Football Travels to Air Force Saturday Afternoon

WEST POINT, N.Y. – The Army West Point football team will seek its first victory in search of the Commander-in-Chiefs Trophy on Saturday afternoon, traveling to Colorado Springs, Colo., to take on Air Force.

Kickoff is set for 1:30 p.m. mountain time. The contest can be seen on ESPNU with Allen Bestwick on the call and Dan Hawkins providing color commentary. Fans can also follow along on the Army Sports Network as Rich Demarco will call the action with Dean Darling as the color analyst.

"The game this week is important to the Academy and we want to do everything we can to win," said head coach Jeff Monken. "I am sure there are going to be some times in the game on Saturday where we will have to dig down deep and hopefully we have learned how to do that a lot better.

"I am excited about the opportunity to play this Saturday, I think our guys have done a nice job with practice. We are starting to get a lot healthier, particularly on the offensive line, and I think that will help us and help our depth."

Army is coming off of a 38-31 loss at the hands of the Rice Owls on Oct. 24 as the team received a bye last week. The Black Knights enter the contest with a mark of 2-6. The Falcons have rattled off two straight victories over Fresno State and Hawai'i and have an overall record of 5-3.

Air Force threatens on defense with defensive end Alex Hansen leading the way. Hansen has recorded 34 total tackles with 17 solo stops. His 9.0 tackles for loss pace the Falcons in addition to his 5.0 sacks. An all-purpose defender, he's notched one pass breakup, one quarterback hurry and two blocked kicks in his eight games played.

"The difficult thing in our offense is that you can't just pick out guys that you're going to double-team block," commented Monken. "We've got to run our offense and execute our offense. Certainly they've got some good players and we'll have to do a very good job of executing and blocking them and try to sustain blocks. I think that's key. With those defensive ends and those guys that play on the edge of the blocks, just like their offense, a lot of times we're able to read those guys and we don't have to block them every single play. Certainly that's beneficial to us. They've got some good players and we'll have to do a good job of doing our job, much better than we did a year ago, in order to move the football. That's going to be key for us. They beat us in the time of possession, they beat us in rushing yards, they just beat us last year. If we want to keep that from happening again, we're going to have to play a lot better."

For Army, quarterback Ahmad Bradshaw is expected to see time behind center. The sophomore has recorded 354 yards on the ground on 90 attempts with four rushing touchdowns on the season. In addition, Bradshaw is 15-30-2 on the season for a total of 263 yards and three touchdowns.

Fellow quarterback A.J. Schurr has gained 384 yards on the ground off of 98 attempts with seven rushing touchdowns. He's 11-29-4 on the year with 300 passing yards and three scores. Aaron Kemper also provides significant assistance in Army's running game, with 384 yards off of 56 carries for two touchdowns.

Defensively, Andrew King paces the Black Knights with 62 total tackles, including 38 solo stops. He's tallied 13.5 tackles for loss, 4.5 sacks and two fumble recoveries. Co-captain Jeremey Timpf has earned 59 total tackles with 32 unassisted stops, in addition to 2.5 tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks, one interception, one pass breakup and one forced fumble.

ARMY-AIR FORCE HISTORY
Air Force and Army meet for the 50th time in the all-time series with the Falcons leading at 34-14-2. Air Force has won the last two contests, including a 23-6 win last season at West Point. Army last won at Air Force on Nov. 5, 2005 in a 27-24 victory.

ABOUT THE FALCONS
Air Force, a member of the Mountain West Conference, enters this Saturday's contest with a 5-3 mark overall and a 4-1 record in league play.

The Falcons have earned wins over Morgan State (63-7), San Jose State (37-16), Wyoming (31-17), Fresno State (42-14) and Hawai'i (58-7). They have won two-straight by a combined score of 100-21.

Air Force is averaging 35.8 points per game and 452 yards per game of total offense. The third-ranked rushing attack is led by Jacobi Owens who has 114 rushes for 578 yards and four scores. He averages 72.2 yards per contest. Samuel Stewart is second with 282 rushing yards and has scored three times. The Falcons have five rushers with four or more touchdowns.

Quarterback Karson Roberts has ran for 386 yards and a team-high seven scores. He has completed 32-of-64 throws for 538 yards with one touchdown and four interceptions.

Garrett Brown has hauled in 19 catches for 393 yards, while Jale Robinette has 10 catches for 239 yards and two scores.

Defensively, Air Force allows 20.9 points per game and 306 yards of total offense. Weston Steelhammer shows a team-best 47 tackles as five players have 30 or more total tackles on the season. Alex Hansen is the team leader in tackles for loss with nine for 24 yards and he tops the sacks list with five on the year.

Air Force has picked off nine passes this season, including three each from Steelhammer and Roland Ladipo. Brodie Hicks has contributed two interceptions.

ARMY FOOTBALL CELEBRATES 125 YEARS
In celebration of 125 years of Army football, the Army Athletic Association will countdown the top 10 moments in program history.

This past Wednesday, moment number eight was announced – Peel Chronister's two interceptions and defended two-point conversion helps Army to a 31-29 win over Illinois in the Peach Bowl (1985).

Each Wednesday we will reveal one moment as we countdown the top 10. The top moment wi

Football Travels to Air Force Saturday Afternoon

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Players Mentioned

Ahmad Bradshaw

Aaron Kemper

Andrew King

A.J. Schurr

Army West Point Athletics