Great win vs AF

[Coach MC]

Really an amazing turn of events last weekend. I was not able to catch the first half Saturday. When I checked my phone it was 17-0 at the end of the 1st quarter. I thought momentarily that they had the score reversed. But Army played a really solid game on the road against a good opponent. As JM said in the post game interview, we needed this one badly. Does kind of refer to what I said a while back though that when service academy teams get together, you can almost throw out the records because these teams do have many of the same philosophies and are so familiar with one another. But where was this Army team most of the year?! Felt really good to watch this type of football, and I was glad for our kids, they were so pumped up after the game.

Watched the second half, and although it was a snooze fest offensively, we looked like a different team on defense and special teams. Guys were flying to the ball, staying assignment sound, and really disciplined in their run fits. Not as many missed tackles, and to force 6 turnovers is unreal. We have needed that type of effort from the defense all season to carry us considering the inefficiency of the new offense most games. Defensively, we shut down the B back dive play, and that has really been the hallmark of the AF running game these last few years. They had no answers, and we made a top 25 team look bad. What did our coaching staff do differently to prepare for this game, or was the idea of playing a hated rival and top 25 team incentive enough to engender this type of performance?

Once we had that big lead, yes we did get ultra conservative and revert back to our old single wing/modern day wildcat approach. Watching Daily run 36 times, mostly on QB keep with no one else even an option, was tough at times, but I do understand the philosophy in the moment. They were taking no chances. Daily still needs to develop the ability to throw to different levels of the field with touch and accuracy, but he's a tough kid and runs hard. He also seems like a leader. Good we could get Harris a few reps in that environment as well.

Hopefully, no let downs after this, and we use the AF game as a springboard for the remainder of the season. Winning the CIC outright would really be a great accomplishment, but by no means can we spin that to mean we accomplished our goals this season. CIC, winning record, bowl should all be part of the equation. The ULM, BC, UMass games were there for the taking, but BC has actually turned out to be a pretty good team at 6-3, so there's no shame there other than we should have won. I've said before this year was a perfect storm: very tough schedule with three P5 teams in a month, several games played in very inclement weather, radically new offense, new additions to coaching staff. I guess my question is which is the real Army team? The one we saw against Troy or UMass, or the one that beat UTSA and AF? Perhaps somewhere in between. And I also have to say that sometimes a difficult schedule can make your team much tougher, even if the record doesn't reflect it. With the exception of Wyoming and Colorado State, who are both not on the level of any P5s, AF has played a soft schedule while we played some really good teams. That prepared us. Some years, even when their record was poor, I knew Navy would be a tough out because they played a tough AAC schedule when that league was good.

We return quite a few players on both sides of the ball with extensive experience next year, including quite a few at the skilled positions and the top two QBs on the depth chart. There will also be a year in the books with the new offensive alignment. That should be a cause for optimism no matter what the schedule looks like. But I'm certainly not ready to turn the page yet. Really hope our group finishes strong. I am very anxious to see how we handle these next 3 games. I think that will tell us a lot about the state of the program.