Temple-Army: Final Review

When you were a kid, did you ever have the experience of your Dad telling you he was going out to buy the family a new car? You sat home in breathless anticipation, hoping he would come home with a cool. loaded sports car that would be the talk of the neighborhood.

Or maybe it would be a roomy station wagon, so you could have your own space and not have to deal with your yucky sister on long trips. Then he gets home and you find out he bought an old, beat-up, clunky Buick that took all the wind out of your sails.

Army fans probably felt the same way Friday night in a 35-7 blowout loss to Temple.

The highly anticipated cool, jazzy offense was instead replaced by a Herman Munsterish plodding running attack which was somewhat sucessful in holding the ball but never seemed to be going anywhere. Sleight of hand and mis-direction were left in drydock as Army went to the fullback dive route to little result. The inability to sustain drives for scores, which was a huge problem last year, reared it's ugly head again at this game.

Give alot of the credit to Temple. In a complete reversal of roles from last year's game, Temple came up with the big plays, capitalizing on Army turnovers and scoring on kick returns. Temple's speed on defense easily contained the BK's rather limited playbook.Army absolutely needs to take the wraps off the offense this week in a game they could very easily lose. UNH has had a big-time passing attack for some time, and being sucessful with a ball-control scheme is essential to the Cadet's chances.

Hopefully, Coach Brock will tinker with both plays and personnel to get things jump-started. A win is essential, for even with Army's watered down schedule, things don't get any easier. Buffalo, La. Tech, AF, Navy and Rice all came up with big wins in their openers. Things could get real ugly with a poor start this year.

Game Note: Kudos to the much (and properly) maligned marketing department, which had a great promotion giving away lunchboxes for kids. The boxes were of high quality and the little ones seemed very excited to get them. Also, the expansion of Black Knight Alley was also a welcome sight. It had a carnival-like atmosphere which livened up what otherwise was a dull, depressing evening.