Army has a lot to prove on Saturday, when the Black Knights travel to Boca Raton, Fla. to face Florida Atlantic in their much-anticipated first American Athletic Conference game eve
Despite an impressive 42-7 victory over FCS-level Lehigh on Friday night at Michie Stadium, Army coach Jeff Monken said that “we are going to find out a lot this week, for sure” about his team’s prospects in the AAC as his squad gets ready to face off against the Owls at FAU Stadium, starting at noon.
Last Friday, Florida Atlantic forced a fumble, grabbed two interceptions and took advantage of 10 Michigan State penalties for 110 yards, to keep the game close against its Big 10 foe deep into the fourth quarter, before losing, 16-10.
Army, meanwhile, dominated Lehigh, scoring on six of seven possessions. “I thought our guys played really hard and, for the most part, played well (against Lehigh),” said Monken. “We had some errors that that we worked through on Sunday and things that we obviously have to do better. We had some issues with tackling fundamentals that we have to resolve and just finishing plays on offense that we would like to do a better job of. There is plenty to work on.”
Last week’s win means little to Monken right now as the Black Knights prepare for a team that he says has impressive overall speed, a talented receiving corps and quarterback and simply an enormous offensive line.
“It was good to get a win,” he said. “But this is a good football team we are going to play. Just an extremely well coached football team and watching them (on film) battle against a Big 10 team like they did and play so well against a team that come out of a Power Five conference was very impressive. This is a good football team that we are getting ready to face.
“We have to play particularly well to give ourselves a chance. Fortunately, we have a couple of days to work on that and devise a game plan and try to get our guys to play better fundamentally, make the trip down to Florida and hopefully, we can give them a game.”
Monken repeatedly talked about the talents of Owls coach Tom Herman and what he did at previous stops at Houston and Texas and what he is building at FAU.
But, Monken is not giving up either and is hoping that the Army offense that scored six touchdowns on Friday and defense that forced two interceptions against Lehigh duplicates those efforts against Florida Atlantic.
So how does Army win this game? “Don’t miss assignments, play great fundamentally, value the football, all the same things I tell them every week, that is what we have to do,” said Monken. “We certainly are not collectively more talented or faster than they are. We will try to do that on Saturday and give ourselves a chance. Play as hard as we can play and, hopefully, we can make enough plays to give ourselves a chance to win.”
This is Army’s first trip to the Sunshine State since the Black Knights defeated South Florida, 42-35, during their last year in Conference USA in 2004.
“It is exciting for our program and this institution to have a chance to play in the American Athletic Conference,” Monken said. “But, it is a football game against an outstanding, talented and well-coach team that we will have to play really well against. Our focus is just completely on trying to match up as well as we can against Florida Atlantic.”
