What Army head coach Jeff Monken said about Notre Dame football

Army head coach Jeff Monken was asked, in general, about the attitude of Army relishing in the role of the underdog. It wasn’t a question specific to being a 14.5-point underdog against Notre Dame this week.

Rather, it was pertaining to a week-to-week mindset Monken has instilled at West Point.

“The prognosticators might not make us an underdog every week, but I can assure you we got more guys on our team from the state of Texas than any other state right now. That’s our most well represented state. And we don’t have a guy on our team that got offered a scholarship by North Texas,” Monken said. “I don’t know what the spread was by the prognosticators, but in my mind that makes us an underdog.

“We play good players and good coaches every week. It’s really hard to win a college football game. And it’s hard at Army to win a football game. So our guys have to embrace the fact that we have to execute our assignments and the fundamentals at a really high level and try to do that better than anybody else does that because some players can rely on talent.”

Army was a 6.5-point favorite against North Texas two weeks ago. The Black Knights won, 14-3, on the road — against a program who didn’t offer any of Army’s players from the Lone Star State, according to Monken. Another program that probably didn’t offer any of Army’s players?

Notre Dame.

“That makes an an underdog all the time,” Monken said. “We have to practice and play with absolute exactness. Because if we don’t, we’re going to get embarrassed. That’s who we are. I embrace that. That does not mean we’re void of talent. we’ve got talented players on our team. But more talented than Notre Dame, collectively as a football team? No.”

The Black Knights and Fighting Irish face off at Yankee Stadium at 7 p.m. ET Saturday. Here’s what Monken said about Notre Dame in his press conference Tuesday.

On what it means to play Notre Dame

“For our players, the first time they ever put shoulder pads on and decided to play football, they likely hoped they would have an opportunity to play in a game like this, in this kind of venue against one of the blue blood football programs in the country. Notre Dame is college football. Their history in this game, it’s as far back as the game itself. It’s just a great opportunity, and I’m excited for our players. I know they are too.

“But it’s a football game we have to prepare for and try to win, and that’s what we’re doing. We’re just trying to get our players prepared. They always work really hard, always practice hard. We’re going to have to play very assignment-sound football. Block the right guy, play the right gap, cover the right receivers and play well fundamentally. Block. Tackle. Take care of the ball. All of those things need to happen for us to have a chance to win. It is exciting, but it is an opportunity for us to play a game, play it well and try to beat one of the best teams in college football.”

On facing Notre Dame as an undefeated team

“It’s hard to go undefeated. If it was easy to go undefeated there would be a lot more teams still undefeated. We’ve been fortunate, our guys have played well, and talking about the execution of fundamentals, that’s what’s gotten us to this point. We’ve done that well.

“We’ve taken care of the football. We haven’t had a lot of turnovers. The two last game, that sticks in my crawl a little bit. We cannot turn the ball over, we certainly cannot turn the ball over this Saturday and hope to win. We saw what they did with turnovers this past Saturday vs. Virginia. They capitalized. We’ve got to play really well, and if we’re going to remain undefeated it’s going to take a great effort on the part of our team, coaching staff and everything kind of falling into place.”

On going against Notre Dame’s defensive line in the run game, which Army has seemed to lean on lately

“North Texas had a good football team and we knew that going into the game. High-powered offense. Really, our hope was to try to control the game and control the clock and keep it away from them. We accomplished that. We limited them to six possessions, we had the ball for 40 minutes. we had a quarterback who didn’t play in the game prior, so it was his first game back after being out for a couple weeks. So the philosophy there probably lended itself to that, just ball control offense.

“The goal is to win the game, not to run certain plays. We don’t count how many plays interior run we want to run or how many we’d like to get out to the perimeter or how many passes we’d like to throw. It really is very much dictated by the defense and how to react to what the defense is giving us.

“In the Air Force game we had our backup quarterbacks start for the very first time. I thought he did a great job and handled it really well. We’re always going to be an interior run team. We’re always going to have to get the quarterback and our B back going in order to get the offense going. But that doesn’t mean we don’t want to get it to the perimeter. Just kind of take what the defense gives us. And that’s always been the case with this offense.

“In terms of Notre Dame’s defense, if they’re not the best defense in the country they’re certainly one of them. It’s a great challenge. I’be talked to a lot of people about this game and a lot of questions about the physical disparities between their team and ours, and that’s real. I can thank my mentor and former coach Paul Johnson, as he always said, ‘They got 22 Parade All-Americans. We’ve got 22 guys whi have marched through Parade.’

“The difference between them and us, it’s a long way. We know the challenges that are going to be there, the defensive front that they have. But it’s everybody. All 11 guys, their secondary guy are athletic, they’re fast. We don’t match up physically. So what we have to do is execute at a really high level doing what we do and hope it will be good enough.”

On playing Notre Dame at Yankee Stadium

“It’s a Notre Dame home game, so they control the tickets. It’s not a neutral crowd. It’s not like they just put tickets out there on StubHub and anybody can buy them. It will be an almost entirely Notre Dame crowd. And so, it’s like playing a road game, certainly, from that standpoint. And were not playing at Michie Stadium, so it’s a road game to us.

“But I assume the field is still going to be 120 yards long. They’ll still have goal posts the same size that they have at Michie Stadium. Once the game starts and we’re on the field, we got to play the game. It wouldn’t matter where we played those guys; it’s going to be a hard game to win. They’re really, really good. But they certainly have the advantage with the crowd and all those things, but it’s part of college football.”

On Army not beating Notre Dame since 1958 and what it would mean to the fans to snap that streak

“I hope they’ll go down there and buy a bunch of scalp tickets and try to level out the crowd out there. Like I said, it’s going to be a Notre Dame-heavy crowd. As there always is, there will be tickets to get on game day. I hope that the Army fans will get them from the Notre Dame fans. We’re going to need them in there. And I hope we’ll give something to cheer for.

“That’ll be a challenge, being able to be competitive enough with them to give them something to cheer for. So hopefully we will. Our guys will play hard. They’ll play as well as they possibly can. They’ll try as hard as they possibly can, and I hope we can play well. What that does for future decisions or future games, I don’t really know the implications of it. Somebody else makes those decisions. They tell us where to play and we show up. That’s kind of what the Army does. They wait for orders, they say you’re going to fight here, OK, get on the airplane and go fight. That’s kind of the mentality of our program, and it’s got to be. We don’t control it, so can’t worry about it.”

On the Fighting Irish’s combination of talent and coaching

“They got a great coaching staff. Starting with Coach Freeman, he’s done a tremendous job there as ahead coach. He was the defensive coordinator at Cincinnati when we played there. They did a great job defending us. Held our offense to three points that day. We scored on a fumble recovery for a touchdown on the opening drive but we managed only three points the rest of the day.

“Al Golden, their defensive coordinator, one of the best in the business. He’s doing a great job with their team. But he always has. Look at all of the teams he’s coached over the years as a head coach, as a coordinator, he’s always coached great defenses.

“And I’ve known Mike Denbrock since we were both GAs in 1989. He was at Michigan State. I was at the University of Hawaii. We played each other. Hawaii played Michigan state in the Aloha Bowl. All of the GAs, kind of the lowest guys on the totem pole, we buddied up with the GAs from the other team and I got to know Mike. I followed his career and crossed paths with him many times over the course of our careers. He’s a tremendous football coach. Obviously, what they did last year against us last year at LSU, still scratching my head. He’s a great play caller, but he’s also a great personnel developer. The offensive lines always play well, they’re great pass protectors. Has had different quarterbacks. The quarterback he coached a year ago, way different from the quarterback he coaches now, but they’re both super productive in their roles. That’s just a sign of somebody who does a great job of developing players. They do a great job.

“Marty Biagi, who’s they’re special teams coordinator, I’ve known Marty for a long time. He was the special teams coach at North Texas a few years ago when we played there. He’s a great, imaginative mind in the special teams world. Always has his guys coaches up. He’s done some great stuff. The punt fake a week ago that people— he got a rule changed. They had a punt return a few years ago for a touchdown, team he was coaching. The guy caught the punt and didn’t fair catch, just stood their acting like he had fair caught it. The other team backed off. He took it and house-called the thing. They changed the rule the next week that you couldn’t do that. To coordinate that and think of that, he’s a really good coach.

“It’s Notre Dame. They can get the best coaches in the country and go hire them. They got a great staff and a great leader. It’s a challenge in every facet. You’re not going to out-coach those guys. You’re not going to out-athlete those guys. You got to hope, we got to hope, that we can play well enough to be in the game and give ourselves a chance. And that’s what we’re going to try to do.”

On the Fighting Irish offense

“We don’t have enough time this afternoon to talk about he challenges that we’ve got facing those guys. They got a really good offensive line. They’re very skilled at receiver. Long, physical tight ends. They’re running backs doing a great job of running downhill. Good vision/ They’ve got speed. they run away from people.

“But their quarterback is, you watch him and he’s a really good thrower. He’s a long-bodied kid. He’s very comfortable in the pocket. And if you just saw him throwing the ball, and that’s the only film you had, you wouldn’t necessarily think, ‘This guy is a running quarterback.’ But they have designed runs for him. And when he scrambles and gets out of the pocket, he’s a really good runner. That’s the concern, not letting him out of the pocket. Because when he does, he just tucks the ball away and runs and runs through people.

“I’m really impressed with him as a player. Really impressed with him as a runner. He makes all the throws, but not every quarterback can run the football like he does. That, a running quarterback in a system like theirs where they throw it and can hurt you throwing the football, really difficult to defend. It just forces us to play another gap and have another threat in the run game that not every team does. What a great unit they got. As we talked about, Coach Denbrock and what he’s done this year to develop that offense, really impressive.”

On if Army needs to ‘de-mystify’ the Notre Dame name to stay competitive in a game like this

“No, I don’t think so. It’s a college football game. They’re all hard for us. Everyone of them. Certainly, our guys recognize who Notre Dame is. And they recognize that this is the most talented team we’ve faced all year, the most successful team from a record standpoint that we’ve faced all year. This is the best football team that we’ve faced this season. They might be the best team we face all season. I don’t know. We’ll make that determination after we play all the games we got.

“But they’re certainly the best team we’ve faced all season. And they are certainly one of the best teams I will have faced at as the coach at Army, and we’ve played some good football teams. Michigan, Ohio State, Missouri, Stanford, West Virginia, Wisconsin. We can go on and on.

“We faed a Notre Dame team in 2016 that beat the pants off of us. They returned the opening kick for a touchdown and it was all downhill from there. It didn’t get any better. They ran us out of the stadium. They got a really good football team, and this team they got right now, is better than that 2016 team. It’s going to take a tremendous effort on the part of our guys. And our players know it. We don’t need to spend a bunch of time “de-mystifying” stuff. It’s Notre Dame. It’s Notre Dame.

“We walk around this building and look at all of the photos of Army playing Notre Dame in the Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium, there is some great history to this game. The history belongs to Notre Dame. They’ve won most of them. It will take a great effort, but our guys are excited about the challenge and the opportunity. I hope we’ll play well. That’s the only pathway to victory, is to play well. We do that by practicing well. I’ll just settle for a good practice this afternoon. That’ll be a step in the right direction.”