Navy 31, Army 13.
JEFF MONKEN: Thanks for being here, everybody. Wouldn't have blamed you if you didn't show up. They just beat us in every phase. They out-coached us, and they blocked better and beat blocks better. They tackled better, broke tackles better than we did, took care of the ball a lot better than we did. That's where the game is won, in those fundamentals. They did it much better than we did. Sorely disappointed.
As excited and proud as we were eight days ago, we're as disappointed as we've ever been. It's hard to lose that game. That one hurts a lot, especially when the trophy is on the line and we've got a chance to keep that trophy at West Point, and we didn't do it.
Q. What are some lessons you can take from this game to prepare for the bowl game?
JEFF MONKEN: Well, I've got to figure out how I can coach better. Bear with me; I'll do the best I can.
I've got to do a better job preparing our team and preparing our coaches. That's number one, because it's my responsibility, it's my job, and I clearly didn't do a very good job of that this evening.
So we've got to do a better job of that to prepare for the bowl game, and really just get our team to play better fundamentally. That's where I felt like we lost the game tonight. They did a better job of blocking us. We just couldn't sustain drives, blocking them and moving them. They were able to get off of blocks on us, which is a fundamental we didn't do a great job of tonight.
We had some turnovers. We forced some throws a couple times, and that's not Bryson's fault, he's just trying to make a play. We missed some opportunities. In the kicking game, the fake punt, I regret going after the punt, but we went after it and tried to block it. We had done that the first couple of times, and I just felt we need today try to make a play there. We were down eight points, and I wish I'd have just taken the ball back, lined up with the defense or something like that, the safe look.
But at that point I was desperate to win. I wanted our team to win and make a play. Obviously they turned the tide on us and made a play there and faked the punt. It was a good call on their part.
The lessons are -- probably let it soak in a little bit before we figure out how we can really use this to improve. I think losing stinks. I think you learn just as many lessons when you win as you do when you lose. The same things happen in the game.
Anyway, sorry about that. Long-winded.
Q. (Indiscernible).
JEFF MONKEN: We were very fortunate at halftime to only be down seven points. It was just a lot of things. Certainly when we kicked the opening kickoff out of bounds at the 35-yard line, it's not a rule that they've got to score.
We gave them 10 extra yards, but it didn't start off great just with giving them a shorter field. They scored. We had a kickoff in the second half that they returned out to about the 40 or 45-yard line. They scored on that drive. We had the turnover, as you said, and it took them three plays to score. That was in the first half. They hit the wheel route down there.
When things go wrong, you've got to make a play and answer, and that's what we didn't do. They made some plays and got themselves in good position and they capitalized, and we didn't do a good job of doing that ourselves.
Q. (Indiscernible).
JEFF MONKEN: They did a great job blocking us. They created some seams for him. A couple times he pulled it down on a pass play and just out-leveraged us and had some long runs. They were running the power read play, quarterback power, where they have a stretch look, and sometimes he was reading it, sometimes they were just running the power play for him and blocking it up. They did a good job creating some seams.
He's a fast runner, and he got loose a couple times, and it was hard for us to catch him.
Q. (Indiscernible).
JEFF MONKEN: No, there wasn't anything that surprised us. I mean, those are all things that they had done this year, and we tried to prepare for them as much as we could over this last week. It's difficult to practice for another team when we're preparing for other games.
Certainly during the Notre Dame week we were getting ready for them; and UTSA, we were getting ready for them; the Tulane game, we were getting ready for them. It was just back to back to back games we were playing, so really it wasn't until the final horn of the Tulane game where we could really hone in on this game and so as much as we could.
I wanted to have our team fresh, so our practices weren't long, and in a shorter practice, you just got a balancing act there. The time to prepare and to practice those things full speed and to have a healthy team, we tried to balance those as best we could. Lots of meeting time and walk-throughs and those kinds of things, but the fact is they just executed better. We had some chances. Their third touchdown, we just missed the tackle on the sideline; not very good fundamentals there.
We had a chance to hit Casey on the touchdown pass in the back of the end zone; we settled for a field goal. Just some plays that we could make.
I don't know, maybe we tackle that guy on the sideline, maybe they score later in the drive, I don't know, but I'd sure like to make it tougher on them.
We just didn't play great fundamentally, and that's something that we've done pretty well throughout the year is block people and sustain blocks and open some seams for our runners, and we played pretty good defense, played pretty stout.
We played about as poorly collectively as a team tonight as we have all year, and I don't think the emotion of the game had anything to do with it. Just give them credit; they made the plays when they needed to.
Q. (Indiscernible).
JEFF MONKEN: This game is going to take 365 days to get over and probably a lifetime for me. I still lose sleep over games we've lost. I think of the ones we've lost way more than the ones we've won. I'm just relieved when we win. When we lose, I wake up at night games we lost 10 years ago, I promise you. When you're a competitor, it stays with you. This stinks.
Q. (Indiscernible).
JEFF MONKEN: I don't know. I mean, we've played 12 games to this point going into this game tonight. It's as poorly as we've played. Give credit to the other team; they had a lot to do with it. It wasn't like we just -- they didn't have to do anything. They had to earn it. They blocked us and they tackled us and they beat blocks, and they just out-played us tonight. Out-played us and out-coached us.
Q. (Indiscernible).
JEFF MONKEN: I traveled North Texas and came back and won that game. I don't know. It was still a one-score game there when they faked the punt. Like I said, I've got a lot of regrets over that. It's my decision to make, but if they'd have punted and we'd have blocked the punt, we'd sure have been happy.
I probably second-guessed myself all the way around. If we just took the ball back and then did the score on that drive and relinquished it on downs, I'd probably be saying I wished I'd have gone after that punt and tried to block it, make one more play. It's hard. It's hard to win a football game. It's really hard to win this one.
We never felt like we were out of it. When they got that score after the faked punt, we still had a chance if we could get a quick score and we get the ball back one more time, still got a chance to get a touchdown drive. There was still opportunities to win the football game. Our guys never quit.
Q. (Indiscernible).
JEFF MONKEN: It's been a good season. When you lose this game, there's nothing great, tremendous, outstanding or stupendous about it. It frankly makes the season a bit of a disappointment, and that's just the truth of this game and the fact of how big this rivalry is.
To lose this game sours the season, and maybe I'm just a poor sport, but this is the biggest game of the year, and you can drive up to West Point right now and look around and see the signs on campus, B-e-a-t, and there's only one name behind it anywhere on campus. It's the biggest game of the year.
Q. (Indiscernible).
JEFF MONKEN: I hope I can get our team to perform better in the fundamentals. We've got to get them to block better and to tackle better and defeat blocks and break tackles and take care of the ball better and try to get the ball away from the other team.
I'm going to try to do all those things better, because if we don't, I'm going to be up here with a sour puss again.
Q. (Indiscernible).
JEFF MONKEN: Sometimes I'll sense that our guys are maybe not focused or are not prepared. There's not been one time this year that I felt that. Certainly not this week. Our guys were excited to play. They were focused on the game and desperately wanted to win this game.
Emotion didn't affect the game. It wasn't like our guys were not ready. We were as ready as we could be, and we just didn't perform. They did. The other team made more plays.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports