AIR FORCE ACADEMY — At first, it was as if Air Force football coach Troy Calhoun was answering a question in one of those playful, wish-list conversations.
Asked if he thought a service academy team could qualify to play in a BCS game, Calhoun appeared to be taken aback but answered, “Yes, sir.”
By the time the question was asked whether the Falcons specifically could qualify for the BCS, Calhoun was dead serious.
“There’s no darn limit on our expectations here at the Air Force Academy,” Calhoun said. “If you want a limit on how much character you can develop or what you can become academically or what you can do athletically, don’t come to the Air Force Academy.”
After three seasons at the helm, Calhoun has his players believing.
“Who says we couldn’t do that?” senior guard Nick Charles asked. “The sky’s the limit, especially at this place. We needed some new blood in our program when he arrived.”
For some, the question of BCS play for Air Force might seem out of the blue.
But Calhoun understands the magnitude of Air Force gaining entrance into college football’s elite bowl crowd.
“It’s a heck of an accomplishment for any service academy to play in a bowl game, especially when you play in a major conference as we do,” said Calhoun, who is getting his team ready for the Dec. 31 Armed Forces Bowl against Houston. “It’s a climb every year to get to a point where you get to play in a bowl game and have a winning season.”
Because the Mountain West Conference does not have an automatic spot in a BCS game, the Falcons would have to have a season much like that of TCU, which is 12-0 and fourth in the BCS rankings.
Air Force never has won all of its regular-season games, the best record being 9-0-2 in 1958. More recently, Air Force was 12-1 in 1998 and 1985.
Calhoun’s three Air Force teams — all with winning records and bowl games — have pointed the program in an upward direction. However, Calhoun’s teams haven’t regained the Commander-in- Chief’s Trophy, won a conference championship or won a bowl game.
Calhoun’s plan to get the Falcons back to past football glories centers on filling his two-deep roster with juniors and seniors.
“I think we played more true freshman players this year than any other program in the country,” Calhoun said. “We’re getting closer to what we want in terms of juniors and seniors. We’ll be a little older team next year.”
BCS bowl or not, Calhoun is committed to Air Force. There wasn’t much question of that when he followed Fisher DeBerry as Air Force’s coach for the 2007 season. He had played for and graduated from Air Force and was an assistant on DeBerry’s staff. Despite being on NFL staffs, Calhoun claimed he was “coming home” when he was hired at AFA.
“We love it here,” Calhoun said last week. “Every day you’re part of the academy makes you realize that you have to be at your absolute best.”
Last spring, Calhoun was part of a group of college coaches who visited U.S. military bases in Germany, Turkey, Iraq, Spain and Djibouti as part of a USO tour.
“It was a remarkable experience,” Calhoun said. “Just to see how dedicated, how professional, how skilled and the kind of courage that was exhibited, and in some hostile areas, by the men and women of our country was very moving. They do their work with a spirit and attitude that is contagious.”
Calhoun has awakened a program that needed new energy.
“The one thing that stood out when I found out he was our new coach was that he was an academy graduate,” Charles said. “He knew what we as players have to give. We learned that we could make this program whatever we wanted to make it. It was a whole new attitude.”
Irv Moss: 303-954-1296 or imoss@denverpost.com
