ARMY BLACK KNIGHTS FOOTBALL

September 21, 2024

Jeff Monken

Press Conference

Army 37, Rice 14

JEFF MONKEN: Well, always nice to come into this after a win. Just proud of our guys and the effort they put forth. I thought -- I don't know if we could have played a better first half, getting the turnover right before half and turning it into another score. I thought we played a very complete first half.

Unfortunately I don't feel like we played that way in the second half, so we're going to find some things there that we can improve on and get better at and try to keep our standards high so that we don't make those mistakes again.

Had we made those same mistakes in the first half, the game would have looked much differently, and we would have been in a complete dogfight at the end of the game. We didn't win the second half. They scored more points in the second half than we did. They won the fourth quarter. That's something we really try to pride ourselves on and become stronger as the game goes along.

We got to play a lot of guys, put a lot of guys in, which was great, but everybody is held to the same standard, so we've got to get better, and we've got five days to do it. We'll get back to work, even today. I said outside on the field after the game, about three hours from now we're going to be turning our sights completely to Temple, and we need to.

Q. Strong start, took the opening kickoff 41-yard touchdown pass by Bryson Daily to Noah Short, get the ball back and then you go a 17-play drive, 90 yards and a TD by Bryson. How does it feel when your offense is effective and you get off to a good start?

JEFF MONKEN: Well, it sure makes it easier on everybody. I'm certain when teams are defending us, they see we're a ball control offense and that we're going to try to just methodically move the ball down the field. We don't get impatient. They know there's going to be limited possessions. If we can get a lead, then I think that, one, gives us some confidence, and two, I think puts some pressure on the other team to feel like they've got to score because of the limited possessions.

To get the first score, we got that one pretty quick, and Noah made a really nice catch off of an excellent throw from the quarterback, and then the next drive -- really, that to me is Army football.

We overcame some things on that drive, a false start penalty to start the drive, and then a long 3rd down. So we overcame some things on that drive, which I was proud of, and got a score to make it 14.

Q. You held Rice to 111 yards in the first half, got an interception by Andon Thomas; the defensive backfield seems to be growing; Max DiDomenico led in tackles today. How did you feel about how the defense is continuing to grow?

JEFF MONKEN: I think they're improving. There's obviously some plays in there we'll find where we probably were poorly positioned, some missed tackles that we had that we just can't afford those. But we could today. But there's going to be times the next game and the game after that, other times where we can't afford that.

Just fundamentals and trying to play better. I was happy we got a turnover. That was big. Like I said, that one before the half was a big turning point in the game, went from 21-0 to 28-0.

Q. Two special plays, Elo Modozie blocked a field goal, Casey Larkin picked it up and then you went for a big punt later and didn't get the yardage on it.

JEFF MONKEN: Yeah, I'd probably be losing sleep over the fake punt in February. We had a dual call, so we had two fakes called, and depending on the look, we were going to run one or the other, and unfortunately we misidentified the look and ran the fake that we didn't want to run. It's okay. It happens. It's my responsibility get those guys prepared for those moments and not get baited into the wrong call. We'll learn from it.

But those things disappoint me because it's my responsibility to prepare our guys and have them more ready to make the right decision. I can't recall if there was 15 more seconds on the clock when I identified it, but I could have hit the button and said something to the guy that was out there and I didn't, so that's an error on my part. I should have had that microphone on. I could have helped him.

Q. The last drive of the first half, two-minute, one-minute drill, I don't know if it's a missing piece of the offense, but it's very important. It shows growth, do you think, a drive like that shows growth where you can go down the field, or is it expected to do --

JEFF MONKEN: We practice it every day, that hurry-up situation. It's something we work on. It's a critical time in the game. Certainly if it's at the end of the game and you've got to do that to win the game, it's very critical to win the game.

We do give -- we invest a lot in that. It's hard, though, because the other team is prepared and they know what you're trying to do to push the ball down the field. Credit to the offense; they did a nice job executing there on that last drive.

Q. The way Bryson plays each game, it shows his value to the team. Of course he's the quarterback of the team, he's got to run the offense, but how impressed were you with him today because he made all the right plays.

JEFF MONKEN: He did, and what he did really well, we gave him a lot of dual calls and he had to choose between one or the other, and there were some where we had a call and he just knew that we needed to run it to the other side, so he checked it to the other side, the same play the other direction. He made some really good decisions today on that.

Not all those are coming through the headset because once that thing hits 14 you're off, and he's got to sometimes make some decisions or those changes inside of that 15 seconds.

He did a nice job. His maturity is really showing. The first ballgame against Lehigh he had that errant pitch that was not a very good decision, and he knew it, and he learned from it. He's not doing silly things like that, taking chances. Just protecting the ball and taking care of our team, that's his job, and he runs the ball really tough. I know he ran for a bunch of yards today but did a good job delivering the football, as well, when he was throwing the football. He's playing better, and we just hopefully can keep him healthy and continuing to improve.

Q. I wonder if you can speak on Cody Worely calling the plays and the offense he's running. Is that a big part of you guys' start do you think?

JEFF MONKEN: That's true. Cody is doing an excellent job. He's got a lot of experience with this offense and with option football. He's put together a really good package of plays, and they complement each other. We're not overly complicated, which is important, so that we have guys that know what they're supposed to do and play really fast, and then really the focus is on trying to play very sound fundamentally, being good blockers and taking care of the ball and good route runners.

I'm very pleased with the job Cody has done.

Q. It seems that the passing game has really come into its own this year. How does that play into the importance and effectiveness of the team?

JEFF MONKEN: Well, I wouldn't exactly call us a passing game juggernaut. We use that to complement the run. That's really the purpose of it. If we can line it up and run it every single down, we're going to run it every single down. That's just who we are. That fits us.

But eventually we're going to have to throw it, and it's usually in response to what we're seeing from the defense, and we feel like there's an opportunity to be able to complete a pass.

What Cody does a really good job of is giving our guys high-percentage throws based on what they're doing defensively, that this is a throw that's going to be there. We had one over there that got batted down, but the route was open. They did a good job getting their hand up in the lane.

Did we give up one sack? No? Maybe that's the one he tossed to Samari. But that's the risk that we run, and anybody does, when you throw the football.

There's this adage that if you throw the ball, three things can happen and two of them are bad. I think four things can happen and three of them are bad. Obviously the incomplete, interception, but you also have the possibility of a negative yardage play on a sack. When you run the football from under center you're pounding the ball straight ahead, you're not going to have many lost-yardage plays. Every once in a while you'll have a zero or a minus one sometimes, but we don't have many of those. But you drop back and throw the ball, you get sacked, it's five, seven, nine, strip sack, the ball comes out. A lot of bad things can happen.

That doesn't mean we're opposed to throwing the football, but a high-percentage throw where we feel confident we're going to be able to protect the passer and get the throw off.

Q. Earlier in the week you talked about how strong Rice's front seven was and their defensive front. Your offensive line seemed to get a pretty good push most of the game. Can you talk a little bit to the offensive line's performance?

JEFF MONKEN: I like our offensive line. They're tough. They're rugged and physical. We were getting some hard yards, particularly in the first half.

I think give credit to Rice; they did a much better job in the second half of stopping the run. The stuff rate, where we weren't -- zero yards or one yard, just not getting those yards. The early-down plays really kind of set us up for the opportunity to go for it on 4th down and get in those manageable 3rd down situations. Trying to get five on 1st down and trying to get half on 2nd down, if you get five and then get half of that, you're in pretty good shape. If you get two on 1st down but you get four on 2nd down, you're still in pretty good shape. You've got 3rd and 4.

It's that early-down success rate that really kind of sets up the opportunities for 3rd and 4th down. We were getting some hard yards. We gave ourselves a lot of manageable 3rd and 4th down opportunities. The offensive line is doing a good job.

There were a couple times -- we had one negative yardage play I recall in the first half where we had gotten in the gun and they just handed it off to Kanye on his own and they kind of ran through us and knocked us back. Those are ones that are disappointing, get the negative yardage plays, put yourself behind the sticks.

But it's a veteran group. A couple of the starters are just sophomores. Brady Small has played a lot of football. Then there's three seniors up there starting on the offensive line. So that's a good group.

Q. With the short week coming up, there were a couple injuries today or some folks who didn't start potentially due to injury. How is the health of the team, and how important is it to make sure your guys get recovery over the next couple days?

JEFF MONKEN: Obviously having only five days to prepare for the next game, fatigue is a concern. The normal wear and tear that happens over the course of a football game and the -- just the body aches and the tightness and the stiffness, that happens. When you're in there playing, especially those guys that have a lot of contact with other people, I mean, it's a car wreck about every 30 seconds out there. Some of those guys are getting in a lot of collisions. We've got to get them back healthy by Thursday. We don't play the game tomorrow, so fortunately that'll give us a chance to get them recovered a little bit and feeling a little bit better.

But it is a challenge to turn around and play a game in five days. We've not done that since I've been here.

We're really relying on Coach Hughes, our strength coach, Jacqui McCann and Tim Kelly, our athletic trainers, to build a plan for the next five days to give us enough work on the field that we're ready to go and feel prepared. But also doing the things that it's going to take for these guys to be as fresh and ready as they possibly can.

They won't be as fresh on Thursday as they were today. It's been two weeks since we played, so our guys should have been fresh and ready. It'll be more of a challenge for Thursday night. But we've got to get as close to that as possible.

So that'll be our focus. A lot of that is individual self-discipline with our players and their nutrition and hydration and all those things that they can do, that they control.

Q. You've had a lot of great quarterbacks during your tenure here, but where do you place Bryson Daily on that chart right now?

JEFF MONKEN: Well, you're nice to call them "great quarterbacks." I don't know if we've had great quarterbacks. I think we've had some guys that have done a really good job with leading our team and made plays for us. I'm careful to call guys "great." There's a lot of great players that play college football. Great players.

Our guys have been -- they've been great for us, great for our team. That's what we strive to do.

I'm very cautious about talking about the talent level of guys. What we want to do is be a good team and everybody do their job to help this team be the best that it can, and right now Bryson Daily is playing, as an individual, in a way that's helping our team be better, and that's what's important. He's the quarterback. He's a captain. He's handling the ball a lot. He's running the ball a lot. It's his responsibility to take good care of the fall and it's his responsibility to lead the offense and lead the team, and he's doing a good job of that.

He certainly has some ability and he certainly has some talent, but to compare players -- if he's a great player, then how great is the guy at Ole Miss or how great is the guy at Alabama? There's some great players in college football. What they need to do is be great in our offense and be great for our team, and I think Bryson is doing that right now for us.

Q. You've had quarterbacks who have run the option and used their speed, get outside a lot, and we did see Bryson with the one run today. How good is this guy running between the tackles?

JEFF MONKEN: Well, you've seen him. He looks like a B-back. He stands in there with the guys like Kanye and Hayden Reed and Rendina. Those are all different body types. But you stand Bryson Daily there, if you said, hey, that guy is a running back, nobody would be like, that guy is a running back? That's what he looks like. That's the way he runs the football. He's tough, rugged, strong in his legs and hard to bring down. He's a good runner. He just is a fit for what Cody is positioning him to do.

If we had a different quarterback in there that was our starter, perhaps we might be a little different just in terms of things that we do with the quarterback. But maybe not.

But Cody is doing a good job giving him what he can handle and what he's good at, and I think Bryson is making plays.

I will tell you that all that kid is trying to do is help our team win. He's a good tough runner in between the tackles, but he's built that way.

Q. You've had success on special teams or trick plays, things of that nature. What message does that send opposing teams and opposing coaches?

JEFF MONKEN: I don't know. I mean, they're just plays. They're just plays. Like I said, I'm really disappointed about the one today. We felt like we were very well-prepared to run one or the other, and we just misidentified and unfortunately ran the wrong one. I'll lose sleep over it because I hate running those things and them not working, especially we turn the ball over on downs there and they go down and score and they get their first touchdown. That's my fault.

But they're just plays. We're just trying to give ourselves the best pathway to victory. That's all we're trying to do.

When we faked that, it was 30-0. The only pathway they have to victory is if they get the ball and score real fast and kick an onside kick or make us turn it over three-and-out and score real fast, and if we can extend our drive there and hold the ball for -- even if it's three more plays and we literally do have to punt, at least we're running some more time off the clock and limiting the possessions of the other team.

It's just -- whether it's an offensive call, a defensive call or a special teams call, calling a fake punt to me is no different than calling a punt play where we're going to go out there and kick it and cover it. It's just a play.

Q. You're playing Thursday; it is what it is. Do you favor playing on a Thursday? Do you have any say in it? What do you think about that? Is it good for college football?

JEFF MONKEN: Anytime we can play on national TV and be the marquee game, I think it's really good for our program. I don't care when we play it, at 9:30 in the morning tomorrow. If it's national TV and we're the only game on, college football junkies all over the country are going to turn that game on and watch it, and that's good for us.

Now, I think ideally a Thursday game comes on a week like this, so you play at Florida Atlantic, you don't play on Saturday, then you play Thursday night, and then you go Thursday all the way to the following Saturday, you've got nine days for the next one. That's when they're ideal. Certainly not ideal to play on Saturday then play again on Thursday, five days later. But Temple is in the same situation. They're playing today, and they play us on Thursday night. I don't feel like we're at a physical disadvantage in terms of being fatigued. We'll be at a physical disadvantage when we play them because they're talented as hell and fast and big and athletic. We don't have anybody on our team that got offered a scholarship by Temple. We're going to have to play our butts off and play really, really well to give ourselves a chance to win.