Monken's Postgame Presser

[USMA76]

I watched it on Youtube and Monken didn't seem to have a lot of answers other than "we have to be better in all phases of the game." Like us, he was absolutely crushed by yesterday's disaster. IMO he's been the best coach Army's had in my lifetime but I'm honestly concerned that this may be the start of a downward trend--especially with the players we're losing. For all the great things he's done for our program, this loss to Navy was his worst performance as our coach.

Anybody else watch it and what are your thoughts?

[WrekDivr]

This loss clearly hit him hard. He took the blame and said he needed to coach better.

I wish I knew what the week of prep for this game was like. In the player interviews, Winokur seemed to imply that the team was not as focused as they should be and started to believe their own press.

[OptionThis]

I watched his post game conference and clearly Coach Monken was bereft and in the immediate aftermath of the game was emotional and searching. I also watched other post mortems that analyzed what went wrong. In none was the issue that some have raised on this board even hinted at: what impact, if any, Coach's apparent candidacies for several Power 5 jobs had on his and the team's prep for and performance at the most important game of the year.

No doubt there were other and perhaps more important causes of the debacle - the short week of prep for the game versus Navy's several, the grind Army just went through over the past month starting with the ND beatdown, Navy's unique throw back offense, the difficulty of getting up for the A/N game following the near perfect AAC Championship game performance and maybe Army was cocky and believing their incredibly fawning press over much of the season.

But, hard to imagine that being considered for, let alone apparently having interviewed for 3 Power 5 jobs in the several week run up to the A/N Game didn't have a negative impact on JM's, his staff's and the team's performance Saturday afternoon. I expect some will challenge the accuracy of the reports of his interest in the Purdue, WVU and UNC jobs but many and varied sources reported he was a finalist for and interviewed at all 3. Sal reported that if Belichick didn't take the UNC job, the Tar Heels were to pick JM. The Ex- Patriot's Coach didn't accept until just several days before the A/N game. Similar at WVA. Once the Penn State offensive coordinator took himself out of the running, per several sources the job was down to Rich Rodriguez and JM.

Hard to conjure a more disruptive background to the game than chasing 3 jobs that would double if not triple a coach's comp and allow him to possibly compete for a national championship which JM told the Athletic several weeks ago was his goal. And, not just potentially disruptive to the head coach but to his staff and team as well. Easy to guess that assistant coaches could also be distracted by their head coach's job search that, if successful, could mean the end of their jobs and/or a need to uproot themselves and families in January. Same for the team - are they at their best when they know that as they prep for Army Navy their coach is looking at those 3 schools, following similar unsuccessful efforts with Kansas, Illinois, BC , South Carolina, UVA, Duke, etc. over the past several years ?

All that said, Coach is obviously the best coach Army has been lucky to have in a generation and I hope he ends his career at West Point. In many ways he is perfect for West Point. And, the realities of his profession require that open positions need be filled quickly, publicly and at inopportune times. I also don't fault Coach's desire to seek other positions after so much and impressive service to the Army program. We want a coach who strives to be the best and is ambitious. Just saying that the search for those positions in the several weeks before the game can't be dismissed as having zero impact on the team's performance.

[wpgrad]

We lost that game by playing vs tulane and by having our coach actively in the transfer portal. That took away a 5-10% and Army doesn’t have that to give away

[rbmarmy]

The prediction was that Army could experience the same as Navy did after winning conference 2 years ago and then playing flat in A/N This transfer window appears to be an issue and rightly so. A player gets his skills improved at our exspense and then they go elsewhere. but we can not do same. From what I have read Army sports has always been a reactive catch up with the rest. rather than lead the rest. It was fairly obvious from the first series we were in trouble, and a few calls by the ref's were the only reason it was this close. Time for some real soul searching about next year.

[oldgrad74]

Coach Monken deserves to be recognized for what he has done with this Todd Berry humiliated downtrodden program. I just say thank you, thank you, thank you!

What a terrible time for he and other coaches to be distracted with interviews at other schools. It was obvious that something was very wrong with the team from the beginning. Navy was fired up and very chippy slapping at our kids on virtually every play when we were on offense. And we just took it. I was perplexed that the referees never stepped in and at least gave them a warning.

Navy obviously wanted this a whole lot more than we did. Congratulations to them and their coaching staff for a perfect game plan which included the psyops of Horvath possibly not playing.

[Oliphant]

He has been here for more than a decade.

No excuses for laying that egg. '

[monkensminion]

The bottom line is that Monken was away from practice for two days this past week interviewing for other jobs— UNC and West Virginia. That is bullshit. And I’m pissed.

[dillondobies]

He's been great for sure, but was greatly outcoached by a second-year coach. There comes a time in everyone's life to move on, and this may be the time.

[WrekDivr]

The bottom line is that Monken was away from practice for two days this past week interviewing for other jobs— UNC and West Virginia. That is bullshit. And I’m pissed.

Count me as a huge Monken fan. And I agree with this 100%.