If there was such a thing as momentum between college football seasons, Army would have it.
The Black Knights won a school-record 11 games last year, including a 70-14 beatdown of Houston in the Armed Forces Bowl to close out the season. It was Army’s third straight winning season, something the school hasn’t accomplished since 1988-90.
Army hasn’t had four consecutive winning seasons since 1960-63, and if coach Jeff Monken is going to help the Black Knights accomplish that, it means not allowing momentum to create complacency within the program.
He jokingly asked if UMass, which visits historic Michie Stadium in West Point on Nov. 9, would spot a touchdown to Army based on last year’s performance. His point being that the success of previous seasons will not determine how many wins Army will have this year.
“It helps everybody’s confidence to have won, but in terms of what we need to do to prepare, it doesn’t change anybody’s attitude or anything like that,” Monken said. “We’re not talented enough to feel like we’ve got it all figured out. We’re about talented enough to lose every game if we don’t prepare and work our butts off. That’s the approach I take every year here.”
OFFENSE: Most offenses in today’s era of college football are designed to spread out defenses and force them to defend space. Then there’s the attacks like Army’s triple-option that are more about deception and finding the ball carrier.
The Black Knights’ wishbone formation opens up numerous possibilities when it comes to running the football. But one of the main weapons will be quarterback Kelvin Hopkins Jr., who orchestrates the synchronous movement of the offense.
Hopkins Jr. entered last season in a battle to replace Ahmad Bradshaw as the starter after Bradshaw eclipsed 1,700 yards rushing. While Hopkins didn’t meet that lofty threshold, he did exceed 1,000 yards on the ground to lead the team while also scoring a team-best 17 touchdowns.
“That’s the thing we saw so much was his maturity when he became the starter (last year),” Monken said. “He realized that he had to take on that role as a leader or we weren’t going to be as good as we could be. … We didn’t even know if Kelvin was going to be the starter going into last year, it was battle. Even through preseason camp, we felt like it was a race between he and Cam Thomas and some others, and he earned the job and was ultra-productive.”
The next most likely option on the field for Army is fullback Connor Slomka, who replaces Darnell Woolfolk, the second-leading rusher each of the last two years. Slomka scored five times and averaged 4.4 yard per carry last season as the third-option at fullback.
He’ll be joined in the backfield by running backs Artice Hobbs and Kell Walker, who exited the spring as the starters at the other two running back positions. Walker has averaged more than six yards per rush on his 211 career carries, peaking in 2017 with 629 yards and six touchdowns. Hobbs had half of his 12 carries on the season in the bowl win over Houston, running for 61 yards and a score on those touches.
Paving the way is an experienced offensive line that returns three starters and has seniors in the other two spots. That theme of experience runs across both sides of the ball for Army.
“I love having guys who are experienced, it’s something that the first couple of years we didn’t have,” Monken said. “Our second year here, we played 20-plus freshmen every game, so I certainly don’t want to be back in that situation. It wasn’t a good formula for us. They’re not all starters coming back, but they’re guys who have played in games, played on special teams, so that’s a positive.”
DEFENSE: Defensively, the Black Knights had eight seniors listed atop their post-spring depth chart, but just three of them started regularly last season.
Those three are middle linebacker Cole Christiansen, who finished second on the team with 77 tackles but led Army with 12 tackles-for-loss, safety Jaylon McClinton and cornerback Elijah Reilly. The secondary has one other returning starter — junior corner Javhari Bourdeau — the only other starter returning on defense for the Black Knights.
Yet Monken said his goal has always been to build a defense that plays well within its system and the unit has taken strides in that area under defensive coordinator Jay Bateman.
“We had some guys that made some plays and are talented enough, but we really built that defense on having a bunch of tough guys that played really, really hard,” Monken said. “Jay does a good job at just playing a defense and putting our guys in a position to play fast and play hard and make some plays. If you measure us height and weight, we’re not going to match up with many of the guys we play, but our guys play very hard and execute the fundamentals and the scheme. That’s who we are as a program.”
Only one player who isn’t a junior or senior was able to earn a starting position out of spring camp — sophomore inside linebacker Arik Smith. He’s slated to start at weakside outside linebacker after making four tackles in limited action last season as a freshman.
“We’re all excited about Arik Smith,” Monken said. “He played on special teams and sparingly on defense as a freshman, but he’s kind of earned his way up to this point heading into preseason camp as a starter at inside linebacker. He was a pleasant surprise.”
Josh Walfish can be reached at jwalfish@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshWalfishDHG. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage.