The 2024 Army Black Knights football team started off the season with a fresh slate, having joined the American Athletic Conference for the first time after being a part of the Conference USA.
It’s safe to say they’re enjoying their new home.
The U.S. Military Academy at West Point cadets won their first conference championship in the program’s 134-year history on Saturday when it trounced Tulane University 35-14 in the AAC championship. The victory capped off undefeated conference play during the regular season.
West Point previously played independently of any college football conference, only spending 1998 to 2004 as a member of Conference USA before returning to its independent status in 2005.
Its first season — and championship — in the AAC earned the team an invite to the Independence Bowl on Dec. 28 against Marshall University. Army has only played Marshall once before, falling to the Thundering Herd in 1997 by a score of 35-25.
This year’s bowl game, hosted in Shreveport, Louisiana, will be the Black Knights’ 11th bowl appearance in program history and sixth bowl game for the Black Knights under head coach Jeff Monken. Army has won four of its previous five bowl games with Monken at the helm.
“Playing in a postseason bowl game is a measure of success for every team in FBS football. It rewards the players for a good season and recognizes the accomplishments of a great, team effort,” Monken said in an Army release. “I am thrilled that our team will play in the Independence Bowl ... and be rewarded for being conference champions and winning 11 games.”
The best season Army had under Monken came in 2018, when the Black Knights went 11-2 and won the Armed Forces Bowl. Monken has been the head coach at West Point since 2014.
This year’s squad got off to a blistering start, bludgeoning Lehigh 42-7 in their first game of the season. It hasn’t looked back. The high score wasn’t an anomaly, either. They’ve continued to pound the ball down opponents’ throats, relying on their traditional run-heavy attack that produced most rush yards per game in the country.
Their defense is no slouch either, ranked earlier this season by ESPN as the No. 11 defense in college football. Their sole loss of the year came at the hands of Notre Dame, when the No. 4 Fighting Irish unraveled Army 49-14.
The Black Knights are currently ranked No. 19 in the Associated Press college football rankings. This season also netted Army its fifth top-25 finish in the College Football Playoff rankings.
The Cinderella season now sets the stage for a match-up with their historic rival during Saturday’s 125th Army-Navy Game.
The Midshipmen across the line of scrimmage haven’t had quite the record-setting season Army has put together, but Navy put together a solid 8-3 campaign, dropping games to Rice University, Tulane and Notre Dame.
For a brief period this year both Army and Navy were ranked in the top 25 polls for the first time since 1960. At the time, Army was ranked in the AP poll at No. 23 and Navy No. 25.
Navy recently accepted an invitation to the Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl against the University of Oklahoma Sooners (6-6) on Dec. 27 in Fort Worth, Texas.
Riley Ceder is a reporter at Military Times, where he covers breaking news, criminal justice, investigations, and cyber. He previously worked as an investigative practicum student at The Washington Post, where he contributed to the Abused by the Badge investigation.
Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.
