Kalib Fortner, Andon Thomas 2025 Army captains

When Kalib Fortner and Andon Thomas were mentioned for their play and leadership during the 2024 season, many times Army coach Jeff Monken used the words “future captains”

The inside linebacker duo’s teammates agreed. Fortner and Thomas, both rising seniors, were voted by their peers as 2025 team captains at the end of spring practice.

Thomas emerged as Army’s top tackler with 98 stops in his first season as a starter in 2024. A first-team, academic All-American with a 3.98 grade-point average, Thomas added two interceptions and one fumble recovery. Fortner, a two-year starter, registered 81 tackles, second on the team, and led the Black Knights with 9.5 tackles for loss, including two sacks. He also had four quarterback hurries and three pass breakups. Thomas and Fortner started all 14 games alongside each other last season.

Army will have two captains for the first time since 2022 (Connor Bishop, Marquel Broughton). It’s the first time that Army will only have captains on the defensive side of the ball since 2021 (Marquel Broughton, Nolan Cockrill, Cedrik Cunningham and Arik Smith) and only the second time in the Jeff Monken era (2014 to present). Linebackers Andrew King and Jeremy Timpf were captains of Army’s 2016 Navy-streak-buster team.