2020 OU Schedule Preview: A Trip to New York, and the Challenge of Stopping Army's Flexbone

Jeff Monken's team nearly left Norman with a shocking victory two years ago. Oklahoma has fixed a lot of the problems from that nightmare, but the Black Knights keep coming.

Michie Stadium, West Point, NY / PHOTO: Danny Wild-USA TODAY Sports

Every Wednesday going into Big 12 Media Days on July 20-21, SI Sooners will break down Oklahoma’s 2020 schedule. Today: Army.

2020 Oklahoma Sooners schedule

• Sept. 5 — Missouri State
• Sept. 12 — Tennessee
• Sept. 26 — at Army
• Oct. 3 — Baylor
• Oct. 10 — Texas
• Oct. 17 — at Iowa State
• Oct. 24 — Oklahoma State
• Oct. 31 — at TCU
• Nov. 7 — at West Virginia
• Nov. 14 — Kansas State
• Nov. 21 — Kansas
• Nov. 28 — at Texas Tech
• Dec. 5 — Big 12 Championship Game

Mention Army on the Oklahoma football schedule and some in Sooner Nation might start to get a little nervous.

But this is 2020, not 2018. This year’s Army squad isn’t quite as well equipped as the one that nearly won in Norman two years ago.

And for that matter, Oklahoma’s defense is past suffering the kind of meltdowns that sent the fan base into a prolonged rage that odd night at Owen Field.

These Black Knights are coming off a 5-8 season (they finished 11-2 and ranked in both polls in 2018) and, frankly, it’s a rebuild.

Dynamic quarterback Kelvin Hopkins graduated, along with 53 percent of the rest of the team’s overall productivity from 2019, according to Bill Connelly’s SP+ formula. Hopkins last year became the first Army QB to both rush and throw for 1,000 yards.

Army quarterback Jabari Laws / PHOTO: Danny Wild-USA TODAY Sports

The new quarterback is Jabari Laws, who filled in ably when Hopkins was injured last season. Laws averaged more than 6 yards per carry and ran for almost 500 yards, including an 81-yard TD against UMass, and completed nearly 80 percent of his passes.

Laws suffered his own injury last season, and head coach Jeff Monken said last month that he’s “seeing improvements” and “moving along” in his quarantine situation.

Jabari Laws celebrates beating UMass / PHOTO: Danny Wild-USA TODAY Sports

Other injuries on offense, especially across the offensive line, were going to be addressed in spring practice, but that was shut down. At one point last season, the entire offensive line was switched out because of injuries.

One area Monken and offensive coordinator Brent Davis appear eager to explore: fullback Anthony Adkins, who’s a muscled-up 250 pounds — “a specimen,” Davis said on a conference call — that could lend a physical element to the offense.

Army wideout Cam Harrison / PHOTO: Danny Wild-USA TODAY Sports

Defensively, the Black Knights have a new coordinator. Nate Woody was previously DC at Appalachian State and Georgia Tech before spending last year at Michigan in an analyst role.

(Michigan, remember, needed double overtime to hold off Army in Ann Arbor in 2019.)

The Black Knights’ defense will miss linebacker Cole Christiansen, who compiled 112 total tackles last season, but — other than trying to teach his scheme during a global quarantine (Tank Wright joins the staff as defensive line coach) — Woody feels good about the defense in 2020 largely because most of the staff has experience working in a 3-4 front.

“Getting everybody on the same page with these meetings,” Woody said, “has been great.”

Jeff Monken leads the Black Knights onto the field at Michie Stadium / PHOTO: Danny Wild-USA TODAY Sports

Army remains a college football independent, and every year the Black Knights try a college football powerhouse. The last three years, that’s been Ohio State, Oklahoma and Michigan. Future schedules include Wisconsin, Tennessee and LSU.

The last two — played in Norman and Ann Arbor — could have easily went Army’s way.

OU prevailed two years ago 28-21 in overtime, and Army probably should have won the game. The Sooners only had 40 offensive snaps, had the football for just 15 minutes, and Kyler Murray threw it just 15 times.

Army was driving late for a go-ahead score — it was a 17-play, 65-yard drive to the OU 30 — but two running plays were thrown for a loss, and a third-down pass was intercepted with 2:17 to play.

Mike Stoops deployed two deep safeties on all 87 Army's offensive snaps, which caused a fury among fans and, ultimately, contributed to Stoops' firing two weeks later.

Riley said a bend-but-don't-break mentality was the right game plan that night. 

Parnell Motley sealed OU's 2018 win over Army with an interception in overtime / PHOTO: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports

“We went in with the game plan that we didn't want to give up the big play," Riley said.

It seems unlikely that Alex Grinch will choose the same tactics in this year's rematch in New York, although that's what Army excels at: an exquisitely disciplined game plan and near flawless execution, doing the same thing over and over until a defense has a false sense of security and doesn't even realize it's been ground down.

Although the Sooners are coming off an open date and will have an extra week to prepare for Monken’s flexbone offense, it’ll be a long trip (it's 1,500 miles to West Point, NY) and unfamiliar territory (OU hasn’t played at 38,000-seat Michie Stadium — about 53 miles north of Times Square on the Hudson River — since 1946).

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