don't need the triple....

(But then, a couple of years ago also hoped the country wasn't blind or stupid enough to elect biden and harris to our nation's highest office,,,so my track record of hoping sucks).

Out.

[RABBLE]

Today I just looked at my avatar on this forum with a picture of our coach and myself at the annual Army Football Club golf outing and dinner a few years back as an invited guest of a friend of mine, the former QB of Army, Tory Crawford.
A wonderful day and evening I had with my oldest son and me as I chatted with Coach Monken in the Kimsey Center for a few minutes after dinner.
Coach was the kindest, most gentle and most intelligent person I have ever met in my life as we talked about the history of academy football As I learned after nearly 8 decades of following my favorite sports team to an old Army fan whose love for Army Football, the former players I met that evening and the entire program as it has always existed for me.
The reason or reasons why he has now changed his offense this year is no concern to me except to say it was, in his mind, to help the program get better. i still believe that today.
I must admit it is not going the way coach, myself or any Army fan would agree that the progress we have attained so far is deficient. Give it time. I'm sure the coach will know whether this system will eventually work out for the best.
Rough times? Of course, but please with all due respect to coach and to all of us, give it time.
Remember, we have all been down this road before. We WILL be back. We ALWAYS have.

[Oliphant]

This is the football equivalent of December 1776.

Hopefully, Monken can pull Trenton and Princeton out of thin air.

[ithurtstowatch]

It will continue to be ugly until we go back under center, hire a professional offensive line coach, and start running a unique-to-most-of-college-football offense called the TRIPLE OPTION. No team needs to put in ANY extra work to get ready for the faster-than-the-scout-team-can-run offense that we used to bring to the game (I understand that under Brent Davis at the end the offense became the quarterback run left and run right and I agree that it wasn't working properly). We should have beaten Oklahoma and Michigan just a few short years ago using that scheme. Now we are just a really bad offense running the same offense that every other freaking team runs and we do it at hardly an FCS level. This is truly hard to watch now. It makes us look weak and pathetic. Another year or another 5 years will not make our offense, which is the same as everybody else's offense, any better. I hope that Monken can see this and will scrap this failed experiment mid-season, but I know the best I can hope for is the off-season. It looks like we are headed back into the dark ages of Army football and it makes me sick to see it coming after we have had such great success recently.

[PrideandDream]

That is exactly correct!

The only thing I'd add is find coordinator with significant triple/flexbone experience. That and a professional O line coach are the two things that have to happen to get back on track.

This whole experiment will struggle regardless of the amount of time in the system or changes to recruiting. We could schedule a ton of total bottom feeders I suppose but then again that's what ULM is.

Football at its core is about controlling the ball. It's a massive game of keep away first. Because you can't score without the ball. And if that is the objective of the game then your strategy to win has to start with offense because that is where you control the ball the most. Armorman is correct that defense has had its share of struggles and could be better. But the losses outside of LSU are really about the ineffective offense not controlling the ball and hence the clock and their ability to complete long drives.

Remember when Monken beat Florida at GA Southern and never threw a pass? We had better find a way to get back to that style of football and fast.

PD

[kfan12]

Sorry, not sorry.

I've been JM's strongest supporter, and I still am, but fair is fair: he owns this fiasco, just like he owned winning the Lambert Trophy (which now seems like forever ago). And the worst part is that if speculation is correct, and he made this switch to be more marketable for a Power 5 job, then he bet the ranch with us on the table. Or maybe the worst part is that there's no way out now. He's got to ride this lame pony through this year and likely through next year before he can cry "Uncle" and bring us back to the future with the offense we hired him to run here.

Though I agree with most everything you posted last, I sincerely doubt this.

[ARMORMAN]

Inside sources, but once again kfan...


I hope I am dead wrong.