Army Football Preview: at Duke

Here we are at last.  It’s finally time to open the 2018 Army Football season, which means it’s finally time to talk in detail about the Black Knights’ first game—at Duke!

Previewing this first game is tough.  There’s not a lot of data, and what data we have comes entirely from second-hand sources.  I’ve not attended any of Army’s scrimmages, and even if I had, I’m not sure what we’d have learned.  From all reports, Army has a remarkably good class of plebes.  Also, QB Kelvin Hopkins has supposedly thrown the ball really well.  So what?  The plebes aren’t going to contribute this week unless something truly astonishing occurs, and Hopkins’s passing is similarly unlikely to make-or-break the contest.  

How does the new O-Line look?  Can this team replace Alex Aukerman’s production at rush linebacker?  Can the secondary stay in position without Rhyan England?  Unfortunately, the only way to figure any of this out is under live-fire conditions.

Army Black Knights

Army returns a ton of talent on offense at the skill positions, but it has to replace four high-quality offensive linemen and single-season all-academy rushing leader Ahmad Bradshaw at quarterback.  That’s not going to be easy, even with a strong stable of fullbacks and slotbacks and with improved play from its young corps of wide receivers.  The interior O-Line features the most experience, and that, along with the strength of the team’s fullback rotation, ought to give us a heavy dose of the Fullback Dive/Midline Option.  It’s everything outside this core piece of the offense that’s now in question.  

Last year, we saw a lot of Quarterback Power behind T Brett Toth, both out of the shotgun and when Bradshaw kept off the Midline.  Army balanced this with occasional Rocket Sweeps outside to SB Kell Walker to keep defenses honest.  This trend actually intensified over the course of the season.  Army ran a lot more Speed Option and/or running plays to Walker out of the shotgun in the early half of 2017.  Starting at Air Force, though, they simplified things, running right at teams nearly all the time.  That strategy played to the strengths of their personnel, but the 2018 team’s strengths are different, and the team’s approach will have to change accordingly.

Sure, Army will still run right at teams with the fullbacks.  When Hopkins keeps, though, I think we’ll see him looking to pitch more, and I think we’ll see him throwing a lot more, too.  Where Army threw between zero and three times/game in 2017, I think we’re looking at more like eight to twelve passes/game in 2018.  A good number of those will target slotbacks, but Army has a decent group of tight ends and a bunch of young wide receivers.  I’m personally looking for big things from yearling WR Cam Harrison, and I think it’s only a matter of time before one of the new plebes breaks into the starting lineup as well.  Once those guys start contributing, this Army team may actually develop a legitimate downfield passing attack.  Mix in a bit of a Zone Read look out of the shotgun, either with Hopkins and Walker or with Walker at quarterback and yearling SB Fred Cooper on Walker’s hip, and I think we have the makings of a much more varied offense, though one that is still very much centered on Midline Option concepts at its core.

On defense, it’s all about getting pressure on the quarterback, especially this week.  DC Jay Bateman runs a blitz-heavy 3-4 scheme, but that scheme was heavily reliant on the talents of Aukerman and DE Jon Voit.  The good news is that Army actually looks good in the secondary, with returning corners Elijah Riley and Jalen Sharp on the outside and plenty of depth behind them.  Current starting safeties James “Gibby” Gibson and Jaylon McClinton are both strong players as well, while backup Max Regan was arguably the defense’s most improved player in 2017.  I’m looking for Gibson to make plays against Duke’s running game, but Army needs to generate a pass rush, and outside of Rush LB Kenneth Brinson, there’s not a lot of proven experience.

For as well as Army played in 2017, though, there remains plenty of room for improvement.  The team averaged a very respectable 5.97 yards/play last season on offense but gave up an astounding 6.25 yards/play on defense.  That’s not usually a good thing.  Army succeeded because they ran nearly 10 plays/game more than their opponents and because their red zone defense was excellent.  But you also ought to remember that they were in a lot of close games.  Similarly, they outscored opponents 399 to 286, but their rushing defense ranked just 74th nationally, allowing 2,248 yards on 423 carries (5.3 ypc) alongside 23 rushing touchdowns.  That worked out to more than 170 yards rushing/game!

The 2018 edition of the Army Black Knights looks to have much more raw talent than some of Army’s previous teams, but that’s just a starting point.  Now they have to prove it, and this week’s opponent offers a tough first test on the road.

#ArmyFootball scrimmage: Andy Davidson 5-yard TD run pic.twitter.com/nyDAmS4eYh

— Sal Interdonato (@salinterdonato) August 25, 2018

Duke Blue Devils

Any discussion of Duke’s offense has to start with third-year starting QB Daniel Jones.   Jones went 257/453 in 2017 for 2,691 yards (56.7%) with 14 touchdowns, 11 interceptions, and an astounding 28 sacks.  He also carried 161 times for 518 yards (3.2 ypc) and 7 touchdowns.  But those rushing numbers include yardage lost on all those sacks.  Remove the sacks (and assume a loss of 5 yards/sack), and we come up with a more realistic 4.9 yards/carry on designed runs or run/pass options.  Those numbers jive with what we saw from Jones last year at Michie.  He is definitely not a run-first quarterback, but the Blue Devils’ offense is built around a solid core of run/pass option concepts, and Jones is very good in that scheme.  He was one of just six Power 5 quarterbacks to both throw for 2,500+ yards and to rush for 500+ yards as well.

If you did the homework from the STAP post a few weeks ago, you might’ve noticed that Duke’s offense is not as different from Army’s as we might’ve otherwise assumed.  This was borne out by statistics.  Duke gained an average of 4.92 yards/play in 2017, against their opponents’ 5.22 yards/play.  But the Blue Devils ran 188 more plays than their opponents on the season, for an average of nearly 15 more plays/game.  That is outstanding.  Similarly, the Blue Devils outscored opponents 345 to 263 with a play-calling mix that was just 46% pass to 54% run.  As a team, they rushed for 2,228 yards on 547 carries, an average of 4.1 yards/carry and 171.4 yards/game.

So yeah.  The Blue Devils’ 2017 performance was broadly similar to Army’s.  Much more so than you might’ve guessed.

With the graduation of RB Shaun Wilson, redshirt sophomore RB Britton Brown is expected to carry the load this season.  Brown averaged more than 5 yards/carry in 2017 but didn’t see much action through Duke’s midseason losing streak.  Brown apparently struggled with his focus as the season wore on, and he found himself working as a backup.  I find that surprising from an elite university student-athlete, especially on a David Cutcliffe coached team, but I guess even Duke players can be emotional headcases at times.  Brown ought to bounce back as his responsibilities increase, and perhaps more importantly, he’ll be running behind a veteran offensive line.  The Blue Devils have three new positional starters but two are fifth-year seniors and one is moving from right tackle to left while another is moving from guard to center.  In this, they’re again broadly similar to Army.  Everyone on their revamped O-Line has at least some game experience.

On defense, the Blue Devils are again expecting to field an elite defense.  The unit returns eight starters, including two all-ACC players, LB Joe Giles-Harris and CB Mark Gilbert.  The linebacking corps in particular looks stout, with Giles Harris heading into his third season starting alongside his close friend and roommate, fellow LB Ben Humphreys.  Add in a stout D-Line that is young but very good at getting penetration, and we see a proud unit with the potential to actually dominate in ACC play.  Duke boasted the nation’s 48th ranked rushing defense in 2017, allowing just 1,992 yards on 498 carries (4.0 ypc) along with just 16 rushing touchdowns last season.  The Blue Devils’ scoring defense was tied for 21st in 2017, one place better than Army’s, having given up a measly 20.2 points/game.  What’s worse is that the Blue Devils tend to be good against the triple-option because they see it twice a year—once against Army and once against in-division rival Georgia Tech.  They often run-blitz the Midline meshpoint, creating chaos whenever they get defensive penetration.

Perhaps the biggest issue for Duke’s defense is that DC Jim Knowles left to become the DC at Oklahoma State.  Cutcliffe named co-defensive coordinators to replace Knowles.  As of this writing, D-Line coach Ben Albert will share DC duties with secondary coach Matt Guerrier.  It looks like Albert will be in charge of the scheme while Guerrier will head defensive recruiting.  That sounds like a potential train wreck in terms of Unity of Command, but if the responsibilities are clear, it’ll probably work okay.

Introducing your 2018 captains:
Joe Giles-Harris@BenHumphreys34@Daniel_Jones10@j_lloyd5

📰: https://t.co/MNovOvPQ1v pic.twitter.com/P7w8jT99mq

— Duke Football (@DukeFOOTBALL) August 24, 2018

Key Matchups

Again, if you did the homework, you already know that Army’s offense played okay against Duke last year.  But really, it was the defense and special teams that won the game.  Army got after Jones, sacking him repeatedly and forcing a variety of errant throws.  By the end, Jones was running a lot, trying to make something happen to keep his team competitive.  But when Jones’s completion percentage falls below 60%, that’s when the Blue Devils get into trouble.  They lost six times last season, and in none of those games was Jones particularly accurate—including in the Army game.  However, if Jones gets into a rhythm, Duke’s offense becomes an unstoppable juggernaut.

Power Rankings with updated S&P+ projections.

On the other side of the ball, Army’s O-Line needs to get leverage against Duke’s bigger D-Line, foiling the run-blitzes and giving Hopkins time to operate.  Triple-option concepts and the grinding nature of Army’s offensive scheme can do a lot to mitigate the impact of Duke’s elite linebacking corps, but only if Army’s O-Line is getting push at the point of attack.

If you’re Duke, I think you want to try to force Hopkins to beat you with his feet.  You know that Army’s fullbacks will kill you, and you know you have to watch the pitchman.  The unproven part of this offense is the new quarterback.  Can he really throw?  Can these receivers really catch?  Can you maybe knock him out if you hit him hard enough?  These are the questions I imagine Coach Cutcliffe is asking himself.  It gets a little complicated if Hopkins starts completing passes off some of the Midline keepers because then you maybe can’t necessarily drop that second safety down into the box, but if it was me, I’d still want to make Army prove that their new guy is legit.

It’s the first game of the season, so anything can happen, but I tend to think that the game overall will be a defensive struggle.  The team that gets more pressure on the opposing quarterback and/or makes fewer mistakes is the one that’s going to win.  We’ve seen that the last two years with this series.

Final Thoughts

Army Football will wear the
82nd Airborne patch against Duke.

Lines on this game opened months ago, starting at Duke (-10.5) but moving all the way to Duke (-13.5).  Which is ridiculous.  The current line is largely based on power ranking point projections that are both overselling Duke because of the Power 5 bias and underselling Army based on a multi-year rolling average of the Black Knights’ performance.  A more reasonable line would favor the Blue Devils by a little more than a touchdown, but even then, if you look at the preseason Amway Coaches Poll, these teams are probably a bit closer even than that.  Yes, the Blue Devils should be favored, especially since they’re playing at home, but expecting anything other than a tight contest is an odd mistake given the series recent history.  Oddsshark predicts an outright Army victory based on last season’s statistics—Army 30.2, Duke 21.4.  Oddsshark, though, notably over-predicts Army’s scoring output almost all the time.  The Over/Under currently sits at just 46.5, and if I was betting it, I’d probably take the Under.

In talking about lines, it’s worth noting that Duke did Army a significant favor by moving the game from Saturday, September 1, to Friday, August 31.  Hot, humid North Carolina weather might’ve given Duke an advantage on afternoon kickoff.  This was mitigated, though, when they shifted the start to 7 pm.  The Black Knights should be fine for a night game.

I love that Army plays Duke, but I don’t love that this is the first game of the season.  I’d rather have this game and the Lafayette game flip-flopped, allowing Army’s new quarterback and O-Line to gel before taking on arguably the toughest defense they’ll face all season.  But both of these teams tend to start strong.  This should therefore be a good contest despite the fact that Army has a lot to prove on offense.

Kickoff on Friday at 7 pm.  The game will be on ESPNU.

Go Army!  Beat Duke!!!