Army/Iowa St. Preview

Army goes to Ames, Iowa today to take on the 2-1 Cyclones in their 3rd ever meeting.
It's Army's first game away from Michie Stadium in 3 weeks.

GoArmySports.com has Saturday's game preview and Army/ISU game notes up.

- Scout.com's preview is here
- USA Today's matchup is here
- An Iowa State perspective on Army
- An Army perspective of Iowa State

Once more, no TV for the game, but the audio links on the radio tab above should get you a live broadcast of the game.

Take Ames...

Just clearing a few items looking ahead to Army's game at Iowa State.

Fox Sports' Peter Schrager looks at Army coach Rich Ellerson and the Black Knights' bowl picture.

Looking at the remaining schedule, it won't be easy to win six games. But it's certainly do-able. They likely won't come out victors at Iowa State on Saturday, but there are winnable games home vs. Tulane, home vs. Vanderbilt, on the road at Temple, and versus VMI and North Texas up ahead.

The DesMoines Register has a nice spotlight piece on Army linemen and native Iowans Fritz Bentler and Matt Coulthard.

ESPN and ISU's Paul Rhoads have taken note of Alejandro Villanueva's size advantage. Here's a look at Iowa State RB Alexander Robinson's size advantage.

“It’s simply my O-line,” Robinson shrugged, regarding a group that averages 326.6 pounds per starter. “They’re doing a tremendous job up front.

“With me being under 6-feet, I can hide behind them a lot of the time. I enjoy that,” he said, light-heartedly.

There's a lot of content in that article about what ISU is looking to do on offense. It should be a fun game to watch; well it would be a fun game to watch...

Again, there's no TV for this game, so if you want to watch the game, consider the option of purchasing Knight Vision. Iowa State has a few radio options and I'll find a working internet radio broadcast by gametime. Radio and TV connections are posted under the radio tab check there on game day.

Last, but not least 845U reports that Army has signed a 2011- 2012 home and home series with San Diego State.

On to Iowa State

The Black Knights plan to take their option ground attack to the Iowa State Cyclones, but this Saturday Army will storm Jack Trice stadium from the sky. Gameday events vs. Iowa State will include:

— An interactive display managed by 20 soldiers.

— Military personnel parachuting into the stadium around 4:45 p.m.

— Two M119 Howitzers will be fired every hour beginning at noon from the stadium’s Jacobson Plaza, symbolizing sacrifices soldiers made through history.

— Three Black Hawk helicopters flying over the stadium after the National Anthem.

Get as hyped as you want about the military exhibitions, Army is coming to play football.

As a University of Pittsburgh alumnus and Pitt football fanatic I’ve seen plenty from first-year ISU head coach Paul Rhoades Rhoads. Rhoads is an energy guy and a great motivator for his players. This translates into players who buy into his schemes –particularly on the defensive side of the ball. The issue is never with Rhoads' personality, his schemes on the other hand...

A lot of Pitt fans were elated when Rhoads moved on to Auburn after 2007, Rhoads’ defensive units had a habit of underperforming when the chips were down. There’s a reason why Pitt fans began calling him coach “Rhoa_s”.

You might recall Navy scorching Pitt for 490+ yards in 2006, Rhoads took a hard-headed approach to navy’s triple option and stayed stubbornly within his base 4-3 defense. Result: a 45-48 OT loss that kept Pitt from bowl eligibility. Rhoads’ Pitt defenses always had trouble defending against spread attacks, whether it was USF, Toledo, WVU, Utah or Temple -Rhoads has had more than his share of defensive struggles.

This is also the first time in a long time that the Cyclones have faced a triple option offense.

ISU coach Paul Rhoads said running an offense teams likely will see only once a year is an advantage for the Black Knights.
...
“You’ve got to be able to run to beat the blocks and get leverage against their defenders to try to stop all components of the option,” Rhoads said.

ISU employs its own spread attack with an emphasis on running the ball.

(Alexander) Robinson rushed for 100 yards against Iowa, and 143 in last Saturday’s 34-14 win at Kent State.

He’s doing it in an offense where “spread’ doesn’t always mean pass.

“I have always thought that’s a wrong connotation that gets thrown around – that the ball is going to get thrown all over the yard,” Iowa State coach Paul Rhoads said. “If you’re going to be successful running this offense, you have to be able to run the ball.

So Army wants to run the football and Iowa State wants to runn the football... any other similarities? Well there's this one... the Cyclones have had their own problems hanging onto the ball.

ISU has lost six fumbles through three games. To correct it, Rhoads said the coaching staff will change up drills in practice this week and that the team will correct the problem.

Also, Rhoads said running back Bo Williams has yet to see the field this year because he’s had trouble hanging onto the football in practice.

Kickoff is set for 7:00 EST, the game will not be televised. The ISU video feed will be made available for purchase as ITT Knight Vision on GoArmy.com

Yearbook: Virginia Tech

Virgina Tech does a nice job digitizing their yearbook: the Bugle.
Their collection begins at 1895 and has most volumes through the 1980's. A fantastic look at a great yearbook.

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It is the mission of The Unbalanced Line Online Library to present important and interesting historical texts to college football fans. Items will be added regularly as blog postings and can be easily indexed in the Yearbooks button on the site bar.

Copyrighted material is used expressly under the fair use guidelines of U.S. Code 17 #107 through #118 stating that the criticism, comment, news reporting, educational use or research of copyrighted material is not held in violation of copyright laws.

_______________ © 2009 The Unbalanced Line _______________

Yearbook: LaGrange College

LaGrange College has its yearbooks online and you can find them here: LaGrange Quadrangle

LaGrange College was a women's school until 1953 and they recently began intercollegiate football in 2006, so this project won't provide any usable football records. LaGrange College deserves credit not only for starting a football program, but for making their yearbooks available online.

The yearbooks are in PDF form and while the files are large, the scans are pristine and easy to navigate.
They've got some odd years, but look for their project to be expanded in the future.


1929 - 1938 - 1948 - 1949 - 1950 - 1951 - 1952 - 1953 - 1954 - 1955 - 1956 - 1957 - 1958 - 1959 - 1960 1961 - 1962 - 1963 - 1965 - 1966 - 1967 - 1968 - 1969 - 1970 - 1971 - 1972 - 1973 -1974 - 1975 -1976 - 1977 - 1980 - 1981



I'll make more yearbooks available and I'll post them here as I find them.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is the mission of The Unbalanced Line Online Library to present important and interesting historical texts to college football fans. Items will be added regularly as blog postings and can be easily indexed in the Yearbooks button on the site bar.

Copyrighted material is used expressly under the fair use guidelines of U.S. Code 17 #107 through #118 stating that the criticism, comment, news reporting, educational use or research of copyrighted material is not held in violation of copyright laws.

__________________________ © 2009 The Unbalanced Line _________________________

Library vol. 3

Pop Warner's Enduring Influence

I really enjoyed this WSJ article about the origins of today's Wildcat formation. The article traces the Wildcat's origins back to the single wing formation and Pitt's legendary coach, Pop Warner.

Still, for all the talk of the Wildcat representing football's future, it is, in fact, a direct derivative (some would say a near carbon copy) of an early offense formation known as the "Single-wing," which might well have faded into extinction if not for a few high school coaches who kept it percolating in their playbooks. One of the game's very first attempts to fly its own inherent confines, the "Single-wing" was the brainchild of the University of Pittsburgh's Glenn Scobey "Pop" Warner, the father of modern football, and it was advanced by football inventors like Notre Dame's Knute Rockne, and Warner's protégé at Pitt, Jock Sutherland.

The idea of the Wildcat's historic origins has been visited before, notably in this article on ESPN.com where they also list Warner as the inventor of the single wing formation.

Warner himself never took credit for inventing the single wing offense, and different sources list different starting dates for the offense. I will suggest that the Single Wing formation itself was covered in Walter Camp's 1896 book: Football. This illustration from Camp's book shows a formation with the characteristic unbalanced line and strongside wedge formation that defines the single wing.


























Compare Camp's formation with the more recent single wing of Warner and you will find that the two formations are nearly identical. Camp's formation places the QB under center, but the principle is the same. In my estimation if you can term the wildcat formation "single wing" then Camp's off-tackle series are the clear origin of the offense.


























Despite the murky beginnings of the single wing, Pop Warner was definitely an innovator. His creations include tackling dummies, blocking sleds, numbered uniforms, thigh pads, shoulder pads and a litany of other football mainstays - most of which remain to this day. This 1931 article examines some of Coach Warner's lasting innovations on the practice field.



The latest submission to the Unbalanced Line Library is Warner's book: A Course in Football for Players and Coaches. c. 1912

Note some of Warner's plays at the end of the book and the noted lack of single wing formations listed therein.

Another essential book for the college football history library.

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It is the mission of The Unbalanced Line Online Library to present important and interesting historical texts to college football fans. Items will be added regularly as blog postings and can be easily indexed in the Library button on the site bar.

Copyrighted material is used expressly under the fair use guidelines of U.S. Code 17 #107 through #118 stating that the criticism, comment, news reporting, educational use or research of copyrighted material is not held in violation of copyright laws.

____________________ © 2009 The Unbalanced Line ____________________