AIR FORCE ACADEMY — It had been a broken record for safety Bobby Giannini and the rest of the seniors on Air Force’s team.
The past three years, they came down to the end of the season and were still talking about getting Air Force back on track with a winning season.
“We want to go to a bowl game, and I think we’re close to that with seven victories,” Giannini said after a 30-10 win over Army. “We’re still in the conference hunt, too. We go to Notre Dame next week. They’ll still be favored, but it will be a fun week.”
Before Saturday’s game ended, the Falcons learned Navy had beaten the Irish in triple-overtime.
“Navy got them before we had a chance, but we’re going to try and do it next week,” Giannini said. “Seven victories could do it for a bowl game, but we’re going for more.”
Coach Troy Calhoun said his Falcons earned a bowl bid.
“I think it’s huge, I really do,” Calhoun said of the seventh victory. “If you’re one of the top eight conferences in football and one of the top-10 conferences in basketball, when you get to seven wins in football and have done your groundwork, you earned a bowl. You get to 17 wins in basketball and if you’ve done you’re groundwork, you’ll continue to play. But another win would help.”
Tom Starr, executive director of the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl in Fort Worth, Texas, attended Saturday’s game.
Starr said the Falcons and TCU could be considered front-runners for the Mountain West Conference’s spot in the Dec. 31 game.
Numbers game. Calhoun said he toyed with the idea of assigning Hall a different number for the Army game. He wears No. 1, and stayed No. 1.
“We had a hunch they’d have a bull’s-eye on him (Hall),” Calhoun said. “We thought about changing jersey numbers, maybe giving him No. 5 and quarterback Shaun Carney No. 1, something like that.”
Army’s defense may have thought there were several Air Force players wearing No. 1. But it was just Hall.
