2013
At the time of Ellerson's departure, not all the post-season bowl games were completed, so I will take a look at the Black Knights as of the end of the regular season (which is after the last game of the regular season Army-Navy). Pre-game analysis was done using the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model. Turning to the team, the Black Knights finished the regular season at 3-9 playing against an "easier" strength of schedule (SOS) as compare to the "league". Army's best game was a victory over #90 ranked Louisiana Tech and their worst game was a defeat to #112 ranked Hawaii. Army finished as the #102 ranked team out of 125 in terms of total production, with the #110 ranked offense and the #74 ranked defense. As you can see from the chart above, Army has faced a downward trend in terms of team production rank from 2010 and continued losses to Navy, made changing head coaches a way of trying to turn around the program.
2012
The Black Knights finished the regular season at 2-10 playing against an "average" SOS as compared to the "league". Army's best game was a victory over #81 ranked Air Force (other was a win over #100 Boston College) and their worst defeat was to FCS Stony Brook. Army finished as the #107 ranked team with the #93 ranked offense and the #105 ranked defense. It looks as if I did not write up an analysis of the Army-Navy game this year, but the trend of Army losing to Navy continued.
2011
Army finished the regular season at 3-9 and out of the bowl picture. Army played against an "average" strength of schedule and Army's best game was a win over #65 Northwestern and Army's worst game was a loss to #105 Ball State. In terms of overall production Army finished as the #76 ranked team with the #67 ranked offense and the #73 ranked defense. Army lost their game to Navy. Here is an analysis of the Army-Navy game.
2010
Ellerson's second year resulted in the Black Knights finishing the regular season at 6-6 and becoming bowl eligible. Army defeated #40 SMU in the Armed Forces Bowl to finish overall at 7-6. The Black Knights played against an "average" SOS as compared to the "league" overall. Army's best game was their defeat of #40 SMU and their worst game was a loss to #93 ranked Rutgers. Overall Army was the #57 ranked team in total production with the #68 ranked offense and the #38 ranked defense. Army lost to Navy, and here is an analysis of this year's Army-Navy game.
2009
In Ellerson's first year at the helm of the Black Knights, Army finished the regular season at 5-7 and out of post-season bowl contention. The Black Knights played against an "easier" SOS as compared to the league as a whole (meaning that their SOS was between one and two standard deviations above the "league" average SOS). Another way of thinking about this is that Army played eight of their twelve games against teams in the bottom 25% of the league (including one of those games against FCS VMI and they went 5-3 against the bottom 25%. The Black Knights best game was against #88 ranked Vanderbilt and their worst was a one point loss to #116 Tulane. Overall the Black Knights were the #106 ranked team in total production with the #118 ranked offense (out of 120). On the bright side Army had the #26 ranked defense. Given their terrible offense, this is even more impressive. Probably of most interest to Army fan's, Army lost to Navy.
Analysis of 2013 NCAA FBS Head Coach Changes
Vanderbilt and James Franklin
Penn State and Bill O'Brien
UMass and Charley Molnar
Boise State and Chris Petersen
Texas and Mack Brown
Washington and Steve Sarkisian
Wake Forest and Jim Grobe
Wyoming and Dave Christensen
Eastern Michigan and Ron English
Florida Atlantic and Carl Pelini
Miami of Ohio and Don Treadwell
UConn and Paul Pasqualoni
USC and Lane Kiffen