Turnovers are always Army coach Jeff Monken’s biggest nightmare. On Saturday, his fears come to fruition.
The Black Knights gave away three turnovers in a nightmarish first quarter and played ineffective defense throughout most of the game before losing to visiting American Conference foe North Texas, 45-38, in overtime at Michie Stadium.
Army is now 1-2 (0-1 in the American) on the season, having lost both games in overtime. It was the first American Conference loss ever for Army, which was 8-0 and won the conference championship game in its first season last year. North Texas is 4-0 and 1-0 in the American.
That Army managed to get to overtime, after trailing 21-0 in the first quarter and 28-7 late in the second quarter, is a near-miracle and, as Monken said, a testament to the fact that his players never give up. The Black Knights, at least offensively, started to right their ship late in the first half and outplayed the Mean Green through most of the second half to make a one-sided game competitive during the last 15 minutes of regulation.
In fact, Army managed to score 10 points in the last three minutes of regulation to force overtime. First, quarterback Dewayne Coleman found Brady Anderson on a fourth-down play for a 68-yard touchdown to close the North Texas lead to 38-35. Then after a failed onside kick attempt, the Black Knights recovered a fumble near midfield on the next play to regain possession.
Army reached the North Texas 7-yard line, but two passes in the end zone fell incomplete and the Black Knights had to settle for a 23-yard Dawson Jones field goal to tie the score at 38.
In the overtime, Caleb Hawkins scored his fourth touchdown on a three-yard run up the middle to put North Texas ahead, 45-38. Coleman was injured on the ensuing series and Cale Hellums, who started the game at quarterback but fumbled twice and threw one interception in the early going and was replaced by Coleman, got the Black Knights to the North Texas 9-yard line. But a fourth down pass that missed senior slotback Noah Short ended the game.
“It’s very difficult to win a football game when you spot a team 21 points and it was turnover central in the first half,” said Monken. “That was disappointing. We couldn’t stop them. But they were having a tough time stopping us when we’d hang (onto the ball). That was the disappointing thing. If we just hang onto the ball, I think we give ourselves a chance and we didn’t do that.
“But I’m really proud of the resilience and the toughness our guys showed finding a way to crawl back into that thing. We were down 10 points late in the fourth quarter. It didn’t look great, but nobody wavered. We kept fighting.”
Clearly, this was not the same Army team that knocked off host Kansas State two weeks ago. Right out of the gate, the Black Knights looked stale and uncomfortable against North Texas and Hellums, the hero in that game two weeks ago, was simply off his game this time out. His two fumbles, one on an errant pitch play and the other when he was stripped of the ball, and interception led to North Texas touchdowns.
The Army defense was not much better. The Black Knights gave up 228 rushing yards and Mean Green quarterback Drew Mastemaker completed 26 of 36 passes for 249 yards and a touchdown.
More frustrating for Monken was that the defense simply did a horrible job tackling all day. “We missed a lot of tackles,” he noted. “That was disappointing. We missed three in the (Kansas State game). I bet we missed 23 today, maybe more.
“We just gave up way too many yards on first down and that makes it a lot easier on second and third down. The whole playbook opens up on second and three. We weren’t doing a very good job getting off blocks and they did a good job running the football.”
Coleman completed six of 11 passes for 101 yards and two touchdowns. Sophomore Briggs Bartosh carried the ball eight times for 99 yards, including a 75-yard touchdown run that got Army on the board late in the first quarter. Senior Hayden Reed had 113 rushing yards and one touchdown on 19 carries.
The Black Knights will have little time to recover. They travel on Thursday to East Carolina and a 7:30 p.m. start that will be nationally televised on ESPN.
“Those type of games are heartbreaks going either way, losing like that,” said senior safety Casey Larkin. “We’ve got to look ourselves in the mirror, come with humility next week. We’ve got five days to prepare for ECU, so we’ll move on to the next, fix what we did wrong this game and look ahead to the rest of the season.”
