Air Force Game Notes

Army goes to Colorado Springs on Saturday to meet Air Force on the gridiron.

Air Force is having a nice year, but has lost 3 out of their last 5 games.

As we know, Troy Calhoun has a fairly innovative attack where he mixes flexbone principles in with a variety of offensive formations: Pistol, Single Wing, true Flex Bone and a number of pet formations that I don't have a name for.

A couple of observations. With air Force being so multiple in terms of their formations and their offense - it is tough to prepare for. The Falcons can look a little unpolished as a team only has so much time to learn and practice so many plays. So even this late in the season you may see things like missed reads in the run game, QB pitching off the wrong defender and some ball handling issues. That comes with the territory of involving so many moving parts in the offense, but that's something that could change in the blink of an eye as fans have been calling for Arion Worthman to come in and start no matter the status of Starter Nate Romine.

Air Force ends up being pretty balanced. Their QB Nate Romine has played for the better part of 4 years now and he's had injury woes hold him back in his career. I hope you'll have the chance to notice he's got a few flaws in his execution of the offense. He likes to cut back upfield with the keep read. He does sort of force the pitch on running plays - often holding the ball too long on outside plays  -  drawing edge defender #2 and then pitching off that late defender. Those coupled with the multiple formations and responsibilities lead me to believe that Army can win the turnover battle if they just play soundly on offense. If the other QB plays it may well be a different story. You might see some up tempo offense from the backup Worthman.

Army should do what they do best and run the football all the day long. There won't be too many players lined up in the Buzz Lightyear suits that can hang with Army's style of play for all four quarters at Michie. I expect the both teams to turn the ball over at least once, but the team that wins on that ledger will have the inside track on this game. No matter who the QB is for Air Force I'm going to call on Army to take this one by something like a 16 or 19 point margin. There is just too much Defense for the Falcons to hang around for the whole game.

This should be the true breakthrough game for the Cadets, should be a nice day to watch/play football.

Game notes are here (.pdf).


Can not wait.
_