Five Things Learned: Miami RedHawks at Army Black Knights

There’s a lot of positives that fans of the Miami RedHawks can take away from the 31-30 double overtime loss at Army but there’s also a fair amount of negatives that can be discussed. Without further ado, let’s talk about the ‘Hawks.

Ragland’s a Gamer

Watching Gus Ragland play quarterback for the RedHawks is never really pretty, but it’s usually effective and Ragland was effective Saturday with 375 total yards and four passing touchdowns. However, he left some plays on the field with some missed throws and questionable decisions to scramble on critical downs. Despite this, Miami will always have a chance to win with Gus as the signal-caller.

Koenig is the Best ILB in the MAC

What Khalil Hodge is doing up in Buffalo is awesome, but Brad Koenig’s performance on Saturday is a microcosm of how he’s played all season long. He recorded 23 tackles and a TFL against Army’s Wing-T attack, and was part of the reason Miami was able to come back in the second half as the defense held the Knights to seven points in the final two quarters of regulation.

Going for Two Was The Right Call

This might be the unpopular thing to say following Saturday’s game, but going for two and the win in the second overtime was absolutely the right decision. Your defense has been getting pounded in the running game for over sixty game minutes and the defense has showed signs of wearing down on Army’s second possession of overtime, and you have to consider the health of your defense going into this last four-game stretch of MAC play. It was the right call by Chuck Martin, it just wasn’t very well executed.

Poise, Poise, Poise

Miami made some critical mistakes at various points in the game that could have made the difference in the game. The RedHawks were 5-18 on third down (Army went 8-17) and had eight penalties for 56 yards (the Knights had one for five yards), the majority of which were on offense. Your margin for error against a high-performing service academy is small, and Miami has to clean things up in this area if they expect to do well in this final stretch.

Back to the Friendly Confines of the MAC

Right, wrong, or indifferent, Martin’s record against out-of-conference opponents fell to 0-17 with the loss on Saturday. Despite a number of those being one-possession games, these are games you have to win when you’re paid to win football games and wins against teams like Army would have done wonders in raising the profile of the program. However, one way to to build back some goodwill is to knock of a talented team and Miami had the opportunity to do that next week against Buffalo.