Army West Point football head coach Jeff Monken met with members of the local media on Tuesday afternoon for his weekly press conference inside Nowak Auditorium. The Black Knights are preparing to open the 2018 season at Duke on Friday evening at Brooks Field at Wallace Wade Stadium.
(Ref.: opening statement)
"Good afternoon everybody. I am excited to be here and I appreciate everybody being here this afternoon. Our guys are excited about the opportunity to just measure themselves against another team. It's really difficult to do that throughout preseason camp. We spend a lot of time interacting and competing against each other and against the scout team. I thought we had a good scrimmage last week, but it was the scout team and a lot of those guys are freshmen and playing college football for the first time. So, this will really be our first opportunity to do that against an outstanding Duke team.
"Coach (David) Cutcliffe has really done an incredible job with that program. They are very talented and they are very well coached. So, obviously, having played them the last three seasons, this almost feels like we're in a conference with them and it makes it really difficult. With our offense, they play Georgia Tech every year. They have a plan. They do a really good job defending the option. Not only scheming it, but executing it on the field. And then offensively, just the opportunity for them to see how we've attacked them defensively and come up with new schemes each year. They have such a talented quarterback in that (Daniel) Jones kid. I really admire his ability and his decision making and his leadership. Read More