The Black Knights will finish the regular season at .500 or above for the first time in five years after Jeff Monken coached the team to a dominating 60-3 victory over Morgan State on Saturday. The result means that the Black Knights are still in contention for a bowl and that now Army can look forward three weeks to a date with Navy and a chance to beat the Mids for the first time since 2001.
Before all that though here is a look back at how Army beat the Bears:
1) Better special teams play – Pass
Lost in the 60-3 victory is the simple fact that Army didn’t miss a single kick at the posts on Saturday. The same Army team that has struggled with the kicking game in ways no one thought possible, was 6-for-6 when it came to kicking the ball at goal. The five extra points should, of course, be gimmes, though that is not how it has always played out this year. Monken used three kickers for those five points, with Blake Wilson (2), Mitchell Howard (2), and Avery Wales (1), all repaying the faith of their coach. It was Wilson that had the biggest make of the game with a 47-yard field goal in the third quarter.
2) Shut down the Morgan State passing offense – Pass
Morgan State passed for just 58 yards last week in a close (22-21) loss to Florida A&M. This week the passing game was actually a little better, but Army completely controlled the MSU offense with plenty of those yards coming in garbage time long after the game was over as a contest.
The Bears were able to pass for just 96 yards (and no touchdowns) as Army limited starting quarterback Chris Andrews to just 79 yards on 8 of 20 through the air. The other 17 yards on the day came from Deondre Harris who was 3 of 6 passing when he entered the game. Shutting down the pass was a bog part of the game plan, but Army also took the run away completely, limiting the Bears to less than one yard per carry on the ground as they rushed for just 28 yards in total on 34 carries.
3) No turnovers – Fail
We said going in that the only way Morgan State, a bad FCS team, would have a shot here is if Army was loose with the ball and committed turnovers. It turned out that this was not as much of an issue as it could have been, but Army lost the turnover battle by losing two fumbles (of the three that they committed) while the Bears were turnover free. Weirdly neither of the turnovers came on offense, with both being on punt returns, thus giving the Bears back to back possessions. Only one of these turnovers hurt Army as the excellent field position led to a Morgan State field goal.