The teams play at noon Saturday (BTN/WWJ)
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Brent Briggeman, Air Force beat writer for the Colorado Springs Gazette, breaks down the Falcons for The Detroit News, answering five questions heading into Saturday’s game. Follow him on Twitter @BrentBriggeman.
The combination of speed and deception makes the offense very difficult to stop. Air Force’s defenders, who face it for years in practice and then see different versions of it in option offenses from Army, Navy and New Mexico, say they still can’t figure it out. So, it’s a lot to ask for an opponent to find a way to not only effectively simulate it in practice but then grow accustomed to stopping it. And just when they think they’ve got it down, Air Force tends to pull up and hit a big pass.
It’s not a two-quarterback system — at least it never has been — as Worthman is the clear No. 1 and Romine is the backup. Worthman, who took over midway through the year last year and helped the team finish with six straight wins, is speedy and built like a running back at 5-11,205. Worthman has been an efficient passer but hasn’t drawn rave reviews for throwing a pretty ball. Romine, who broke onto the scene as a freshman in 2013, has a stronger arm but isn’t as explosive in the running game. Romine would qualify as the more prototypical college quarterback, but that’s not necessarily what translates best into Air Force’s offense.
It’s not so much that the secondary is the weakness, but the style of play calls for frequent blitzes and leaves the corners often in difficult 1-on-1 matchups with no safety help. Few corners are going to win those battles consistently. Air Force pins its hopes defensively on creating enough havoc near the line to neutralize running attacks and make quarterbacks uncomfortable in passing situations. If teams can pick up the blitzes and QBs can display accuracy on deep balls, they’ll find big plays there for the taking.
I don’t know that it’s a focal point for anyone, as players at the academy typically do a good job of keeping their priorities in line. But it would be hard for anyone not to get excited about playing in front of 107,000-plus people. In the Mountain West, attendance is generally in the upper 30,000s, so this is obviously a departure from that and a shot to play in a famous venue. On top of that, Air Force has a number of players from Big Ten country, so they grew up familiar with that brand of football.
Calhoun keeps everything very close to the vest, so it’s hard to answer that definitively. But there have been plenty of rumors that he has been pretty close. The Denver Broncos and Tennessee were the jobs most closely tied to his name, but I’ve heard there were other places that got pretty far along in the process with him. It wouldn’t surprise me if he stays here for another decade or two, since he’s an Air Force grad and fits the system so well with his personality. That being said, he’s had success and brings an impressive background that has included time as an NFL offensive coordinator, so you never know what might be in his future.
