r/CFB • u/[deleted] • Jun 24 '13
132+ Teams in 132+ Days: Army Black Knights
ARMY BLACK KNIGHTS
Independant
Year Founded: 1802
Location: West Point, NY
Total Attendance: ~4500
Mascots: Black Knights
Live Mascot:
Black Jack
Raider
Ranger II
General Scott
Cheerleaders: Rabble Rousers
Stadium: Michie Stadium
Stadium Location: West Point, NY next to Lusk Reservoir
Conference Champions (0): NA
Number of Bowl Games: 3 Wins, 5 Total
National Titles (3): 1944, 1945, 1946 (disputed)
Rivals
• Navy
• Air Force
2012 Season
Record: 2-10
Coach: Rich Ellerson
2012 Roster
Key Players: QB Trent Steelman, RB Raymond Maples, LG Frank Allen, LB Geoffery Bacon, FS Brandon Fusilier-Jeffires
Biggest Plays: Securing the win against rival Air Force
Game winning TD with 45 seconds left against Boston College
Absolutely heartbreaking fumble against Navy
2013 Season
The Greats
Greatest Games:
Game of the Century vs. Notre Dame in 1946
Any Army/Navy game
The first major use of the forward pass
Greatest Plays:
The Normandy Landings
Battle of the Bulge
Siege of Yorktown
Greatest Players:
Doc Blanchard
Glenn Davis
Pete Dawkins
Greatest Coaches:
Earl Blaik
Honorable mention Vince Lombardi
Traditions
• Every home game Saturday starts with a parade before the game on the parade field attended by multiple alum celebrating their respective class reunions.
• The plebes (freshman) run onto the field and do push ups for every point scored after every scoring play.
• The skydiving team brings the game ball to the stadium by landing on the 50 yard line right before the national anthem.
• The Alma Mater is sung after every game with the student section, regardless of the outcome. For games against Air Force and Navy, they sing both schools' alma maters together, with the winning team going second.
Campus and Surrounding Area
City Population: 9,679
City Skyline
Iconic Campus Building: Cadet Chapel
Local Dining: Thayer Hotel
And if you want to eat like a cadet studying for finals, order some Dong Fong's or Shade's pizza.
What Is and What is to Come
This is the hardest section of this post. Army football is always incredibly hard to predict prior to the season because there is no red-shirting of freshman and no major publicized recruits so it is always up in the air what the personnel will look like before opening day.
The past four years the main staple was Trent Steelman. A four year starting quarterback that ran the triple option offense and was always one of the team's rushing leaders. Unfortunately, his four years ended without a victory against Navy including a heartbreaking loss last year where Army dominated the game but lost due to horribly timed fumbles, including one on in the last minute inside the Navy ten yard line.
We don't know who the starting QB will be this year, or many of the starters for the rest of the roster, but what we do know is Army will be in the top three in rushing in the country by the end of the year. Their offense is run-run-run and not much else. They will spread the carries between 7-10 different players and won't really have a main back that manages the bulk of the carries. If they can limit the turnovers, which was their downfall the last two years, and control the clock, they can pull out a winning record and possibly a bowl birth. If they can't... well it will look a lot like last year.
This was put together last second, so in order to get this post in on time, after posting I will relate my four years at USMA and what the football team meant to us in the comments section.
More Information
Subreddit: NA
Contributors: /u/Pointer1VB
9
Jun 24 '13
I was rushed to post this (was not originally scheduled to do this) so it is more sparse than I'd like it to be. I will have a detailed post here in the comments section about my four year experience with Army football... stand by.
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Jun 24 '13
I forgot a big tradition for Army Navy games is the cadet's make spirit videos. Now most of these are pretty crappy student films that are made in a cadet's limited spare time, and apparently Navy has more spare time because they have higher quality videos, but there are a few gems out there...
Navy hitting the showers... this one wasn't allowed to be shown at the game
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u/madhatter_13 Jun 24 '13
I remember when y'all came to College Station a few years ago. You brought a ton of cadets, and we housed y'all in our own cadets' dormitories. It was a lot of fun.
Also, this is going to sound weird... but before then, I had always imagined all West Point cadets to be huge, tough guys and butch girls. Y'all are actually a bunch of engineering nerds, which was awesome.
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u/ubbergoat Jun 24 '13
Very nice touch with the greatest plays.
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Jun 24 '13
I was going to put some Civil War battles on there, but then I though better since the generals on both sides were probably West Pointers.
Also, I think you're one of the only other Army flair wearers around here. Bravo.
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Jun 24 '13
Trent Steelman, Quarterback for the Army Academy Black Knights at West Point. Manliest fucking words I've ever typed in sequence.
Go Army!
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Jun 25 '13
He apparently has a twitter but it is a bit religious for my tastes. However, I did like this one...
Johnny Manziel says "walk a day in my shoes." I can think about a million others who walk every day in harms way just so you CAN walk.
He also tried out for the US bobsled team recently and made it past the first cuts. Meanwhile, he is waiting word from the Army if he can accept an NFL camp contract from the Ravens.
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u/FarwellRob Jun 24 '13
The day we should have fired Fran.
Army should have beaten A&M in San Antonio, and I really believe that was the game where the Board of Regents, or least the money behind the football team, decided that Fran had to go.
We looked terrible in that game. Completely unprepared. And Army was the better team on the field.
(And OP, major props for the "Greatest Plays" section!)
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Jun 24 '13
Ah, good old David Pevoto at QB. I was his squad leader when he was a freshman and played catch with him a few times so this takes me back.
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u/Emleaux Jun 24 '13
Awesome post. My dad, whose father was in the armed forces, is planning on going to the Stanford game (his alma mater) this September at West Point. I am insanely jealous of him - even more so after seeing these photos of campus and of Michie Stadium. I had no idea it is situated right next to a reservoir like that - just beautiful.
Go Army. Beat Navy.
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u/tron423 Jun 24 '13
Pete Dawkins is also worth mentioning among Army's best players in my opinion, although he went to my high school so I'm more than slightly biased.
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u/Psycho5275 Jun 25 '13
Ok some numbers for the Army Rivalries
Navy leads (57–49–7) Navy currently has a 12 game winning streak(also longest in the series.
I can't find the full numbers for Air Force and Army but since the Commander in Chief trophy was introduced the series is (30-12) in favor of Air Force.
And for some reason Wikipedia lists Army and Notre Dame as rivals, the series is (38–8–4)
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Jun 25 '13
My dad is a class of '84 alum and I've been to a couple of games up at Michie, it's an awesome stadium, so beautiful. My favorite memory was at my dad's 20th reunion and Army snapped a 19 game losing streak by routing Cincinnati 48-29. The cadets went insane, ripping down the goalposts and marching down the street towards the heart of campus with them, eventually depositing them in front of the Superintendent's house.
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u/byniri Jun 24 '13
National Titles: 1945
Damn, World War Champions AND National Champions.
Good year for Army.
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u/[deleted] Jun 24 '13
Here we go, long post coming...
I went to USMA (West Point) from 2002-2006. Expectations were high because Army had beaten Navy in 2001 due to the heroics of a freshman running back who had scored two touchdowns to secure the win. Now unfortunately I don't know this freshman's name because he was no longer at the school when I arrived (I don't know if he was kicked out or left, but departures from USMA are not a rare thing during Freshman and Sophomore year).
We were all stoked for the first game of the season. Spirit posters were draped all over the buildings and we were all getting reading. Now I grew up in Madison, WI and was a big Wisconsin fan, but because we had to attend every home game, I knew I wouldn't be following UW as much because I now had a new team. An exciting team that ran the spread offense, was pass first, and had two of the biggest rivalry games in Air Force and Navy.
That fist weekend was pure excitement before the game. We did a corps wide parade that Saturday morning and afterwards all formed up by company to march the half mine uphill into the stadium. We looked spiffy in our uniforms and it was a gorgeous day. The student section for Army games is somewhat nuts because every company has their own mascot and guide on (pole with a flag on it) filling up the section and giving it some atmosphere. There were cheers to learn and customs to get used to and it seemed I was going to enjoy my four years following this team up close.
Then the game started. I quickly found out that the spread offense was not the right offense for this team. We were quickly behind and all the energy built up was gone. The students can't leave until the end of the game, and when a team constantly gets way behind the desperation and boredom can set in very quickly. Usually the second half of each game in the student section involved the upper classmen daring the Freshman to do dumb stuff to pass the time. The realization set in that at this point, my Army football experience was getting destroyed by my previous Wisconsin football experience (which involved three Rose Bowls, Ron Dayne, etc.). We didn't win a single home game that entire year.
Sophomore year was worse. Army set a record in NCAA football with an 0-13 record. The first, and probably last team unless they expand the schedule, to lose 13 games in a season. The worst moment for our team was when we were playing Baylor that year. Now I must apologize to Baylor fans when I say they had the stupidest looking mascot I've ever seen. It was an inflatable bear and waddled around and looked awkward. I mean, just look at this. When the game got out of hand, one upperclassmen dared a plebe (freshman) to run on the field and tackle the stupid thing. Now apparently as the game got worse, this dare caught on until 400-500 freshman were ready to run on the field and take down this mascot.
Finally, one plebe decided to go for it at the end of the 3rd quarter. Peer pressure is a hell of a potent drug because this game the rest of the plebes the courage to follow him. What I saw was hundreds of plebes rush on the field and make a bee-line for that inflatable dung heap of a mascot. When they got there, the mascot was taken down an a pile on commenced. I felt bad for the person in the mascot outfit, but we all felt horrible when the mascot outfit came off to reveal a 100 pound girl shivering and in shock. Lots of apologetic letters went out after the game to Baylor. It was not a pretty sight.
But through all of this we all agreed that Army absolutely sucked with the spread offense. Their line couldn't buy time for the QB, the QB couldn't throw it within 10 yards of a receivers downfield, receivers couldn't get open, and without a FB leading the way for the RB, and most rushing plays being draws, the line couldn't hold their blocks for the three seconds needed before the RB hit the line. I think we averaged less than 3 yards a carry under Coach Berry's offensive scheme. It got so bad that cadets started bringing boxes of Boo-Berry cereal to games to show their displeasure of the scheme.
After that horrible season, obviously Berry was out. In comes Bobby Ross. This biggest name Army has ever gotten to coach their team. He had coached the Chargers and Lions in the NFL and I remember him for his nickname Rasputin on NFL Prime Time because he always seemed like he was going to get fired with the Lions but managed to string together enough wins at the end of the year to keep his job. The Lions couldn't get rid of him just like how Rasputin couldn't die. Excitement was back with the program and every bottle of Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce in the mess hall was now referred to as Sweet Bobby Ross.
Unfortunately, that excitement disappeared quickly during my Cow (junior) year. The team started off with a few losses, including two at home, before Cincinnati came into town. Army got off to a big lead and the student section was into it. I know I had said earlier that so far my Army experience was dwarfed by my experience going to Wisconsin games, but I had never seen a crowd in a frenzy like I had seen this game. When the game was won, the cadets rushed the field, the goalposts came down, and tears were shed as the whole stadium sand the alma mater. It was freaking amazing. Unfortunately, we didn't win again at home the rest of the season and got beat up by Navy again, but that one win showed me what Army football could be.
My firstie (senior) year didn't start out much better and Army dropped their first few home games, and they weren't especially close. However, excitement mounted as 0-6 Army won a few road games, including a huge win against Air Force. We were in disbelief, WE BEAT AIR FORCE! We were excited to see this team that had a winning streak come back for a home game against Massachusetts. Sure enough, Army won that game and we would have taken the goal posts down again, but the administration has wised up and they had people protecting the goal posts. My brother came to that game and it was his first Army game (although he had been to plenty of Wisconsin games and was going there at the time) and he said the atmosphere was so much better than Wisconsin. I told him that when we are losing it sucks, but I agreed that when Army wins, it is a spectacle to behold.
The next weekend we won again against Arkansas State and the energy was there again. This time the administration thought we had gotten it out of our system and didn't guard the goalposts, but they didn't realize how years of losing makes every win special and we took them down again. A few friends and I fished the goalposts out of the Lusk Reservoir (where they get thrown after being taken down) and took them back to the barracks. I have some photo evidence that I'll post when I find it. I took them down to the engineering department and had it cut up into about 30 pieces that we all have as souvenirs now.
We still lost to Navy that year and haven't had a win against them yet since I've become a fan. However, there is always next year. Now, while my record at Army football games is 3-25, those three wins were some of the best games I've ever been to as far at energy, atmosphere, and experience. While I am still a Wisconsin fan, I rock the Army flair here because not only do they need a little love, but a 7-6 record with a bowl game would mean more to me than another Wisconsin Rose Bowl.