Army West Point Athletics
Feinstein's Findings: Keeping it Together
September 17, 2017 | Football
As someone once wrote, "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times."
Ohio State first played football in 1890—twenty years after Charles Dickens, author of that iconic sentence—passed away. In 127 years, the Buckeyes had never allowed a team to drive the football 99 yards. Never. Not once. Ever.
Saturday, in front of 108,414 mostly stunned fans, Army did to Ohio State what no one had ever done before. It took 18 plays, including a fourth-down conversion and a stunning 9:37 for the Black Knights to set up Darnell Woolfolk's three-yard plunge into the end zone. At that moment, after looking completely overmatched for the first 11 minutes of the game, Army trailed the eighth-ranked team in the country, 14-7 with 6:26 left in the second quarter.
The best of times.
Sadly, there was nothing else that came close to that interlude for the rest of the late afternoon and early evening inside Ohio Stadium. Ohio State led just 17-7 at halftime, helped by an inexplicable officiating gaffe, and Army started the second half by again taking time off the clock while driving to the home team's 23-yard line.
But on third down, Kell Walker was pinned for a three-yard loss at the 26. Blake Wilson's field goal attempt just missed the left upright and, as it turned out, that was Army's last real chance to score. It took Ohio State two plays to go 74-yards and up the lead to 24-7. A good kickoff return by Walker to the 44, set Army up in good shape but five plays later, quarterback Ahmad Bradshaw and fullback Calen Holt missed an exchange, the Buckeyes jumped on the ball and—boom—four plays later, quarterback J.T. Barrett—whose loyal fans were screaming for him to be benched after last week's loss to Oklahoma—found Terry McLaurin for a 20-yard touchdown pass and it was 31-7.
Game over. Impossible dream gone. Before the clock hit all zeroes, Army had been out-gained 586-268—99 of that total coming on the historic drive.
The worst of times.
Losing at Ohio State, 38-7 is hardly humiliating. The only way to approach a game like this one was to hope for the best and be prepared for the worst. The best would have required a perfect game: more long drives, zero turnovers and a defense that somehow rattled the Buckeyes and created turnovers of its own.
The worst would have been the first 11 minutes extending over 60 and Ohio State relentlessly taking the ball up and down the field while the Army offense went nowhere. The Buckeyes went 75 yards in eight plays on their opening drive and then went 94 in 13 on their second drive and it was 14-0 with 4:12 left in the first quarter.
At that moment a repeat of last year's game against Notre Dame in San Antonio appeared possible. The final there was 44-6—not that much worse than this final—but that game was 7-0 after the opening kickoff, 21-0 after one quarter and 38-6 at halftime. This game was competitive well into the third quarter.
The wide-eyes of the Black Knights early is understandable. They play every season in an NFL Stadium but the capacity—whether Philadelphia or Baltimore—is closer to 70,000 and the crowd is evenly split. Even in San Antonio last November, the attendance was only 45,762 in a 72,000 seat stadium, many Notre Dame fans not bothering to show up with their team en route to a 4-8 season.
This was a mammoth stadium, with 95 percent of the fans dressed in red-and-white. To stand on the field at Ohio Stadium when it's EMPTY (which I've done) is intimidating. To come out of the tunnel when it is full is something none of the Army players had come close to experiencing.
And yet, somehow, just when an embarrassing rout appeared imminent, the Cadets pulled themselves together and made a game of it. They didn't get any help from the officials though, that's for sure. On Ohio State's ensuing drive after the Army touchdown, a long run for a score was called back by an obvious holding call that took place at Army's 44-yard-line.
The officials got the hold right. Good for them. But somehow, they failed to mark off the 10-yards, placing the ball at the 44—the spot of the foul—and allowing play to continue even with Jeff Monken screaming that they hadn't marked off the yardage. Ohio State ended up kicking a 33-yard field goal. It might have been tougher from 43-yards.
Of course that didn't come close to deciding the game. The Buckeyes were simply too big, too strong, too fast and too deep for the Black Knights. Hardly a surprise. Urban Meyer's record at Ohio State is now 63-7 for a reason, and catch his team coming off a loss—at home—was not a good thing.
Of course if you had the misfortune to watch the game on FOX, you'd have thought it was Meyer's players who will be lieutenants in the army next spring, not Monken's. Sure, the broadcast belonged to the Big Ten, but there was absolutely no attempt to even fake impartiality. The whole thing was best summed up by FOX racing to commercial at game's end, thus missing the playing of Army's alma mater. They did get back for Ohio State's—of course.
Do the last three paragraphs reflect bias? You bet. Did any of this have anything to do with the outcome? Not even close. Army played a team filled with future NFL players and future close-to-the-NFL players. They were able to walk off with their heads held high.
More important, almost all of them walked off. Senior defensive back Rhyan England was carted off in the third quarter and his loss would be an important one. Everyone else appears healthy—hurting, no doubt—but healthy.
Army travels to Tulane Saturday to face a team that was also overmatched Saturday. Like Army, the Green Wave hung in for a half before losing to Oklahoma, 56-14. More noteworthy was their trip to Annapolis two weeks ago when they lost to Navy 23-21, the difference being a third quarter safety. Their defense crowded the line all day, dared Navy to throw and shut down their offense for much of the game.
Bradshaw has now completed four passes on the season—yesterday it was two, for 19 yards. No deep threat has emerged to replace Edgar Poe. You can bet Tulane will have eight, nine and maybe 10 players in the box until and unless Bradshaw can hurt the Green Wave downfield.
The game kicks off at 11 a.m. New Orleans time. Early wake-ups are commonplace for all cadets. The only thing better might be a 9 a.m. kickoff. What's important now is following up what happened in Columbus next Saturday by doing a far, far better thing than the Black Knights have done so far this season.
A win on the road would surely impress Mr. Dickens.
Ohio State first played football in 1890—twenty years after Charles Dickens, author of that iconic sentence—passed away. In 127 years, the Buckeyes had never allowed a team to drive the football 99 yards. Never. Not once. Ever.
Saturday, in front of 108,414 mostly stunned fans, Army did to Ohio State what no one had ever done before. It took 18 plays, including a fourth-down conversion and a stunning 9:37 for the Black Knights to set up Darnell Woolfolk's three-yard plunge into the end zone. At that moment, after looking completely overmatched for the first 11 minutes of the game, Army trailed the eighth-ranked team in the country, 14-7 with 6:26 left in the second quarter.
The best of times.
Sadly, there was nothing else that came close to that interlude for the rest of the late afternoon and early evening inside Ohio Stadium. Ohio State led just 17-7 at halftime, helped by an inexplicable officiating gaffe, and Army started the second half by again taking time off the clock while driving to the home team's 23-yard line.
But on third down, Kell Walker was pinned for a three-yard loss at the 26. Blake Wilson's field goal attempt just missed the left upright and, as it turned out, that was Army's last real chance to score. It took Ohio State two plays to go 74-yards and up the lead to 24-7. A good kickoff return by Walker to the 44, set Army up in good shape but five plays later, quarterback Ahmad Bradshaw and fullback Calen Holt missed an exchange, the Buckeyes jumped on the ball and—boom—four plays later, quarterback J.T. Barrett—whose loyal fans were screaming for him to be benched after last week's loss to Oklahoma—found Terry McLaurin for a 20-yard touchdown pass and it was 31-7.
Game over. Impossible dream gone. Before the clock hit all zeroes, Army had been out-gained 586-268—99 of that total coming on the historic drive.
The worst of times.
Losing at Ohio State, 38-7 is hardly humiliating. The only way to approach a game like this one was to hope for the best and be prepared for the worst. The best would have required a perfect game: more long drives, zero turnovers and a defense that somehow rattled the Buckeyes and created turnovers of its own.
The worst would have been the first 11 minutes extending over 60 and Ohio State relentlessly taking the ball up and down the field while the Army offense went nowhere. The Buckeyes went 75 yards in eight plays on their opening drive and then went 94 in 13 on their second drive and it was 14-0 with 4:12 left in the first quarter.
At that moment a repeat of last year's game against Notre Dame in San Antonio appeared possible. The final there was 44-6—not that much worse than this final—but that game was 7-0 after the opening kickoff, 21-0 after one quarter and 38-6 at halftime. This game was competitive well into the third quarter.
The wide-eyes of the Black Knights early is understandable. They play every season in an NFL Stadium but the capacity—whether Philadelphia or Baltimore—is closer to 70,000 and the crowd is evenly split. Even in San Antonio last November, the attendance was only 45,762 in a 72,000 seat stadium, many Notre Dame fans not bothering to show up with their team en route to a 4-8 season.
This was a mammoth stadium, with 95 percent of the fans dressed in red-and-white. To stand on the field at Ohio Stadium when it's EMPTY (which I've done) is intimidating. To come out of the tunnel when it is full is something none of the Army players had come close to experiencing.
And yet, somehow, just when an embarrassing rout appeared imminent, the Cadets pulled themselves together and made a game of it. They didn't get any help from the officials though, that's for sure. On Ohio State's ensuing drive after the Army touchdown, a long run for a score was called back by an obvious holding call that took place at Army's 44-yard-line.
The officials got the hold right. Good for them. But somehow, they failed to mark off the 10-yards, placing the ball at the 44—the spot of the foul—and allowing play to continue even with Jeff Monken screaming that they hadn't marked off the yardage. Ohio State ended up kicking a 33-yard field goal. It might have been tougher from 43-yards.
Of course that didn't come close to deciding the game. The Buckeyes were simply too big, too strong, too fast and too deep for the Black Knights. Hardly a surprise. Urban Meyer's record at Ohio State is now 63-7 for a reason, and catch his team coming off a loss—at home—was not a good thing.
Of course if you had the misfortune to watch the game on FOX, you'd have thought it was Meyer's players who will be lieutenants in the army next spring, not Monken's. Sure, the broadcast belonged to the Big Ten, but there was absolutely no attempt to even fake impartiality. The whole thing was best summed up by FOX racing to commercial at game's end, thus missing the playing of Army's alma mater. They did get back for Ohio State's—of course.
Do the last three paragraphs reflect bias? You bet. Did any of this have anything to do with the outcome? Not even close. Army played a team filled with future NFL players and future close-to-the-NFL players. They were able to walk off with their heads held high.
More important, almost all of them walked off. Senior defensive back Rhyan England was carted off in the third quarter and his loss would be an important one. Everyone else appears healthy—hurting, no doubt—but healthy.
Army travels to Tulane Saturday to face a team that was also overmatched Saturday. Like Army, the Green Wave hung in for a half before losing to Oklahoma, 56-14. More noteworthy was their trip to Annapolis two weeks ago when they lost to Navy 23-21, the difference being a third quarter safety. Their defense crowded the line all day, dared Navy to throw and shut down their offense for much of the game.
Bradshaw has now completed four passes on the season—yesterday it was two, for 19 yards. No deep threat has emerged to replace Edgar Poe. You can bet Tulane will have eight, nine and maybe 10 players in the box until and unless Bradshaw can hurt the Green Wave downfield.
The game kicks off at 11 a.m. New Orleans time. Early wake-ups are commonplace for all cadets. The only thing better might be a 9 a.m. kickoff. What's important now is following up what happened in Columbus next Saturday by doing a far, far better thing than the Black Knights have done so far this season.
A win on the road would surely impress Mr. Dickens.
Players Mentioned
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