<p>Gleason: Army offense needs options</p>
<p>West Point</p>
<p>Army and Navy have played 107 football games against each other. Navy has won 51, Army 49, with seven ties. Maybe the most amazing thing about the rivalry is that just 226 points, 2.1 points per game, separate the teams.</p>
<p>Yet the numbers fail to illustrate the divide in these programs. Unless there's a huge upset on Saturday in Baltimore, Navy will become the first team to win more than five straight games in the series. Navy will rubber-stamp its dominance of Army, and if that doesn't constitute a football crisis along the banks of the Hudson, nothing does.</p>
<p>Army hasn't just lost to Navy five straight times. Army barely has been competitive. Beginning with that sad December day in East Rutherford, N.J., five years ago, when Navy won 58-12 over Todd Berry's Black Knights, the Midshipmen have outscored Army 202-68.</p>
<p>Talk about taking the luster off a rivalry.</p>
<p>You don't reach a crisis of this magnitude without a flawed foundation. You don't hire three coaches in eight seasons not counting 2003 interim coach John Mumford and don't have 11 straight losing seasons without problems from top to bottom.</p>
<p>The hiring of Bobby Ross turned into a huge mistake, if only because of his two-year tenure and abrupt departure. Nobody need be reminded of the Berry era, the single worst 42-month span in the 117-year history of Army football.</p>
<p>That brings us to Stanley James Brock.</p>
<p>There are two major knocks on first-season head coach Stan Brock: the way he was hired, and the offense he runs.</p>
<p>Through no fault of his own, Brock immediately raised the ire of grads by being hired without a thorough job search as Ross' handpicked candidate. It conjured memories of another one-candidate hire when former athletic director Rick Greenspan gave his friend Berry the job in 2000. So Brock began his tenure with two strikes against him in the eyes of many alums and fans.</p>
<p>The more legitimate criticism of Brock was running Ross' pro style offense without the personnel to make it work. Army's athletic offensive line was suited to an option-based attack. The move would have served a greater good as a starting point for the return to option football. It also would have made the results of this season, a 3-8 record including a squeaker over I-AA Rhode Island, easier to understand.</p>
<p>Instead, Army is 115th out of 119 Division I-A teams in total offense, 111th in rushing, 111th in scoring and 91st in passing.</p>
<p>Brock said yesterday that his main reason for sticking with Ross' offense was that newly hired offensive coordinator Tim Walsh took over less than 30 days before the start of spring practice. There's no doubt that installing an offense in less than a month presents major challenges. But given the intelligence of Army players, and their inability to match size and strength with major I-A teams, playing option football was a worthwhile gamble.</p>
<p>Walsh did some great things in 14 seasons as head coach at I-AA Portland State. His record was 90-68 and his teams went to the playoffs four times. He will start to make an impact at Army when Brock lets go of his loyalty to the pro-style offense.</p>
<p>Sometime shortly after Saturday's game, the coaching staff will go on a retreat to figure out the schemes that work best for Army's personnel. There are many types of options to run. Army can find one that satisfies Brock's concerns, namely that the style limits pass efficiency and thus a team's ability to erase deficits.</p>
<p>Brock is a smart guy, a strong communicator, a major-league motivator. He didn't play 16 years in the NFL without knowing the proper makeup of coaching staffs and the ingredients for success.</p>
<p>He can win at Army. He can help Army close the gap on Navy.</p>
<p>But Brock needs to realize that he can be a former pro without running a pro offense.</p>
<p>Kevin Gleason's column appears regularly. He can be reached at 346-3193, or <a href="mailto:kgleason@th-record.com">kgleason@th-record.com</a>.</p>