Rebuilding Army’s Football Schedule Took Many Long Days, Numerous Revisions
Posted: 2020-09-10

Bob Beretta likened piecing together Army’s football schedule to being a baseball general manager as the trade deadline neared.

“Everybody will talk for weeks leading up to the deadline and then the hour before the deadline all these deals are going to be made,” said the senior associate athletic director at West Point. “It kind of happened that way.”

The baseball analogy is appropriate. Beretta, the point person when it comes to scheduling, was an outstanding closer at St. Bonaventure University. Athletic director Mike Buddie, who was tethered to Beretta everyday during the process, spent all or part of five seasons with the Yankees and Brewers, earning a World Series ring with the former in 1998.

Phone calls and texts? Like a GM, too many to count during 18-hour days.

Even when things appeared to be settled they were anything but. On the morning of August 24 the athletic department was set to announce a 12-game schedule. An hour before a release was disseminated one of the opponents pulled out resulting in an amended 11-game schedule that reflected an open date on September 26.

That date was filled less than 48 hours later when Beretta was able to get a deal done for a trip to Cincinnati. Finally, after Beretta and his staff had worked through more than 200 versions you read that correctly of a 2020 football schedule, a 12-game slate was complete.

It was a task that seemed most improbable when multiple conferences and independents cancelled their seasons. Army, an independent, had nine of its originally scheduled games go by the board, including against fellow independents UConn and UMass.

“If you told me in July that we would have been able to build a 12-game schedule basically from scratch and not have any games against those independents, I definitely would not have thought that was going to be possible,” said Beretta, acknowledging everything remains fluid given the virus can wreak havoc on a roster. “We went through a 10-day stretch in which we lost one game every single day. It got hectic. We were scrambling and making lots of calls.”

The work on rebuilding the schedule in essence began when the winter winds were still howling through West Point, shortly after everything on athletic calendars was wiped away due to the pandemic.

It was during that time Beretta was working the phones and talking to more than 50 schools about future scheduling. In the process he was able to get a feel for what teams were sincerely interested in becoming scheduling partners, whether it was one-and-done or a home-and-home agreement.

That dialog came in handy when it was time to plug the many holes that opened on the schedule.

“I think it began back in March with just trying to build backups, contingencies and relationships,” he said. “When the time came that we needed to execute, we had laid the groundwork.”

The dominoes started to fall the first two weeks in July when the Ivy League and Patriot League announced the cancellation of fall sports competition. The Black Knights had a home game scheduled against a member from each of the Football Championship Subdivision conferences, a September 4 season opener under the lights against Bucknell and an October 10 date with Princeton.

A round of calls ensued, mostly to other FCS conferences that were still standing. Within a week, three more Army opponents Miami (Ohio), Eastern Michigan and Buffalo had their seasons cancelled when the MAC did away with fall sports.

“That day we were on the phone all day long talking to people and trying to find matches,” said Beretta, who has been at West Point 34 years. “We already had conversations with people about having more openings if the MAC doesn't play. When it became a reality we were forced to move pretty quickly.”

Within a few days in early August the number of teams on Army’s original schedule to cancel reached seven when UConn and UMass announced they would not play football this fall.

“Losing our regional independents really hurt us because at the time we were potentially talking about playing home-and-homes,” said Beretta. “Not only did we lose one, but we potentially lost two games with each of them. It was really challenging when we lost the independents within a few days of each other.”

Army, which is permitting only the corps of cadets to attend the first two home games with attendance at remaining home games to be determined as conditions warrant, also lost games to Oklahoma and Rice.

The Sooners were scheduled to visit West Point on September 26, the first meeting between the programs at Michie Stadium since 1946 when Red Blake roamed the sideline above the Hudson and Bud Wilkinson was an assistant at OU. Though the Big 12 will play this season, its members have 10-game schedules that include one non-conference home contest.

“We were disappointed and the folks at Oklahoma were disappointed because they wanted to make the trip to West Point,” said Beretta. “We will look to reschedule and we are very interested in trying to make that happen. Hopefully, we can find a date that matches for both parties.”

After Beretta wiped away the many piles of eraser shavings, there was a silver lining to the final schedule. Not only does coach Jeff Monken’s team have a full 12-game schedule, but eight games are at West Point, the most since Michie Stadium was dedicated in 1924 and one more than the Black Knights’ previous high.

One of the home games is against fellow independent BYU on September 19, a date the Cougars conveniently had available after the Pac-12 cancelled its season. BYU was scheduled to play at Arizona State that day.

CBS became a natural broadcast partner for the matchup and at 3:30 p.m. ET, a slot normally reserved for the SEC, which does not kick off its season until the following Saturday.

Army athletics has a partnership with the network and has had many games across multiple sports televised on the CBS Sports Network. In this case, the flagship was in need of a game.

“I am proud of the BYU game especially because we attacked it strategically,” said Beretta, of what will be the first meeting between the teams. “I told Mike that I thought it would be content for the national network. We reached out to CBS and they were very interested. We thought we could take the SEC slot on that day and we are thrilled that it worked out. It’s a good matchup.”

Only three teams remain from Army’s original schedule: the annual clashes with rival service academies Air Force (November 7 at West Point) and Navy (December 12 in Philadelphia) and a trip to Tulane on November 14.

Air Force is a member of the Mountain West Conference, which cancelled fall sports, but the Falcons are scheduled to play Army and Navy. That is critical because it maintains the competition for the Commander-In-Chief’s Trophy, annually awarded to the winner of the three-way battle since 1972.

“It’s good that the CIC remains in play,” said Beretta. “It is a championship that players from all three service academies strive for every year. The fact that it remains in play this year is special for them.”

The hope, of course, is that starting Saturday against visiting Middle Tennessee State each of the Black Knights’ 12 games play out as scheduled.

Beretta is grateful that, at least for now, things look pretty good.

“We are pleased with the end product and we tried to stay positive and look at the challenges as opportunities,” he said. “We tried to stay in front of developments as they were occurring and we had a whole lot of contingencies lined up. Unfortunately, we had to rebuild the schedule a lot of times, but we were in a good place to do that because of the groundwork we had laid.”