Feinstein's Findings: Army Grinds Out Win

New York Times bestselling author, John Feinstein, is back for another season with the Black Knights and will report in after each football game during the 2019 season. Feinstein's weekly report will be posted to GoArmyWestPoint.com following each battle on the gridiron.

Well, that was easy.

Not.

There's a reason why those coaching highly-thought of football teams are always nervous about a season-opening game—regardless of the opponent.

A lot of it is fear of the unknown. College football teams change more than teams in any sport at any level from year-to-year. Players graduate; players transfer; players get injured; players improve. Coaching staffs change.

Watching tape from the previous season is often a waste of time. Reminding your players not to take any opponent for granted often falls on deaf ears, especially when your team finished the previous season on a nine-game winning streak and the seniors (firsties) haven't lost at home since their freshman (plebe) season.

All of those fears were in play for Jeff Monken on Friday night in Michie Stadium. It was a beautiful late summer night and the anticipation that comes with back-to-back seasons of 10-3 and 11-2—not to mention winning the Commander in Chief's Trophy for a second straight year—was in the air.

The talk all summer in Army circles has been about playing at Michigan in week two. But this was week one and there was an opponent in the stadium dying to make a mark and send a signal that this wasn't 2018 anymore.

Rice was 2-11 a year ago in coach Mike Bloomgren's first season. The only win against an FBS team was in the season finale against Old Dominion. The season began with a win over Prairie View—an FCS team—that was followed by an 11-game losing streak, including a loss to UTEP that allowed the Miners to break a 20-game losing streak.

That might explain why there were FORTY new players on the Rice roster, including seven graduate transfers who had played 202 games in their college careers. A brand-new team with a brand-new attitude.

The first hints that this might be a long night came on Army's first offensive series. Starting on their own six-yard line, the Black Knights picked up nine yards in two plays. Then they picked up zero yards on the next two plays. After Sandon McCoy was stopped cold on third down, Monken went for it on 4th-and-1 from his own 15.

Here is the list of coaches who would even think about going for it on fourth down that deep in their own territory that early in the ball game:

Jeff Monken.

Okay, MAYBE Bill Belichick, but I'm not so sure about that.

McCoy was stopped again and, right away, Army was in trouble.

Except that the defense bailed the offense out.

A word here about the defense: seven starters graduated—most notably star linebackers James Nachtigal and Kenneth Brinson. Throw in the fact that coordinator Jay Bateman is now calling the defensive plays for North Carolina and that is a LOT of turnover.

Except for a couple of things: John Loose, the new coordinator, knows and understands the strengths of his players every bit as well as Bateman did. He called a superb game in the Armed Forces Bowl, the defense getting 10 sacks in the 150-0 win over Houston. Okay, it wasn't 150-0 it just felt that way. The 10 sacks though are not a made-up number.

Loose's new defense stopped the Owls on three plays, forcing them to settle for 26-yard Will Harrison field goal—which Harrison missed.

Early bullet dodged. Now, back to our regularly scheduled Army rout.

Except that it never happened.

Early in the second quarter, Army's offense got in gear on its third possession. Starting at their own five-yard line the Black Knights put together a textbook Monken/(offensive coordinator) Brent Davis drive: going 95 yards in 19 plays. The two key plays came courtesy of senior wide receiver Christian Hayes, who had never rushed the ball in three years and had seven catches for 152 yards in his career—all last season.

On a 3rd-and-9 from the Army 43, Hayes took the ball on a reverse and picked up 35 yards to the Rice 22, giving him a career rushing average of 35 yards per carry. Two plays later, from the 19, he flashed across the middle and caught a strike from quarterback Kelvin Hopkins Jr., taking the ball to the Rice 2.

On the next play, Hopkins broke a couple of tackles going off the right side and scored for a 7-0 lead with 8:50 left in the half.

That run was, in many ways typical of Hopkins' night. Nothing was easy. Rice, led by linebacker Antonio Montero (11 tackles, seven solo) had clearly decided that to stop Hopkins was to stop Army. At times, Montero appeared to be glued to Hopkins, along with a posse of his teammates.

Hopkins numbers were hardly spectacular—21 carries for 80 yards and 3-of-8 passing for 58 yards—but he made the plays that had to be made and took quite a few lickings and kept on ticking.

A year ago, the biggest question about the Black Knights going into the season was whether Hopkins could step in for the departed Ahmad Bradshaw and lead the offense. He answered that question emphatically—rushing for more than 1,000 yards AND passing for more than 1,000 yards. Now, the only question is whether Hopkins can stay healthy for 13 games because, with backup Cam Thomas having left school, the experience of Hopkins' backups is exactly zero.

Hopkins is fearless—which an option quarterback has to be—and rarely goes down on first contact. That's good. It's also bad because on most plays he's taking two and three hits before the play is over. His touchdown made it 7-0 and, once again, it appeared to be time for Army to take control of the game.

And, once again, that didn't happen. The Owls needed exactly four plays to tie the score. First, on a 3rd-and-4 from the 31, quarterback Wiley Green had to scramble right under pressure and tossed an off-the-back-foot, semi-lob that running back Nahshon Ellerbe managed to slide under at the Rice 46 for a first down.

On the next play, Ellerbe ran left, cut back to the right and left all the Black Knights flat-footed going 54 yards to tie the score.

John Loose was an excellent high-jumper in college. At that moment he looked ready to high jump out of the press box to have an emphatic talk with his defensive players.

As it turned out, that was the last score for either team for a long, long time.

Rice had a chance to lead at the break, but Harrison missed another field goal—this one from 44-yards.

The Black Knights looked ready to make something happen when a Kell Walker run got them a first down at midfield midway through the third quarter. But McCoy, who got most of the fullback carries (20 for 70 yards) fumbled after a five-yard pickup and Rice recovered.

As it turned out, that was the game's only turnover. The Black Knights lost two fumbles in last season's opening loss to Duke and then had a total of THREE the rest of the season.

It was a punting contest after that until Army took over with 13:19 left, score still tied and most in the crowd of 23,238 who had braved Labor Day weekend Friday traffic to get to West Point, getting more nervous by the moment.

And then, the offense dug deep when it absolutely had to dig deep. Hopkins and McCoy did most of the dirty work, grinding out yards—Hopkins 44 yards on seven carries; McCoy 22 on six—to work the ball down the field and the clock down toward zero.

Both ball and clock moved slowly, but McCoy's last carry put the ball on the 12 with a third-down-and-3 and the clock inching towards four minutes.

Enter, Kell Walker. Or, more accurately, re-enter Kell Walker.

He had carried the ball four times for 25 yards. Now, on third down, he made a mental mistake, moving too soon. False start. Ball moved back to the 17, 3rd-and-8. Not exactly Army's ideal third down numbers. At that moment, it was impossible not to wonder if it came to fourth down whether Monken would go for it or trust the game to plebe kicker Cole Talley, who handled all of the place-kicking in the opener.

Fortunately, Monken didn't have to make that choice. Hopkins got time to throw from the offensive line and found Walker back-pedaling on the goal line. Army led—finally—14-7.

It wasn't over: Aided by a pass interference call, the Owls drove to the Army 26 with 1:08 still left, but on 4th-and-1 Jaylon McClinton got just enough of a hand in on Green's pass to Jaeger Bull at the 15 and—at last—Army had survived.

It is noteworthy that the Rice players talked about what they had proved by coming so close to upsetting a team like Army on the road. It wasn't that long ago—2015—that any loss to Army was seen as embarrassing. Not anymore. It might turn out that Rice is a lot better than people thought and this will be looked back at as a very solid win.

Monken took that approach, talking about his team's will to win on a difficult night. "They never flinched," he said.

And, most important, they won. The streaks remain intact: 10 in a row dating to the overtime loss to Oklahoma last September; 14 in a row at home dating to a 2016 loss to Air Force—which was also the last time the Black Knights lost a CIC game.

Now, it's on to play seventh-ranked Michigan. Monken won't have to spend this week worrying about what to expect from the opposition or whether his players will take it seriously. Those pitfalls were averted in week one—narrowly—but averted nevertheless.

The cliché in football is to go 1-0 every week. Army is now 1-0 in 2019 at going 1-0.

Enough said.

Army West Point Athletics

Feinstein's Findings: Army Grinds Out Win

Players Mentioned

Ahmad Bradshaw

Kenneth Brinson

Christian Hayes

Kelvin Hopkins Jr.

Jaylon McClinton

Sandon McCoy

James Nachtigal

Cole Talley

Cam Thomas

Kell Walker

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