What Army coach Jeff Monken said about Notre Dame football after loss to Irish

Jeff Monken was asked if he ever thought about keeping quarterback Bryson Daily on the sideline at Yankee Stadium on Saturday when it became evident the Black Knights were not going to be able to beat Notre Dame.

“No,” he said. “Every one of our guys are going to be commissioned officers in the Army. And every one of their classmates that were sitting up there in the end zone, and the other 4,000 that are back at West Point are going to be commissioned officers in the Army.

“That’s a mentality that is uncommon; to accept that responsibility, to make that commitment. And what a soldier does is a soldier fights. A soldier fights until the end.”

That was that. Notre Dame won, 49-14, but the Black Knights, even with the chance to win their conference in the coming weeks, never threw in the towel. They played their starters until the bitter end, and that was the theme of Monken’s postgame press conference.

Here’s most of what Monken said.

Opening statement

“What a great football team we played tonight. They are really athletic and extremely well-coached. Every phase, they outclassed us. They blocked us and kept us blocked. We couldn’t sustain blocks in the interior or on the perimeter. They did a great job on the punt block. It’s embarrassing to have that happen. Hadn’t happened in our program in years. Just, they made a bunch of plays.

“Proud of our guys. Proud of the effort. Our guys continued to fight the entire game. It was to a point there, certainly in the fourth quarter, that it was going to be really hard for us to find a path to victory. But our guys never stopped fighting. We pride ourselves on that. Fortunately that’s been able to get us to the victory circle more often than not lately. But tonight we just faced a great team. Congratulations to Coach Freeman and their team. Certainly wish them success as they go forward.

“Just collectively, we didn’t what we needed to to win the football game. And frankly, so much of it had to do with them. The fact that we misfit a bunch of runs, we had a lot of missed assignments or anything like that, just, we couldn’t block them and keep them blocked and we couldn’t get off of their blocks. Fundamentals of football. They did that much better than us.

“We’ll regroup and try to get ready for next week. When you get to this point in the season, when a team gets to this point in the season, we’ve won as many games as we have, all the games are big. This is a big game today. Unfortunately, we came up short. But next week is a big game. And the one after that is a big game. The one following that, there is not a bigger game for us on the schedule. We got a lot to look forward to and a lot to play for.”

On the rivalry with Notre Dame

“I don’t know if you’d call it a rivalry. You gotta win sometimes for it to be a rivalry. And we haven’t won this on in a long time. We don’t play them every year. Thank God. They are such a good football team.

“What an awesome night for our guys. None of our guys got recruited by Notre Dame. It’s not like the had their choice of going to 18 Power Five schools and to get to experience playing a team like Notre Dame, playing in Yankee Stadium, I mean, who gets to play here? Not many football teams get to play here. Not many athletes. This is one of the most iconic sports venues in the world. And we got to go compete out there on the field. How many people are envious of our players?

“It was awesome to be out there and be a part of that tonight. I just wish we could have played better. I wish we could have found a way to be more competitive in the game. The history belongs to Notre Dame. They’ve won this game, and certainly won tonight. It’s just an awesome experience for our guys. It’s something they’ll remember. It won’t be quite a fond memory but a memory that they were able to play in Yankee Stadium.”

On if Notre Dame did anything scheme-wise that surprised him

“No, no surprises. I guess maybe I’m just surprised how much better they were tonight. I thought we would be competitive in the game. I thought we could play with them. I thought we could block them and sustain blocks enough that we could get the run game going. I thought our guys, the way we play with effort on defense, we would be able to rally and make some plays.

“There were no surprises. Their football team is highly motivated, playing for a spot in the College Football Playoff. They’re well-coached. It’s apparent. They do have a very strong culture. Those guys play together and they play with a lot of pride. Just a very difficult team to beat tonight. Certainly, they’re probably going to make it tough on a lot of people.”

On if there were any positives for Army

“Oh, sure. The goal line stand was fantastic by our defense. We’ve done that a couple times this year. Just a great effort on their part. I was really proud of them for that. The two touchdown drives, those are gritty and tough. There weren’t any big, explosive plays. We had to grind the ball all the way down the field to make those touchdowns. So I was proud of that.

“I’m just proud of the way our guys continued to fight. There was absolutely no quit. If you were watching our team, yeah, they kicked out butts, that was apparent, but it was also apparent that the guys in white jerseys never quit. So I’m really proud of them for that.

“And there will be some things we see on the film as we watch that we could have done better, but we didn’t lose the game tonight because we blocked the wrong guy or misfit gaps or didn’t cover the right receiver. They just made way more plays, and they were better.”

On using Notre Dame as a measuring stick

“I think to be 9-0 going into this game, this team’s been playing next-level. It’s hard to say Notre Dame is a measuring stick for our program. We don’t have a single guy that got recruited by Notre Dame. And probably after this game, Marcus isn’t going to be checking the transfer portal to see if any of our guys are available. It’s just the reality of who we are.

I’m not going to feel like because we weren’t able to beat Notre Dame tonight that we somehow are failing in our abilities to compete at the highest level. That’s a great football team. And they’ve beaten a lot of really good football teams. I’m sure they’ll probably win some more games and give people heck in the playoffs.

“That’s not to say we can’t be competitive with Power Five programs. We’ve done that here over the course of my career. We’ve played some of the best teams in the country really close. We took two top-10 teams in back-to-back years to overtime. We beat what I thought was a very talented Missouri. We’ve been Wake and beaten Duke. Those are all schools that didn’t recruit any of our guys either. So we’ve been able to be competitive, but this team is next-level. We’re talking about a top-10 football team in the country.

“So I’m not doing any measuring on that and where I think we are as a program. We got a really strong culture. We got really tough guys. And we got some talented guys. Now, collectively, we weren’t the most talented team on the field tonight. But we got guys that fought and played and I’m not panicking and feeling like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s wrong with our team?’ I believe in our guys and believe in our team. We got beat by a really good football team tonight. I hope we don’t have to play them again before the season’s over. We’d play somebody else at this point. Who knows.

“When I look at those teams like Notre Dame who really have access to the top recruits in the country, when you pull up ESPN on your computer and you look at recruiting rankings, you look at recruits that are top guys and guys that are interested, often guys are mentioning Notre Dame as one of their top schools. I’ve yet to see a top 300 prospect mention Army as one of his top schools. It’s just who we are. That doesn’t mean we don’t have guys on our team that had scholarship offers to other places. But not any FBS offers and certainly not any Power Five offers. Anyway, sorry to be long-winded on that.”