Alright, everybody, calm the Hell down. My God, some of you guys need to take a breath and back away from your keyboards. We don’t know what Coach Monken said to the team or to his coaching staff after last night’s game, but we can assure you that it did not include a command to OC Cody Worley to scour the message boards looking for offensive play calling ideas.
Friends, Notre Dame had the better team last night. We all saw that, right? Army couldn’t get anything blocked, most passing attempts resulted in sacks or near-interceptions, pitches all got smoked even when they initially broke into open space, and damn near all of the power runs and counters either got snuffed at the point of attack or chased down from the back-side, even when the defenders started out-of-position. Army went to their best player repeatedly to try to mount some kind of offense, but that didn’t work, either.
There’s just no play calling to fix, “We can’t get anything blocked.”
Daily with the tough yards for six 💪💪
— Army Football (@ArmyWP_Football) November 24, 2024
📺 NBC pic.twitter.com/6jjx2EVQ3e
If you want to be mad at somebody, be mad at the AFF Crew. We told you that this game might go very differently than how it went because that is legitimately what we thought. But we were wrong, and the way we communicated our message to the fanbase set you up for overwhelming disappointment. We hyped you WAY UP. That’s our job. But our perception of events derives from the difference between our expectations and reality. This particular reality disappointed massively from our expectations, and here we are.
Here at AFF, we’ll own our part of that. We are all truly MASSIVE simps and homers for the Black Knights. I personally love Army Football with an abiding passion and watched every single minute of last night’s game despite how gross it was.
What can you do? We’re all ride-or-die for this team.
Bryson Daily ran for 139 yards and two TDs tonight.
— Army Football (@ArmyWP_Football) November 24, 2024
It was his 8th 100-yard rushing game of the season, which ties him with Mike Mayweather '90 for the most in a single-season in Army history. pic.twitter.com/XFpdRvcWzi
The Shamrock Series is a massive publicity stunt perpetrated by the Irish to expand their brand on a national stage. There is no good reason why massive numbers of New Yorkers root for a Catholic school in freaking Indiana save for the way that school markets itself to them. In most contexts, “Go back to Indiana!” would have a very different meaning amongst New Yorkers. Plus, Fordham is right there in the Bronx. No one cares. The way Notre Dame manages its image on the national stage has been extremely successful.
With that in mind, the Irish didn’t want anything from last night’s game except that the Black Knights would serve as tackling dummies on national TV. We saw no cadet march-on, no parachute jump, and no soldier swearing in at halftime. Cadets had to buy their own tickets to this game, and even then, Notre Dame didn’t release enough for so much as a single regiment to travel all of 48 miles to attend.
West Point didn’t even get a commercial at halftime!
Instead, we saw a story about the Rudy of kickers as this week’s Salute to Service, which was extremely ironic because Notre Dame’s actual kicker got hurt and missed two kicks. But it’s not like they put that kid in to do any live kicking.
Guys, it was a TV show. We were the goofy villains. The only aggravating part about any of it is that the Irish made it work to perfection. You’d much rather shove it in their faces all things considered, but this week, we just took that “L”.
Defense makes the STAND at the goal line 🫡
— Army Football (@ArmyWP_Football) November 24, 2024
📺 NBC pic.twitter.com/Rd0kqZ5GD0
Looking Forward
Army lost this game, but let’s be honest. It was the least important game of the entire season. The Black Knights will still play in the American Conference Championship Game, and they will still play Army-Navy in front of a packed NFL stadium with six million TV viewers watching at home. They will still play in a bowl game, probably against a Power 4 opponent. If anything, the bowl timing now works better given that the team will at least get a bye before the game.
Unfortunately, rest will be a serious concern over the next few weeks, especially given some of the injuries last night. In particular, NT Kody Harris-Miller went down hard, and friends, that guy will not be easy to replace. He’s been a revelation for Army’s rushing defense. His loss creates a very real concern, especially since the Black Knights have a bunch of good rushing teams on the horizon. S Max DiDomenico also went down but came back, and DE Kyle Lewis didn’t even play. DiDomenico and Lewis are both team captains — and great individual players. We’ll see what Army can put together to deal with their losses this week, but the D-Line in particular might be a patchwork for the foreseeable future. Missing Lewis and Harris-Miller at the same time is tough.
Alas, the schedule sets up badly going forward. We’ve got UTSA at Michie Stadium next week. The Roadrunners have been way better at home this season than they have been on the road, but also they’ve looked much better over the past month. Plus, they have an excellent rushing attack. So Army will be without its starting nose tackle in a game where they were always gonna need him. The same is true of Tulane in the AAC Championship, but that game will most likely be at Tulane. The Green Wave will be coming off a long week with extra rest given that they play their last regular season game on Thanksgiving Day. And then there’s Army-Navy with Navy coming off the bye while Army comes off the AAC Championship Game.
Rendezvous with Destiny 🦅
— Army Football (@ArmyWP_Football) November 19, 2024
→ https://t.co/lxauGcTg9s#GoArmy x #ScreamingEagles pic.twitter.com/4XrXo2V4aG
Coach Monken and his staff have a real job ahead of them.
But let’s just take it one game at a time. If the Black Knights can somehow win the next one, then maybe we’ll see what’s what.
Go Army! Beat UTSA!!!
Leave a Reply
Your email is safe with us.