Rewards, Awards and Some Great Plays

Here's a look at some of the plays of the year.

Television didn't capture every game and some great plays haven't made it to Youtube, so some really spectacular plays didn't make the list, but here are what I have for Army football's plays of the year.


Steve Anderson INT vs Duke


Josh McNary 3 sack game (Rutgers)



Anderson takes flight against Air Force



This collaborative pick-six by Donovan Travis (pick) and Jordan Trimble (six)




This was a TD from the bowl game, a microcosm of the 2010 Black Knights season. When they had their guys healthy and in place it still took precision and some breaks to come out on top - even then, just barely coming out ahead. Malcom Brown with the 8 yard score. For all the guys that missed the season or didn't finish the year for one reason or another this one's for you.





Here's Steve Erzinger with a sack against RU



And  the game that got it all going: the Eastern Michigan game with Jordan Trimble's INT



and Jared Hassin's late game heroics.



Special Teams MVP

In short, Alex Carlton put forth a great effort hitting 15 of 22 for 68 percent and tacking on 41 point after tries. 

A solid year for a kicker, for sure; but one leaving plenty of room for even more success.

Placekicker Alex Carlton this year's special teams MVP.


Offensive MVP


There are a few players who come to mind for the MVP of the offense. Pat Mealy probably could have won the award as well as any of the offensive linemen. I really liked Malcom Brown and Trent Steelman - with Steelman likely inheriting the role of my favorite Black Knights player
for next season.

The MVP came into the 2010 season as a true unknown, but not without heaps of expectations. Jared Hassin exceeded all expectations this year and takes the honor of offensive MVP. Hassin simply stepped in and became the leading rusher on Army's resurgent running game. Hassin's impact was felt immediately: his score in the final minute of the Eastern Michigan game saved Army's season before it even started. In this, his sophomore  Jared Hassin took the fullback spot from being a missing piece to a useful tool in Army's offense. Next year Hassin will try to make another jump - from shiny new tool to dangerous weapon, as he will try to improve on his 1,013 yards and 9 TDs on 191 carries.
Special thanks to Jared and good luck looking ahead to the 2011 season.


Defensive MVP


It's not hard to find the MVP on the defensive side of the ball... I can argue volumes that Josh McNary, Mike Gann or Steve Erzinger should be defensive MVP, but my clear choice for this honor is the most colorful of the defensive candidates, the one who goes by "Hollywood"; you might know him as Fity. Defensive MVP: Stephen Anderson.

Anderson was easily my favorite player on the team this year due to his personality and his penchant for big plays.

Between leaping the line for a sack against Navy, interceptions against Duke and SMU and his ability to fly around the field and make plays made me think on more than one occasion that Anderson had watched the same game the night before and saw where to position himself.


Congratulations, Steve, and thank you for a great senior year!

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A few other well deserved thanks:

Sal Interdonato just absolutely holds it down on mainstream Army football coverage. I am probably not alone in thinking that no one works harder nor has more dedication than Sal on any college football beat.

Much of Sal's work is now being featured behind the Times Herald Record's subscription pay wall. For the world's best Black Knights coverage, I am recommending the Times Herald Record online e-edition subscription.

Go to the Times Herald-Record and subscribe if you haven't already.

As far as Media MVP, that's Sal's every day of the year. 


Another great deal of thanks goes out to Danny Wild whose pictures are simply the best and most focused chronicle of Army's 2010 season. If you want to revisit the triumphant highs and nail-biting lows of Army's 2010 season I suggest you visit and visit again Danny's archive of photos on Flickr.

Thanks to Danny for all of his hard work and best wishes to keep it going next year.

I want to begin looking forward to 2011, but since I have tons of time and no content I thought I should slow-play the look ahead to next season.

I do hope to aggressively take on the year by year entries and I will start back up with year 1877 and American football just beginning to hatch.

NOW they want my opinion

So it's time for Blogpoll voters to begin submitting post-bowl rankings, and while many will chime in to note Auburn the unanimous #1 team I'm not going to rehash what was my week 15.5 ballot.

I don't see how this is called week 16 when a ranked team played between week 15 and the start of the bowl season. Forget that the bowls go on for 3+ weeks, week 16 was an actual regular season game day featuring top 20 Navy beating Army in the Navy/Army game. So for that reason and my own interest in moving past a season that saw my alma mater fire its biggest supporter, my second favorite team gack away a national title by one point and my local Ducks lose a national title by 3 points - I am not going to submit a post bowl ranking.

So my week 16 is again viewable here, if you want to revisit it; and I'll gladly post the final blogpoll rankings as it has (aside from the week 16 calendar) been a pleasure to rank teams this year.


Tomorrow I will hit a couple of superlatives for the 2010 Army team, look ahead to next season and give some thanks where thanks is due.




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