This post marks the fourth and final entry in our series previewing Army’s 2024 opponents heading into summer training camp. Head Coach Jeff Monken told his team this past spring that he wants to get back to a bowl game and win it. To do that, he and his team will have to play consistent, winning football all season long.
This promises to be an interesting season for the Black Knights. They are transitioning back to an under-center triple-option offense but retaining the zone blocking scheme that they developed to run the triple-option out of the shotgun last year. This will be a new thing, at least in the details, but it ought to at least a bit look more like what Air Force has been doing over the past decade and much less like what Navy will be trying to do going forward. That’s doubly true now that the Mids are implementing a Hybrid Wing-T offense ahead of next season.
Why does this matter?
Because the Black Knights join conference play this year as part of the American Athletic Conference, and they also play Notre Dame. So a lot of teams will play both Army and Navy in 2024. The default assumption, at least among many fans and perhaps a few coaching staffs, too, seems to be that if you’ve seen one service academy offense, you’ve seen all of them. However, that is not going to be the case this season, both because these offenses will all have markedly different blocking schemes and because, conceptually, Army and Navy won’t necessarily be using the same overall base concepts.
I mean, sure, it’s all Option Football. That’s still true. But that’s also true of three-quarters of college football generally. Within that framework, however, Army and Navy will each need to carve their own offensive identities if they want to succeed against common opponents.
If you missed the first three parts of this series, you can find part one here, part two here, and part three here.
Nov. 16: BYE
The second half of this season promises some challenging games. However, it also offers potentially three late bye weeks. The Black Knights have a bye before the Air Force game, and then they have this bye, which comes before they meet the Fighting Irish at Yankee Stadium. The final bye presumes that they’re not playing in the American Athletic Conference Championship Game ahead of Army-Navy.
Saturday, Nov. 23: Notre Dame Fighting Irish Football at Yankee Stadium
Notre Dame finished 10-3 last year with strong wins over most of their schedule but losses to all of the top-level teams, the teams they needed to beat to make a run at the College Football Playoff. This year, the Irish open with a road game at Texas A&M, but they won’t face another legit test after that until they meet Florida State on November 9th. They then play Virginia the week before traveling to the Bronx to meet the Black Knights.
At worst, we can expect Notre Dame to come into the Army game 8-2, but honestly, anything less than 9-1 should be considered a severe disappointment for a team that most prognosticators have at least making it into the newly expanded College Football Playoff. If you’re Notre Dame, you’re trying to win a championship, full stop. At a bare minimum, then, they’d like to host a home playoff game under the new format.
Irish Head Coach Marcus Freeman said that Duke transfer QB Riley Leonard would’ve started for the team in the Spring Game had it counted. Leonard went 95/165 passing last year (57.6%) for the Blue Devils for 1,102 yards, 3 touchdowns, and 3 interceptions against 7 sacks. He also ran 58 times for 352 (6.1 yards/carry!) and 4 touchdowns. Friends, that is a wild set of stats for a would-be Notre Dame quarterback.
Will they really let this kid keep it that much on the Zone-Read?
Most of the excitement around the team right now focuses on the offense, but Notre Dame ought to have at least two breakout linebackers, Drayk Bowen and Jaylen Sneed. All other factors aside, that will matter a lot against the Black Knights.
“Just enjoy it. It goes by really, really fast. It’s an unbelievable opportunity to be the quarterback at Notre Dame, and something I’ll never take for granted. I think you just have to enjoy it. By the snap of your fingers, he’ll be standing right here doing this and he’ll be like, ‘Where did the time go?’ ”
— Former ND QB Sam Hartman when asked what advice he’d give to Riley Leonard this season.
Early in the offseason, Omar Borja wrote for AFF that “Army-Notre Dame Should Be a Showcase Game for NBC.” The network took that advice, so we ought to see a metric ton of nostalgic hoopla heading in this game. The Black Knights therefore have a very real opportunity to make a statement on the national stage if they can somehow find a way to win this one.
Saturday, Nov. 30: UTSA Roadrunners
UTSA finished 9-4 last season but an outstanding 7-1 in the American Athletic Conference. Against all odds, Roadrunners Head Coach Jeff Traylor has built a legit machine out in San Antonio in just his first four years with the program.
This ought to be a fascinating season for the Roadrunners. They’ve lost eternal starting QB Frank Harris, and he’s not the kind of guy they can necessarily replace with The Next Man Up. However, they bring back QBs Eddie Lee Marburger and Owen McCown, both of whom looked good at times last season. Then-freshman McCown in particular led the team to a 35-17 come-from-behind win over a very good Marshall team in the Frisco Bowl.
This team also brings back a good bit of experience, especially on defense. With that in mind, it’s maybe no surprise that the defense seemingly dominated the offense throughout most of this year’s Orange and Blue Game. Despite losing LB Trey Moore and S Rashaad Wisdom, this defense looks to be a force next season. That’s not the way we might’ve bet given how important Moore and Wisdom were for the Roadrunners over the years.
“The grit of that team, to be down 14 to nothing — I bet if all the Roadrunner fans were honest, a bunch of ’em were probably ready to give up. Those kids just won’t ever go away.”
— UTSA Coach Jeff Traylor after coming back to beat Marshall in last year’s bowl game. Athlon Sports named Traylor the top coach in the American Conference late last month.
UTSA almost always wins when they can stop the run. Last year, they gave up 200+ yards of rushing just three times — to Army, to Tennessee, and to Tulane. They lost all three of those games. Run defense will most likely decide this year’s game will as well. If Army can get its offense going, the Black Knights will probably beat the Roadrunners once again. If UTSA can hold the triple-option to something under 3.5 yards/carry, then the Roadrunners will even this series at two games apiece.
Dec. 6: American Conference Championship
In the ideal scenario, Army plays Navy in the Conference Championship and then again in the Army-Navy Game the following week. Beyond that, let’s note that the stated goal this season is to get back to a bowl game and win it.
Conference championships are great, but let’s not lose focus on the here-and-now.
Work begins now for Fall 2024 💪💪 pic.twitter.com/euG8Ju3N7j
— Army Football (@ArmyWP_Football) June 7, 2024
Dec. 14: Army-Navy at FedEx Field
Navy finished last season 5-7, 4-4 in the American Conference. All things considered, that was amazing. The Mids offense looked terrible for long stretches last season, and yet they somehow kept it close against Memphis and eked out a win against a solid offensive team from North Texas. And yet, they also somehow lost to Temple and looked utterly hopeless at home against Air Force. That made for a strange first season for then newly-minted Head Coach Brian Newberry.
Bottom line: this team has been very good on defense, but their offense hasn’t been good — at all — since 2019. They made that problem worse last year by experimenting with some young quarterbacks in high leverage situations.
The Mids now have a new Offensive Coordinator in Drew Cronic, formerly from Mercer, and they’re going to what they’re calling a Hybrid Wing-T.
“It’s going to be a hybrid Wing-T offense, but it’s going to marry up with the triple-option and it’s going to marry up with the spread option. You may see a few RPOs here and there. It all depends on what the defense is giving us and what the players do well.”
The Mids return quite a bit of defensive production this season, and given what we’ve seen from Coach Newberry, they ought to again be good on that side of the ball. They’re also returning FB Alex Tecza. Tecza ran for 758 yards, 5 touchdowns, and 6.0 yards/carry last season.
Early returns note that the offense has broken a lot of big plays in spring camp this season. But big plays weren’t really the problem last year. Navy’s problem was moving the chains and maintaining consistent offense. We’ll see how that goes in 2024. Their success or failure at consistently moving the chains will more than likely determine their success overall.
Independence Bowl
Army’s official bowl tie-in this season is with the Independence Bowl, currently slated for December 28th at 8:15 pm on ESPN.
Get back to a bowl game and win it. That’s the goal.
Army fans have an exciting season ahead of them. That all starts at Michie Stadium the Friday before Labor Day.
We’ll see you there!
Go Army! Beat Lehigh!!!
Cover image via Flickr: West Point – The U.S. Military Academy. Army battles Navy in the 124th Army Navy Game presented by USAA on Dec. 9, 2023. Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Massachusetts. U.S. Army photo by CDT Eli Wright.
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