CONTINUED FROM PART 4, in CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER, The Top 10 Army Football Teams of the Past 50 Years:
9. 2018 – 11-2 – Head Coach: Jeff Monken
If nothing else, it’s a new high water mark for wins, which is cool, but there’s probably a little more to it than that.
Like 2017, it wasn’t the fastest start, but by the end of September, we saw what the team had in them.
A week after taking future Playoff participant Oklahoma to overtime in Norman (which very few people got to watch legally, thanks to OU basically putting the game on premium Pay-Per-View), the Black Knights of the Hudson traveled up and over to Buffalo to put a 42-13 beatdown on a Bulls squad that would win 10 of their first 12 games.
Army themselves wouldn’t lose another contest in 2018.
As you might expect, they went undefeated at Michie Stadium (with at least one Cardiac Cadets moment mixed in), and beat Air Force and Navy to win the CIC.
The coup de grâce though was an NCAA record-tying destruction of the Houston Cougars in the Armed Forces Bowl.
If I had a $2 bill for every time a coach got fired after his team played a Jeff Monken Army team, well, it wouldn’t be that many, but it’d be enough to make you notice.
10. 2020 – 9-3 – Head Coach: Jeff Monken
So, yeah, it was a weird year.
We may never know how good this team actually was, given the circumstances of the scheduling and the state of the world in general, but they won 9 games (nearly won double digits again), didn’t have any particularly egregious losses (though I hope Monken stays around long enough to get JUST ONE win against Tulane), and beat Navy and Air Force to finish an undefeated home slate.
Losing to West Virginia in the Liberty Bowl when they actually had a lead was definitely frustrating on the day, but, when I look back on the season, the most lasting image in my mind is 4th and Goal at the 1, in Michie, with the CIC on the line.
CONTINUED IN PART 6 (Honorable Mentions and Final Ranking)