2024: Army Preview
Ranked
Nov 9・2:30pm CT ・ESPN2・MGRN・Denton, TX・DATCU (30,100)・Sirius 385
The last time North Texas hosted a ranked conference foe, it was when UTSA came to town and took a beating. Army is undefeated, and untied. They have also played the 133rd ranked schedule (of 134) by one estimation. BCFToys has them at 130. The takeaway is that they are good, but they are untested. We saw Navy get blistered by Notre Dame and then Rice1. Army is to be respected for their discipline and toughness, but we can acknowledge that they aren’t overly talented.
Talent, of course, is just one aspect of the game. Army is favored by around 4 points because of their ability to run the ball and control the game. North Texas has struggled vs the run, and was just bullied by the Tulane run game on the way to a homecoming loss. Army is expected to dominate proceedings in that regard.
The good news is the bye week came at just the right time. You want to be healthy and prepared for the triple option when you face it. NT had two weeks preparation to heal up some banged up defensive players, and also to figure out their plan-o-action. Eric Morris mention a truism during his presser about the offense “They’ve seen it and they have rules for everything.” That is in reference to four-down or three-down defensive schemes. People try to simplify the defense and “play assignment football” but that is known to the offense and they make you wrong by confusing your assignments. Paul Johnson gave people fits when they were declaring who was going to cover who.
Let us continue to set the stage, before we discuss stopping the offense.
NT is 5-3, 2-2.
Eric Morris is 34-28, 10-10 at UNT in his sixth year. He has never faced Army.
Army is 8-0, 6-0 and ranked 18th in the AP, 19th in the coaches poll.
Jeff Monken is 113-71 in his fifteenth season including 77-55 in his 11 seasons at Army. He is 1-2 vs UNT.
There is an outside chance things could break for the Mean Green to get a rematch vs Tulane in the AAC title game, but for all intents and purposes, NT is playing for a bowl game and some pride. The squad is on a two-game losing streak, having dropped both games to the tough teams on the schedule. Seeing Memphis drop a game in San Antonio makes the loss three weeks ago in Memphis hurt more. So close.
This game is tougher than was first imagined because the Black Knights are better than anyone thought they’d be at this point.
A win here would clinch bowl eligibility, surpass las year’s win total, and set up the squad for a chance to get 10-wins (with a bowl game). That would be impressive, considering NT hasn’t won double-digit games ever and has only reached nine wins seven times in program history.
For Army, their run would continue. All of America is rooting for the opposition this week, folks. We are the hated.
Stopping The Option
My favorite writing on the subject is by Dr. B:
1. Stop the Dive. Its meant to get 3.0 ypc, once they get more than that, youre dead. They don't have as great a FB as Dwyer, but if you let them beat you inside it sets up the entire perimeter game and Midline.
2. Hammer that QB every time he touches the football.
3. Knock the QB's facemask off every time he touches the football. Make him eat dirt.
4. Flatten the QB on every snap.
5. Rip the QB's head off on every snap.
He detailed the Flexbone here, and how to stop it:
So how do you teach a defense to stop this kind of offense? Primarily it comes down to discipline and good fundamental defense, with the key player being the DE. A good defense may simply have so much speed that they are always near the ball pretty quickly, and they tackle well enough so that they make plays. That doesn't mean the players are always in the correct positions, just that they manage to recover quicker than the offensive back can take advantage of it, and they swarm to the ball to make up for any bad tackling.
In the pass game, Navy/GT’s Paul Johnson added a lot of run-and-shoot things to his stuff to develop and evolve. Army has done something similar this year, adding some wrinkles to their pass game. They begun experimenting last year and have some new learnings. In essence, they added some shotgun looks, more tight ends, more zone blocking to go with their flexbone stuff and better execution in the pass game.
They added a lot of tight ends last class with the idea of varying their threats. Those guys will block and sneak out for passes. All told, the Army attack is pretty interesting and even Eric Morris was intrigued.
If you read the linked articles you know what we are hoping to see: Rod Brown get tackles.
NT is the worst defense (yards per play) in the league and Army is the best offense in the league (NT second). The best defense they have faced (ECU) was sliced up for 45 points and 295 yards rushing (6.7 ypp). The bad teams are killed (Tulsa, 10+). Air Force, which is familiar with the scheme, played them well (and faced a backup QB) and held them to 4.9 ypp.
Best case scenario: NT is able to win the line of scrimmage and break up Army attacks early by killing the dive, and also putting Bryson Daily behind the chains.
Worst case scenario: Basically Army does to us what they did to like ECU.
Attacking Army
We say it every week. No matter how good the opposition is, they get hit by the best offense they have seen all season and allow more yards, points, first downs and whathaveyou to the North Texas Mean Green.
Now, UNT is not unstoppable. The offensive line is always banged up — even when healthy to start someone manages to get injured on play one — and has to reshuffle constantly. Chandler Morris is on pace to break records but also gets blindsided occasionally. The run game is patchwork and relies on occasional slicing runs from our converted wide receiver Shane Porter.
Oh and the pass game is basically DT Sheffield and a bunch of underclassmen. That said, it is a top-ten offense in practically every measure. It goes fast, it is difficult to prepare for (because of the QB) and can score quickly and — we just saw last week — slowly as well. NT scored on a 19-play 80 yard drive.
Army has faced the 14th (Temple), 12th (Tulsa), 6-9th(ECU, UAB, FAU, Rice) ranked offenses in the league in yards-per-play. Also add Lehigh, and Air Force to that number. Basically no one could score with them. ECU is averaging 5.82 yards per play but also fired their coach. NT is second in yards-per-play behind Army at 7.01 (Army at 7.13).
Army has been scoring fast but runs the ball a ton so they shorten the game and control the clock. Morris mentioned this would be something to consider, as they might not go tempo as much simply to give the defense some time. The tempo has been a huge weapon and when North Texas is clicking it is a sight to see.
Army is a disciplined squad with good fundamentals, but again has not been challenged by a good offense. It is not a coincidence that the best offense they faced is the only unit to put up 28 points on them.
Let’s be kind and call Army’s defense simply untested and not sneaky bad or anything. North Texas has faced Tulane and Memphis, two of the league’s absolute best defenses 2and moved the ball well. Sure, Tulane had a better time, given they had the game won by the end of the third quarter. That was a function of NT pressing because they could not stop the run, however, and a turnover on special teams.
The game was within shouting distance before Morris was hit and a sack-fumble, subsequent TD ended things.
That nightmare situation is worth bringing up for this game. NT should have some margin for error in the pure talent department, but Army is pretty disciplined and tough. NT has historically always been able to score on the academy teams. It is always the stopping them that is the problem. This offense is right on the cusp of being the Best UNT Offense Ever in a few categories, so it stands to reason to be a little bullish about the prospects.
Of course, scoring and losing is a very real probability.
The game plan is to keep Morris clean, keep the offensive penalties to a minimum, stay healthy, and get the ball to DT Sheffield. When this squad has done that, it means paydirt.
Best case scenario: A touchdown festival. Army cannot stop NT whatsoever.
Worst case scenario: Another slow start, some turnovers (sack/fumble or interception) and then NT has to chase the game and starts pressing which leads to some Turnovers on Downs.
Other, Special Teams, Coaching
The crowd should be good (Army is always popular) and they are ranked. The special teams group has been a plus all season, but McGill fumbled a kick return and that helped put NT in a hole super early. Chandler Morris walked off the field down 7-3 and when he got the ball back he was down 21-3.
Nguma has been good kicking, and the kick off unit has been otherwise great. Depth usually shows on special teams and NT can maybe win some battles there.
Eric Morris is a clear offensive mastermind, but Army has been a machine under tough circumstances. Jeff Monken know how thin the margins are for him to pull out wins and he was early to use data to decide when to go for it on 4th downs and 2-point conversions. They have been proactive in tweaking their offense, and have seen just about all the adjustments teams like to make.
My eyes tell me there is a talent disparity (Seth Littrell famously called this out in his first year vs Army) but there is a strength-vs-weakness matchup on both sides. I think NT’s strength (offense) is stronger than Army’s strength, but the relative matchups favor Army.
All that is to say that Army’s defense is tough, confident, and disciplined but hasn’t seen an offense as powerful as UNT’s.
Also, Army’s offense is clever, confident, and UNT has had trouble winning the line of scrimmage, and keeping eye discipline.
Prediction:
In preseason I said NT 30-29.
I will go NT 40-39 winners. Chalk up another upset of a top-25 team in Denton.
GMG
With a ridiculous rain delay. Still. A coachless Rice.
NT will face the league’s (as of now) 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th, and 9th ranked defenses in YPP.
Welp, good thing you were kind and didn’t call the Army defense ‘sneaky bad’! That was a shellacking!!