Notre Dame Opponent Preview | Army
Head coach Jeff Monken in his 11th year at Army and lasting that long at a program like this isn’t easy.
He’s done far better than survive as a head coach there, though. The program was not in a great place when he took over and after losing seasons in his first two years, he’s been .500 or better in seven of his last eight years. That includes four years with at least nine wins.
He’s 70-55 overall and after losing Army had lost 14 straight versus Navy, Monken has now won six of the last eight games against their rival. They finished 6-6 last season, but did that after starting out 2-6.
They made some changes to their offense that didn’t work out so well and ended up switching back to their bread and butter scheme. It helped them finish the season with a four game winning streak.
It’s going to be an accomplishment if Monken can get Army to six wins this season given the number of starters they’ve lost. Fortunately for them, Notre Dame is Army’s only power conference opponent.
Post-Spring SP+ Ranking
They are 95th in the post-spring SP+ projections. They are 112th on offense, 63rd on defense, and 69th on special teams.
Key losses
There were 13 players who played 300+ snaps on defense last season. 10 are gone.
LB Jimmy Ciarlo led Army in tackles for loss and LB Leo Lowin led Army in tackles. They’re gone as well as LB Tanoai Letuli (San Diego State). He would have been a contender to start.
WR Isaiah Alston (Iowa State) averaged 29.6 per catch while playing only four games, but led the team in receiving yards. He led them in 2022 as well. They don’t have many legitimate weapons on offense and Alston would have been their best.
TE Josh Lingenfelter is out of eligibility. He was a very good run blocker at the position.
OT Connor Finucane was a three-year starter and played over 2,300 snaps in his career.
K Quinn Maretzki had been their kicker since 2018.
Top returners and returning production
They are 110th in returning production (76th on offense and 128th on defense).
QB Bryson Daily had 901 yards rushing in his first year as a starter. He’s a physical runner who could break 1,000 this season with them moving back to their previous scheme.
C Brady Small is 2nd team All-AAC in the pre-season. He started 12 games as a true freshman and is considered their best player up front. They’re also bringing back G Lucas Scott and two others with starting experience.
Like every service academy offensive line, they don’t overwhelm you with physical ability, but rarely beat themselves.
FB Kanye Udoh rushed 524 (5.3 yards per carry) as a freshman. He’s 220 and a good inside runner.
RB Tyrell Robinson flashed big play ability in 2022 (8.45 YPC). Army is counting on him to be healthy and provide some explosiveness in the run game. Noah Short led the team in receptions and is moving from WR to slot back to that end as well.
S Max DiDomenico is 2nd team All-AAC in the pre-season. He had two interceptions in 2023 and five total havoc plays.
NT Kyle Lewis is their best returning player up front and LB Kyle Fortner was a disruptive blitzer who finished with the second best PFF pass rush grade for linebackers with 50+ pass rush opportunities.
Two big questions
Can they get the offense fixed?
With the change in cut blocking rules, Monken was looking for solutions and decided to move to a more spread rushing attack. They were in shotgun 80% of the time last season, but still ran the ball on 75% of snaps.
They went back to a more traditional Army triple option offense at the end of the season with Cody Worley taking over the play-calling. It was understandable why they made the switch. They were 118th in OF+ and only scored 20+ points twice in the first eight games and were shut out by a bad LSU defense (84th in DF+).
They’ll likely be better than they are projected to be, but so much of that will rely on Daily being even better as a runner this fall.
Can the defense continue to be “bend, but don’t break”?
To say they lacked playmakers is an understatement. They finished 129th in havoc rate last season. However, they kept things in front of them and were stingy when teams got into the red zone.
They ranked 29th in explosive plays allowed from scrimmage and 14th in red zone touchdown percentage. When everyone is on point and doing their job well, this style of defense can be effective. How’s this going to work with so many new faces having to play major snaps this fall?
They’ll always be competent as long as defensive coordinator Nate Woody is running things for them, but their ceiling can only be so high if they don’t develop some playmakers.
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