Calling his team a “work-in progress, trying to improve,” Army coach Jeff Monken said that he has just a few days to turn his Army football team’s fortunes around as the Black Knights gear up for a trip to East Carolina Thursday night.
The Black Knights, now 1-2 and 0-1 in the American, have been an enigma in their first three games this season. Army played a near-perfect game against host Kansas State two weekends ago in a 24-21 victory over the Wildcats. But, turnovers have plagued them in their two overtime losses thus far, losing the ball three times each against Tarleton State in the opening game in late August and North Texas last week. Even in the loss to North Texas, the Black Knights played a poor first half only to come back from a 28-7 deficit late in the second quarter to force overtime.
“We have had some turnover issues on offense that we got to try to address, said Monken, at his weekly press conference Monday. “It costs us opportunities to maybe finish off a couple of football games this year. Defensively, we did a really good job against Kansas State of being effective and tackling well. This past game, just completely the opposite. The bottom line is that has got to improve. We got to do a better job of sustaining blocks on offense and get off on blocks on defense. And, then taking care of the ball on offense and do a good job of tackling on defense.”
Time to prepare for the Pirates, or the lack of it, could play a big role in Army’s fortunes this week. A short practice week and a road trip to East Carolina, 2-2, and what could be a large, raucous crowd at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium may not be the recipe for turning the Army season around. The game, which will be broadcasted nationally on ESPN, will start at 7:30 p.m. EDT.
“Recovery (is a big challenge),” Monken added. “We played 82 snaps on offense (against North Texas). We had some starters play 90 snaps on defense. Having recovery time is a challenge and the other is a formidable opponent. They have a high-powered fast-paced offense and a lot of athletes, who are really scary. Defensively, they are athletic, a great-looking football team. There are a lot of challenges, all magnified in a short week.”
“We are doing our very best we can to get prepared in the short amount of time we have and, obviously, have to travel on Wednesday. Every moment, since we played the game on Saturday, we are trying to get prepared for this game.”
Monken and his staff have not made a decision on who will start at quarterback. Junior Cale Hellums was the star of Army’s win over Kansas State, but he was totally ineffective against North Texas, fumbling twice and throwing an interception. He was replaced by senior Dewayne Coleman, who started the Black Knights’ first game against Tarleton State and came off the bench last Saturday to lead the Army rally against North Texas.
East Carolina, which lost to BYU 34-13 at home on Saturday, is led by quarterback Katin Houser, who has thrown for 1,258 yards and five touchdowns in four games. He has three interceptions. Three running backs, London Montgomery, Parker Jenkins and Marlon Gunn, each has scored two rushing touchdowns for the Pirates, who have given up 61 points in their four games.
