Army head coach Jeff Monken has won the 2018 George Munger Collegiate Coach of the Year Award presented by the Maxwell Football Club (Photo by Michael Corsey @ Michael Corsey Photography

The Maxwell Football Club named Army West Point’s Jeff Monken the winner of the 2018 George Munger Collegiate Coach of the Year Award. In his fifth year with the Black Knights, Monken led the team to an 11-2 record, punctuated by a 70-14 throttling of Houston in the Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl that tied an FBS record for points in a bowl game.

Monken has successfully resurrected a program that had finished below .500 in 16 of the 17 seasons before he arrived in 2014. His Black Knights won their final nine games, with their lone loss after the opener coming by just 7 points in overtime at Oklahoma, which captured the Big 12 championship and earned a College Football Playoff berth.

This past fall West Point was marked by a series of firsts, while a bridge was built to the post-World War II glory days when legendary coach Earl “Red” Blaik led Army to national prominence. Under Monken in 2018, the Cadets:

– Cracked the Top 25 for the first time in 22 years.
– Won 11 games in a season for the first time in program history.
– Won at least 10 games in consecutive years for the first time in school history.
– Defeated Navy for a third-straight year for the first time in almost a quarter-century.
– Captured the Commander in Chief’s Trophy in back-to-back years for the first time ever.
– Strung together their longest win streak since 1996.

And with Monken at the helm, Army is likely to finish the 2018-19 season with its highest ranking since 1958, Blaik’s 18th and final year at West Point.

Maxwell Football Club Executive Director Mark Wolpert commented, “Coach Monken has engineered a historic season for the Army West Point football program. The team’s record-setting 11-2 mark is a great testament to the hard work of Coach and his staff, and also to the dedication shown by the student-athletes involved in the program. Defeating Navy for the third consecutive year and winning the Commander in Chief’s Trophy in back-to-back years testifies to the excellence of this football team, and that starts at the top with Coach Monken”

Monken will be honored Friday, March 8, 2019 at the 82nd Maxwell Club National Awards Gala which will be held at the Tropicana Casino Resort in Atlantic City, NJ. Also receiving awards at this event will be Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa (Maxwell Award), Kentucky’s Josh Allen (Chuck Bednarik Award), Princeton’s Bob Surace (Andy Talley Tri-State Coach of the Year Award), Princeton’s John Lovett (The Brian Westbrook Tri-State Player of the Year Award) and Ron Jaworski-Philadelphia Eagles & ESPN (The Francis Reds Bagnell Award for Contributions to Football). The Club will be announcing additional winners of professional awards and special awards during the upcoming weeks.

Tickets for the gala are available on the club’s website www.Maxwellfootballclub.org or by calling 215-643-3833