Army Louisiana-Monroe Game Notes

Army has game notes up for Louisiana-Monroe.

Louisiana-Monroe has game notes up for Army. 

Yearbook: Northeastern Louisiana State Chacahoula

Before the school was known as Univ. of Louisiana-Monroe it was called Northeastern Louisiana State. 

The Northeastern State yearbook has online offerings which seem to include a small selection of years: 1954 and then 1958 through 1977. Looking more closely at the site, there is searchable access to years: 1933 through 1977

There are some football pages therein,  if you care to do some digging. overall this is a good effort by the ULM archivist to get this collection of Chacahoula online.

One of the things you get a lot of the time in these annuals is an intentional bias in the sports reporting, in fact the reporting in yearbooks is so low stake, you have to expect a student bias toward their teams. 

Bias in reporting is there to be seen, and yearbooks do a great job of illustrating how American collegiate culture has changed through the years, school by school. One of the things that can be seen pretty clearly is some of the attitudes toward race not just in college admissions, but in terms of student life, participation on teams and access to diverse student groups. 

A comparison of the class pictures through the years can give us a simple idea about a school's diversity and attitudes toward race and sports are well documented elsewhere. Pay attention to the theme of segregation and see in what ways you might find evidence of a bifurcation of social spaces and ideals. 

One thing easily noticed in any school's yearbook collection is that just as sure as these institutions offered an avenue of higher learning - there have always been attitudes, some more common than others,  that have presented obstacles for a large selection of students and potential students, athletes and aspiring athletes. Time may have moved on and the names of the schools may even have been changed, but some of these attitudes and ideals have remained. Today, this mechanization of racism is no longer a mission of the college admissions office, but may still reside in local culture, in the behaviors of students and in the the makeup of the school's administration and student organizations.

Baseball 1958

NESCCheer 1958

 'Warbonnets' Cheer squad 1977

The point to be made is not that racism is evident in today's America, it's that there are a number of different levels of racism which effect citizens in different ways and at different times. Whereas an all white cheerleading squad seemed to be the ideal before Northeast Louisiana State's desegregation efforts, it wasn't until the 1970's when the first black cheerleader participated at ULM. 

Two members of the 'Ten little Indians' cheer team in 1975

Over time racial attitudes changed and the makeup of the student population shifted in accordance with more inclusive admissions policies. It is also important to iterate that some attitudes regarding racial (in)equality remained in place and is still active today. Sure, black inclusion in the cheerleading squad can be seen as progress, but what for if you're just going to spend your 4 years dressing up as a native American squaw?  As it played out, ULM didn't move to change their original "Indians" nickname until the NCAA cracked down on using native American imagery in college sports in 2007. 

I don't want to give the impression that this is the case only at Louisiana Monroe, this is most every traditional college and college town in the US. There is plenty of ULM history to be had with the Northeastern Louisiana State Chacahoula yearbook. 

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Army 1--0

Army put up a very clean 42 points on Saturday, opening the season with a home win against Middle Tennessee State. Army took anything and everything they wanted in the game without much Blue Raider resistance.

 It didn't help Middle Tennessee State that they got stung by the injury bug early and often losing their starting center on the 4th play of the game- they replaced him with a freshman and two plays later the Army defense ran over the line, stole the football and pretty much put the game away. With Army playing so well against an outmatched and underprepared Middle Tennessee State team - it really did seem like it was over that early. By the start of the second quarter Army had earned 10 first downs, was 4/4 on 3rd down, and perfect 2/2 passing for 28 yards.

 It's too bad that MTSU absorbed so many injuries - they got dinged A LOT. After the game Blue Raiders head coach Tom Sockstill placed fault with Army's style of play,

"Whenever you play an Army (sic) or somebody that runs the triple option it always helps you not to play the next week because we got so many guys hurt. You saw we had so many guys coming off with knees and ankles and shoulders."

The whole Stockstill postgame interview plays like a deposition. 

Firstly, if you don't want your defense to get hurt teach them how to make a stop before a 13 minute or 19 play drive, whichever comes first. Secondly, ask the players how they got hurt on Saturday... ZERO injuries had anything to do with low blocks as Coach Stockstill pretends. Army's blocks are legal and defensive players should be coached to use their hands on low blocks. 

 At 42-0 You almost want to accept the coach's excuses out of pity. He's going to try to blame the triple option for injuring his guys and when I look back at Army's offense on tape it's 5 yards galore against a team that looked physically outmatched. No real technique, no real adjustment aside from substitution, now that I think about it MTSU came in with a very spring football look. 

I get it, Army is a tough season opener to take on 3 weeks' notice. The fact remains, teams don't get injured because of cut blocks per se, teams get injured out of unpreparedness, and that is something I would like the coach to answer to before he attacks Army's time-tested football techniques. Just go back and watch the tape and try to find a cut block injury from this game. It never happened, Coach.

I'm being hard on head coach Stockstill, but I actually think he did a great job coaching while blindfolded. Sometimes all you can do is learn from the examples of other people; let's all remember the importance of being honest with ourselves. 

 Middle Tennessee was bruised pretty badly with this one. Even MTSU fans that didn't expect the win didn't expect to lay that egg. MTSU came in unprepared and they paid the price on the scoreboard. Time after time MTSU was touched by misfortune. From the first 3 and out to the turnovers, to their diminishing will to play defense, to the drive extending roughing the kicker penalty after which Sandon McCoy ran his third touchdown in. Even that extra point bounced in off the upright. And seriously, what the hell was that series at the end of the half? 

 If Army is going to play in midseason form, then I'm going to feel justified in talking about midseason topics. Army's goals for this season should include a Lambert trophy. If all of this season's goals seem attainable (with this being a casual mention of BYU's 55-3 pasting of Navy) then a Lambert trophy should be equally within reach. Regarding protecting home field, Army demonstrated a unique home field advantage with the socially distanced corps of cadets moving out of the east stands and not only reclaiming traditional cadet seating, but expanding to take over the west stands and parts of  Eastern and Central New York down to the southern tier. 

Army is 71-25 in home openers at Michie Stadium. 

Here are the MTSU/Army story, stats, highlights and replay. 

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