| 30. Army Black Knights |
| Independent |
What Jeff Monken has done at Army is truly remarkable. To take a program, with all of its built-in obstacles, which had had one winning season (7-6) since 1996, and now produce three in a row, three bowl wins for a school that had three bowl wins in its history, and then complete an 11-2 season in 2018, complete with a 70-14 trouncing of Houston in the Armed Forces Bowl, and a final AP ranking of #19. That was Army’s best finish since finishing #3 in 1958, and only their second final ranking since. At only 51, on one hand it’s surprising nobody has been able to hire Monken away. On the other hand, they see Paul Johnson’s run at Georgia Tech, and perhaps see the general mediocrity, rather than the fact that a ton of schools would love to have Georgia Tech’s last decade. Monken learned under Johnson, a graduate assistant at Hawaii, then running backs coach under Johnson at Georgia Southern, then Navy, then Georgia Tech. He took that offensive style with him, following Johnson at Georgia Southern, then to a military academy. But compared to the other triple option teams, Monken cranked it up even further. Air Force ran the ball 79.2% of the time; Georgia Southern was at 82.1%; Navy at 83.2%; Georgia Tech at 84.8%; and Army, way up at the top, at 88.2% of the time. In that 70-14 beatdown of Houston, Kelvin Hopkins Jr. attempted 3 passes, completing them all. Hopkins isn’t there to throw though, and he ran the ball effectively, for over 1,000 yards on the season, on 4.9 ypc, best of Army’s top five rushers. He wasn’t afraid to get his nose dirty in short yardage situations either, leading all FBS quarterbacks with 17 rushing touchdowns. Monken does need to replace senior fullback Darnell Woolfolk, who saw entirely too many carries, 221, in this style of offense. His efficiency slipped from 2017, getting nearly 50 more carries, but his ypc drop by nearly 0.9 ypc. Nine players did get more than 16 carries last season, but seven were seniors. Connor Slomka had the most carries after Hopkins and Woolfolk last year, but is more of a battering ram, with 5 touchdowns; while Kell Walker has more explosiveness. Ideally both wind up around 150 carries this year, but underclassmen simply don’t play much at any of the military academies, so it could wind up being a guy like Artice Hobbs IV who emerges in now his junior season. Defensively, the strength of the Black Knights shifts from the front to the back. Last year Army was ranked in the top 25 nationally against the run, on on sack rate, but they gave up 7.8 ypa passing. The secondary is a lot more experienced this year, but with converted cornerback Jaylon McClinton playing safety, their 1.69% interception rate, in the bottom 20 nationally, has to improve. McClinton had 2 of the team’s five on the season, with graduated Mike Reynolds having the other two. Elijah Riley may be the one of the two, better suited to play safety, with questionable hands, but good tackling ability, finishing third on the team with 7.5 tackles for loss. The schedule looks exceptionally manageable, with a road game at Michigan in Week 2, and the next toughest game, against Tulane at home? FPI has the Black Knights favored in every game except the Michigan trip, being a double digit favorite in 7 of the other 11.
| KEY PLAYERS |
| QB | Kelvin Hopkins Jr., Senior |
| RB | Kell Walker, Senior |
| G | Jaxson Deaton, Senior |
| . |
| LB | Cole Christiansen, Senior |
| CB | Elijah Riley, Senior |
| S | Jaylon McClinton, Senior |
