AIR FORCE ACADEMY — Alex Hansen doesn’t have fond memories of the Armed Forces Bowl.
Air Force’s all-Mountain West defensive end was a freshman in 2012 when the Falcons lost to Rice 33-14, in what was their fourth appearance in six years in the game. He made three tackles that day.
The not-so-positive recollections Hansen carries have nothing to do with the bowl itself, which by all accounts from Air Force is conducted in top-notch fashion. Hansen’s memories are of not feeling well and of the Falcons not bouncing back from their time away from the academy.
“I got pretty sick that week, so I didn’t practice much and I didn’t play very well because of it,” Hansen said. “So my memories aren’t real good because of that.”
“The biggest thing I remember though is that we went straight to basic (training) and then we hadn’t been home for seven months, so it’s real easy to get distracted,” added Hansen, who joins Garrett Griffin, Connor Healy, Gavin McHenry and Dexter Walker as the only active Air Force players who appeared in the 2012 Armed Forces Bowl. “You get distracted and you’re not ready to jump right in and try to win a football game. … When every week is so strict and regimented and then you go home, you kind of exhale. It can be hard to get your mind right.”
Now a senior captain, Hansen said he shared this message with the team before it scattered Thursday. And it was some crazy scattering, with some flights booked out of Denver as early as 12:20 p.m., which cut it awfully close considering practice wasn’t dismissed until 10:30 a.m.
The players will have eight nights at home before meeting in Dallas on Dec. 25 to begin preparing for the Dec. 29 game against California (7-5).
When the Falcons (8-5) played in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl in Boise last year, the game was Dec. 20, so the players didn’t go home until after the game. There was a little time away from football for finals and recruiting, but everyone was still around and there were no long gaps between practices. The team then put up 38 points in a crisp win.
That’s how offensive coordinator Mike Thiessen would prefer it.
“Sometimes with what we do there’s a little bit of a concern when you start having time off that the execution level might go down a little,” Thiessen said. “With what we do you need every day repetition, and when you don’t get that you might be a little rusty. In our offense, that’s a huge problem. If you’re rusty, you start turning the ball over with what we do. We’ve got to make sure we are fundamentally sound and fundamentally sharp from an execution standpoint. That will be a big challenge for us with having so many days off.
“We’d like to play as early as we can and just keep on practicing, at least as on offense. But it will be nice to be refreshed.”
