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Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Army Football Preview: at Rice

The Black Knights of the Hudson beat UT – El Paso on Saturday, and if it wasn’t quite the drubbing that a lot of Army fans were looking for, it was still a solid, two-touchdown victory that was not much in doubt by about the middle of the third quarter.  After five games, Army Football is 3-2.  That’s the same record the team boasted last year at this time, though with a somewhat more optimistic outlook going forward.  
The good news is that Army already played its hardest game, at Ohio State.  The bad news is that the Black Knights still have to play Air Force on the road and Duke at home, and neither of those games will end in victory if they can’t play much better, more consistent defense.  For that matter, Eastern Michigan and North Texas are both markedly improved from a year ago as well.  From this point forward, there aren’t any gimme games.
Army’s offense has looked better than it did in 2016, but the team still hasn’t put together the kind of complete game that saw it win victories over Temple and Wake Forest.  They’ll need that level of effort soon, however, if it’s going to get back to a bowl game.


The Army Black Knights
Five weeks into the season, Army has the country’s #3 rushing attack, averaging 363.6 yards/game on the ground and 6.3 yards/carry.  Excellent!  QB Ahmad Bradshaw leads all rushers with 74 carries for 532 yards (7.2 yards/carry) and 4 touchdowns, but that’s only because Army has run a fullback-by-committee system that’s seen four guys pound the rock between the tackles.  Army B-Backs collectively have 149 carries for 856 yards (5.7 yards/carry) and 10 touchdowns.  With Darnell Woolfolk out again last week, Andy Davidson has become the team’s leading B-Back.  He has the most carries (53) and the best yards/carry (5.8) at the position.  Woolfolk’s numbers are similar, though he has more touchdowns.  Calen Holt and Connor Slomka each have about half as many carries, but Slomka has gotten the “bulldozer” short yardage work with Woolfolk out, and that’s given him 4 touchdowns as well.

 The production in the middle has created problems for even excellent rushing defenses.  OSU and Tulane both played disciplined defense on the outside against the triple-option, even when they were getting banged by the Fullback Dive.  By comparison, Buffalo and UTEP made defensive adjustments that slowed the Dive but opened up plays on the edges.  I don’t know that either method is necessarily better, but Army has looked a bit more explosive when it can get the ball out to guys in space.
As I noted Sunday, Army did a better job passing last week as well.  Bradshaw went 3/5 through the air for 80 yards and a touchdown—with 2 drops.  SB Jordan Asberry now leads all receivers with 2 receptions, but what’s more important is that the team finally got WRs Jeff Ejekam and Jermaine Adams involved.  They’ve been motioning Asberry wide a lot this season, but I continue to think that Ejekam has better hands.  Asberry leads the team in receptions, but he also has the most targets and by far the most drops as well.  SB Kell Walker has also had a couple of bad drops.  Both guys need to focus on completing the catch before they start trying to run down the field.
Army’s defense hasn’t been great this season in terms of yardage, and especially in terms of rushing yards allowed.  They’ve been markedly better against the pass, though, and they’ve been pretty good in terms of overall points-allowed/game.  Part of this is undoubtedly due to the kinds of teams they’ve played.  Army currently stands 36th in points-allowed, giving up just 20.6 points/game.  However, they’ve struggled at times to stop the run, and if they—finally—succeeded in preventing any disastrous break-away runs last week, they still let UTEP gain 150+ yards on the ground.  That’s almost 100 more than UTEP was averaging previously.  
Five games in, Army has given up a whopping 172 yards/game rushing and 5.5 yards/carry.  That’s bad.  Even with that, though, the team has given up just 9 rushing touchdowns, with 4 going to Ohio State and 3 more coming on long busted coverage plays to Buffalo and Tulane.  It’s been a lot harder to just drive down the field on Army and score.  Tulane did it to win the game two weeks ago, and UTEP did it twice in the first half last week, but overall, Army has been good about making adjustments at halftime to give itself a chance to win.  Now they need to put it all together and force a few more turnovers.
Minus a pair of missed field goals, Army’s special teams have become a surprising team strength.  In particular, the Black Knights have made a habit of kicking high, short kickoffs, allowing them to get opposing returners stopped inside the opponent’s 25 yard line.  This has set opponents up with long fields, making it that much harder to establish long touchdown drives.
The Rice Owls
Rice is 1-4 with an opening day loss to Stanford in Australia, a win against UTEP, a loss on the road at Houston, a low-scoring loss at home to FIU, and a blistering, multi-interception loss most recently to Pitt.  The Owls gave up a lot of points to Stanford, Houston, and Pitt, but they were much better in their own weight class, holding UTEP and FIU to 14 and 13 points, respectively.  But the Owls haven’t put up many points—against anyone—and they’ve turned the ball over with alarming regularity.  It’s tough to win like that.

 Rice QB Jackson Tyner is 39/80 (48.8%) for 463 yards, 1 touchdown and 4 interceptions.  Against Pitt, he hit RB Austin Walter for a 70-yard strike, his sole touchdown completion of the season.  He finished 15/32 passing for 222 yards, but he also threw 3 interceptions.  That was maybe his best performance of the year.  The Owls collectively are averaging just 141.8 yards passing (121st) and scoring just 11.6 points/game (130th) all-in.  The team has four running backs with more than 25 carries, but they average just 4.0 yards/carry and 147.2 yards/game (78th).  That would be okay if they had a better quarterback, but it’s not great for a run-first, ball-control offense.  RB Austin Walter has seen the most success with 28 carries for 153 (5.5 yards/carry) and 1 rushing touchdown.  RB Samuel Stuart has more carries but averages just 4.3 yards/carry and does not have a touchdown of his own.
Worse, the Owls are getting torched through the air every game.  Rice has the 35th ranked rushing defense, allowing just 163 carries for 611 yards (3.75 ypc; 122 ypg), and that’s good.  But they’ve given up a whopping 11 rushing touchdowns, which is only possible because their pass defense has been an absolute misery.  The Owls give up more than 300 yards/game passing.  This leaves them no chance given that their quarterback completes less than 50% of his own passes and throws 3 times more interceptions than touchdowns.

Overall, Rice is allowing 33.8 points/game, good for 106th in the FBS, despite being pretty good against the run.  That makes them an interesting matchup for an Army team that has run for a lot of yards but hasn’t always been able to finish drives in the end zone.
Matchups
Rice is going to be significantly stouter against the run than UTEP was but probably not quite as good in the secondary nor at the offensive skill positions.  In particular, RB Quadraiz Wadley looks like a substantially better player than anyone Rice can field, despite the fact that Rice beat UTEP pretty soundly.  It’s worth remembering that neither Wadley nor QB Zack Greenlee played in the Rice game.  Wadley in particular might’ve made a difference, but Saturday was only his second game back from injury.

Week 5 P(Wins): Army vs. opponents
Army’s triple-option vs. Rice’s rushing defense.  If Army can move the ball consistently against the Owls’ 35th ranked rushing defense, the Black Knights will almost certainly win this game.  However, we may very well see some tough sledding in the early going.  There’s really only one thing that Rice has done well this year, and that’s stop the run.  They’ll not want to give up that identity in their own building, nor will they want to let slip a game that they must have marked on their calendars as a potential win.
Army linebackers vs. RB Austin Walter & company.  Army has been entirely too soft against the run this season, even against a team like UTEP that has struggled to mount any consistent offense.  Rice is going to pound the rock.  The Black Knights need to play consistent, disciplined defense and get off the field on 3rd down.  This doesn’t need to be a close game, and it won’t be if Army plays to its potential.  If they give up long runs, however, and let Rice hang around, that creates the potential for all kinds of unnecessary calamity.
Army secondary vs. QB Jackson Tyner.  It’s hard to imagine QB Jackson Tyner beating Army with his arm.  However, the Black Knights haven’t forced a turnover in the last few games, and that’s becoming an issue.  They can change the trend this week if they get an early lead and force Rice to throw.  In that sense, this game is about gaining momentum for the back half of the season.  The Black Knights will need that momentum as they head into the tougher part of their schedule.
The 12th Man vs. Rice Stadium.  As much as 10% of the West Point Association of Graduates lives in the greater Houston Area, and massive Fort Hood is just two-and-a-half hours away.  Rice has itself explicitly reached out to Army fans for the game, and I expect that the 12th Man will show up in force.  It’s possible that Army might actually have something like a home field advantage, though Hurricane damage and flooding might hamper some of what would otherwise be a likely raucous crowd.  That would be a shame, but at the end of the day, there are—amazingly—more important things in this life than college football.
Final Thoughts
The line opened at Army (-12) with the vig leaning slightly towards Rice to cover, but it’s since moved towards the Black Knights.  As of this writing, Army is favored by 13.5 with the vig set even.  The over/under opened at 45 but has crept up to 46.  Oddshark’s power ranking model predicts a final score of Army 36.7 to Rice 11.6.
For what it’s worth, Oddshark has over-predicted Army’s offensive output all season.  I could see Rice putting up 10 points, but I’ll be legitimately surprised if the Black Knights score 35+ against the country’s 35th ranked rushing defense.  If they manage that, it would mark a legitimate offensive breakthrough.  Nevertheless, Oddshark is predicting that Army wins, covers, and that the total goes over.
I’m not sure I would bet that way, especially on the over.
Army will wear the 1AD patch.
This week’s game will be on one of the BeIN Sports network.  That is a legitimate pain in the ass.  I had to call my cable company, add their “Sports and Entertainment” pack, drop the “College Sports” pack that I’d previously carried, and wound up paying $6 more/month.  The good news is that I now have every sports channel known to man.  The bad news is that I will probably never again watch BeIN Sports aside from this game and Army’s game at North Texas, which will also be on BeIN Sports.  
For cord cutters, I think the easiest play is a short term subscription to Fubo.tv.  That’ll run you $14/month, but the first week is free, and you can cancel at any time.  Not a bad deal if all you care about is streaming sports.  There’s also an ala cart add-on package available from SlingTV.  That’s $10/month for the International Sports package, but if you don’t follow cricket or European football, it’s kind of a tough ask on top of whatever you were paying previously.
Other games of note:  Eastern Michigan (+13) is at Toledo starts at noon on Saturday, and Air Force is at Navy (-7.5) starts at 3:30 p.m.  Army kicks off at 5:00 p.m. central, 6:00 eastern.
Go Army!  Beat Rice!!!
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