Troy Calhoun is in his 13th year as Air Force’s coach and reportedly has been grumpy the past two weeks.
A week ago, the Falcons had to make the long trip to Honolulu. Calhoun was musing about whether Mountain West affiliation made sense for the Falcons. Gosh, coach, most people yearn to go to the Islands. What would Calhoun prefer? Independence? Ask BYU about scheduling in November while the vast majority are playing conference games. Does Calhoun really think that either the Big 12 or the Pac 12 would covet Air Force?
As it is, the Mountain West offers 3 regional rivals for Air Force: Colorado State, New Mexico and Wyoming. This year, you had the satisfaction of playing a 4th regional rival in Colorado and emerged with a thrilling victory in Boulder. Coupled with your two annual games against the other service academies, life could be much, much worse. Even if you despise the air travel to Oahu, such trip only occurs once every 4 years. We feel certain that many of your players would be thrilled to make the trip, that is if you let them dip their toes into the Waikiki surf for at least a few minutes.
Last week, Calhoun was quoted in the Utah media as saying that schools such as BYU and Utah State had unfair advantages because they could use older players after their two-year missions. Research was done indicated that only 18 of the 110 Utah State roster members had been on missions with just one having started a game in 2019.
Utah State had such an advantage last night that the Aggies held their blowout loss to the Falcons to only 31-7. In Honolulu, Air Force annihilated Hawaii, 56-26, despite having to use a backup quarterback.
We wonder what Calhoun will complain about next. It does seem to be working. The 2019 Falcons are the best Air Force team in years, their only losses coming to Boise State and a heartbreaker to Navy.