Army Football: Bye Week Thoughts

The Army Black Knights head into their bye week coming off a 52-21 victory against the Morgan State Bears. However, despite the lopsided score, it was arguably still a concerning game for Army fans. Perhaps the most inspiring takeaway from the game was witnessing Army’s third-string quarterback, Christian Anderson, come in and run the offense effectively when Jabari Laws was sidelined with an injury.

Aside from that, Army still has yet to put together a complete game on both sides of the ball, and that’s somewhat unsettling with a very talented Tulane squad coming to Michie Stadium next weekend. Army then has two manageable games against Western Kentucky and Georgia State before another pair of tough match-ups against San Jose State and Air Force. The season is picking up steam, and the Black Knights need to play a complete game on all fronts if they want to win the tough games remaining on their schedule.

Against Rice, Michigan, and UTSA, Army’s offense struggled to be productive and has surprisingly had issues with turnovers. Meanwhile, the defense has played lights out, allowing no more than 14 points in regulation against those three opponents. The tables turned against Morgan State, with Army minimizing turnovers, and maintaining efficiency even with their third-string quarterback running the offense. However, the defense gave up some deep plays and weren’t able to apply as much pressure as the previous three games, resulting in three Morgan State touchdowns.

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The big hope for the bye week is that the Black Knights can recover (several key players have been out or battling injuries the past couple of games) and refocus prior to Tulane. The Green Wave will be the next big test for Army, and will reveal a lot about what this 2019 Army football team is made of. As always, I maintain cautious optimism that Army will prevail, but the Black Knights will really need to eliminate some issues that have been plaguing them in order to do so.