Air Force Football: Will Falcons fly or fizzle in 2018?

Air Force Football slumped to a 5-7 finish in 2017. The Falcons look to bounce back in 2018, but it could be a tough road ahead.

Air Force Football finished the 2017 season with a 5-7 record at the least opportune time. While Army West Point and the Naval Academy won ten and seven wins respectively and both won their bowl games, Air Force missed a bowl for the first time in four years. Falcons head football coach Troy Calhoun has compiled an 82-60 record in Colorado Springs, CO while guiding the Falcons to nine bowl games and only three losing seasons.

Air Force doesn’t have quit as strict of admissions as West Point or Annapolis, but it’s still not easy to become a Falcon football player. Coach Calhoun played quarterback at Air Force under coaching legend Fisher DeBarry before serving on DeBarry’s staff as a graduate assistant and then an assistant coach. Coach Calhoun eventually took positions at Ohio and Wake Forest before becoming an NFL assistant with the Broncos and Texans. When DeBarry retired at the end of the 2006 season the Falcons were coming off of three straight losing seasons.

Calhoun’s Falcons, like the other service academies, take advantage of their lack of size by running the triple option and 3-4 defensive scheme. The Falcons finished the 2017 season ranked 100th per the S&P+ and enter 2018 as the 112th ranked squad per the S&P+ pre-season rankings. Can they turn that narrative around in 2018?