Well, at least it was a beautiful fall day in West Point

Wow, what a beautiful day on the Hudson. Leaves red and gold, sunshine and cool breezes.

And the underdog played tough defense and won with hard clean play, no penalties, fewer turnovers than the other team and plenty of breaks. Reminiscent of last year's Vanderbilt team. Except they did it against this year's Vanderbilt team.

I'm not going to say we didn't want to win this one. Yes, Vandy had more talent. Yes, Zac Stacy and Warren Norman were by far the best running backs on the field, and our DBs were way better than theirs.

But we started way too many drives with a motion penalty and a 1st and 15. Our offensive line couldn't protect Larry Smith. Remember how we wanted him to stay in the pocket? He did, and his offensive line couldn't hold up. Bradley Vierling had another movement penalty. A hold killed a long TD run by Warren Norman who scored our only touchdown of the game with a 76-yard kickoff return. In overtime, he tried to do too much and twisted and dove for the goal line but fumbled into the end zone for a touchback and effectively a loss for the Dores.

Larry looked great running the two-minute offense, including two passes for 44 yards to Brandon Barden and a nice touchdown pass to Alex Washington that would have won the game if Alex hadn't pushed off. I didn't see if he actually committed the penalty but he's never gotten that much separation on a cornerback so he must have done something.

Anyway, no offensive touchdowns against Army. Got to do something about the offense. Something more than lining Zac up at quarterback for a third of our snaps.

What summed up the game was when the quarterback didn't stop running even after being pushed for an apparent loss near the goal line, but he didn't stop and kept pushing and stayed on his feet and his linemen kept pushing and so he scored. Yeah, the whistle should have blown and it looked a little squirrely but we should have never been in a situation where a couple of calls would sway the game.

Bottom line, I thought I was watching Vanderbilt play today but it was the team playing Vanderbilt. Now I know how fans at South Carolina, Auburn, Ole Miss and Boston College felt last season.