ARMY BLACK KNIGHTS FOOTBALL

October 19, 2024

Jeff Monken

Army Black Knights

Press Conference

Army 45, East Carolina 28

Q. It's a game that your offense played very well. The first half defense they played well. You got it to 38-7. Then it seemed like it changed. You came back and made adjustments. How do you feel about the two halves of the game?

JEFF MONKEN: I thought the first half our guys played really well. Defensively certainly we played well. Kept them off the scoreboard.

They've got a really good football team. I think they're athletic and big and well-coached. So to be halftime going in there with a 24-0 lead was, I mean, a little surprising because I think they've got a really good team.

We were playing good. We made some plays on special teams, were running the ball effectively enough, and we hit some pass plays. The perimeter plays in the first half came off the passing game, and Bryson did a really nice job.

We hit Casey down the middle on the first play of the game. Then the second half they did a better job defending us. We weren't moving them as much or as effectively. Defensively their first touchdown we just missed a bunch of tackles.

We had a couple of opportunities to get them off the field at the fourth down play down in the low red zone going towards the scoreboard. We just went in there and tried to tackle high and didn't go for his legs, and the quarterback was able to get in into the end zone.

We had some chances to make some plays. So I think we had some breakdowns fundamentally, and that was blocking and sustaining blocks. It was not using good tackling fundamentals, and so they made some plays.

We had the hands team out there a few times. Didn't really expect that when we hit the fourth quarter. We had a decent lead, and then they really started making some plays and put some pressure on us.

The last touchdown for us was big to stretch that lead back out again, and it kind of put it to enough of a lead that they didn't probably have enough time to recover.

Q. Coach, Bryson Daily had a phenomenal game with five touchdowns, 171 yards, threw a touchdown pass to Miles Stewart early in the game. How has the leadership of the offense been improving with each game?

JEFF MONKEN: I think that's what's happening. He's just getting better. He's getting more confident. Our offense is continuing to improve, so the guys around him, the supporting cast. I really think the offensive line is doing a great job.

Give credit to the running backs. Kanye Udoh and Miles and Hayden Reed, Jake Rendina, Noah Short... those guys were all throwing some blocks for him. There's a lot of places running backs are wondering when they're going to get theirs carries. When are you going to give me the ball? Our guys don't care about that. They just want to win.

If it means blocking for him and we win, that's all that matters to them. They're very unselfish, and they're doing a nice job. So really it's just a credit to everybody.

But Bryson Daily is a tough runner. That kid just has a warrior spirit mentality with the way he plays. He's like a B-back. All those years we played with B-backs, he's kind of like that and runs the ball like that. Doesn't look for a sideline. Looks to gain an extra yard.

He is also doing a really good job in the passing game and putting the ball where our receivers can get it. That throw he had to Casey down at the end, Casey made just a great catch, a one-handed catch in the middle of the field, and there were some guys around, but put the ball in a great spot. Really impressed with that part of his game right now.

Q. Just on the defensive, you were forcing punts early. The first drive was a three and out. No sacks today. Was it more concentrating on coverage?

JEFF MONKEN: We like to get some pressure on the quarterback. We're just not a defense that's going to draw up six- and seven-man pressures and play zero coverage. We're not built that way.

So we don't want to give up a long ball overhead, so we just have to be careful about the times that we do dial up the pressure that we're covered on the back end.

Our guys got some heat on him just in the four-man rush. They beat some blocks. That was positive. They made some throws. I mean, they hit some balls on us, and that's going to happen sometimes.

We're always focusing on how we can keep the ball in front of us and not get hit with a big play. They score a lot faster if it you let them run past you. Fortunately they didn't do it enough.

The fourth quarter that, second half, they did a great job. They put some heat on us, made some plays. They made a great catch down in the goal line -- or down in the end zone on our sideline, I should say, to keep his feet inbounds. Made some good plays.

So I was glad to see our guys continue to battle and fight, and we had to at the end. It was probably good for us a little bit to be in a fight like that.

Q. 7-0 going into your bye week before Air Force. I know you have a lot to work on, but do you feel positive about how the team has developed so far this season first round of games in the American Conference?

JEFF MONKEN: Sure. I think guys are doing a good job. There's a lot of really good things we're doing. When you have a quarterback rushing for 171 yards, we're doing some things up front to move people and create some seams for him.

We had some pass plays where 70% of our passes, that's a pretty good percentage. You would take that most days. We haven't turned the ball over since the second game, and that's really positive. There's a lot of good things going on.

Defensively the first half our guys did a terrific job of getting them off the field and not allowing big plays and did a good job of tackling them. Those are all things to build on.

There's always areas for improvement, and if we don't have that mentality, that humility, then we start to get complacent, patting ourselves on the back.

The next game is going to be the hardest game we play all year. It is a slugfest, first fight every time we play them. Every time. So our guys know that they've got to get prepared for this next game.

There's not any margin for I'm just going to take a day and enjoy this and read all the headlines on the internet. We've got to get ready for the next game. That's what I really appreciate about our team and like about our guys. They're very professional, and they've got a mentality that it's the next game, and that's the most important one.

Enjoy the victory? Yes. Appreciate the fact that we won the game, but get on to the next one.

Q. Second straight week an opposing team goes for it on fourth down on their own end and the defense stops them and kind of changes the momentum a little bit and then you guys were able to come up pretty quickly and score. Can you talk about the way that happened today?

JEFF MONKEN: That was a great play by Eric Ford to jump up and bat that pass down. I think we scored the next play. Bryson carried. I think he walked in from there. It was a big change of events obviously.

If they punted the ball down the field, who knows if we're going to drive it down there and score, but to get it on that end and be staring at the goal line that close, that was a big turn of events and a great play by the defense and a really good job blocking it up the next place we could score.

Q. Why do you think teams are deciding to do this so early in the game? For momentum or to try to keep the ball away from you guys? You guys are scoring pretty quickly this year at times. Why do you think --

JEFF MONKEN: I think it's the limited possessions. They were averaging 12 1/2 possessions a game, which is top 5 in the country and probably realized that they weren't going to get the ball 12 times today if we continued to control the clock and run the football like we were.

I think they had it twice in the first quarter. They start doing the math. Two, four, six, eight. We're going to have it eight times. We better not punt this one. Let's try to see if we can maintain possession.

They're like us. They're just trying to call the plays and do the things in the game that are going to give them a pathway to victory. It's hard to score points if you don't have it. You can score on defense and special teams, but today nobody scored on defense, and nobody scored on special teams.

We have to have possession of the ball, and I think they and other teams realize that we are a team that likes to control the clock, and we're not going to go super fast and throw it three times and punt and 30 seconds have run off the clock. We're going to try to bleed it out.

Q. Your offense, your running game, you seem to be running up the middle more than going outside today, going two or three pitches. Bryson talked about it a little bit that it was planned that way. Can you talk about what you saw with the game plan?

JEFF MONKEN: Their defense -- so their head coach was the head coach at the Citadel and ran this system. Their defensive coordinator was a defensive coordinator at the Citadel as well as Kennesaw State. They both run the system.

So they're very well-schooled in defending our scheme. So it's no secret. You go to watch all the games that they've coached against teams that ran the option, you say, Okay, this is the way they defended teams that ran the option. They, frankly, made it really difficult for people to get the ball in the perimeter.

We knew we were going to have to get the ball outside of the tackle box today. It was just trying to figure out ways that we could do that, and we got it out of there some, but some was in the passing game. It wasn't by pitches or option plays.

Bryson carried it on one play on a zone read play where we blocked it up really good. It was going towards the scoreboard, and he pulled it and ran it, which turned into a perimeter play.

We just give them credit. Sometimes you've got to create a game plan based on the things that you think you're going to have the most success with and so that's what we did. There's some hard yards in there. They did a good job. They did as good of a job defending us in the run as anybody we've played.

Q. In the fourth quarter you got exposed to that wide open ball receiver offense, and the defense did it's best to deal with it. How is the team going to deal with that in the future?

JEFF MONKEN: Well, we didn't have the starters in there. There were a lot of the younger guys in there playing. Not all of them. There were some plays that they hit on our first team guys.

That's the thing that is scary for us is the teams that have really good skill like they do, a big offensive line that does a nice job protecting, which they do, sometimes they're going to find some seams and hit us on some plays.

Hopefully, as I said, they're not over our head. At least if they catch it, we can tackle them. They're in front of us. Might be a big game, but it's not a touchdown.

We were able to do that even on some of the big plays. We were at least keeping them in front of us and tackling them and playing another down. I don't know. I don't have a great answer for here's how we stop them. Just play our defense and bend, don't break.

Q. First question, I know you would rather not throw the ball if you don't have to, but on a day like today where East Carolina was defending the run and keying on the run as much as they were and their experience at stopping the option, you guys obviously made some adjustments. First play of the game the play action pass to Casey Reynolds. Bryson goes 7 for 10. How much has it helped for Bryson to be as accurate as he's been, and the receivers have made some really nice plays too. Noah Short went down and got that ball, the low one, over the middle, and Casey made a couple of nice catches. Again, knowing that you would rather not throw the ball, if you have to, how nice is it to have kind of the weapons you have offensively right now?

JEFF MONKEN: Well, I don't know if I would call our guys weapons. They're just players that are trying to do their job and good fundamentals. That's who they are.

Noah made a nice catch at the umpire, the guy that stands back there behind the defensive line. He had to kind of ole that ball and get out of the way, and I'm glad he did. That's not easy to concentrate when there's a bunch of people in front of you. Noah did a nice job.

We had a couple of times where we can did third and long and got out of it with pass plays. Bryson is throwing the ball really accurately. We had one hitch route on our sideline that Liam Fortner had to jump up for. That was in the first half. He probably mistimed his jump a little bit, but the ball was high. It was sailing. That's probably the one throw that wasn't as accurate as the others.

But he put the ball on the money. Casey Reynolds made a great catch on that post route. It just felt like throwing the football was going to be a way that we could get the ball in the perimeter knowing what a good job they were doing or had done as a staff of keeping the ball from getting in the perimeter, making it difficult.

We had one in the second half that got blown up. We tossed the ball out to our sideline. We were going to the offensive right going toward the building in the fourth quarter. Our tight end went out there and tried to block the guy on the perimeter. He kind of ran right through us and tackled us for a loss. They do a good job.

I felt like the passing game was a way to get it out there and get it away from the box. So fortunately we were able to hit some. And we didn't do a lot, and we don't do it a lot, but enough to get some plays and get us in scoring position today.

Q. You mentioned multiple times what a good job East Carolina's run defense did. You guys still ran the ball for almost 300 yards and five touchdowns on the ground. What's that say about your offensive line?

JEFF MONKEN: Well, a little down from our average, so we've got to find ways to improve and see if we can kind of match away we've been doing. O-line is tough as nails. They are. They're a great group of guys. They're tough. I'm glad that we've got them. They're the strength of our offense for sure.

Q. To keep the offensive line thread going, is there something that they're doing this season that's causing them to have this kind of success, or is it something different as opposed to the last couple of years anyway?

JEFF MONKEN: They're well-coached. I think Mike Viti and Matt Drinkall are doing a really good job. Cody Worley has a scheme and a system that fits the personnel that we have. It fits them.

They're a veteran group. There are three seniors that start on that offensive line, and there's Brady Small who started every game last year as a freshman. That's a veteran group that's very confident. They have played a lot of football, so you are going to have that confidence when you have game experience.

They're strong. Coach Hughes, our strength coach, I can't say enough how valuable that guy is to our team. I think we have a strong football team. I don't know if we've got a great football team or talented guys or fast, but our guys are strong. They work hard in the weight room, and he maximizes who they can be physically. He and his staff do a really good job.

I think those guys up front are strong and rugged. They stayed healthy. We have some nicks and dings. When are you in that many fights during the course of a game, you're going to get beat up a little bit. We do have some guys that they got some things that are nagging them, and hopefully this week off will help them get healthy.

Having the same offensive line start today as started in game one, and it's been the same for seven weeks is pretty remarkable because this offense notoriously is -- it's rugged and tough in there for those guys that play up front.

Q. Then defensively you mentioned some of the second half complacency. Do you think that's the biggest thing you want to fix heading into the Air Force game, or is there another thing?

JEFF MONKEN: I don't think our guys were complacent at all. I think our guys continued to fight and play as hard as they could. The other team just made some plays.

Our guys were trying to tackle. We didn't do a great job of it sometimes. Our guys were trying to defend them on the pass and be in position. We weren't always in position.

They made some plays. They have got a bunch of really good players. If you look at their roster, they got long, tall, fast guys, guys that have played in Power 5 programs.

Then you check our roster. We don't have anybody in our roster that played in a Power 5 school. It's hard. It's hard to defend guys like that. They're physical and very athletic.

Our guys continued to fight. They just made some plays.

Q. How effective do you think you were getting Houser off of his rhythm and timing today? I know he completed a lot of passes, but it was a struggle.

JEFF MONKEN: There were times. There were times we got him off his rhythm where he had to move around a little bit, step up. Got hurried and had to throw it before he probably wanted to or had a guy open.

But there were times where they certainly protected him, and he had a chance to wing it down the field. There were probably more times he threw the ball where we didn't have pressure on him than there were when we did. That's probably par for the course.

It's hard to get that. It's hard to get pressure on the quarterback. Typically we're rushing four guys, and that's the case with most defenses. You just can't line up and send everybody and say, well, we're going to play man-to-man and one-on-one coverage, and play that way the whole game. Eventually you're going to get exposed.

So they had five offensive linemen. You got four guys rushing. I'm not a great mathematician, but it's probably an advantage for them. So when a guy in a four-man rush beats a block and gets there, that's a great play on his part.

But there were some pressures. There were times where there were extra guys, and in the first half that was an indication of our guys playing defense and making them throw all the time and being in position to defend it. It's hard to do that the entire game. They're going to make some plays. They have guys on scholarship too.

Q. How do you feel about seeing T. Rob out there today? He served as a key decoy on a couple of plays early and, of course, he hit the 23-yard run.

JEFF MONKEN: I was thrilled to see him out there, and so was our team. Our team was so excited to have him -- he carried a black flag. That's chosen by our leadership council, and in our program that's a huge honor to be able to do that.

When he went in the game and got that carry, I was so excited to see him just back out there. It was good for him. Good for him to run the ball and get tackled down there and get back up and be ready to play the next play.

I think as he plays more and gets confidence, then there will be more opportunities to use him in different ways.

Q. How do you weigh the advantages of having a bye week, but does it derail momentum at all?

JEFF MONKEN: You only lose momentum if you stop believing. So I think our guys believe that they're capable and that we can have a good football team. So hopefully that will carry us through and allow us to have good practices.

Frankly, I'll just settle for a good practice tomorrow afternoon. That would be good enough for me. That would be a good start.

As I said, we have some guys that are nicked up a little bit. It would be nice to get them healthy, but to play this game against Air Force, a big rivalry game, the CIC Trophy on the line, it's nice to have two weeks.

They have a unique offense. It's not the same offense we faced the last seven weeks. So we've got some work to do to get our defense prepared and ready to defend them.

Then for our offense nobody does a better job defending this system than the other two academies. I think that's why the games are always so close. Our teams and our staffs know each other so well. We study each other so intently.

It will be hard. It will be hard to get a first down. It is going to be a tough, tough football game. So to have two weeks to get ready, I hope that will help us prepare. They have two weeks as well. So that's that.

Q. I know how much you love your seniors, but to see Miles Stewart get his first career touchdown. I know he does a lot of other things, but is that kind of special?

JEFF MONKEN: It was fantastic. He made a really nice catch. He's just an incredibly unselfish kid. He could have cared less if it was him or somebody else. He was happy we scored a touchdown.

I'm happy for him and proud of him. It was fun to see the guys celebrate that touchdown with him when he came to the sideline.

Q. Last thing, Casey Reynolds, as you touched on a minute ago, just tell us about his developing ability. He is not Lynn Swann or John Stallworth, but he is making some pretty impressive catches out there.

JEFF MONKEN: I'm glad you mentioned those two guys. Nobody else that listens to this is going to remember who those guys were. There's a few old gray-hairs like you and me that know who those guys are.

He plays well for us. He plays well in our system. He does a really good job blocking. He takes a lot of pride in that. He has to.

We ran -- what did we run? 66 plays. We threw ten times. So 56 plays, he has to find a way to block and make a difference for us that way, but he's a good athlete. He's not particularly fast, not particularly big. He's just a really good athlete.

There's not many people at West Point -- there's not many people anywhere. How many college football players are playing FBS football and play on the lacrosse team at their college? There's not many.

I read about the kid at Notre Dame who is a great lacrosse player and a great football player. He is just a good football player and knows how to get open and puts his body between the defender and the ball.

He's having his best year so far. He is playing his best football right now.

Q. (Off microphone).

JEFF MONKEN: The main thing, the main thing I want to do over the bye week. There's some main things.

Get healthy, work on blocking fundamentals on offense, and work on tackling fundamentals on defense. Those are the three main things that I want to get done over the next two weeks. Good question.