The Streak is over, folks.  I mean, it is well and truly dead.  Yes, Navy won 14 games in a row at one point, but your Army Black Knights have now established their own winning precedent, having taken four out of the last five.  

That obviously includes yesterday’s 15-0 shutout.

This was Army’s first shutout in this game since 1969, and if it was by no means the prettiest football you’ll ever see, it was still indicative of how much things have changed.  Bottom line, Army is now the deeper team — at virtually every position — while Navy has become reliant on a few highly-talented guys at key positions.  This is a complete reversal from the years of the Streak, and like the Navy coaches from those years did, this year’s Army coaching staff showed time and again that they were more than willing to ride all their little advantages to victory yesterday.

The sweetest shutout.

First since 1969 for Army in the @ArmyNavyGame, presented by @USAA.#GoARMY | #BEATnavy pic.twitter.com/NtOJdgZx67

— Army Football (@ArmyWP_Football) December 12, 2020

 

The Fight for Field Position

As we said during the run-up to this game, Army had arguably its most commanding advantage on special teams.  Thus, the Black Knights came in with a spectacularly simple game plan — play good defense, win the field position battle on kicks and kick coverage, and wait for Navy’s young quarterback to make a mistake.  By comparison, the Mids wanted to play good defense to keep them in the game until their young quarterback could harness his outsized athletic ability to break one big play.  This might force Army to take some chances, creating more opportunities as the game wore on.

Both teams showed an uncanny patience, both by design and because it was a wet, foggy game played with a slippery oblong ball.  Army won the early field position battle, gaining 5 to 10 yards on every exchanged punt.  This eventually put them in plus territory, where they took their only downfield shot of the game.  Yearling QB Tyhier Tyler hit SB Tyrell Robinson down the sideline for 28 yards, setting up a field goal.

Those were the only points of the entire first half.

When the second half opened, though, Navy finally got their offensive breakthrough.  It came on a 51-yard run by QB Xavier Arline off a standard Quarterback Zone play of the type both teams ran all night long.  This time, finally, Arline slipped a tackle at the line of scrimmage, very nearly taking it to the house. 

Navy had 1st-and-goal from the 2-yard-line, but Army’s defense held firm, and a field goal in that spot wasn’t going to force Army’s out of its game plan.  The Mids had to go for it.  But Army’s defensive line stonewalled the charge at the line of scrimmage, and LB Jon Rhattigan shot the gap, pulling on Navy FB Nelson Smith even as he hit that stout wall of Army defenders.

No points, plus it was Army’s ball.

In the words of Gen. Walker during the Pusan Perimeter Defense in the Korean War.

"We will fight as a team. I want everyone to understand we are going to hold this line. We are going to WIN."

Army's goal line stand was a turning point.#GoARMY | #BEATnavy pic.twitter.com/yLhaIVbCxe

— Army Football (@ArmyWP_Football) December 13, 2020

Army’s offense won almost 10 yards on the ensuing series and then went straight back to the field position game, again winning 5 to 10 yards on every exchanged punt.  The Black Knights gained just 162 yards of total offense yesterday, but they punted 7 times against Navy’s 8 Navy and stole an average of 7 yards on every exchange.  That gave them another 56 or so yards of total field position — arguably the decisive edge in the contest.  It’s why Army was able to attempt three field goals in a game in which they barely moved the ball.  Navy only got into plus territory once.

After a near disastrous fumble on an Army pitch, we finally saw the critical Navy mistake.  This was the one Head Coach Jeff Monken and company had been playing for all game long, and it cost the Mids the game.  They fumbled a pitch deep in their own territory, Army recovered, and that set up the Black Knights lone touchdown — and this game’s wild finish.

"I am so proud of this team."

"We followed the plan down to the last line. Don't flinch. Always believe you are gonna win."

– @CoachJeffMonken #GoARMY | #BEATnavy pic.twitter.com/tCW4NsMChY

— Army Football (@ArmyWP_Football) December 13, 2020

Offensively, the best thing we can say about this Army team is that they played safe, solid football while taking advantage of the opportunities in front of them.  Army gained just 162 yards of total offense, including 134 yards rushing.  They went just 4/14 on 3rd downs, and they even punted once on 4th-and-1 in plus territory.  This showed more than any other single thing exactly how conservatively the coaching staff was playing it in this game.  They also took exactly one shot down the field despite the fact that Navy played the entire game with their safeties right at the line of scrimmage.  The passing game was there, but Army never went back to it.  Beyond that, we saw maybe one  — nearly disastrous! —  pitch and a lot of quarterback zone runs, one of which QB Tyhier Tyler eventually broke for 28 yards.  Still, this was very much a game of inches rather than of explosive plays.

It worked because the staff knew they could ride this defense.  Army’s Bad Boys did exactly what they had to do.  They bottled up Navy’s offensive playmaker, FB Nelson Smith, who finished with just 11 carries for all of 23 yards, they broke up the single Navy pass that was actually on target, they stood the Mids up at the goal line late in the 3rd quarter when it looked like things might finally be starting to break Navy’s way, and they actually recovered the fumble after that telltale Navy mistake — the one Army’s coaches had waited for all game long.  Oh by the way, they also forced a safety once Navy got desperate.  Really, outside of that single long run to get down to the goal line, Navy’s offense did pretty much nothing all game long.  The fact that they couldn’t score with 1st-and-goal from the 2-yard-line tells you all you need to know about this game, including why Army’s coaches felt confident enough to let the outcome ride on the play of their defense and special teams.

"It told the team that this is our house"

Army senior LB Amadeo West talks about getting to play in the first Army-Navy game at Michie Stadium since 1943

(via @GoArmyWestPoint) pic.twitter.com/kGw4eUBezO

— SNY (@SNYtv) December 13, 2020

 

Navy’s Longest Day

The weekend started early for me, if you’re wondering.  We drove up to Mount Snow late Thursday, stayed overnight, hit the slopes for the first time this season late Friday morning, and then drove home afterwards.  Southern Vermont saw a little snow late last week, which meant that we had decent conditions on the mountain.  This inspired my buddy Josh and me to hit the ungroomed side on the North Face and Chute, a trail populated this particular week by massive two-foot “snowmaking whales” interspersed with occasional sheets of ice.  I executed one truly spectacular faceplant off one of those whales, slid forward on my chest into another whale, and then felt my snowboard flip back up and over my head, creating a full-on alpine scorpion.  Josh laughed so hard, he was mad he didn’t get a picture.

It was not pretty.  Thank God for regular yoga practice, or I’d have been in a world of hurt.

While I was still sleeping that off late Friday night, the Brigade of Midshipmen was up at two in the morning to catch late-night buses up to West Point for yesterday’s game.  This had to be the saddest day many of those poor bastards had ever seen.  They’d been up more than thirteen hours when we finally hit kickoff, often in the rain, and they then watched their team get slowly throttled in a cold, clammy fogbank.  

They then got directly back onto those buses — presumably wet — for the long, lonely ride back to Annapolis.  Outside of one long run by their young quarterback, their team hadn’t really done much to make that trip worthwhile.

?: twitterless Danny Wild pic.twitter.com/5do0B5p1rE

— Inside & Outside Army (@InOutArmy) December 13, 2020

 

Beat Air Force!

So.  Army now hosts Air Force for the Commander-in-Chief’s trophy at Michie Stadium next weekend.  The Corps will be gone, but Army’s offense ought to look quite a bit sharper.  They’ve come out of bye weeks looking rusty all season, and this week was no exception.  If nothing else, I expect they’ll block a little better next week, setting up a far more diverse offense.  I also expect we’ll see a decidedly less conservative offensive attack coupled to a less conservative gameplan overall.  That might make a significant difference in the final stat-line.  

With that said, if Army can again bottle up the fullback, they have every chance to get another win in a low-scoring field position battle next weekend, though that is by no means the only way they can win.

I guess we’ll see.

Army has been running teams over for a long, long time…

They've rushed for 100+ yards in 160 straight games.

The next longest active streak is Air Force at 33 games. pic.twitter.com/wKsNvIXote

— CBS Sports HQ (@CBSSportsHQ) December 12, 2020

One down. one to go.

Next week, it's for the CIC ?. #GoARMY | #BEATnavy | #BEATairfoce pic.twitter.com/pA56SoGn7d

— Army Football (@ArmyWP_Football) December 13, 2020

Go Army!  Beat Air Force!!!