Sunday, September 23, 2018

Quick Thoughts: Army Goes Toe-to-Toe with Oklahoma

Well folks, I didn't think that game was gonna go like that, and considering that Fox Sports put probably the best game of the day on pay-per-view, where it was seen by maybe 50K people, I'm guessing that they didn't either.  It was a bad deal.  It's inexcusable, really, especially when the net result was to punish Army, the premier military academy for the entire nation and one of college football's most-storied programs.

I mean, Army played at Oklahoma, but it's still Oklahoma's Army.  West Point is Oklahoma's military academy every bit as much as it's New York's.  But somehow we didn't put the game on national TV.  As my grandfather would've said, "That don't make no sense."


I listened to the game of Tune-In.  I mentioned last week that I'd started working on a new project.  That project is a book about backyard grilling philosophy, tentatively titled "Playing with Fire: A Grill Geek's Guide to the Backyard Lifestyle." Skipping last week's Army Football Preview gave me the time to start laying out the book's format, outline initial ideas, and put down maybe 5K words towards a draft.  Knowing we were gonna be listening on the radio, Sally and I decided to experiment with a recipe for bacon-feta burgers.  Rich DeMarco's coverage  via Army Sports Radio was a much better fit for that than TV would've been, though I did put Florida at Tennessee on the backyard TV.  I just didn't have the brainwave capacity to follow both games and cook.  So I know the Vols got smoked like last night's bacon, but I don't know how or why.


If you're wondering, it turns out that grilling bacon is every bit as delicious as you might expect.  However, it's also a good way to start a grease fire.  I got away without singeing my arm hairs off, for once, but it was touch-and-go there for a few minutes.  Alas, I'm not ready to share anything from the book just yet, but we did put together a new Instagram account to document the experimentation process of designing recipes.


Follow along at @GrillGeek_PWF if you're interested.  'Nuff said on that.

My takeaway from last night's game was that OU quarterback Kyler Murray is an elite talent, but his defense was not particularly well prepared.  Army couldn't do much to stop Murray besides keep him off the field, and they knew it.  But OU sold out to stop the Fullback Dive from the first Army play of the game, and it opened up these crazy pitch plays all night long.  I kept waiting for Oklahoma to adjust to the outside running game, but they never really did.  FB Darnell Woolfolk especially played a courageous game, but he had to work for every single yard.  He never quite broke the long run late in the fourth quarter that would've given Army an actual victory.  He got close, I think, but OU's defense never quite broke.  It's a credit to them, really, despite being on the field for nearly 45 minutes, but it's also an indictment because Army gave up probably fifty pounds per man across the board.

And make no mistake: Army kicked their over-sized asses all up and down the field.

Look at it like this: Army out-gained Oklahoma 379 yards to 355 and 26 first downs to 19.  The Black Knights ran 78 times for 339 yards (4.3 yards/carry) and 3 touchdowns.  That is a lot.

Yes, QB Kelvin Hopkins threw two picks, but they were both on do-or-die 4-and-7 plays at the end of the game.  Army's pass protection left something to be desired against the Sooners' rushers, but the Oklahoma's vaunted rushing defense probably better hope that none of their regular opponents decides to run a committed read-option attack against them in conference play.  Honestly, they leave a little something to be desired against pitch plays.

SB Kell Walker finally got on-track last night.  He wound up with 12 carries for 80 yards (6.7 yards/carry) and 3 receptions for 40 yards.  Alas, he was the only Black Knight to get a reception.  One wonders if maybe the coaching staff was afraid of throwing to Army receivers in space against OU's over-sized cornerbacks in one-on-one coverage, but regardless, Walker has been by far Hopkins's favorite target this season.  That's not a knock, but Army probably needed one more reception to take home an actual victory, and it probably needed to come on a running down-and-distance.

Army played a base nickel defense last night for the second week in a row.  It left them a little vulnerable to Murray's running ability, but what can you do?  The guy is a freak.

Really, save for Murray, I'm not sold on this Oklahoma team.  Take Murray away, and is this team better than Duke?  Really?  They certainly aren't on defense, and on offense, Murray is the whole show.  I mean, he is the entire team.



Anyway, LB James Nachtigal had a good game.  He had 5 tackles, including a sack on Murray on a blitz out of nowhere, and he led the charge on the 4th down stop in the 4th quarter.  CB Mike Reynolds had a beautiful interception, and with luck, maybe he'll start seeing a little more playing time.  He had beautiful coverage on the pick.  CB Elijah Riley led all Army tacklers with 9, including one tackle-for-loss.  Safeties Max Regan and Jaylon McClinton played well, too.  They had 7 and 6 tackles respectively and McClinton had a pass-defensed.  I feel like the secondary, and especially the safety group, is coming together nicely.

Overall, this defense is pretty good.  They don't have the height or speed to always close with some of the most elite players in college football, and I think we knew that, but they're almost always in position, and they're very good in short yardage and goal line situations where down-the-field athleticism is less important.  That counts.

I thought this game was gonna kill Army's statistics, but that's not what happened.  In fact, we're pretty much back where we started.

Army P(Wins) vs. the 2018 Schedule
In his post-game press conference, Coach Monken noted that every team Army has played this season has come into the game undefeated.  Duke and Oklahoma are still undefeated, and Army handed Hawaii its lone loss.  Next week's game at Buffalo continues the trend, and in case you missed it, the Bulls laid an absolute beat down on Rutgers yesterday.  P(Wins) isn't great at accounting for strength of schedule, but at least on a points differential basis, the Bulls look every inch as good the Sooners.  Buffalo has beat the Holy Hell out of pretty much everybody they've played.


Next week's game will be the most important of the season to date.  It's gonna be a dogfight.

Go Army!  Beat Buffalo!!!
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