Attention! Forward March!

Fisher DeBerry, Bobby Ross and Paul Johnson Are Faced With a Military Challenge
by: David Purdum
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No one is more excited about the upcoming season than Bobby Ross. And, yes, he knows all about his new team’s recent struggles. “I still have the energy so I might as well use it,” says the 67-year-old head coach, who received the nation’s longest losing streak as a welcome back gift.

Ross became the 34th head football coach at the United States Military Academy in December. He returns to the sidelines after a four-year hiatus from coaching – 12 years out of the college game – to face possibly the biggest challenge of his illustrious career.

Along with the 15-game slide, Ross inherits the nation’s worst rushing attack, attached to the 115th-ranked offense. The Black Knight defense wasn’t much better, ranking 111th. Last year’s winless campaign has the dubious honor of being the first 0-13 season in Division I history. But even after watching game film of 14 mishandled snaps in last year’s first four games, Ross insists he’s still excited.

“You shouldn’t be in coaching if you don’t want the challenge, and we’ve got a big one, a huge one,” he said. “We not only have the longest losing streak in the country, but also the point differential between us and our opponents was 20.76 points a game. So, not only did we get beat, but we got beat pretty badly.”

To make things worse, Ross says up to five projected starters have left the team. He also does not have access to all of his players for the summer. Some of his upperclassmen are at Fort Sill in Lawton, Oklahoma, and others are at Camp Buckner, near West Point.

“Then we run into the additional problem that some guys who need some real rehab are in these areas and we’re not able to get them re-habbed and ready to go,” he added.

Ross’ peers say he’ll be just fine, though. “Bobby has a better idea of what to expect than most people in that situation,” said Air Force head coach Fisher DeBerry.

Despite the given obstacles, Ross remains ever the optimist. “We only turned the ball over once in the final spring scrimmage, and it was on a late interception,” he bragged.

The veteran coach, who led Georgia Tech to a share of the 1990 national title and took the San Diego Chargers to their only Super Bowl, has only been at his new job for a few months, but he likes what he sees. And it’s what he expected.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever had a more dedicated group of kids working; I guess you would expect that,” he said.

“We were fortunate enough to win a National Championship at Georgia Tech. There were probably people that said that would never happen there, because of our academic demands at the school; they were there, and they were heavy. But we were able to get the right people, and if we find the right people here and do the things we’re supposed to, who knows ...”

Great expectations

The demands on a student athlete at an academy school are strenuous, and the academic standards high. As a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute and a former head coach of the Citadel, Ross knows firsthand how difficult the normal day can be.

At West Point, the day begins with a 6:30a.m. breakfast formation and doesn’t end until after evening study sessions. Room and hair checks are common, and the stress can build up. Sometimes players have to fight the tendency to look at football as a release, a rest, a break.

Getting the players’ complete focus is one of the toughest jobs Ross, DeBerry and Navy’s Paul Johnson face.

“We’re in a separate section of campus from where they live and where the academic buildings are, so what I tell my players is, ‘don’t come up here looking for a rest period,’” Ross said. “They have to understand that I’m not going to be soft on them because of what they’ve experienced down there. The way I see it they’re used to the demands, so why do we want to slack up on them. We’re going to have the same demands in our program as they’re going to have in their academic curriculum and in their military curriculum.

“To me, and I think to the rest of the school, winning football games is as important as being a good soldier and student. Obviously, academics come first – there’s no questions about that – and I’d guess you’d have to say the military comes second, but it doesn’t mean that we sacrifice the football.”

Before every Air Force practice, in order to gain the Falcons undivided attention, DeBerry meets them at a blue line that is painted on a road between the locker rooms and practice field. The team’s motto for that season is painted on that line, and often, players are asked what the motto means to them personally.

“Once they cross that line,” says DeBerry, “I ask them to divorce themselves from everything else and commit themselves to football. We’re never going to be out there more than two hours, but during that time I try to get the kids to free their minds of their other worries, and get them to focus on football.”

Realistic expectations, realistic schedules

When Navy hired Johnson away from Division I-AA powerhouse Georgia Southern in December 2001, he didn’t know much about losing. He was an incredible 62-10 in his five years at Georgia Southern. But upon arrival in Annapolis, he found a similar situation to what Ross is facing presently at Army. Navy had just suffered through their worst two years in its 123-year history (1-20) and had only two winning seasons in the last 20 years.

“The first thing we had to do was get the attitude changed; then we had to try and play a more realistic schedule,” Johnson said. “My first year here we played seven or eight bowl teams which is ridiculous. Nobody plays that many.”

He began reorganizing the schedule, making it more manageable to where his team wasn’t a ‘prohibitive underdog in every game.’ He checked out the records of BCS-conference teams against non-BCS schools at one point during the season.

“Out of 118 games, the BCS teams were something like 102-16. And we’re not just talking about the Oklahoma’s, we’re talking about every BCS team. Common sense will tell you, you keep playing those guys over and over, it’s not good.”

But he insists that he’s not softening the schedule, just making it more realistic. When Johnson first arrived and glanced at what was to be the schedule in his second year, he saw a brutal stretch to open the season with games at Washington, at TCU and home against Boston College, Notre Dame, then Air Force.

“You’re playing four Top 20 teams to open the season. And you’re in a program that has only won two games in three years. You start out 0-4 and out of 0-5, and here we go again. It’s crazy.

“People see you playing Vanderbilt and they’re 2-10 ... Well, throw Vanderbilt in Conference USA and see what they go. It wouldn’t be 2-10,” he said. “I thought last year Rutgers had one of the most physical football teams we played and they went 2-6 in the Big East. But you put them in one of the mid-conferences and I think they would have been pretty strong.”

Noted author John Feinstein, who also does radio analysis for Navy, says that’s the model Ross will have to follow in order to get things turned around at Army.

“To be realistic, you’re not going to compete for the national championship at an academy school,” Feinstein said. “You can win eight games, have a good shot at beating Notre Dame. When you start to put those kind of seasons together like Paul did last year, you’ll start to see a better kind of athlete at the academy schools.”

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Perception or Misnomer: Running the Option
Army, the immediate assumption was that Ross would follow DeBerry’s and Johnson’s lead. He’d reinstall the option in an effort to establish some sort of running game, something the Black Knights did not possess last season.

But surprisingly, Ross says he’ll feature a more balanced, pro-style attack. “In our final scrimmage we had 39 runs and 39 passes. That’s perfect. I couldn’t have written a better script, and we didn’t go into it planning that way.” Still, the option – and maybe even a little wishbone - will be within the Black Knights’ capabilities, he says. Which brings up the question: Is the option/wishbone the best way to make up for a talent gap? And can you still win running the option on the highest levels of college football? It’s been nine years since Nebraska won the national championship primarily running the option. But Johnson is practically living proof that the option can still succeed. “That’s crazy, that’s a misnomer,” Johnson says about not being able to win with the option. “We didn’t have lesser talent at Georgia Southern, and we won six national championships there.”

Johnson is one of only four coaches in Division I football to win 50 or more games in four years. He has utilized the option since 1985. During his five-year tenure as head coach at Georgia Southern, the Eagles averaged 360.3 yards rushing and scored 5.3 touchdowns per game. Johnson’s triple-option attack led the nation in rushing again last season, this time with the Midshipmen at the controls. Along the way to a bowl game, the offense ran over an undefeated and ranked Air Force squad, ending the Falcons’ streak at six consecutive Commander-in-Chief’s trophies.

“It’s a great equalizer, a great offense,” Johnson said. “Sometimes I think people get worried about their image and what people think. ‘It’s three yards and a cloud of dust’... that’s a joke. One year at Georgia Southern, Chattanooga led he nation in passing, and we had double the number of plays 20-yards and over than they did. People think it’s not glamorous enough or whatever ...I just hope they don’t figure it out.”

Plus, a little option in your offensive repertoire can be a good recruiting tool. “We’re probably not going to get drop-back quarterbacks to come to school here,” Johnson said, “but at the same time, we might be able to get the very athletic quarterbacks that everybody else wants to go play wide receiver or defensive back. We may be able to recruit those guys, and then if they don’t become our best quarterback, they can be receivers and defensive backs for us too. It’s a big advantage for us.”

And of course, who’s to argue the success Fisher DeBerry has had using the option. In his 20-year tenure at Air Force, he’s optioned his way to 14 Commander-in-Chief’s trophies and 12 bowl games.

“I’ve got a recruiting network of coaches who know what we’re looking for, so we get a good read on a lot of the option quarterbacks out there,” DeBerry said.

His teams have been in the top five in rushing 15 times. And more importantly, Air Force is 18th in the nation in wins since 1997.

But Ross says he’s sticking with his pro-style offense. He says having a flexible offensive scheme allows him to recruit simply the best athletes, and then fit them into the scheme.

“I tell my coaches, ‘make sure they’re big enough for their position, they’re fast enough for their position and make sure they are a good fit for West Point.’ And by that I mean, they have an understanding of the military, they appreciate it and are a good student. Because if they have those things, it will be a little more difficult for them to be distracted.

“I want to be able to attract skill players at every skill position, and I think that if we run the type of attack that’s pro-oriented with some option-related elements in there, then I think we can be attractive to any type of skilled player.”

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