Football Defeats Georgia State, Monken Earns 50th Win at Army

Saturday, September 4

Atlanta, Ga.

12:00 p.m. ET

Army West Point

1-0

Georgia State

0-1

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

Army

Georgia St.

Football Defeats Georgia State, Monken Earns 50th Win at Army

September 04, 2021 | Football

Box Score Box Score (PDF)Postgame Notes Postgame Quotes Press Conference

ATLANTA, Ga. – The Army West Point football team took care of business on both sides of the ball en route to earning a season-opening 43-10 victory over Georgia State on Saturday afternoon at Center Parc Stadium. The victory marks the 50th of head coach Jeff Monken's Army career.

The nation's top defensive unit from a season ago got to work quickly opposite the Panthers (0-1) and recovered a fumble on the opening drive, thanks to Arik Smith. With the ball in his hand, starting quarterback Tyhier Tyler and his offense then put together an eight-play, 40-yard drive that culminated with Tyson Riley's first career touchdown. The four-yard rush put the Black Knights (1-0) up 7-0.

After forcing the Panthers to punt away their next possession, the Black Knights once again marched their way down the field on their second drive. Tyler found wide receiver Sean Eckert with a 26-yard pass for the second-to-last play in a six-minute push that ended with AJ Howard's first career touchdown, extending the lead to 14-0.

Even when Georgia State had the ball, the momentum continued to favor the visiting team as the Panthers' third drive was ended prematurely when Andre Carter II's sack forced them to punt for the second time in three possessions.

Christian Anderson made his first appearance of the year in the final minutes of the first quarter, coming in under center for the Black Knights. Though the clock wound down before he could get into the red zone, he picked things right back up at the start of the second quarter and orchestrated a 13-play stretch that ended with Jakobi Buchanan's two-yard rushing touchdown, bumping the lead to 21-0.

Following three unanswered touchdowns, Georgia State used a 75-yard drive to get on the board and cut the advantage down to 21-7. The Panthers were able to force the Black Knights to punt, but the momentum did not change for long as Jabari Moore picked off a pass and returned it four yards to GSU's nine yard line. The turnover resulted in Anderson rushing the ball in himself and extending the lead to 27-7 at the half.

Though a majority of the action came in the first half, Army continued to control the game after the break. A 40-yard touchdown pass from Anderson to Tyrell Robinson, the team's longest since a 53-yard pass against Mercer (Oct. 24, 2020), got the team back into the scoring column on its second drive of the second half. The drive was partially enabled by the defensive duo of Nolan Cockrill and Chris Frey, who came up with a fourth-down stop to give the Cadets the ball.

The teams then went on to trade field goals, with Cole Talley notching a 22-yard kick in response to the Panthers' 33-yard effort, before the Cadets scored their sixth and final touchdown of the day in the final minutes of the game. Jemel Jones, the third quarterback to take snaps, connected a 32-yard pass with Braheam Murphy, pushing the score to its final 43-10 margin.

NOTES

Head Coach Jeff Monken has led the Black Knights to a season-opening victory five times since 2015.
With today's win, Army has won season-openers for three-consecutive seasons for the first time since 2000.
For the fifth-consecutive year, the Cadets held the opposition to less than 20 yards on their season-opening drive (15 yds.).
This marks the fourth time in the Monken era that the team has put up at least 40 points in a season-opener.
Army scored on its first three drives for the first time since a 28-12 victory over Morgan State (Aug. 30, 2013). Tyson Riley's first-drive touchdown also goes down as the fourth season-opening scoring drive in the Monken era.
Andre Carter II led the team with a career-high three tackles for loss, followed by Marquel Broughton (1.0), Arik Smith (1.0) and Kwabena Bonsu (1.0).
In total, four different quarterbacks came in for the Cadets: Tyler, Anderson, Jones and Jabari Laws.
Army finished with 356 total yards and recorded 258 on the ground. Additionally, the team was 4-5 on red zone trips, while the Panthers were 2-2.
The Black Knight's four first-half touchdowns were the most since scoring five during the 63-7 victory over UMass (Nov. 9, 2019).
The team's defensive efforts were highlighted by the ability to hold Georgia State to just 22 yards in the opening 15 minutes, the fewest in a first quarter in over six years.
Despite the fact that the Panthers returned 11 of their offensive starters, they were held to just 48 yards on the ground and 177 total – a drastic difference from the 424.3 that they averaged last year.

QUOTABLE
Coach Monken
[Ref. The defense]
"I thought they did a fantastic job. There was a fumbled exchange early. We didn't knock it loose, they just botched the handoff and there was probably miscommunication, but we were able to get on it. It was a big play. We kicked off and then went up 7-0 early in the game. And then Jabari Moore's interception before the half was an awesome play. He jumped it, saw it coming, made a great play and we were able to punch that one in on fourth down. That was a big play before the half."

[Ref. The quarterback rotation]
"We were going to try and get a feel for playing two quarterbacks with playing Tyhier (Tyler), putting Christian (Anderson) in and then probably using both of them … To be able to get Jemel some work through a touchdown pass was great and I was thrilled to see Jabari Laws get in there and run the ball hard. Our whole team was elated to see [Jabari] in there. He was very emotional after, to get back out there after battling back for over a year was an incredible experience."

[Ref. Expectations heading into the game and moving forward]
"I don't think I had fears or concerns heading into this game. I'm cautiously optimistic [before games]. I didn't know what our team would do, but I knew we had a great group of seniors and great leaders. Our leadership is really strong … But this is a new football team, a different football team. The last time we were down here, we didn't play very fell. They outplayed us. And they have a better football team this year than they did two years ago … I think that's [Georgia State] a really athletic, well-coached team, but I think our guys executed well. There's still concerns about depth, we didn't all of a sudden find six more guys on each side of the ball that could start tomorrow. We are who we are. That's something [the health of the team] that will continue to be important to us to watch."

Christian Anderson
[Ref. How effective the game plan was heading into the day]
"It felt good getting back out there. I knew coming into the game that Tyhier was going to start, but that I was going to come in at some point in the game. Getting the opportunity to play was really good. I feel like overall as an offense we did a really good job executing the plays when we needed to. We didn't try to do too much, we just executed on what was in front of us. I feel like we did a good job with that."

WHAT'S NEXT
Army will return home to open up Michie Stadium with a game against Western Kentucky on Saturday, Sept. 11 at 11:30 a.m. The game will be broadcasted on CBS Sports Network and will be the fourth meeting in the history between the two teams.