One of the hidden gems of the college football blogging world is Michael Felder’s In The Bleachers Podcast, a regular roundup of special guests discussing hot topics throughout the year. The hot topic this week is Army-Navy; a fringe benefit of moving the game back a week to be by itself. ITB hooks you up with a podcast doubleheader to talk about the game: first with Patrick Stevens, formerly of the Washington Times and author of the D1scourse blog, followed up by a second podcast with a slightly less reputable contributor.
Category: army
ARMY WEEK
We have the whole week to ourselves now, so I should probably write something.
By most measures, this season has already been a success for Army football even with two games left to play. The fact that they actually have two games left is why. At 6-5, Army comes into the Navy game with a winning record and have already secured their first bowl berth in 14 years. Some might point to Army’s schedule as being the reason for their turnaround, and it’s true that they haven’t beaten anybody good. Probably not coincidentally, Army’s schedule is filled with teams like Eastern Michigan, Tulane, Kent State, and North Texas that once appeared on Navy’s slate, but don’t want to play the Mids anymore. Lightening the schedule load has helped to jumpstart the renaissance, but don’t let that fool you. Army is better. Simply being better, though, isn’t what the Army program has in mind. Making a bowl game is great, but to truly feel like Army is back on the right path, they have to beat Navy.
On paper, they shouldn’t. Navy is the better football team, coming into the game at 8-3 with wins over bowl-bound SMU, ECU, and Notre Dame teams. Ricky Dobbs is healthy and playing the way everyone was hoping he would over the summer. Alex Teich and Gee Gee Greene have emerged as bona fide stars. Greg Jones is a legitimate downfield threat in the passing game. Aaron Santiago, who sat out most of the first third of the season with a lingering hamstring injury, is back in the starting lineup and has been a jack of all trades, blocking, running, and catching. The defense, after seven straight games of seeing spread offenses that threw the ball all over the field, is undoubtedly looking forward to playing a running game that looks more like Georgia Southern and Air Force– their two best performances of the year. The Mids have every advantage going into Saturday’s game, but as the cliché goes, games aren’t played on paper. It isn’t hard to find Navy victories over teams that they usually lose out to in recruiting. Army isn’t as talented as Navy, but they don’t have to be to win this game.
Before the season started, I felt that Army was capable of winning 6 games against their schedule. That Army sits at 6-5 right now is no surprise. What is a bit surprising, though, is how they’ve done it. Army football for the last 5 years has looked pretty much the same: very good defense, terrible offense. Last year was no different, and with the defense returning 8 starters, this year’s team appeared destined to follow in the footsteps of its predecessors. That hasn’t been the case. The Army offense was retooled to take advantage of the Black Knights’ strengths, and the change has worked fairly well. Somewhat surprisingly, it’s the defense that has struggled at times. They’re still a top 30 unit, giving up a service-academy-best 332 yards per game. In scoring defense, though, the Black Knights fall to 55th in the country, giving up 24.64 points per game. That’s not terrible, but it’s something that has haunted Army all year. The typical Army game has them racing out to an early lead, then trying to hold in the second half. Army has outscored their opponents 257-169 through three quarters, but have been outscored 102-56 in the 4th quarter and in overtime. Army went into the 4th quarter with leads against both Temple and Rutgers only to be outscored 41-10 the rest of the way to lose both games.
We’ll get to Army’s new offense later in the week, but for now let’s take a look at what makes the defense tick.
Despite being hired as an “option coach,” Rich Ellerson has spent the bulk of his career coaching defenses, and coaching them well. His trademark is the “Double Eagle Flex” scheme that he helped make famous at Arizona. Take a look at the picture:
In most defenses, there are “levels.” The line is the first level, the linebackers the second, and the secondary the third. What the Double Eagle Flex does is scrap the “levels” concept in favor of more hybrid positions. You have defensive ends on their feet, ILBs that double as nose guards, linebackers that double as defensive backs, and linemen aligned to force double-teams by the offensive line. By doing this, the defense attempts to have its cake and eat it too, especially against the run. It looks like there’s room to run up the middle, but the ILBs can easily step up to fill the gaps. But if you run outside, those ILBs are far enough off the line of scrimmage that they can pursue inside-out without getting tangled up with the offensive line. And when it works, that’s exactly what happens:
The Air Force game plan was dedicated, then, to handling Army’s inside-out pursuit. Air Force doesn’t run the same offense as Navy, but they do things similarly enough that you can get a feel for how the Mids might attack the Army defense. Surprisingly, Air Force ran very little triple option against Army. To counter the inside-out pursuit of Army’s linebackers, the Falcons ran a lot of double option, using the fullback as a lead blocker. Army’s secondary played the “wishbone” defense; cover 3, with the safety playing the pitch. It’s a defense that the Navy offense has done very well against. Air Force’s success out of their flexbone set depended on who the fullback ended up blocking. If he’d block the safety, sometimes he would get far enough into the backfield to slow the runner and allow the rest of the defense to catch up to make a play. Sometimes an Army lineman– usually Mike Gann– would fight through the double team to make a play. If he didn’t, though, Air Force would get a decent gain out of the play.
Navy probably wouldn’t have the fullback block the safety. Coach Jasper would likely use the fullback to block the scraping linebacker and have the playside slotback block the safety in this situation.
Other than the double option, Air Force tried a few other things to deal with Army’s linebackers. One was the short trap. When Air Force would motion a tight end, Army’s defense wouldn’t shift to account for the new formation. By moving the tight end and pulling the playside guard outside, Air Force simply had more blockers on the play side of the formation than Army had defenders.
One of the weaknesses of Army’s defense is that by relying on linebackers to read and react, they aren’t playing gap control. Having their eyes in the backfield makes them prone to misdirection. Air Force took advantage of this by running the zone stretch play in one direction, but sending the fullback to block in the other direction. The linebacker would follow the fullback, thinking that was the direction of the play. Instead, the tailback followed the line and ran right where the ILB used to be.
Air Force also capitalized on misdirection in the passing game with two long TD passes. Navy was able to do that against Army last year too, but had plays called back due to penalties. The passing game might be a big part of the Navy game plan. One of the weaknesses of the Double Eagle Flex, and one of the reasons you don’t see it very much in the college game, is that it’s not the best way to defend against spread offenses. It makes sense, if you think about it. A defense that’s based on showing an 8-man front and pursuing from the inside-out is going to have a hard time stopping offenses designed to get the ball to playmakers in space as quickly as possible. Linebackers can’t run outside faster than the quarterback can throw the ball there. The short passing game is one way Coach Jasper can take advantage of this.
Army won’t necessarily play the same way against Navy as they did against Air Force. In fact, they’ll probably do things a bit differently. That was the case last year, when Army came out with a different game plan against VMI than they did against the Mids despite both teams using spread option offenses. Even if the tactics are different, though, the Black Knights aren’t going to stray from their base defense. They’re still going to come at Navy with a different look than what they’re used to seeing. In that sense, having three weeks between games probably helps Navy more than it does Army. The built-in advantage that Army gets from teams having to prepare for an unusual defense is diminished when they have so much time to practice for it.
ANALYZING THE HYPERBOLE
Troy Calhoun called this year’s Air Force schedule “the strongest a service academy has played in decades.” With Oklahoma and the Mountain West’s big three, there are definitely some strong teams on there. But the strongest schedule in decades? I don’t think so. I’m not even sure it’s the toughest Air Force schedule in decades, let alone the toughest among all 3 service academies. I doubt Calhoun looked them up before making that comment, anyway. But just to kill time, we will. So which of these was the toughest service academy schedule of the last 3 decades?
1980 Air Force: at Colorado State, at Washington, San Diego State, at Illinois, at Yale, Navy, at Tulane, Boston College, at Army, at Notre Dame, at Hawaii
1982 Air Force: at Tulsa, San Diego State, at Texas Tech, at BYU, New Mexico, Navy, Colorado State, at UTEP, Wyoming, at Army, Notre Dame, at Hawaii
2006 Air Force: at Tennessee, at Wyoming, New Mexico, Navy, Colorado State, at San Diego State, BYU, at Army, Notre Dame, Utah, at UNLV, at TCU
1998 Army: Miami (OH), Cincinnati, at Rutgers, at East Carolina, at Houston, Southern Miss, at Notre Dame, Air Force, Tulane, at Louisville, Navy
2005 Army: at Boston College, Baylor, Iowa State, UConn, Central Michigan, at TCU, at Akron, at Air Force, UMass, Arkansas State, Navy
2007 Army: Akron, Rhode Island, at Wake Forest, at Boston College, Temple, Tulane, at Central Michigan, at Georgia Tech, at Air Force, Rutgers, Tulsa, Navy
1982 Navy: Virginia, at Arkansas, Boston College, at Duke, at Air Force, William & Mary, The Citadel, Notre Dame, at Syracuse, at South Carolina, Army
1984 Navy: at UNC, Virginia, at Arkansas, at Air Force, Lehigh, Princeton, at Pitt, Notre Dame, at Syracuse, South Carolina, Army
2000 Navy: Temple, at Georgia Tech, at Boston College, TCU, at Air Force, Notre Dame, Rutgers, Toledo, at Tulane, Wake Forest, Army
THE STATE OF SERVICE ACADEMY FOOTBALL: ARMY
During the offseason, I like to take a step back and look at how each service academy program is doing relative to each other and the college football world in general. A “state of the union” of sorts. First on the list: Army.
The Navy is a complicated profession. There are so many different elements one must master in order to succeed, from understanding the different culture, to leading people, to the finer points of individual warfare specialties. After all, it is by no means enough that an officer of the Navy should be a capable mariner. He must be that, of course, but also a great deal more. Or so I’ve been told. With so much to remember, sailors have passed down various sayings and mnemonic devices to guide them through the years. There’s “choose your rate, choose your fate”– sage advice for the junior enlisted sailor to be educated about what exactly his chosen career path entails. Conning officers across the Fleet depend on “red right returning” to keep their ships in the channel (if you’re about to leave a comment about IALA-A, you’re a nerd). Even cynics have their reminder to Never Again Volunteer Yourself. There are no cynics in Annapolis, obviously, and “IHTFP” has helped generations of midshipmen express their boundless joy.
Not all of these memory aids are unique to the Navy, or even to nautical life. A more common expression that’s a favorite among officers–and one that I’ve always hated– is “perception is reality.” It’s not that it’s bad advice. The problem is that some people become so attached to these little one-liners that they won’t listen to anything else. While it’s helpful to remember the importance of image consciousness, most issues are far more complex than the way they appear to the outside world. It’s one thing to acknowledge the old “perception is reality” axiom, but to end the conversation there would be to defer to the knee-jerk reactions of the uninformed on any matter of importance. Perception is truly reality only to those who don’t care enough about something to take the time to dig any deeper.
Continue reading “THE STATE OF SERVICE ACADEMY FOOTBALL: ARMY”
NAVY 17, ARMY 3, PART 2
Now that I have overcome my technical obstacles (sort of), we can get back to the Army game.
The Army game is the crown jewel of every Navy football season for obvious reasons. It carried an additional significance this year, though, from a football perspective. I had been looking forward to this game all season not only for the rivalry and all the hoopla that surrounds it, but also to see how Buddy Green would attack an offense that resembles Navy’s. One might argue that we saw that last year, but the one-man fullbackapalooza that Army called an offense wasn’t exactly a real spread option. This year’s Army offense wasn’t any more potent, but it was at least a bit more varied schematically. So maybe this year we’d get to compare Buddy’s approach to the other defensive coordinators we look at each week. And we did… Sort of.
NAVY 17, ARMY 3, PART 1
Navy’s 17-3 win over Army on Saturday was not the closest final score during the Mids’ current winning streak over their rivals. That actually came in the 2006 game, in which Navy prevailed, 26-14. Statistically, that game looked a lot like the 2009 edition of the rivalry. Navy had 13 first downs on Saturday, while Army had 10. In 2006 it was even, with each team putting up 15 apiece. The Mids outgained Army by 60 yards this year, while in 2006 they only had a 22-yard advantage. Army went into the locker room at halftime with a 3-0 lead on Saturday, and trailed Navy by only a touchdown going into the 4th quarter. In 2006, the teams were tied at 7 at the half, while Army again trailed Navy by a lone touchdown going into the 4th quarter. Navy’s offense scored only 17 points in both games; in 2006, the Mids’ defense provided a cushion by scoring 9 points in the 4th quarter thanks to a Keenan Little interception return and a late safety on a Tyler Tidwell sack. Even the current makeup of the two teams is similar to the way they were in 2006. Navy featured a young offense in that year’s game, starting only four seniors. Navy’s offense in 2009? Four seniors. In both games, Army’s offense was led by highly-touted freshman quarterbacks; the Arkansas-recruited Carson Williams in 2006, and option-messiah Trent Steelman in 2009. The similarities are striking, and it could be argued that 2006 was the closer contest in more ways than just the final score.
Postgame Haiku, Vol. 31
I doubt anyone
At Missouri is too scared.
But I’ll take the win.
ARMY WEEK
Part of what makes college football so great is its unique combination of the enduring with the evolving. On one hand, there are standards like traditions, storied rivalries, and beloved venues that each generation shares with its predecessors. On the other hand, there is constant flux; coaches come and go, conferences realign, and every team’s roster looks completely different every 4-5 years. Over the past few years, the Army-Navy game has exemplified this dynamic of things changing, and things staying the same. It is one of college football’s oldest and most steadfast rivalries, but recent years have featured storylines highlighting that season’s changes. Army-Navy has been broadcast nationally for more than 50 years, including the last dozen on CBS, and will continue that way until at least 2018. It has, however, been moved from the first to the second Saturday in December. Change has been a theme on the field as well. The 2007 game brought us Stan Brock’s first year at Army, along with the speculation that it might be Paul Johnson’s last year at Navy. Last season was Ken Niumatalolo’s first as the Mids’ head coach, and he faced off against Army’s new option offense. The 2009 matchup will be the series’ third straight with a new head coach on the sidelines, as Rich Ellerson is wrapping up his first season at the helm of the Army football program.
WHY WON’T YOU DIE
Which is scarier? Jason Voorhees repeatedly rising to terrorize counselors at Camp Crystal Lake with a machete despite being vanquished at the end of each Friday the 13th movie? Or the fact that someone thought it was a good idea to make another Friday the 13th movie?
The same question could be asked of Army’s Alternative “Service” Option– the villain in the slasher-flick world of service academy football. Just when you thought the topic was dead, it comes out of nowhere to hack internet conversation to bits and haunt your dreams. (OK, that last part is a Nightmare on Elm Street reference, but they made Freddy vs. Jason, so the judges have allowed it.) At a West Point Board of Visitors meeting a couple weeks ago, the question of the ASO came up. On Tuesday, Sal Interdonato wrote about the responses given by the superintendent, LTG Franklin Hagenbeck, athletic director Kevin Anderson, and new head football coach Rich Ellerson, here. And whoa Nelly there’s some classic buck-passing going on in this one.
The Supe has some hum-dingers. Highlights:
Hagenbeck: “In ’05, we wrote a particular standard in line with OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense). We moved out and had some youngsters go to the professional ranks other than football. Last year, Caleb Campbell was drafted by the Detroit Lions. The spotlight was on him. Another service academy was very outspoken and their view was we had an unfair competitive advantage and had that policy turned around in a blink of an eye…We are all under the same policy and how you look at it and implement it is the question.”
It’s bad enough that Hagenbeck completely dodges any responsibility that he might have had in this debacle, but he didn’t stop there. No, he takes it a step further and decides to blame the Naval Academy. With that, I would like to cordially invite LTG Hagenbeck to screw himself. (All the Army fans that will inevitably read this and feign offense because I told an OMG GENERAL to screw himself can likewise screw themselves). He gets away with it because there’s nothing that some Army fans like more than blaming Navy for their problems. I don’t know where that trend began, but it’s as pathetic as it is absurd. “Evil Navy is a bunch of wimps that don’t fight the real war, so they tell Army recruits’ parents that their kid will die! Evil Navy went to the NCAA about Army player eligibility!” Etc., etc. Maybe it makes some Army fans feel better to think that way, but the result of believing this nonsense is that they fail to hold accountable the people truly responsible for their problems. People like LTG Hagenbeck, who can’t even get his story straight while he tries to play the victim:
Another service academy was very outspoken and their view was we had an unfair competitive advantage and had that policy turned around in a blink of an eye…
They (cadets) could buy out. It was $280,000 and spend their remaining time in the reserves subject to recall. If you didn’t show progress in the pro ranks, Army could recall you back. That was all laid out. OSD came back literally at the 11th hour, actually less than 48 hours when Caleb reported to Detroit to say that definition of active duty for the first two years was not acceptable.
Which is it, General? Did mean ol’ Navy get that policy turned around in the “blink of an eye,” or did it drag on so that you heard nothing until the “11th hour?” You can’t have it both ways. And his claim that he received nothing in writing is suspect. Do we need to go over the ASO timeline again?
2005: Army creates the ASO.
August 2007: After representatives from each of the academies voiced their concerns over differing policies between the services, a memo is promulgated from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness) regarding the “Policy for Academy and ROTC Graduates Seeking to Participate in Professional Sports Before Completion of their Active Duty Service Obligations.” The policy orders two years of active duty before a service academy or ROTC graduate is able to apply for excess leave to attempt to catch on with a team. The policy becomes effective Jan. 1, 2008.
April 2008: Caleb Campbell is drafted.
Only three freaking days after the draft: Dr. David Chu, the Under Secretary in question– who has absolutely nothing to do with the Navy or the Naval Academy, by the way– sends out a new memo, “retransmitting” the August 2007 policy and stating that it is “a policy that remains in force and may not be supplemented.” In order to address any claim that playing in the NFL could itself be considered “active duty,” the memo goes on to add that “constructs for ‘active duty’ service should not include arrangements typically unavailable to others in uniform.” This all happened three months, not 48 hours, before Lions training camp.
May 2008: After this new memo is sent, Army begins their “internal review.”
July 2008: Caleb Campbell is pulled away from Lions training camp.
We can deduce from Hagenbeck’s comments that our initial suspicion about the nature of that “internal review” was pretty much dead on. It wasn’t an “internal review” as much as it was weeks of begging and weaseling between Army officials and the OSD, with the former trying to manipulate the ASO into legitimacy. If anything happened at the “11th hour,” it was someone at OSD saying “no means no” for the thirtieth time. LTG Hagenbeck had been told “no” a whole hell of a lot sooner than “less than 48 hours” before Campbell reported to Lions camp. Chu’s “retransmit” memo proves it. For Hagenbeck to say otherwise is nothing but dishonest revisionism.
Did Naval Academy officials complain about the ASO after Campbell was drafted? Of course they did, and they should have. But Dr. Chu obviously didn’t need to hear anything from Navy to smack the ASO down; his reaction was immediate. The facts are simple; the OSD had a policy in place. West Point tried to violate that policy. The OSD didn’t let them. And by fighting the decision until the last minute, Army jerked Campbell around and created a public relations train wreck for themselves. Hagenbeck’s lack of accountability is disappointing. Trying to blame the Naval Academy is just shameful.
(By the way, can you imagine if a cadet went to a conduct board and said something like, “We are all under the same policy and how you look at it and implement it is the question.” I’m sure that’d fly!)
THE STATE OF SERVICE ACADEMY FOOTBALL: ARMY
At the end of the football season, I like to take a step back and look at how each service academy program is doing relative to each other and the college football world in general. A “state of the union” of sorts. First on the list: Army.
2008 was a season that began with optimism. Most seasons do at any school, I suppose, but not at Army. Not since Todd Berry took the West Point football program and gave it a tombstone piledriver from which it has yet to recover. Since Berry’s 0-13 debacle, the hope amongst the Army faithful was that one day, option football would return. After all, even a coaching legend like Bobby Ross failed to reverse the Army team’s fortunes. Army fans decided that there was no other recourse; it’s option football or bust. So when it was revealed that Jim Young had been seen helping out at Army football practices, well… That’s enough to work any Army fan into a frenzy. Young, of course, is the Army coach who took over in 1983. After a 2-9 season that saw the Cadets average a paltry 12 points per game, Young switched to a wishbone offense and found immediate success, winning 8 games (including the Cherry Bowl) and more than doubling point production for the season. His presence could mean only one thing: that option football was returning to West Point. So why not have a little optimism? Even if getting to a bowl game was still a bit pie-in-the-sky, it seemed reasonable that Army would at least be more competitive, right?
Apparently not. Not to start the season, anyway. What was thought to be a winnable game against Temple turned into a 35-7 blowout loss. I-AA New Hampshire came to Michie Stadium a week later and dominated the Black Knights in a 28-10 win. Army had the week off after the New Hampshire loss, but it did them no good as Akron came to West Point and dealt out a 22-3 thumping of their own. Army fans, players, and coaches had to believe that those were three winnable games at home; instead, Army was outscored 85-20. With another loss on the road at Texas A&M, Army started the season 0-4. That’s not how it was supposed to go.
While there was disappointment on the field, there was drama off of it. Carson Williams, the team’s returning starter at quarterback, was benched after three games in favor of sophomore Chip Bowden. Army’s prize recruit in its freshman class, Indiana quarterback Paul McIntosh, left the school. Both the West Point Superintendent and athletic director allegedly came to the Army locker room and berated the players for their supposed lack of effort. And then there was the all-too-ominous kiss of death vote of confidence given to head coach Stan Brock by AD Kevin Anderson. By the end of September it was getting to be apparent that Stan Brock’s second season as Army’s head coach would be his last.
But then a strange thing happened; Army started to play better. It began with a 44-13 rout of Tulane in New Orleans. Fullback Collin Mooney led the way with 187 yards rushing and 4 TDs. Army won again a week later, topping Eastern Michigan 17-13 behind Mooney’s 229 yards. The Black Knights had a 24-10 lead on eventual MAC champion Buffalo before falling in overtime, 27-24. A 14-7 win over Louisiana Tech a week later, and Army had won 3 out of 4 games going into the first leg of the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy round-robin against Air Force. Army lost a tight game to the Falcons, and lost another close one to an explosive Rice team that would go on to win the Houston Bowl. Rutgers had Army completely overmatched, but for six straight games, Army was doing what the faithful thought they should. They were competitive. And what better way to announce the resurgence of Army football to the world than a win over their biggest rival on the season’s biggest stage? The Mids had lost Paul Johnson to Georgia Tech, after all. Besides, Army was able to hang with “teams that are a lot better than Navy,” right?
It didn’t take long for everyone in the stadium to realize that wasn’t the case. Shun White’s touchdown run on Navy’s third play from scrimmage deflated whatever high spirits Army might have had coming into the game. While some stubborn Army alums continued to make the laughable assertion that Navy’s athletes were “no better than ours, if not worse” (!), it felt as if every play in the 2008 edition of the Army-Navy game served as an argument to the contrary. White’s run was the most obvious example, but some of the best demonstrations of the talent gap came when Army had the ball. The Black Knights had open plays, but simply weren’t fast enough to take advantage of them. While the Mids were clearly focused on bottling up Mooney, their linebackers were fast enough to keep any Army play that went outside from doing significant damage. In the last two years, Army has scored a total of three points against Navy.
The 34-0 pounding delivered to Army was the last straw. Maybe Army had made progress over the course of the season, but they were getting no better relative to the one school they just have to beat. On December 12, Stan Brock was fired.
It was an exercise in the inevitable. When athletic administrators take it upon themselves to make on-field football decisions, you know the end is near. That’s exactly what happened over the offseason; it sure wasn’t Stan Brock’s decision to go to an option offense. How do we know? Well, just ask him what he thinks about the option:
“I don’t think a 100-percent triple option is the answer,” Brock said. “If it was, Navy would be national champions because there’s nobody that runs it better than Navy, nobody. …
“There’s a lot of positive things that are part of that offense and some other things, you have to be able to do when the situation arrives,” Brock said. “You have to be a well-rounded offense.”
Army actually scored more points per game running their old offense against a tougher schedule in 2007. If the head coach didn’t even believe in the new offense he was running, then it could hardly be considered a surprise that the players struggled with it. And so, out went Brock, and a search–one that Army fans feel should have happened the last time they hired a coach– began.
From comments he made in the media at the time, it was apparent that Anderson was determined to hire an option coach. Based on some names that were floating around (which may or may not have had any merit), being an “option” coach was more important than being a “good” coach when it came to qualifying criteria in the search. Fortunately for Army fans, they have found a bit of both in Rich Ellerson.
Ellerson isn’t an “option coach” in the truest sense of the phrase; he’s made a name for himself as a defensive innovator. But even though he was never the guy drawing up the Xs & Os of the triple option himself, he believes in the spread option and has been dedicated to it as a head coach. Ellerson was the defensive coordinator at Hawai’i from 1987-1991. The Rainbows’ offensive coordinator at the time was, of course, Paul Johnson. Ellerson might have been a defensive assistant for his entire career, but he knew a good offense when he saw one. When he finally got the chance to be a head coach himself– first at Southern Utah, and later at Cal Poly– he knew what offense he wanted to run. When Ellerson was named the head coach at Cal Poly in 2001, he hired Gene McKeehan away from the Naval Academy to be his offensive coordinator. McKeehan installed a spread option offense that would become among the most prolific in I-AA under the direction of succeeding coordinators Ian Shields and Joe DuPaix. While DuPaix is on Ken Niumatalolo’s staff as the slotbacks coach, McKeehan and Shields have followed Ellerson to West Point and will add their expertise to Army’s coaching staff.
The spread option, combined with Ellerson’s defenses, were a winning formula for Cal Poly. Once a Division II power, the Mustangs had only one winning season in the six that preceded Ellerson’s hiring. Ellerson went on to post a 56-34 record in San Luis Obispo, including two appearances in the I-AA playoffs. That’s especially significant, since Cal Poly’s conference– the Great West Football Conference– does not receive an automatic invitation. Of course, that also tells you a little bit about Cal Poly’s competition– it stinks. But don’t get hung up on that. A school with the academic challenges of Cal Poly taking down I-A San Diego State twice in three years and beating traditional I-AA power Montana in a 2005 playoff game says a lot about its coach. It says a lot about San Diego State too, but that’s a different story for a different day.
So if you’re wondering if Rich Ellerson is a good coach, don’t bother. He is. But if there’s a lesson to be learned in service academy football, it’s that being a good coach is not the same thing as being the right coach. Navy fans might not have anything nice to say about Gary Tranquill, Elliot Uzelac, and George Chaump, but believe it or not these guys were good coaches. Gary Tranquill has long been a respected offensive mind. He was the offensive coordinator for George Welsh at Virginia, Nick Saban at Michigan State, and Bill Belichick with the Cleveland Browns. He was recently hired for the same position at Boston College. Elliot Uzelac is another well-respected offensive coach who has been the offensive coordinator at four different BCS schools, including the 11-1 Fiesta Bowl champion Colorado team in 1994 (the year of Kordell Stewart and the Hail Mary). George Chaump never had a losing season as Marshall’s head coach. He led the Thundering Herd to two 10+-win seasons, including the school’s first two I-AA playoff berths and an appearance in the championship game. They all appeared to be solid hires at the time.
This isn’t the first time we’ve talked about this good coach/right coach concept here. But what does being the “right coach” mean? Honestly, I’m not completely sure. I think it may be about a guy’s personality more than anything else. There are a few traits, though, that fans seem to like to talk about when it comes to what makes the right coach, but are instead completely irrelevant. First and foremost, running the option doesn’t make someone the “right coach.” Bob Sutton has a somewhat similar background as Rich Ellerson in that they are both defensive coaches who ran option offenses. Sutton had only two winning seasons in 9 years, and even those seasons featured a combined 5 wins over I-AA teams (four of them non-scholarship I-AA teams). Elliot Uzelac brought the wishbone to Navy and went 8-25 over 3 years.
Having service academy experience is another thing a lot of fans look for, but that doesn’t make someone the right coach either. Sutton was an Army assistant under Jim Young. Tranquill and Uzelac were both former Navy assistants; Tranquill under George Welsh, and Uzelac under Rick Forzano. Charlie Weatherbie spent six years on Fisher DeBerry’s staff. None of them had lasting success at Army or Navy. There are other things that fans like to think matter, too, like “getting the mission” of the school or wanting to coach at the school forever and ever. That’s all nice and flowery, but only if the guy actually wins. If he doesn’t, then nobody cares if he’s super gung-ho about creating military officers. Hell, West Point itself wasn’t even super gung-ho about turning its football players into officers as of last year. Yes, Army is Ellerson’s dream job, and he’s bringing the option to Michie Stadium. But that’s not what will make or break him. Recruiting, however, will.
Army has a pretty steep hill to climb in that category. First, the good news for Army fans: Coach Ellerson has stated that the team needs better speed across the board, and that finding speed is his top recruiting priority. Hey, the first step is admitting that you have a problem, and with that Ellerson has already done more than his predecessors who thought that Army had “closed the gap” on Navy. But recruiting is easier said than done. I’m sure some Army fan will read this and think it’s just some Navy fan being arrogant, but Navy should beat Army for recruits. All else being equal, the Naval Academy has two distinct advantages on top of simply being the best program right now. The first is location: downtown Annapolis vs. middle-of-nowhere Highland Falls is a no-brainer. The second is far more important: the Naval Academy is the only school of the three that can offer pretty much anything that the other schools do after graduation. Want to fly jets? You can do that. Be a ground-pounder? Ditto. Drive ships? Submarines? Jump out of airplanes? Drive tanks? Yes to all of them. The same can’t be said of USMA or USAFA, barring the rare interservice transfer. To an 18-year old kid, this is huge. Making a commitment to the military can seem intimidating enough without having to rule out service options from the get-go. Having four years to to make an educated decision about what’s appealing to you isn’t just comforting; it’s smart. Why burn bridges? Of course, all other things are rarely equal. There’s always some difference in coaching, facilities, and the whims of individual recruits. But this advantage plays out over time. Of the 14 men’s sports in which Army and Navy compete against each other, Navy leads the all-time series in 12 of them (with one tie). And by switching to an offense that’s similar to Navy’s, it makes it that much more important to beat Navy for players.
And that is what will ultimately decide whether Rich Ellerson is the right coach for Army: getting the right players. It’s a tall task, but not an impossible one. If it happens at all, it’s going to take time– which may or may not be a luxury that Kevin Anderson posesses. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now, Army fans can at least look forward to a spring game that promises to be more than just a “defensive scrimmage.” So it’s already better than last year, right?
The Birddog 