Army HC Jeff Monken Receives Big Message From Peyton Manning Before Going for Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy

11-1 in 2024 along with an AAC title win. Still no place in the playoff? Come on, you have to give the Army something. See, no one had thought that the Black Knights, under HC Jeff Monken, would be able to amass such a reputation this season. See, the Army was what? 6-6 for 2 consecutive seasons? This was a bad show, more so because all of it was on a schedule that felt like child’s play. Not this year. Jeff Monken came into this with one thing on his mind: WIN. And so the Black Knights did. Yeah, you can pull up the debate that the Army faced “no one good”, but so didn’t Texas. 2 games against Georgia and lost both. For the Army, their major game was against Notre Dame; unfortunately, Jeff Monken couldn’t pull a win.

But that amazing show against 9-3 Tulane for the AAC title was enough to make Monken the inaugural winner of the Buddy Teevens Award. And guess who came up to congratulate him? Peyton Manning himself. “Congratulations to the inaugural Buddy Teevens Award winner, Army Head Coach Jeff Monken. He exemplifies the meaning of this award; coaching, leadership, and innovation,” Manning mentioned in his Instagram post. This man deserves it. Army has gone 81-56 in around 11 seasons under Monken. This is a massive number. Why? Simple, the players have to juggle service with football.

This alone should give you an understanding of how constraining and demanding the entire thing could be. All of this kind of makes you wonder why Monken hasn’t received any coaching offers from other big-time schools.

Why is UNC even running for Bill Belichick when you have someone as talented as Monken in the FBS? Also, you gotta thank QB Bryson Daily for being a better running back/WR than a quarterback. Almost all the touchdowns he has scored this season were rushing touchdowns.

This was practically the most “Army thing” ever. However, what we truly cannot wait to see is how Monken deals with the Navy rivalry game and grabs the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy. Did you know that this is the 125th game between the Black Knights and the Midshipmen? And let us tell you, this one is going to be one amazing ride.

Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy: Army vs Navy

See, things aren’t that great for the Midshipmen. They are on a 3 game losing streak, and they went for 0 points against Tulane as well. They did manage to end the season with 8 wins, but pretty sure Navy fans aren’t happy with that. Going into this game, they have redemption on their minds.

While the Army has Daily as their dual-threat weapon, the Navy is also coming equipped with Horvath Blake. OG Randy put it perfectly. “if you get Horvath [Blake] 100%, it makes this game a lot closer,” Randy had pointed out. 

Blake has more than 850 yards of rushing under his belt, and paired with that are his 13 touchdowns. So yeah, this is going to be one neck-to-neck battle. Army are still the favorites, though, with 11 wins, an AAC title, and an offense that can make their opponents sweat. We cannot wait to see how all of this goes down!!