It is true we have bought some success with the TO back to WP according to that writeup but in so doing, we forgot to bring along a DEFENSE.
Whatever the Double Eagle Flex is, I have no idea but whatever it is, it just isn't working.
WE need some balance next year and I don't mean run to pass.
We need a DEFENSE to stop somebody from running away from us every game.
The only reason we beat BC and AF, we just plain outscored each team. You can't be a consistent winner that way as far as I see it.
I hope the Navy game won't be another repeat of this happening all year but what gives me any idea that this game will be any different from the other eleven? I don't have an idea.
Navy 35, Army 24.
I'm just tired of this happening every year and it IS every year now.
Can this DEFENSE stop anybody??

Another article says, ARMY DEFENSE READY FOR NAVY.
To me that's just hard to read.
Hard to read alright and just plain sad.

The thing that worries myself and others is the fact that RE is supposed to be a D specialist. The D has gotten worse over the last 2 seasons as mire RE players see game action.

I do not expect to see anything change next year sadly assuming RE along with the same staff remains in place. I do not buy the BS that a bunch of great players are sitting at USMAPS and are coming to WP to give the team a bunch of much better players.

What will the excuse be next year if the team is a 2 or 3 game total win mark again? Maybe the new guys from USMAPS and RE need a couple more years to mature and improve? Maybe the excuse will be a few future good players at WP are still freshmen in HS and we need to stick with RE 5 more years till they get to and play at WP lol.

Excuses are for losers.

I think we will be about the same next year as this year.
We lose Steelman. Enough said.
Defense about the same. Offense a little less explosive. Tougher log with more away games.

giant110 wrote: 
 I do not buy the BS that a bunch of great players are sitting at USMAPS and are coming to WP to give the team a bunch of much better players.

What will the excuse be next year if the team is a 2 or 3 game total win mark again? Maybe the new guys from USMAPS and RE need a couple more years to mature and improve? Maybe the excuse will be a few future good players at WP are still freshmen in HS and we need to stick with RE 5 more years till they get to and play at WP lol.

Excuses are for losers.

1.  Even if we have an extraordinary roster of players currently at USMAPS, as a group they will have little impact upon Army FB until their Cow season....2015.

2.  With RE & his present staff, I would look a lot deeper than HS freshmen for Army FB's salvation.  With RE's 25 year plan, the future Army FB greats are about to be born, just give him a couple decades as RE is untouchable WP royalty.

You're absolutely right about the BC game, but we did hold Air Force to 103 rushing yards. Not defending the D's performance this season as a whole, but the Air Force game wasn't a shootout by any stretch. They scored a touchdown or too late when it was already out of reach and they had to throw it around.

86Moose wrote:

giant110 wrote: 
 I do not buy the BS that a bunch of great players are sitting at USMAPS and are coming to WP to give the team a bunch of much better players.

What will the excuse be next year if the team is a 2 or 3 game total win mark again? Maybe the new guys from USMAPS and RE need a couple more years to mature and improve? Maybe the excuse will be a few future good players at WP are still freshmen in HS and we need to stick with RE 5 more years till they get to and play at WP lol.

Excuses are for losers.

1.  Even if we have an extraordinary roster of players currently at USMAPS, as a group they will have little impact upon Army FB until their Cow season....2015.

You're arguing here that it will take a couple of years for the current USMAPS players to make an impact, and I agree that is likely to be the case.  That same argument can be made for the current defense.  We have only 3 firsties and no cows in the starting lineup on defense assuming Kelly starts instead of Zalneraitis, which means we have 8 players starting who have not had enough experience to make their impact by your own logic.  Why would you not assume that those 8 players will start making their impact next season.  

One of the points made in the article was that Altimalala was used at DE this season in part due to that inexperience, but that they expect to see him move to nose tackle next year.  In addition to Altimalala, there are 4 more plebes in the 260+ category who should be better prepared next year.  The five biggest defensive players on the roster are all plebes.  The three senior starters who are leaving are all relative light weights.  

I agree that any USMAPS players coming up are not likely to make their impact until a couple of years down the road, but the USMAPS players who have come up the past two years should be starting to make an impact next year.  As it looks right now, there will be at most two firsties starting on defense next season.  All the rest will be the current crop of yearlings and plebes.      

BKBacker76 wrote: You're absolutely right about the BC game, but we did hold Air Force to 103 rushing yards. Not defending the D's performance this season as a whole, but the Air Force game wasn't a shootout by any stretch. They scored a touchdown or too late when it was already out of reach and they had to throw it around.

Even with the last gasp scoring, we held AF to 5 points less than Michigan did and 7 points less than their season average.  That was a demonstration of our capabilities when we play at our full potential.  I would also argue that the Rutgers game was a similar demonstration of potential.  Unfortunately, our defense has not played up to its potential most games.  If I were grading our defensive games this season, I'd give us 2 As, 4 Cs and 5 Fs.  Hopefully, we can add a third A this Saturday

RABBLE wrote: It is true we have bought some success with the TO back to WP according to that writeup but in so doing, we forgot to bring along a DEFENSE.
Whatever the Double Eagle Flex is, I have no idea but whatever it is, it just isn't working.
WE need some balance next year and I don't mean run to pass.
We need a DEFENSE to stop somebody from running away from us every game.
The only reason we beat BC and AF, we just plain outscored each team. You can't be a consistent winner that way as far as I see it.
I hope the Navy game won't be another repeat of this happening all year but what gives me any idea that this game will be any different from the other eleven? I don't have an idea.
Navy 35, Army 24.
I'm just tired of this happening every year and it IS every year now.
Can this DEFENSE stop anybody??

Applying your logic, Michigan beat Air Force because they just outscored them.  Our defense held AFA to 5 points less than the Michigan defense did and 7 points less than the average that Rutgers scored all year.  The defense performed very well against AFA and against Rutgers as well. In those two games we demonstrated that we could stop somebody, and Rutgers was playing in their home stadium with an extra week to prepare for us.   The rest of the season was more like the totally inept defense that you portray here, although the defense did come through with a key 3 and out when it counted against BC. 

Air Force had a better offense than Navy this year.  All we have to do is play as well against Navy as we did against AFA.  Navy had a lot of help from AF to win their game against them, as well as a very fortuitous fumble recovery in the end zone in the overtime period.

I always thought that a fumble into the end zone had to be recovered by the ball carrier that fumbled for it to be a TD.   As such, Navy's winning TD would have been a touch back and the ball awarded to AF, or at least returned to the site of the fumble and retained by Navy.  Can anyone shed some light???

From the NCAA rulebook:

"On fourth down before a change of team possession, when a Team A fumble is caught or recovered by a Team A player other than the fumbler, the ball is dead. If the catch or recovery is beyond the spot of the fumble, the ball is returned to the spot of the fumble."

Later...

"A touchdown is awarded if....A fumble or backward pass is recovered, caught, intercepted or awarded in the opponent’s end zone."

So the only exceptions are on 4th down, or on two-point conversions which are covered a few pages later. That rule is based on the assumption that there's no risk/reward advantage for a player to fumble forward unless it's 4th down or a two-point conversion.

Yup, we are only a couple of years away from GLORY.
I recall saying that in 2010 with this current crop of players. I felt as I said many times that 2012 would be OUR YEAR on this forum.
Steelman a senior, talented upcoming backfield, the arrow pointing up. We will have "turned the corner in 2012".
We just havn't found the corner to "turn".
I'm just gassed now figuring that 2013 or 2014 will be much different.Talking about it makes me even further gassed.
Disappointment is a word that just does not describe my present feeling this season at all.

We had 2 good games and 9 bad ones.
Geez, what do you know! That is the EXACT record we have had this season.

04USNA0302 wrote: From the NCAA rulebook:

"On fourth down before a change of team possession, when a Team A fumble is caught or recovered by a Team A player other than the fumbler, the ball is dead. If the catch or recovery is beyond the spot of the fumble, the ball is returned to the spot of the fumble."

Later...

"A touchdown is awarded if....A fumble or backward pass is recovered, caught, intercepted or awarded in the opponent’s end zone."

So the only exceptions are on 4th down, or on two-point conversions which are covered a few pages later. That rule is based on the assumption that there's no risk/reward advantage for a player to fumble forward unless it's 4th down or a two-point conversion.

Thanks, I learn something new every day.

RABBLE wrote: Yup, we are only a couple of years away from GLORY.
I recall saying that in 2010 with this current crop of players. I felt as I said many times that 2012 would be OUR YEAR on this forum.
Steelman a senior, talented upcoming backfield, the arrow pointing up. We will have "turned the corner in 2012".
We just havn't found the corner to "turn".
I'm just gassed now figuring that 2013 or 2014 will be much different.Talking about it makes me even further gassed.
Disappointment is a word that just does not describe my present feeling this season at all.

Sure but again you had sophomore offensive players that you could build around in Steelman, Allen and Brown. If was supplemented by the 2010 recruits like Dixon, Powis and others that showed up in 2011.
 Defense was a different story. Erzinger and to a lesser extent Josh Jackson was all that was left on defense after the 2010 defense graduated. Some want to lay that on Ellerson's doorstep. All the best derfensive players brock recruited and ellerson from 2007-2009 bailed. From the 2009-2010 Ellerson prep classes the best five defensive players all bailed. If they didn't have bad luck they would have none. I think the freshman sophomore defensive crew is a group you can start to build around. 
 I'm not happy with the results but there is nothing wrong with the double eagle flex scheme. The program needs to continue to recruit and do a better job developing defensive players.

Here is a pretty good article about Army's defense.

http://www.capitalgazette.com/...e9e7055f6f.html

Yeah we sure have stymied Navy under RE or anybody else with our vaunted DEFENSIVE abilities over the last 10 years.
Please don't write articles about something we don't have because we just don't.