The Falcons are 4-1 against Mountain West opponents.
And they’re 0-2 against Navy and Army.
The Black Knights pulverized the Falcons, 41-21, on Saturday.
What do the defeats to Navy and Army say about the strength of the Mountain West?
This is – and I think this is obvious – a down year for the conference. There’s not a team in the national top 25.
How weak is the conference this season?
Let me know what you think.
As a longtime AFA football fan I place some credence in the idea that on a yearly basis AFA’s defense is helped in large measure by an offense which stays on the field for large periods of time thereby keeping the team’s defense off the field.
Here are a few statistical data excerpted from the boxscore of the game between UNLV and New Mexico. Since Air Force has played both teams this season I’m confident AFA fans are familiar with the quality of athletes populating the rosters of the Lobos and Rebels.
These data show that sometimes the defense must help the offense and not vice versa. This season AFA’s defense has provided the team’s offense precious little assistance.
New Mexico ran the ball 65 times for 307 yards.UNLV ran the ball 24 times for 241 yards.
New Mexico passed for 43 yards. UNLV passed for 289 yards.
New Mexico completed 3 of 6 passes with 1 interception. UNLV completed 17 of 27 passes with 1 interception.
New Mexico initiated 71 offensive plays. UNLV initiated 51 offensive plays.
New Mexico gained 350 yards on offense. UNKV gained 530 on offense.
New Mexico did not lose a fumble. UNLV lost 1 fumble.
And now the AMAZING stat: New Mexico had the ball for 41:02. UNLV had the ball for 18:53.
UNLV won the game 35-7.
New Mexico ran more plays, enjoyed more than a 2 to 1 advantage in time of possession and LOST by 28 points. Make no mistake about it this game was won by UNLV’s defense which spent over 41 minutes on the field. I’d like to see AFA’s defense play in such a manner that the Falcons’ offense didn’t feel it was carrying the pressure of having to win every game by itself. The athletes on UNLV’s defense aren’t markedly better than those playing for AFA, and yet, UNLV shut down a team against which Air Force struggled mightily. To a far greater extent AFA’s offense has done its job this season while the defense has not. The play of the defense needs to be addressed next spring and in fall practice before the start of the 2013 season.
That’s my $.02.
Nothing much. AFA’s problem has been turnovers. Five against Army and two critical ones against Navy.
In general MWC is rebuilding after losing top teams but I expect Nev, Fresno, Utah St. etc.. to build some good teams in the comming years. UNM has a new head coach that is making a big difference and CSU could be on track with thier new coach. Unforunately Wyo is in trouble as DC is a crappy coach.
It says that he Falcons are a wildly inconsistent team that can lose to awful programs one week and defeat or almost defeat quality programs the next.
Amen, CZ – it’s tough with the grind of the entire AFA experience & a long season, but AF teams never have enough talent to not bring a high level of competitiveness every week, regardless of the the competition.
As for what Army’s domination of AF says about the entire MWC, let’s be careful there. Most likely, Army would be a bottom-of-the-barrel team in the MWC (fighting with CSU & UW to avoid last place this year), but – on 1 particular Saturday – they were a lot more excited to play than AF. Frankly, I think AF’s historic success in the CINC competition will lead to some games like this; it’s exhilarating for Navy & Army to play against AF, but it’s a no-win scenario for AF (expected to win, just another day at the office, etc). While there’s no question that AF’s players, coaches and administration/leadership understand their “duty” to beat the other service academies and win the trophy every year, it seems that AF gets A LOT more excited to play Notre Dame/Michigan/Oklahoma and compete in the MWC than they do to play Army & Navy. That’s not an indictment of AF, just a reality when you’ve enjoyed the success that AF has in CINC competition.
if AF doesnt think the CIC is important then they should take themselves out of the competition.
Yes, there are too many bowl games, bowl season last too long and there are some teams in bowl games which don’t deserve to be there.
Having said all that, here is a list of the teams which have the longest current streaks of having gone to a bowl game. The number in parentheses indicates the number of consecutive years a team has been to a bowl game.
Florida State (30)
Florida (21)
Virginia Tech (19)
Georgia, Georgia Tech (15)
Oklahoma (13)
LSU, Ohio State (12)
Boise State, Southern Mississippi, West Virginia, Wisconsin (10)
Utah (9)
Alabama (8)
Brigham Young, Clemson, Missouri, Nevada, Oregon, Penn State, Texas Christian (7)
Oklahoma State (6)
Air Force, Michigan State (5)
The Mountain West is down and just wait til Boise State and San Diego State leave – Ouch!
It says the Mountain West is a low-second tier Conference, and that Air Force loses games they shouldn’t because they need a coaching change…
MWC equals MAC. AFA plays it’s best D on the sideline.
AFA fired last year it’s DC, or one of them. He is now DC at Texas A&M. Time to replaced some AFA grads who presently coach/ recruit D.
The sole ‘ nationally followed team’ in next year’s MWC will be the Falcons.
TC is doing fine. He needs much more support coaching and recruiting D players/D line.
Nonsense that the Falcons do not care about Army Navy games. They are 1/6 of schedule.
Bowls allow teams extra practice for next year’s edition. Gives exposure to programs and helps recruiting. Doubt AFA or other MWC teams make any money on them.
Bowls show team at least in top half of all what 126 +/- D1 college programs.
Gives us supporters all a chance to buy lots of tickets for others to enjoy at Holiday time!
BTW, how many yards did Army get in YAC? I suspect a lot as back seven on D missed a lt of tackles.
BTW, college TV Game Day on ESPN in on a Navy carrier next Saturday in San Diego!
Are they there for the SDSU game? Veterans Day show?
MWC equals MAC. AFA plays it’s best D on the sideline.
AFA fired last year it’s DC, or one of them. He is now DC at Texas A&M. Time to replaced some AFA grads who presently coach/ recruit D.
The sole ‘ nationally followed team’ in next year’s MWC will be the Falcons.
TC is doing fine. He needs much more support coaching and recruiting D players/D line.
Nonsense that the Falcons do not care about Army Navy games. They are 1/6 of schedule.
Bowls allow teams extra practice for next year’s edition. Gives exposure to programs and helps recruiting. Doubt AFA or other MWC teams make any money on them.
Bowls show team at least in top half of all what 126 +/- D1 college programs.
Gives us supporters all a chance to buy lots of tickets for others to enjoy at Holiday time!
BTW, how many yards did Army get in YAC? I suspect a lot as back seven on D missed a lot of tackles. Sadly, not something new and usually coachable.
BTW, college TV Game Day on ESPN in on a Navy carrier next Saturday in San Diego!
Are they there for the SDSU game? Veterans Day show?
Let’s face it. USAFA has a unique recruiting problem that no other school has other then Army or Navy. It’s really to the Academy’s benefit to be in the MTW conference regardless of how weak the conference may be. We get good games and some not so good, but in the end the AFA usually comes out ahead with a good record and the games are fun to watch. Now I agree that last Saturday’s game wasn’t something I’d enjoy week after week, but you can’t fault the coaches, other then maybe the DC who I thought could have come up with a better defensive plan. But, in the final analysis, we can’t expect to get consistently top-talent, red-shirted, or NFL-ready, gargantuan-sized players at USAFA. USAFA has young men who are good and intelligent players who play their hearts out each and every game, play for the love of the game, and play for the pride of representing the AFA. In many ways this is why the AFA is a winner when it comes to collegiate sports. Unless there are super-talented, smart, NFL-ready kids who are willing to serve their country before themselves, don’t expect to see a national championship team, but one that is competitive for each and every minute it’s on the field.
Air Force has suspensions and a plethora of injuries that have affected its consistency this year. When players that aren’t expected to play end up starting, you will have up-and-down games. The Nevada game illustrated the potential of our younger players. The Army game is just one of those down games that you might get in AFA’s situation. Next week they can come back and beat San Diego State. I expect them to win two of the last three and possibly get a bowl win.
The conference is definitely down this year, but as already stated, there are teams in the conference that will have good years, and Air Force is one of them. As the young players who have received playing time this year mature, you will see that TC has recruited a talented group that can compete in the conference and win the CIC regularly.
Finally, the idea that time of possession is a requirement is a fallacy. Score as quickly and often as possible and the rest takes care of itself. TC has stated several times that top isn’t necessary for victory, and the stats for any of the recent season prove that to be a fact.
For Fred – I don’t think MWC measures up to MAC this year. MAC has had some great success this year against some fairly good BCS programs. For wouldacouldshoulda – would say all the Academy teams get up for playing each other – even AF. You mentioned AF doesn’t get up for the other academies as much because they expect to win, etc – based on their CIC success over history; but over the past 10 years – would say that ‘success’ probably hasn’t mean expectations. Would agree that all the Academy teams get up for playing the big programs (ND, OK, MICH, etc) – as these kids want to play against the best vice play a number of FCS school – unless those schools are at least ranked…
Anyway – back to the question wrt MWC this year – it’s obviously more down than usual this year. Teams that have performed poorly over the past few years are still bad = and unfortunatly, much of the MWC cream has left (BYU, UTAH, TCU, soon SDS, Boise St). I think the conference will rebound somewhat over the next few years – but will need a ‘big $$ TV contract’ to compete with some of the other conferences/programs for recruits. Otherwise – not sure, as a conference, it will be looked at as being a ‘top’ conference after the big 5 power conferences.
I don’t think it says that we are feeding off weak Mt. West teams if that’s what you’re trying to get people to say. Nevada, Boise, SdSt., and Fresno State are solid teams.
I think our struggles vs UNLV, Army, Wyoming and New Mexico vs our blowout win over Nevada and impressive performance in Ann Arbor just shows our inconsistency as a team. When you lose as many starters and senior leaders as AF did from last year’s team, you are going to have problems being consistent as a football team, hell any sport team.
It’s not a sign that the Mountain West is pathetic, it simply shows us that this inexperienced football team is having trouble putting it together week in and week out.
I don’t think it says a lot about the conference. It is a down year for the MWC but they have enjoyed a number of “up” years. It will be fine and in the long run it doesn’t matter because familiarity “levels” the inter-service games. The records don’t really mean much when they play and that has been proven year after year.
We will find out how good the conference is when bowl season starts.
THE CIC is very important. Army had a great game, the odds finally fell in their favor. They deserved to win but I would love to see what had happened if the overweight official who could not get in position to make the touchdown call, that we have all seen, conner definitely scored, what would have happened. That was awful but part of the game. What are the odds that they could not review due to power being out. I am not taking one thing from Army. They flat out outplayed us and deserved to win.
Army got one cheap TD when we had to try and throw it down the field.
SDSU drilled Army this year, earlier. This is a strange season.
Some of these games defy all numbers and odds. I know our kids will go down to SDSU and play hard and hopefully play well.
maybe AF forgot to bring the curb stomper and it totally messed up their game plan
OK, brownshoe: “Curb stomper”? WTFO?
thats the current favorite saying of an idiot poster
Can anyone interpret the term “curb stomper” for me? I missed that one in my “Webster’s Dictionary of Football Terms.”
I won’t comment on the Falcon football team, but I will say that the Gazette Falcon sport coverage has gone in the crapper since Frank left. How about assigning someone to cover all the Falcon sports? I think the Denver Post has had more than the Gazette lately.
I agree with Steve AFA. Coverage of AF Football and CC Hockey should be more of a priority than the recent hiring of a writer to cover Denver Sport Teams.
I disagree with AFA fans who see two wins in the team’s next three games. I think that’s an unrealistic view given the AFA’s inconsistent play this fall. I think double digit losses at San Diego State and Fresno State are likely. I also think Air Force will beat Hawaii, finish the regular season at 6-6, manage to go to a lower rung bowl game and then have to work hard to avoid a 6-7 mark on the season. Tough season so far and I think it gets even tougher tomorrow afternoon against the Aztecs.