Army Football: 3 bold predictions vs. Middle Tennessee in Week 1
By John Vogel
MTSU and Army football kick off their seasons on Saturday amid the novel coronavirus. What can we boldly expect from the first game of the season?
Middle Tennessee is traveling to New York this weekend to take on Army West Point, a season opener more intense than previous years for the Blue Raiders, but for a different reason. MTSU has taken on several major programs over the last few years, including Michigan and Iowa, but Army brings something different to a football game — mostly because of their triple-option offense.
Blue Raiders’ head coach Rick Stockstill, entering his 15th season as the man in Murfreesboro, expressed much respect for Army in his press conference on Monday. “I wished we would’ve had more time to prepare for it, but that’s no excuse,” Stockstill told reporters.
Perhaps he is expecting a lot of difficulties.
“They are football players,” senior linebacker DQ Thomas explained, “but they have, I guess, another occupation outside of that. Their day is a lot different from mine. I just look up to them for that.”
The respect is mutual between Stockstill and Black Knights head coach Jeff Monken. “I think they’re a really good football team,” Monken told reporters in a virtual press conference on Tuesday. “They’ve got established systems that are going to be very efficient and very well-prepared.”
The Black Knights threats will be centered around their discipline and the triple-option offense. Middle Tennessee State will be centered around junior quarterback Asher O’Hara, a 6-foot-0 dual-threat who passed for over 2,000 yards last season and added over 1,000 on the ground.
Here are some bold predictions to get you ready for Saturday’s showdown.