By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

          The smile on  Jeff Monken’s face as he finished off the fight song was a big one.

          The Army head coach was might happy to be back in front of the Macon Touchdown Club after having to miss last year.

          “This is a highlight for me,” Monken said. “I love coming to Macon, I love coming to the Touchdown Club. I told my wife, I feel like the prodigal son being welcomed back.”

          It was a reunion of sorts with Rutland head coach Anthony Williams, on hand as one of the club’s weekly local high school speakers. Williams played at Georgia Southern when Monken was an assistant for Paul Johnson.

          “You players that play for Coach Williams, you need to know that was one tough guy there,” Monken said. “He was a heck of a player. He was one of the toughest guys we ever coached.”

          In a talk of 35 minutes, Monken touched on military service, how he got to Army and some of the uniqueness of coaching that program, Army’s magical season, working multiple times with Johnson, a fairly new inductee into the College Football and Georgia Sports halls of fame, and plenty more.

          And more than once, he fired a shot at “that junior college in Annapolis,” known to non-Army folks as Navy.

          Former Mercer head coach Drew Cronic is Navy’s offensive coordinator.

          Army was off the week of Cronic’s visit, the Black Knights preparing for one of their biggest games in history, Saturday against No. 6 Notre Dame in Yankee Stadium.

          “It will be a very iconic setting,” he said. “There are pictures, black and white photos in our building, of Army teams from the 1940s 1950s playing in Yankee Stadium against Notre Dame. To rekindle this rivalry in that in that venue is going to be pretty awesome.

          “The only problem is we got to play Notre Dame. It's not Notre Dame High School from the Bronx. It's the actual Notre Dame from South Bend.”

          But Army’s pretty good, too.

          “I will tell you, we got maybe not the most talented team, but we got the best team I could ask for,” Monken said. “Well-led, playing their hearts out playing for each other and so I think we've got a chance to win every time we play this year.”