Resources: My charting, Army game notes, Army roster, CFBStats, Bill C's preview data

The first team to ever think to play entire separate offensive and defensive units was Fritz Crisler's Michigan in 1945. Thanks to the War, Crisler was still down to mostly 17-year-olds (because they couldn't be drafted) and due to face Army, which could draft anyone's stars they wanted, offer "you can play football instead of fight a war" to recruits, and had two Heisman winners in their backfield. Michigan's platooners didn't win, but they made a 7-7 tie last deep into the favorite's grumbly hour, the only guys all season to give Army a game.

The Black Knights never forgave us for ending the "let's thump our heads together then sit in mud for 30 minutes" era of football, heralding a future where a guy like Tom Brady can play it. Since then Army's had just one goal in mind: make football so ugly, so cheap, so abysmally unwatchable, that nobody will ever want to play it again. Last year they had 10 wins, took Kyler Murray's Oklahoma to overtime, and crushed Houston in a bowl. Last quarter, they did this:

Football: The Army hates it. Almost as much as they do knees.

The film: Rice, because they've only played one game. Minus about 10 plays that didn't make it into the cuts available.

Personnel: My diagram, which you have to picture a lot more condense because the quarterback actually squats behind the center.

PDF version, full-size version (or click on the image)

This is actually a lot of starters to return for a service academy. The regular fullback, Connor Slomka, is dealing with a pulled something and missed the Rice game; he's questionable for Michigan. He's also a big loss; he's their primary ballcarrier, and the primary blocker when he isn't, and backup fullback Sandon McCoy is just a guy back there.

There isn't a lot of difference between the A-Back Kell Walker, a speedster who's occasionally asked to block cut a knee, and the T-Back Artice Hobbs, who's slightly more likely to be the pitch man, had one wicked run where he shouldered a linebacker out of his way, and often splits out to wideout. Both receivers are just guys, and rotate evenly with tight end Zach Saum or just pretend to be tight ends themselves.

Yes, that's a 6'2/265 senior left tackle and a 6'6/300 center. When asked to pass block this line falls apart. When asked to do anything but cut block, most of this line falls apart. Everyone but the center will start low and as far off the line of scrimmage as they can. Center Peyton Reeder will start lower, jam his head into a DT, and when he's engaged the others will use the running head start to go for guys' knees.

[After THE JUMP: Boy do they hate knees]

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Spread, Pro-Style, or Hybrid? Service academy Flexbone option. I only caught 53 plays, what with Army shortening the game on purpose and then the recording was missing a dozen plays (two I found in highlights elsewhere). It still paints a picture.

Football is to be avoided at all costs.

Basketball on Grass or MANBALL? Almost exclusively cut blocking, much of it illegal. A quick refresher: cut blocks are legal if they happen away from the direction of where the ball was snapped, and if the player being cut isn't already engaged (called a chop block). In most Army plays the cuts are going into a mass of bodies, so chops occur on the regular. They're not called, which encourages more of it. Cutting linebackers the way they do is actually more dangerous, though within the rules. I guess this is a kind of zone, but it's more akin to stuff they ran 130 years ago, except with arms outside of bodies. The flying wedge was made illegal because defenses had to counter it by leaping a guy head first into it, and that was causing multiple deaths per season.

Hurry it up or grind it out? This is the organization who invented "Hurry up and wait." They'll get to the line on double-time, then make you sit there, poised, cramping, bored, and offer you a cigarette. Sometimes they'll start a guy in motion, and you'll get all excited but then they stop, and point at things, and get down in those low crouches, again. They were 81st in pace last year, because they were trying to be last, but every so often they would run tempo and catch you with your eyes off the line.

It's strategic. Holding onto the ball shrinks games to handful of possessions, dramatically increasing the randomness factor, and the importance of that one time they pass over your head for a stupid touchdown. Army knows the more plays in a game the greater the likelihood of football occurring, and any football that occurs is likely to be bad for Army.

Quarterback Dilithium Level (Scale: 1 [Navarre] to 10 [Denard]): 10.

Kelvin Hopkins isn't in Denard's class as a runner, but he's the legit Power 5 running back who can't throw worth a damn that people who didn't watch Michigan thought Denard was. Dude can scoot, and has that J.T. Barrett-ness to never go down without spinning to the ground for a few extra yards first.

Zook Frames Janklin Factor: Now that Bill Connelly is at ESPN, his fantastic preseason preview redirects to a Steven Godfrey Banner Society article, but you can still read the title and infer:

When the article existed it noted Army went for it 23 times on 4th and 1 and converted 21 of them. Both the success rate and the amplitude are INSAAAAANE. It happens because their entire offense is built around getting three yards with consistency.

Dangerman: Literally, it's center Peyton Reeder, because if he's engaged with you, someone else is about to take out your knees.

Yes, this is highly illegal. Yes, they're coached to do it all the time. Yes, a lot of injuries result from it, both the leave-the-field kind, and the stay-in-but-by-the-4th-quarter-you-won't-dare-to-anchor kind. No, they never have to face justice for it. Are *you* going to flag the troops?

Army had a great center last year who could move some, but what they do with Reeder, who's more Taco Charlton than any mobile center you can think of, does the job. He fires out of an insanely low stance, then his buddies, who line up as far back as a pass-setting tackle, arrive a second later with a head of steam. It's not quite the old flying wedge that got banned in the 1800s because people were dying from it, but it's the closest thing to it in modern football.

The other guy to worry about is Kelvin Hopkins because he's a bona-fide running back in an offense made to provide the cracks he needs to go into spin cycle. He's quick, low, doesn't fumble, makes the correct decision every time on reads (this is a big deal) and won't go down for a simple shoulder:

Can he pass? Haiiiil no.

HenneChart:

Eight passes! And I didn't even get to chart two of them (including the third completion) because they were left out of the video. His two "CA"s were lobs to guys with no defenders in a 15-yard radius. I was extremely generous with one of them:

If his receiver doesn't have to stop and spin around with that he probably gets in. Hopkins also has two guys in his face and a third about to nail him from behind. This team cannot, cannot, cannot pass block to save its life.

OVERVIEW:

Today Army is the one looking to change how the game is played to make up a huge talent differential. Their wishbone triple-option offense gets you three yards every play if you don't screw it up. They leave the kids on the bench until they won't screw it up, and stay on schedule by cheating their asses off….a lot…I have more links.

Rice played it by keeping everything inside. This led to me charting at least 10 fullback dives from triple-option calls, each with their own subtle variations of cuts, chops, tackles, and a fullback stumbling toward the next scheduled stop over a mass of prone bodies.

From on high it's going to look like they're running the same few plays: triple option, speed option, QB sweep with a fullback lead, and the occasional pitch sweep until they break out a reverse or the extremely rare non-passing down pass.

Down deep there will be a few tiny things going on that result in runs that your football brain thinks should have ended on a lineman's shoulder a few yards earlier. Watch this variation on their standard triple-option fullback dive where the A-back (guy off the line at the top of the formation) tries to cut block the guy getting read, sort of like a split zone.

The status of their injured fullback could make a huge difference. Connor Slomka was the partner in a two-fullback tandem that kept Army on schedule last year. The next guy up can burl forward nearly as well despite being 25 pounds lighter, but McCoy tends to make mistakes that end in TFLs.

In this offense, a TFL might as well be the end of a drive. Passing downs didn't come around often, but when they did, they either gave up and punted, or gave up instant pressure and Hopkins had to throw it where only patriotism could catch it.

So that's the key: get them to 3rd and long, and the threat is ended. The best way to do this is have a DT make a play. The 3-Tech on the hash here saw he was getting mid-lined, forced the keep, then leapt upfield in time to swallow the quarterback.

Later Army would run a similar thing where they cut this guy with a backside guard and pick up 7 yards. That's a good trade—Army's trying to get to the next 2nd and 6; any 2nd-and-12 means using up a trick or giving up on the drive. Get them off schedule.

Oklahoma game aside, note above that last year's Coach of the Year Jeff Monken has just two wins over a Power Five team in 13 tries since assuming command of West Point in 2014. Those were over [ED-fixed] a 2017 Duke team on a six-game losing streak and a mediocre 2016 Wake Forest. Also Oklahoma was 84th in S&P+ defense last year; Michigan's lowest projections are still top 25. I'm not worried about whether Don Brown will have the guys prepared, or that Michigan can ultimately stop these guys. I am extremely annoyed at how annoyed I'm going to be while they're doing so.