Column: Army has identity-finding opportunity at K-State

Few in the Army football world thought that the Black Knights would be going into the Kansas State game with one loss.

Army may have played its toughest home opponent in the opener. Tarleton State showed up last Friday on a mission with something to prove to the college football world that the Texans are the real deal can compete and defeat FBS teams like Army. The end result was the Black Knights’ first defeat to a FCS team since 2015, leaving a big-time damper on what many Army fans hope will be another great season after last year’s 12-2 campaign.

Before the college football season reaches its second week of September, this is a gnawing concern among the Army faithful that the entire season is in jeopardy. 

Now the question becomes whether Army can do to Kansas State what Tarleton State did to Army. 

Saturday’s game in Manhattan, Kansas will be a huge challenge. Kansas State, now 1-1 after surviving its own battle with FCS North Dakota last weekend, is still a Big 12 conference powerhouse and Army head coach Jeff Monken, as usual, was blunt about the opposition: The Wildcats, he correctly pointed out, are bigger, faster, stronger and more talented than Army at probably every position. 

But, the schedule says these two schools will meet at Bill Snyder Family Stadium at 7 p.m. EDT on Saturday and Monken has never been one to back down against better competition. One can only hope that the coaching staff has figured out what went wrong last week, fixed as much as possible and also convinced the team that Army can not only compete with the Wildcats on national television (ESPN), but win this game. 

“We will need to improve tremendously this week as we play Kansas State, which is very talented, extremely well coached and going to be a better football team than the one that we faced on Friday night,” said Monken on Tuesday at his weekly press conference. “We are going to prepare our team and hope that we can play a lot better and give ourselves a lot better chance this Saturday than we did the last time out.”

More importantly, this is an opportunity for the team to rebound., to show its fans and the college football world that the Army team has the fortitude to go head-to-head with a top 25 team. 

“If will take our very best effort, the best we can muster to be in the game with them,” said Monken. “Hopefully we can come up with that kind of effort and be competitive Saturday night.”

Win or lose against Kansas State will not be the key to the Black Knights’ season. The start of the eight-game American Conference schedule is still two weeks away when Army hosts North Texas. And, of course, the rivalry games with Air Force and Navy are still far into the future.  

That means that Monken and staff need to put on a couple of hats, teaching the players as quickly as possible while playing a role as motivators to make sure they believe in themselves. 

Perhaps, the most important issue is with the offensive line, with three new starters, that simply did not do its job on Friday. The result was 10 offensive yardage plays that went for negative yardage. “That is way, way too many,” Monken said. “It is one of the things that we try to make important is to try to eliminate negative yardage plays. We are not a team that always is able to create these big, explosive plays for 40 or 50 yards. But to eliminate negative yardage plays helps us to stay on schedule.”

Then, the quarterback situation remains a concern. Senior starter Dewayne Coleman missed the overtime after getting banged up by Tarleton State and while he is expected to play, no one really knows how he will rebound. Backup junior Cale Hellums filled in admirably, but questions remain about his throwing accuracy. A third is to eliminate turnovers after three against Tarleton State and, fourth, to cut down on penalties. 

Army took mighty Oklahoma and Michigan to overtime in Monken’s early seasons at West Point. The question is what team is going to show up on Saturday night in Kansas. And, right now, no one has the answer.