ARMY BLACK KNIGHTS FOOTBALL

October 28, 2023

Jeff Monken

Press Conference

UMass 21, Army 14

Q. Coach, what's the most disappointing thing about today and the way things unfolded for you guys?

JEFF MONKEN: It's hard to put it into words. Just all of it. That's a team we beat 44-7 or something like that a year ago. They ran the ball on us. We didn't do a very good job fitting the run, playing blocks. We missed a lot of tackles. Couldn't move the ball consistently, run the ball against them, kicking game. We had a two-yard punt or something like that, four-yard punt. I don't know what it was.

They gave us a look on that first punt, and we thought they'd be in that look again. Unfortunately we had a fake called, and they didn't give us that same look, and we got hit right in the backfield.

It's just all of it. All of it. Our guys kept playing, even throughout the last two-second play we had.

I can't describe the disappointment that I'm feeling. I cannot put it into words.

It wasn't our last game, and we've got the biggest game of the year that we've played to this point coming up next week. We've got to refocus and get ready for that one, and I'm going to do that myself the best I can.

Q. The offensive struggles in scoring the football, is it more fundamentals, schematics? What do you think is happening there?

JEFF MONKEN: Well, it's hard to say completely. It's not just fundamentals. We've got to give our guys the best chance, and we've got to look at the things we're doing, we're calling.

Certainly some of it is blocking and sustaining blocks. We did that at times. We had some passes that we didn't hit. We've got to hit those.

Protection, times where he's kind of having to move around a little bit. I wish sometimes he would have pulled it down, run the ball rather than taking a shot.

We've got to look at all of it, what we're calling, how we're blocking things schematically, the personnel that we've got in on those particular plays, and just the execution, the fundamentals. But that's coaching, that's playing, and we've got to do a lot better.

Like I said, it is very difficult to put into words the disappointment and just pinpoint exactly what it was.

Our struggles offensively have certainly been -- it's been very frustrating.

Q. Did you think it would take this long for (indiscernible)?

JEFF MONKEN: No, I didn't. Had I thought at any point we would score 14 points in a matter of three games, if I could have predicted the future, I would have probably taken a pause.

But certainly it's things we can do. We can. We've just got to do it better, the way we're teaching it, the way we call it, the way we're executing it, all of it. It's got to be done better. We've got to figure that out.

Q. There's obviously still belief in the scheme that you guys are doing?

JEFF MONKEN: Sure. The plays will work. But we've got to give our guys the best chance by calling the game where there's some flow and we keep our opponents on edge. Those are all things that we can control as coaches, coaching the fundamentals and getting the right people in the right positions, and then our guys executing.

I know they can. We've seen them do it. We moved the ball very effectively in the second half against Boston College, moved the ball very effectively in the first half against Syracuse, moved the ball against UTSA, who I think has got a good football team. There's been evidence that it'll work, and I believe it will.

But some of this, there's some investment. What I need to make sure is that I don't panic and that we continue to press forward and try to improve.

But we owe our kids the best. They get to play once, and for the seniors, this is their last season, and I want to make it a great season for them, and I want to give them the best chance to win.

Unfortunately just collectively we didn't do a very good job of that today.

Q. Any second-guessing on the 4th-and-2 play?

JEFF MONKEN: Yes. Yes.

Q. Anything that you could have done differently there?

JEFF MONKEN: Run the ball, certainly. But that's my fault. They're hammering away in there -- we had run the ball some on 1st down and gotten two yards, and we needed two. There's a situation where we're packed in there and so are they, expecting us to hammer the ball, and we thought we'd be able to slip it out there and toss it in the flat or hit the guy in the over route and run the ball, none of which happened.

But that was the reason behind the call. But that's just not who we are.

Certainly there was some second-guessing on that.

Q. I wanted to ask about the play of Champ Harris today. What do you think plays like that 36-yard touchdown do for his confidence?

JEFF MONKEN: He's a very talented kid, and I think he's got a good career ahead of him here. Made a good pass there on the first play of the game and made a nice run there to score and give us a chance.

He's got to continue to grow up and grow up in the offense and grow up as a college player. It's not easy. It's not easy to come in as a freshman and play, especially at that position. It's a particularly difficult position to play as a freshman.

I think he's improving. He's getting better.

We had some -- we just had some plays all around that we didn't make. We've got to make those plays.

We're capable, whether it's a throw or a run or a block or whatever it may be. We've got to execute, and we as coaches got to get our guys to execute. It's important.

But I'm happy that he's getting better, that it isn't -- we've lost three games in a row here where he's played and played some significant snaps, obviously against Troy, and started the last two games. He's not digressing; he's not getting worse. He's doing things better. He's just got a ways to go.

Q. What was the mindset behind reinserting Champ (indiscernible) the second half and how do you think that changed the flow of the game?

JEFF MONKEN: Well, we were going to go really fast and throw the ball and knew that he may have to get on the run and move a little bit, and obviously we had Bryson, who -- he's been hurt all week, and I don't know that he was complaining that it was bothering him, but Champ is a little bit faster, a little more elusive, and he throws it well enough to be able to go in in that situation.

That was the reason we put him in there. He obviously did some good things.

But still, again, there's things he's got to improve at, and he will. He'll continue to get better.

Q. Two home games in a row you've had a tough first half. What's preventing you from playing a full 60 minutes defensively?

JEFF MONKEN: I don't know. I wish I could answer that. We try to get them to do that.

Like I said, they weren't set up in a very good position there after the failed fake punt, and I certainly wish that would have worked. I wish we wouldn't have turned it over there.

Like I said, they didn't have to score. It's not a rule they've got to score there. But it was a short field, and we gave up a big play that kind of set it up.

At that point in the game, it was early in the second half, we hadn't moved it very good on offense in the first half, and I'm looking for a spark, anything to keep a drive going, try to steal a possession. Unfortunately it didn't work and put our defense in a bad situation with their backs to the wall.

Q. Was Bryson ready to go? Were you planning to use him, or was he like an emergency thing?

JEFF MONKEN: We were going to make a game-time decision whether he was going to be able to play or not. He's been steadily improving since he was injured, and he's starting to feel a lot better. Felt better at practice yesterday.

The trainers were able to give him some medication to kind of ease the pain. We did that right before warm-ups. We went through warm-ups and we had told him, we're going to chart Champ and at some point we're going to get you in the game. So he was ready.

We really wanted to monitor as he played how he was holding up, and he seemed to do pretty good. He's a really competitive guy.

But he had something -- he's just different than Champ. He's different. We're probably built right now for him to be our quarterback, just the things we're doing that obviously having different guys, you're going to call the game a little bit differently.

But I was proud of him. I was proud of his effort. We had a couple plays we were very fortunate when we fumbled the ball down there on the 5 that they had 12 guys on the field or we were going to lose that scoring opportunity.

Like I said, just the frustration I feel, it's really difficult to express, but I'm disappointed in myself, disappointed in just the program and the team in general and the way we've played and the way we played today and losing that football game.

Q. From a defensive perspective, it's safe to say that the defensive backs were (indiscernible) tackles via the UMass rushing attack whereby Hammonds had eight and Didomenico seven. Is that a concern that the D-line or linebackers were taken out of the game along with the missed tackles that you talked about earlier, especially trying to stop their running back who had over 200 yards rushing?

JEFF MONKEN: We looked like we had never seen a counter play before. They ran the counter play over and over and over again, and we could not stop it.

They pulled the guard and tackle and they ran the receiver across like a speed sweep, hand it to the back on the counter play, and he's popping out in the secondary. Certainly we've got to play it better, fit better, recognize it, coach it better.

That's kind of what we saw, especially early on, and it was frustrating. A couple times they popped out of there, and then in the secondary we weren't fitting where we needed to be.

They just kind of ran through us. We pride ourselves on trying to be a good run-stopping defense, being a good running football team. Neither of which we did today.

We've got some improvements to make. We're going to face a team next week that's really effective at running the football, so we're going to have to do a lot better.

Q. Turnovers have been an issue from game 1 of the season to today, obviously, which often is a result of decision making errors versus just physicality of the game. I know it can be hard to address that issue right after today's game, but can you put your finger on why this is an ongoing problem?

JEFF MONKEN: Throwing the ball to the other team in a desperation throw is not a wise throw. We've done that a couple of times, tossed the ball up.

I think those guys today, I'm sure they're trying to make a play to win the football game, and the way the last few weeks have gone, the way the day was going, they're trying to make a play. They've got to let the plays come to them. They've got to make the plays that are there, not try to create something.

So there's probably some poor decisions there.

Where I get most disappointed is when the ball gets knocked out, which it did today. I don't know how we can coach it differently or put more emphasis on it than we do. We'll continue to do that.

It's my responsibility, and we've got to get it corrected, and we're certainly going to try this week.