Army West Point Black Knights College Football Pregame Quote, 09/17/2019

It was a tough game. We started out like a ball of fire and scored on the opening possession. Then we took it down and got a penalty on the second possession and had to settle for a field goal. Then it looked like we were in scoring position again and turned it over. From there, we kind of sputtered out on offense and weren’t putting together any drives. UTSA was doing a great job of defending us. Our defense did a terrific job in the first half shutting them down there at the very end when we had the late turnover in the half, and they had a field goal try and fortunately it was wide right. We came into the locker room very fortunate to be up 10-0 and then it really turned into a ballgame in the third quarter. I was proud of the resiliency of our team. We gave up a score on the opening drive and it was a three-point game and then we were able to get a couple of scores and stretch it. Certainly, there were some mistakes that we are disappointed about that we need to correct. But, to start a new rookie quarterback in the first start of his career, he did a really nice job. We’re glad to have the victory and move on now to come home against Morgan State.

On smaller schools playing bigger programs:

They’ve got an athletic team. They’ve played an FBS team to start and they don’t have as many scholarships as an FCS team. They played Bowling Green to open the season and lost to them, then they played James Madison, who, arguably, is one of the best FCS teams in the country and probably could hold their own against a lot of FBS programs. Then, they played two teams that are really good and there are times where you can see how athletic they are. They’ve got some guys on their roster that I recognize from recruiting, guys that we’ve evaluated, names that have come across our board, and I thought, particularly in the James Madison game, the score got lopsided. James Madison hit some scores early. Particularly defensively, you could see how much better they improved from week one to week two. They got good tacklers, athletic guys in space. And I certainly don’t claim to match up athletically or physically with teams we play, that’s just who we are. We’re usually smaller and there’s a lot of very skilled players out there in college football. These guys present some challenges for us personnel-wise that we’ll have to take on as we game plan this week.

On the fatigue of Cadet life:

These guys are always fatigued. I don’t know that anybody can appreciate that unless you’ve experienced it. Our guys average a little over five hours of sleep per night. I don’t know how many people you know going on five hours of sleep per night and they’re just building up energy constantly because they manage to get five hours of sleep per night. It’s not enough. That’s about what they can get. With their schedules, the practices, workouts, academics, and travel, we didn’t get home until almost two in the morning after the game on early Sunday morning. So it’s difficult, and no, I don’t think we continue to build up energy. But hopefully, the opportunity to play gets them excited. They get rested toward the end of the week when we get to the hotel and get some sleep. On the weekends after the games, they get recovered and that helps them get to the next one. I hope it will continue and I hope we continue to have success, and I think that when a team has success, regardless of whether they’re well-rested or not, it builds momentum and helps the excitement and energy for the next week.