Army's brand of 'tough' football pays off once again in win over Temple
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More than 30 years ago, Army football coach Jeff Monken had an opportunity to work at Arizona State under famed St. Louis Rams coach Mike Martz, known for his aggressive style and “Greatest Show on Turf” offense.
“Mike was the offensive coordinator,” Monken said, “and he told me the most overrated stat is football is time of possession. He said, ‘It doesn’t matter if you score on one play or it takes you 21 plays … it all counts the same.”’
Monken believes “maybe that’s true,” but he’s learned along the way, in his time under Paul Johnson, and then at the helm of Georgia Southern and now Army, that keep-away football has its benefits as well.
Long counted on in Army’s option offense has been the ability to chew up clock and limit possessions. As long as the Black Knights convert on their drives and limit turnovers, the time of possession stat has often worked in favor of Army because it puts a premium on scoring and sometimes forces opponents to play a bit out of their comfort zone.
Army’s offensive performance in Saturday’s 14-13 win over Temple is not going to go down as one of its best of the season but the Black Knights did just enough to scratch out the vital win, scoring on just two of six series but eating up clock on the others, notably a game-ending 18-play, 53-yard drive that took 9 minutes, 53 seconds off the remaining clock — the Black Knights drove inside the Temple 10 in the closing two minutes and chose not to score, going down on two short runs, since the Owls had no time outs remaining.
“We were just trying to win a football game,” Monken said. “Our guys were gutting it out and trying to be tough.”
Army was just 1-12 when scoring 14 points-or-fewer since the start of the 2021 season, scratching out a 14-3 win at North Texas almost a year to the date laat season.
Army football: Critical conversions
Army ran off 66 plays with just 11 of them going for 6 yards-or-more, hardly big-play football. But the Black Knights did rush for 224 yards (a 50% boost on the 162 usually allowed by the Owls). And when it counted most, Army was seven of 14 on third-down conversions and four of five on fourth down, keeping drives alive. On the final drive alone, Army converted two fourth-down plays by inches and picked up five first downs.
“We just played Army football,” said fullback Jake Rendina, who had nine carries for 42 yards, his most rushing activity of the season by far. “We just went back to the fundamentals, and I think everyone did their 1/11th when their number was called out there. We just played pretty good football on third and fourth down.”
Rendina had put Army on top 7-0 early in the second quarter, following the blocks of back Samari Howard and tight end Parker Poloskey off the left side for a 7-yard score.
“Today was a gritty, gritty win,” quarterback Cale Hellums said. He noted Army had “shot ourselves in the foot” in the first half. “The message was to clean it up and don’t hurt ourselves,” Hellums said, summing up the halftime speech.
True to form, Army rolled 75 yards on 14 plays, with Hellums going over the right side from 3 yards out for his 12th score of the season. On that play, lineman Teddy Williams sealed off his man and Hellums found room behind the blocks of backs Rendina and Aden Self.
Army averaged just 3.55 yards per carry. Actually, it’s the second time this season Army has won a game while rushing for under 4 yards per carry: the Black Knights averaged 3.39 yards on 70 carries for 237 yards at Kansas State on Sept. 6. The 250 total yards (3.8 per snap) were the fewest for Army in a victory since gaining just 153 yards in a 20-17 double-overtime win over Navy in 2022.
“The credit goes to our (offensive) line,” Rendina said. “They’re pretty good up front and they just do their job. There’s some tough sons of guns. They really just got off the ball quick, gave us that line of scrimmage, and I think we just played some pretty good Army football.”
The offensive stats may not have dazzled on Saturday, but a win is a win anyway you can get it.
kmcmillan@th-record.com
X / Twitter: @KenMcMillanTHR
This article originally appeared on Times Herald-Record: Army grinds out win over Temple in 2025 American clash
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