Friends, that was an amazing game. We got a hard-fought win on a gorgeous fall day in front of a raucous sold-out Michie Stadium crowd, and we got it over Air Force. More than that, I personally got to hang out all day with a bunch of my best and oldest friends, reconnected with several I hadn’t seen in a very long time, and even met AFF sponsor Craig Achtzehn in person — finally.
Friends, days like these are why I’m an Army Football fan.
Days like these make the tough times worth it. This is your reward for passing through the lean years. Years when Army Football felt like a test of faith for those who had enough character and strength of heart to actually stick with them when wins came few and far between.
We’ve seen a lot of easy wins this season. That’s not what we saw yesterday. When we heard that Army star QB Bryson Daily would be sitting out, I think we all knew that we’d see the team struggle. Yesterday, we saw them fight. More than that, we saw them fight and win.
Ultimately, this is what American soldiers do.
Army star RB Kanye Udoh shouted out QB Dewayne Coleman at the end of Army’s offensive players’ press conference yesterday. Udoh extended the press conference explicitly to call out his quarterback’s poise.
Army’s postgame press conference was about to end before Kanye Udoh had this to say about QB Dewayne Coleman, who made his first start in 20-3 win over Air Force #ArmyFootball pic.twitter.com/B7arCn94d4
— Black Knight Nation (@BKKnightNation) November 2, 2024
Coleman had a tough job yesterday. It cannot possibly have been easy to come in for Daily given the year that Army’s starter has had so far. But Dewayne Coleman did it. And if his stats don’t exactly jump off the page after his first start, he still did what he needed to do. More than that, he looked visibly better in his second two quarters than he did in his first two. We got to watch him figure it out in real time in a Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy game. In that second half, his team cut down on penalties, cut down on mistakes, and got back to basics. They ran the damn ball.
It proved decisive. Army powered in for two touchdowns where previously they’d scored just two field goals.
Udoh ran for 2 TDs for the 3rd time this season 😤
— Army Football (@ArmyWP_Football) November 2, 2024
He went untouched on his 1st of the day. pic.twitter.com/2XR7w1BUct
At the end of the day, this Black Knights team only needed their quarterback to do his part and give his team a chance. Coleman did. He made enough throws in the first half to give his team a small lead. In the second, though, he settled, ran the offense efficiently, and ran the ball for gains of 7 and then 15 yards on Army’s opening possession of the third quarter. That kept Air Force’s defense just honest enough against Udoh and Army’s offensive line to allow the team to take control of the game.
This is what you want your backup quarterback to do, especially in a rivalry game. Especially in his first start. You want him to give the team a chance. To stay confident. To keep the offense settled and in rhythm. To take care of the football.
We got all of that and more from QB Dewayne Coleman yesterday.
It’s not hard to imagine Army’s coaching staff putting the plan for this game together. We presume that they found out kind of late that Bryson Daily wasn’t gonna start. However, they knew that they have one of the best scoring defenses in the country, and they knew that they were going up against an offense that’s been struggling all year. So they didn’t need miracles from their offense. They needed solid, mistake-free play. They knew defense could do the rest.
Max DiDomenico with the PICK!!
— Army Football (@ArmyWP_Football) November 2, 2024
📺 CBS pic.twitter.com/oGjD25uWE6
That plan worked. Army’s defense played lights out. They posted 6 sacks, 10 total tackles-for-loss, and 3 interceptions. They actually intercepted damn-near every ball Air Force threw deep. They also held Air Force to just 5/15 on third down and to just 2.9 yards/carry on the ground. They forced 5 punts and let the Zoomies get into the red zone exactly once all game.
Army’s offense gave more than half of their total carries to Kanye Udoh and got more than 60% of their total production from him via straight FB Zone Runs.
They still won by three scores.
Friends, don’t mistake this. It was an incredible performance.
On a day when his team needed him to come up big, Udoh had arguably his best day as a Black Knight. He hit the hole fast and broke long runs when they were there. With that, he took over the game in the second half and finished with 22 carries for 158 yards (7.2 yards/carry) and 2 touchdowns.
As a final thought, we’ll note that PK Trey Gronotte again made both of his field goals with a long of 32 yards. That really mattered this week.
"Our defense just played their hearts out… Nate Woody, our defensive coordinator, just an incredible job defending this offense."@ArmyWP_Football head coach Jeff Monken spoke with @tiffblackmon after an impressive 20-3 win over Air Force pic.twitter.com/67vgfB7VMX
— CBS Sports College Football 🏈 (@CBSSportsCFB) November 2, 2024
Looking Forward
Army travels to North Texas this Saturday for a game against the Mean Green (5-3, 2-2 in the AAC). That’s a much better team than this Zoomies bunch, especially on offense, and they’re coming off a bye, but they still ought to be much less familiar with the Black Knights’ triple-option offense. Army took the vast majority of their snaps out of the shotgun this week, but there’s no knowing whether they did that because they were playing a CiC game or because they felt like Coleman did better out of that look. We are really curious to see how it plays out this week, but we’re expecting to see a lot more under-center looks down in Denton, Texas.
Though the AFF Crew thought they were ranked fairly at #21, the Black Knights ought to move up this week. Seven Top 25 teams lost this week, many in spectacular upsets. Navy’s not in the Top 25 anymore, but they also lost — badly — down at Rice.
A moment to remember 🥹 pic.twitter.com/EBIuk5Mjwv
— Rice Football (@RiceFootball) November 3, 2024
With that in mind, don’t take this run by the Black Knights for granted. Consistency can be damned hard to come by in college football. However, Army has actually looked good in all eight of their games this season.
That’s not nothing. In fact, it’s actually really rare.
With that said, the Black Knights will need to score more than 20 points to get a win this coming weekend. It wouldn’t hurt, too, if they could work up another three interceptions.
Go Army! Beat North Texas!!!
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