Radio sideline reporter Jed Drenning provides periodic commentary on the Mountaineer football program for WVUsports.com. Be sure to follow him on Twitter @TheSignalCaller. Hot Reads is presented by Encova.
 
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Pop culture challenges didn't start with the Internet.
 
Long before Twitter, Instagram and TikTok – before planking, Tebowing and the Harlem Shake -- all the way back, in fact, when hashtags were only found on telephones, a strange phenomenon was sweeping the globe. It was known as phone booth stuffing, and in 1959, it was all the rage. 
 
What began when 25 youngsters at the YMCA in Durban, South Africa, decided to cram themselves into a phone booth quickly became an international craze, with students from Kyoto to Kentucky making their own run at it. The result was always the same -- a flailing mass of humanity packed tightly into a space that pushed all involved, including the booth, to any conceivable limits. 
 
Such a scene might seem chaotic. But football coaches don't see the world like the rest of us – especially defensive coaches. One person's stuffed phone booth is another's flexbone offense analogy.
 
"I call it football in a phone booth. That's basically what it is," WVU co-defensive coordinator Jahmile Addae says in describing the well-oiled Army rushing attack the Mountaineer defense will face in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl on New Year's Eve. 
 
"It's a tight space and then a lot of bodies in there and there's a rhyme or reason to why they're doing things. It's not just a scrum, so to speak. And so for us, there's a progression, which your eyes go through so you can make sure you fit it directly and that you're gap sound. That's going to be the key, their eyes."
 
Decades ago, the option offense currently deployed by coach Jeff Monken's Army Black Knights was mainstream. Today, it's a relic. A lethal relic though, perfected by an Army team that's rolled to a 9-2 record on the strength of a ground game that ranks No. 4 nationally (281 yards per game), marking the fifth consecutive year the Black Knights have been among the top five in the country in rushing offense. 
 
All told, Army has strung together an absurd streak of 161 straight games with 100+ yards rushing. The last time the Black Knights were held below the century mark in rushing yards was way back on Nov. 9, 2007. Just how long ago was that? It was the day after Pat White parted the red sea with a 50-yard touchdown run in the final two minutes to beat Louisville 38-31. 
 
Most modern offenses still retain option elements in their schemes. But those are seldom used wrinkles. To Army, there's nothing piecemeal about running the triple option. They're fully committed. 
 
And why not? It's perfectly suited for a program like the USMA, an esteemed institution that, for reasons practical and obvious, is difficult to attract elite football talent to play there. In 2014, Monken told SBNation, "I think the service academies are the most difficult places to recruit to in the nation."
 
It's tough to argue against that. But when you recruit all 50 states and you're pitching the prestige of a West Point education, you do tend to land your share of good football players, players who aren't just functionally talented, but also highly intelligent, hard-nosed and incredibly disciplined. In short, the kind of players born to execute the triple option. 
 
One of the best kept secrets to running an offense like Army's is the ability to avoid penalties. To an aggressive team throwing the ball all over the field and/or featuring a host of blue chippers, a 10-yard holding call might seem like nothing more than a speed bump. To a methodical, option offense that beats you by counting every blade of grass it traverses, however, such infractions are deal breakers. 
 
For triple option teams, something as simple as a false start that transforms a second down and 7 situation into a second down and 12 can be catastrophic. To succeed with such a narrow margin of error requires bright, disciplined players. It's no coincidence that Army has ranked in the Top 25 nationally in penalty avoidance (No. 15 this year) in each of Monken's seven seasons on the banks of the Hudson.  
 
Monken is a proud disciple of Paul Johnson, the former Georgia Southern, Navy and Georgia Tech head coach who is widely regarded as one of the forefathers of the flexbone offense (though Johnson simply calls it the spread). As the offensive coordinator at Hawaii in the late 1980s/early 90s, Johnson's background included the pass-happy run-and-shoot. That system continued to influence his formation tendencies and personnel types through the end of his career. Monken, meanwhile, has put his own stamp on the offense, often opting for bigger personnel groupings, while adding his share of unbalanced and constricted formations, making life even tougher on defenses in short-yardage situations. 
 
At its best, Monken's offense shortens games and helps his teams punch above their weight. Some of you might kind of/sort of remember back in 2013 when some obscure team from Georgia Southern marched into SEC country as a four-touchdown underdog and stunned the Florida Gators with an upset in the Swamp. Most remarkably, the Eagles pulled it off without completing a single pass. Care to guess who was running that Georgia Southern program? Here's a hint: A month later that guy was named the 37^th head coach in Army history.  
 
Monken has built a Black Knights program capable of dominating time of possession (No. 5 nationally). It does so by rarely throwing the ball, thereby avoiding clock stoppages, and – inspired by analytics – assuming a fearless posture on fourth down (No. 1 nationally with 22 successful conversions). This helps Army extend drives at an exasperating rate. After all, nothing marginalizes the talent gap faster than utilizing all four downs when the majority of your opponents are only playing with three. 
 
It's tough to find an equivalent in another sport. A baseball underdog can't ask for a fourth strike to its opponent's three. A basketball team can't be more aggressive because it's permitted six fouls to the opposition's five. But, in football, if you're bold enough, you can always roll the dice on fourth down.
 
Army drags you into an abbreviated, old-school game of nine-on-seven and limits your possessions. This is an approach that, by design, makes it difficult to build a significant lead against them, even for teams with a considerable talent advantage.
 
Two years ago, the Cadets visited the Palace on the Prairie and took the heavily favored Oklahoma Sooners into overtime before narrowly falling 28-21. How did Army hang so tough against one of the most dynamic offensive teams in college football history? By rushing for 339 yards, moving the chains on fourth down four different times and playing keepaway from quarterback Kyler Murray with a time of possession advantage of nearly 45 minutes to 15. Army allowed Oklahoma to run just 40 offensive plays, by far the fewest of the Lincoln Riley era. The Sooner offense was virtually never on the field. 
 
The Black Knights offense ran 87 plays that night in Norman. Only one of those gained more than 15 yards. Unremarkable but effective. This is what Army does. They cut you so slowly you don't even know you're bleeding. The scariest part? That game against the Sooners was one of 14 times in the last three years that Army has held an opponent to less than 50 offensive snaps. 
 
It's one thing to recognize all this. It's something else to try and stop it, especially on a short turnaround. The West Virginia defensive staff has been tasked with preparing for one of the most maddening offensive schemes in football in a window of just ten days or so.
 
How can you hope to give your defense a worthy look in practice? After all, some things just can't be simulated. You can't sing like Sinatra or fly like Yeager. Sure, if you take enough guitar lessons you might be able to grab a white Stratocaster and play "All Along the Watchtower" – but you'll never sound like Hendrix.
 
The truth is, no matter how precise the Xs and Os are on the play cards, a scout team can never simulate the triple option with the velocity and precision that West Virginia will see from the Army offense in Memphis.
 
WVU co-defensive coordinator Jordan Lesley says the physical part of preparing for an attack like Army's will always be lacking.
 
"To simulate it with live bodies is really the hardest part," Lesley says. "Whether you're simulating the cut blocks or the chop blocks, you can roll cut balls all you want to. It's not a helmet and pads coming at your knees or your feet or your hips."
 
West Virginia's success defensively has in part been predicated on movement by the Mountaineer defensive line, pre- and post-snap. Lesley loves to chop up the front with stunt games, often confusing the offense. This could present problems for an Army offensive line that, at times, has struggled with changing gears on the fly. 
 
Navy, for instance, did some shifting up front before the snap and the Black Knights failed to adjust, sometimes running right into the strength of the shift. Navy was an odd-front team that surprised Army with even front looks to which the Cadets didn't respond well. This could present opportunities for a disruptive Mountaineer defensive front spearheaded by freshly minted first team Associated Press All-American Darius Stills. 
 
Among other things, coach Neal Brown believes leverage will be critical.
 
"The big point of emphasis is pursuit angles and leveraging the ball. That's the thing that probably concerns me more than anything – not necessarily assignment errors but just poor pursuit angles or poor leverage on the football," Brown says, hoping to build on the 3-0 bowl record he posted at Troy.
 
"And then our eyes. They don't throw it a whole lot, but when they do, they're big plays. To limit those, we have to do a really good job on the backend with our eyes."
 
Very true. Army isn't sophisticated in the pass game, so it weaponizes the element of surprise. If you commit too many resources to the run or take shortcuts in the secondary, the Black Knights are effective enough to sting you with the deep ball. Army has two completions this year of 50-plus yards. That might sound underwhelming, but it's quietly as many as West Virginia and more than Iowa State.
 
The biggest beneficiary of the Knights' plodding style of play on offense is, of course, the Army defense. It all goes back to those snap totals. This physical, hard-hitting unit, under the guidance of first-year defensive coordinator Nate Woody, has faced just 54 offensive snaps per game, the fewest in the country. Minimizing snap counts has the added benefit of helping the Army defense mask any potential depth issues, putting the Cadet reserves on the field for just a fraction of the time of most team's reserves. 

"So your backup D-tackle who everybody else is playing 20 plays," former Army DC Jay Bateman told the Associated Press in 2018, "I'm playing him five. Some games none."

Along the way, all of this has helped Army hold six opponents to fewer than 10 points for the first time since 1966. 
 
It might sound bold to suggest, but one advantage WVU offensively could have over the Black Knights is perimeter match-ups -- bold because Army ranks No. 1 in the country in pass defense (150 yards per game). That ranking owes in part to the fact the Cadets have played several run-heavy, option teams (The Citadel, Georgia Southern, Navy and Air Force) that combined to attempt just 43 passes against Army.
 
Despite Army's success against teams trying to throw, the talent advantage tilts toward West Virginia's pass catchers – if the Mountaineers play to their potential. These match-ups, though, are tough to exploit. The Army staff conceals the Black Knights' shortcomings with a steady diet of zone coverage, rarely asking its defenders to do something they aren't outfitted to do. 
 
Everything, however, comes at a cost and Army's reluctance to expose its defense to coverage impacts its ability to pressure the passer (112^th nationally with just 1.4 sacks per game). All of this indicates that patience will be paramount for Jarret Doege and the WVU offense.   
 
West Virginia's bowl history includes wins over teams hoisting the ACC Trophy (Clemson in the 2012 Orange and South Carolina in the 1969 Peach), the Big 12 Trophy (Oklahoma in the 2008 Fiesta), the SEC Trophy (Georgia in the 2006 Sugar) and the Border Conference Trophy (Texas Tech in the 1938 Sun). In the 2020 Liberty Bowl, the Mountaineers are presented with a rare opportunity to add to that list an Army team that this season captured the prestigious Commander-in-Chief's Trophy by knocking off Navy and Air Force.  
 
At 6-2 (.750) all-time with its only setbacks coming in the form of a three-point loss to Alabama in the '88 Sun Bowl and a one-point loss to Auburn in the '96 Independence Bowl, Army enters this fourth ever tilt against West Virginia owning the best winning percentage in bowl games (minimum eight appearances) in the history of college football.  
 
In this unlikely match-up that perhaps only 2020 could conjure, Army went from boxed out to Beale Street. When Tennessee tested out of the Liberty Bowl, WVU ironically needed another team to "volunteer." The Cadets, on standby since the Independence Bowl had been canceled, were more than eager to fill the slot and the Mountaineers were more than happy to accept. 
 
One of West Point's finest, General George S. Patton (class of 1909), once said, "No good decision was ever made in a swivel chair."
 
I don't know if West Virginia director of athletics Shane Lyons was seated in his office when he fielded Army's offer but -- if so -- he might've proven Patton wrong. When WVU agreed to its new opponent, the stage was immediately set for a fan-friendly showdown between two proud schools that have combined for more than 1,450 victories on the gridiron, 39 Consensus Football All-Americans, three presidents, one NBA logo and one "by the book" deputy of Mayberry. 
 
The crazy circumstances that brought us here demonstrate that, with the right people involved, good things can still happen quickly in college football. But they also prove that what we'll see Thursday when Army and West Virginia tee it up at 4:05 p.m. EST truly are two programs willing to play anyone, anytime, anywhere.  
 
Even in a phone booth.
 
I'll see you at the 50.