What a crazy way to begin a season for a defending conference champ.
Army opened this year by losing to an FCS team, albeit one of the best in the country, and then turned around and beat a respected Power Four squad on the road.
Army has a bye this week and may need the early time off just to digest this unlikely start.
The Black Knights are the defending American Conference champion, but they weren’t considered the favorites this year due to losing key veterans either by graduation or, believe it or not, to the transfer portal.
The biggest loss was graduated quarterback Bryson Daily, the American Offensive Player of the Year who finished sixth in the Heisman Trophy balloting. Daily rushed for 32 touchdowns last season, an FBS single-season record for quarterbacks.
So that was the biggest gap entering the year, but Army was expected to ease its way into the season with a home opener against FCS Tarleton State.
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After all, last year’s season opened with a 42-7 rout of FCS Lehigh.
What could possibly go wrong?
For one, this was a much better FCS opponent.
Ranked among the top five FCS schools in the country, Tarleton State, now 3-0, ruined Army’s home opener with a 30-27 double overtime win. So many things went wrong for Army, including missing a 43-yard field goal at the end of regulation that would have won the game. There was also a missed 35-yard field goal attempt in the second overtime. The Black Knights also led by as many as 14 points in the second half.
And in that game, starting quarterback Dewayne Coleman went down with an injury late in the fourth quarter and was replaced by backup Cale Hellums, who had scored a touchdown earlier in the game on a 1-yard run before halftime. Coleman had rushed for 100 yards and a touchdown in 24 carries, but he also threw two interceptions while making his second collegiate start.
Following the opening defeat, the Army faithful couldn’t have felt optimistic about having to travel to Manhattan, Kansas, to face Kansas State, which prior to the season was viewed as a contender in the balanced Big 12.
Kansas State, ranked No. 17 in the AP preseason poll, entered the Army game 1-1, suffering an opening 24-21 defeat to another Big 12 contender, Iowa State.
K-State then barely escaped with a 38-35 win over a well-respected FCS North Dakota squad.
Then came the Army game, where Kansas State led by as much as 13-0 in the first half and owned a 21-14 advantage heading into the fourth quarter.
Yet led by Hellums, Army came back. Hellums placed his name in the Army record books while making his first career start.
He entered the game with 14 career rushing attempts and then set a single-game Army record against Kansas State with 41 carries. Hellums rushed for 124 yards and two scores, including the go-ahead 14-yard touchdown run with 2:52 left. For the game, he also completed 7 of 11 passes for 43 yards and a touchdown.
The win wasn’t secured until safety Collin Matteson made an interception with 1:35 left. Matteson had a big game with five tackles and three pass breakups.
The key for Army this season, or any season for that matter, is to have one of the more feared rushing games in the country. Last year, the Black Knights led the nation in rushing, averaging 300.5 yards per game. They enter this bye week still very strong, averaging 258.5 yards, which is 14th nationally. The passing game remains a work in progress.
Besides losing Daily, running back Kanye Udoh, who rushed for 1,117 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2024, transferred to Arizona State. Noah Short, who rushed for 569 yards and two scores last year, is the leading non-QB rusher for the Black Knights with 104 yards. Hellums leads the team with 161 yards rushing.
Army will get a much better idea of whether it can contend in the American in its first game after the bye when the Black Knights face a high-scoring North Texas, which takes a 2-0 record into Saturday’s home game against Washington State. Another tough American game will be Oct. 18 at Tulane, the team Army beat in last year’s conference championship.
Last year was a dream season for Army, winning the American title during its first year in the conference for football.
This year there may be more ups and downs.
Quite honestly, most probably expected Army to be 1-1 after its first two games. Few figured the record would be achieved in this fashion.
