A player for West Point’s football team, the Army Black Knights in 2024. (West Point Football via X)
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Tribune News Service) — Army coach Jeff Monken has a history of making disparaging comments toward Air Force. Maybe in jest, maybe not.
“Do they still play football?” Monken said when the Falcons were rumored to join the Black Knights in the American Athletic Conference in September.
“Not that tough,” Monken said in May 2019 to then-President Donald Trump when receiving the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy at the White House. Trump had noted that “Air Force is tough. They’ve always been tough.”
But with the No. 17 Black Knights favored by more than three touchdowns as they are set to host the struggling Falcons at 10 a.m. Saturday, Monken reversed the rhetoric.
“This game this week will be the hardest game that we’ll played all year,” Monken said Tuesday. “The intensity, the emotion that’s a part of these (service academy) games just makes it different from everything else.
“They know us so well. They are well-coached. They will execute at a really high level. They always do. This game, every year. It’s tooth and nail every play.”
Monken obviously knows Air Force (1-6) is trudging through a down year while the Black Knights (7-0) have blown out every opponent by at least 17 points. But Monken has coached too many games against Air Force to make any assumptions, even if his words sometimes suggest otherwise.
“It’s completely different when an academy plays an academy. It really is,” Monken said. “I don’ t think there’s any way to compare what has happened so far in either season, ours or theirs, to this point, as to what’s going to happen on Saturday.”
From 2018 through 2022, Air Force and Army had one game go to overtime and the four others were decided by six or fewer points. The only lopsided game came last year when the roles were opposite of what they are now — Air Force came in unbeaten and in the Top 25, while Army was 2-6. It was Army that won that game 23-3 as three-touchdown underdogs.
Monken understands what can happen in this game, and chose his words accordingly even as Air Force is going through a down year.
“It’s what they’ve done over the years. It’s not just one year,” he said. “They’ve had so many powerful offenses and have been so good at what they do over the years. Those are the things that we know that they’re capable of every Saturday.”
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