WEST POINT, N.Y. — The forward pass has been legal in American football since 1906. 

Today, the Army Black Knights turned back the clock to the first Roosevelt administration to best the Villanova Wildcats. The ‘Cats surrendered 472 yards on 55 rushing attempts against Army’s triple option offense. It’s the most rushing yards the Wildcats have given up in a single game in program history.

The Black Knights only ran two passing plays throughout the entire game, one of which resulted in a sack. Army was the beneficiary of a few explosive rushes as well, something out of the ordinary for their typical style of play. 

“If you’re not gap sound, and a guy pops through the gap, they’re strong enough and fast enough to get those chunk plays,” Villanova head coach Mark Ferrante said. ”We‘ve got to look at it, we think we had guys out of position, some of it might be their execution of their blocking that got us out of position. We’ll take a look at it and hopefully be able to correct some things going forward.” 

Defense against the run hasn’t been an issue in the early goings of the season for the ‘Cats. They only gave up 129 rushing yards against LIU, but now that Army has provided the formula to break down the defense, Ferrante is concerned it may be used by other teams.

“You can’t let a team run the ball on you like that,” Ferrante said. “Now it’s going to be something we’re going to have to face week-in and week-out, maybe.”