Bleacher Report - Air Force Football

Air Force-BYU Football: What the Falcons' Loss Means to the Bowl Picture

Jake Schaller — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:41:27 -0500

After Saturday's 38-21 loss to BYU, it looks to me like either the Armed Forces or New Mexico Bowls for the Falcons.

Barring a shocking upset loss by TCU in its regular season finale next weekend (at home against woeful New Mexico), the Horned Frogs are heading to a Bowl Championship Series bowl game. Utah and BYU, which will finish second and third in the Mountain Conference in some order, likely will go to the Las Vegas and Poinsettia Bowls.

So the Armed Forces and New Mexico Bowls, which share the third pick, will fight over Air Force. I know the New Mexico Bowl badly wants the Falcons (it has for the last couple years). But Armed Forces Bowl reps aren’t opposed to taking them for the third straight year.

For Air Force? Well, I’m not sure heading to the same bowl site for the third straight season is the best situation for fans. But the Falcons played at New Mexico this year, so if they go to the New Mexico Bowl, it will be their second trip to Albuquerque in four months.

Recruiting-wise, it’s a no-brainer. Of the 44 players listed as offensive and defensive starters and backups heading into Saturday’s game, 14 are from Texas. Zero are from New Mexico.

—Junior quarterback Ben Cochran’s numbers weren’t too pretty in Saturday's loss to BYU (14 carries, 47 yards; 5-for-18 passing for 88 yards, one touchdown pass to Josh Cousins and one interception), but I thought he did really well considering how difficult a situation he faced.

The guy had played only garbage snaps this season—and remember, he was playing safety in the preseason. But he came into the game in a tough environment with his team trailing the 19th-ranked team in the country 17-0 and handled himself well.

“I think he played very well,” junior fullback Jared Tew said. “Coming up in a big situation like that against a Top 25 team, with not that much experience and right when he came in making that big play to Cousins, that was huge and definitely gave us a spark. He definitely stepped up and we know we can count on him.”

—BYU quarterback Max Hall was tremendous on Saturday. I thought there were times when Air Force had good coverage on receivers, but he put the ball in about the only two-foot by two-foot space that it could be caught. He completed 19 of his first 22 passes, and one of the incompletions was a drop while another was one he threw away intentionally. That’s astounding.

I also like the passion with which he plays. He’s fired up, and he loves to play the game and he loves to win — clearly, he’s won more than any BYU quarterback ever. And that’s something.

So with all that said, he needs to cut out some of the taunting and celebrating and the complaining to the refs that he did after the first touchdown was called back. Plain and simple, he’s too good a player to have to act like that.

—After writing an article this week about how Air Force was on pace to set the record for fewest turnovers in a season and that it hadn’t turned the ball over more than twice in a game all season, I wrote in the blog about how nobody believes in jinxes more than me.

Sure enough, the Falcons turned the ball over four times against BYU, their most in a game since late October, 2007. So, to Air Force fans, sorry for the jinx.

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Air Force Close but Still Far Away from MWC's Elite

Jake Schaller — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:33:45 -0500

For the second season in a row, Air Force showed signs that it’s close to breaking into the Mountain West Conference’s elite.

The Falcons took defending league champ Utah to overtime before falling, and they stuck closer to fourth-ranked TCU than any of the Horned Frogs' other 10 victims.

And for the second season in a row, the final game of the regular season showed how far the Falcons still have to go.

In 2008, it was a humbling 44-10 drubbing at TCU.

This season, it was Saturday’s 38-21 drubbing at BYU.

Don’t let the final score fool you. The Cougars were up 24-0 in the first half and 31-7 early in the third quarter. This one wasn’t close—and that was surprising.

Yes, BYU has owned Air Force historically (the Cougars have a 24-6 all-time record against Air Force) and especially lately (Saturday’s loss was the Falcons’ sixth in a row to BYU—and all have come by at least two touchdowns).

But Air Force seemed to match up better with the Cougars this season because of its standout defense and secondary (the Falcons led the nation in pass defense heading into the game).

Not only that, players seemed to be ready to beat the Cougars, and it didn’t seem like bluster. I could be wrong, but I usually can tell when players are just saying they can compete with a heavily favored team and when they actually believe they can compete with a heavily favored team. I really think the Falcons believed.

That’s what made it surprising—again, not that Air Force lost, but the manner in which the Falcons were dominated.

“I was very surprised,” junior fullback Jared Tew said. “I thought we were going to come out strong and right off the bat it seemed like they had our number and we pretty much weren’t playing our game.”

“We’re a lot better than we played (Saturday),” junior cornerback Reggie Rembert said. “So, yeah, I’m definitely kind of shocked.”

The one upside of a loss like this is the Falcons still are a relatively young team. Players can learn from mistakes, and they should remember the sting of this blowout. Maybe in the future they can find a way to compete with the Cougars.

“It’s not going to be easy, it’s going to be hard,” Air Force coach Troy Calhoun said of catching up to the top teams in the conference. “But it’s doable, and it should be doable. That is to be a program that gets up and (will) go play in a game like this and be able to take a game like this right down to the wire and find a way to win it.”

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Lots at Stake When Falcons Face Cougars

Jake Schaller — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:52:25 -0500

There was plenty for Air Force to celebrate after last Saturday's 45-17 drubbing of UNLV.

The offense looked arguably the best it has all season, rolling up 557 yards. The Falcons were balanced (for them) with quarterback Tim Jefferson completing 8-of-13 passes for 126 yards. And the ground game was dominant, with the Falcons picking up 6.1 yards per carry.

The defense was not quite as impenetrable as it has been at times this season, but it still limited a dangerous UNLV passing attack to just 135 yards.

Kicker Erik Soderberg continued his outstanding breakout season by nailing a 35-yarder, giving him 20 field goals this season, the second-most in a season by an academy kicker.

And Air Force’s 15 seniors walked out of Falcon Stadium for the last time as players triumphant.

And yet … not to snow on the Falcons’ celebration … but that was a pretty inept UNLV squad.

I’m not saying that to diminish a standout performance but to highlight the following: Air Force has held serve against the teams it finished above last season and was picked to finish above this season. But it has yet to beat a team it wasn’t “supposed to” beat.

The Falcons have one more chance Saturday at Provo. And they’re looking forward to it.

“A huge game,” senior strong safety Chris Thomas said of the clash with BYU. “Been looking forward to that game all year.”

And there’s plenty at stake. With a victory, the Falcons all of a sudden would seem to have a shot at the Poinsettia Bowl and maybe even the Las Vegas Bowl (if BYU went on to beat Utah the following week and TCU, as expected, ends up in the BCS).

More importantly, Air Force would finish no worse than third in the Mountain West Conference. Instead of thinking about the Falcons as “the best of the rest,” we’d have to re-define “The Big Three.”

“This next week is huge for us as a program,” Thomas said. “If we can play well and get a ‘W,’ I think it would show that this program has definitely taken some strides forward.”

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