Watching Army football on a Saturday afternoon in Fort Worth is as much a holiday treat as the pending arrival of the jolly good fellow.
There is the triple-option throwback, which the Black Knights on the Hudson used to dizzy an out-of-sorts Houston 70-14 on Saturday at the Armed Forces Bowl at Amon G. Carter Stadium.
Only adherence to the code of duty honor and respect for fellow man – and the fact that the game ends after 60 minutes – limited Army to an even greater bowl-record output.
Houston, full of holes and without All-American Ed Oliver, who understandably elected not to participate rather than risk injury and a promising and lucrative future in the NFL, offered as much resistance as a Joe T’s enchilada does an appetite.
Oliver was part of the team’s squad of captains during the pregame coin flip. That was literally the only thing the Cougars won on Saturday.
Houston had no idea how to handle Black Knights QB Kelvin Hopkins Jr., the game MVP after scoring five touchdowns and 170 yards rushing before limping to the sideline with an injury. His production led Army’s 517 rushing yards.
On the other side of the ball, James Natchigal was, in a different context, a warrior’s warrior, 16 tackles, 31/2 sacks and three forced fumbles. He would have been a reliable gate keeper at old Fort Worth, the leading man of any leading column.
Hopkins ran as if he had visions of Doc Blanchard, Glenn Davis or Pete Dawkins dancing in his head.
That’s the other delight about Army, the history. Some history was made on Saturday. Army became the first team in school history to win 11 games in a season.
That’s significant considering its imprint on the college game – like its imprint on everything else West Point touches — is Big Footian.
There are the Heisman Trophy winners and the three national championships under Earl Blaik, the Black Knights’ legendary football leader, in the 1940s.
Dwight Eisenhower and George Patton played there briefly before injuries and fate led them in other directions.
Douglas MacArthur, the starting quarterback at West Texas Military Academy, badly wanted to play there, but his future was as the student manager, something he would have never let happen when he was, let’s say, established some years later.
Nonetheless, he remained romanced by the game his entire life and in 1959 was one of the founders of the National Football Foundation. The 25-pound silver MacArthur Bowl trophy is still presented annually to the national champion.
It features one of the general’s most famous quotes, “There is no substitute for victory.”
Now, obviously there is at least one substitute, though not a good one.
Ask Houston.
As for the Cougars, they have a connection to Army that is worthy of attention.
Bill Yeoman, the Coogs’ former – now almost fabled – coach and college football innovator, was a cadet and captain of Army’s undefeated 1948 season. He played at West Point from 1946-48. The Black Knights were 22-2-4 during that span. Blanchard and Davis ran behind the offensive line he anchored as the center.
After graduation, Yeoman, now a second lieutenant, was sent to post-war Germany. His first order was to start a football team for his unit.
That was the beginning of his transition to his return to civilian life, which was as an assistant at Michigan State.
In 1962, he began a 25-year run at Houston, which he put on the proverbial map. He handed out the first football scholarship to a black player at a major program in Texas in 1965. Warren McVea of San Antonio went on to an All-American career at Houston.
The signing opened the door to even wider progress in integration in Texas.
The 1968 game between Houston and Texas ended in another substitute for victory, a tie. However, it was that day the Longhorns rolled out the Wishbone.
Almost certainly, Yeoman had a different impression of West Point in the mid-1940s than running back Darnell Woolfolk, who on Saturday had 71 yards on 11 carries.
“If I’m going to be honest, the first time I walked on to campus I was like ‘this looks a lot like Hogwarts,’” said Woolfolk. “But it is a marvelous place. So much history.”
The place drips with it.
Unlike a guy such as MacArthur, who was unlike just about anybody else, Woolfolk never dreamed of going to West Point. He wanted to be a New York state trooper.
“I didn’t even go on an official visit. I just went up for the day,” Woolfolk said. “My family and I really fell in love. We thought it was a beautiful place. The biggest thing for me is it felt like a family. That’s how my high school was, so I felt like I would really fit in. It hasn’t disappointed.”
Army is establishing quite a trend in North Texas. Saturday’s victory was the Black Knights’ third consecutive bowl win in Dallas and Fort Worth. Army defeated North Texas in the Heart of Dallas Bowl in 2016 and now have consecutive victories in Fort Worth.
It seems befitting.
Army returning here is a homecoming.
West Pointer Ripley Arnold, Class of 1838, set up camp near the confluence of the West Fork and Clear Fork of the Trinity River in June of 1849. He named the camp and soon-to-be Fort Worth after his commander in the Mexican War.
Though born near the banks of the Hudson, William Jenkins Worth was not a product of West Point, though his fingerprints are all over the place. As an instructor there in the 1820s, Worth left a legacy to conduct and discipline.
His words on partiality – “an officer on duty knows no one. To be partial is to dishonor both himself and the object of his ill-advised favor” – remains to this day a message ingrained in the hearts and minds of cadets.
The world would be a better place if that message creeped out to a broader audience.
The boys of the 36th Division at Camp Bowie, originally under West Pointer John St. Edwin, went on to serve with distinction in Europe in World War I under alum William R. Smith, who later became the superintendent at the Military Academy.
God willing, none of the fellas who lined up on Saturday will be asked to give that “ultimate sacrifice” in a still-unsteady world. As Army coach Jeff Monken noted on Friday, unlike the more than 200 players in the country who will be drafted into the NFL in April, “we have guys getting drafted into a different draft.”
And for that reason, Black Knights on the Hudson, we send you off with our very best wishes as you embark on your journey of servant leadership.
If Saturday is any indication, you’ll do it well.