The season’s third quarter picks up in the second half of October with two potentially challenging away games — at Tulsa and at Memphis. By this time in the season, we should have a pretty good sense of who this year’s Army Team is and of who their opponents are as well. With that said, wins in both of these games will all but assure the Black Knights of a highly successful season in the American Conference. But neither of those games looks at all easy.
Perhaps the biggest challenge with this stretch comes from the fact that it culminates a hell of a lot of relentless football. The Army Team will play at Temple, at La. Tech, Tulane, FAU, at Tulsa, at Memphis, and at home versus Air Force over the course of seven straight weeks. That’s going to challenge the team’s depth all up and down the roster.
As we noted last week, we’re presenting would-be betting lines in this article for the purpose of explaining expectations ahead of these games. When you look at these, remember that FPI weights a team’s conference while SP+ does not. FPI has the goal of predicting which teams will make the College Football Playoff in a process that manifestly tilts towards the Power 4, so weighting by conference makes sense. By comparison, SP+ tries to pick winners in games based on in-game statistics. We used a straight average of these metrics to develop the lines presented below.
Season Preview: Third Quarter
Week 8: at Tulsa (4-8; 1-7 in the American)
Tulsa didn’t look like a particularly good team throughout most of last season, but they beat Oklahoma State, and then they came into Michie Stadium, came back from a multi-score second half deficit, and beat the Black Knights in their own building. Now Head Coach Tre Lamb is entering his second season, and he’s had time to get the pieces he wants in place to run his systems his own way.
Friends, this team could improve a lot.
Sophomore QB Baylor Hayes returns along with most of his O-Line. Last year, he threw for 2,158 yards (58.9%) with 12 touchdowns against just 6 interceptions while taking a whopping 23 sacks. Can a year playing in the system and behind these same O-Linemen bring those sack numbers down a little?
On defense, the Golden Hurricane returns most of their secondary but not a lot else. Indeed, they had to recruit most of their defense and damn near all their skill position players via the Portal. That may or may not work out.
FPI: -9.0
SP+: -7.6
Projected Line: Army (-1.1)
Army had this game won last year but got sloppy late. As we saw in several games, the Black Knights quit converting third downs and turned the ball over when they just needed to punt, and as a result, they gave up a game they should’ve taken. That could absolutely happen again. As with most of these games, this one could probably go either way. If the Black Knights can re-learn how to close on offense, they should win most of these. But if they can’t…
ESPN has made this one of their Friday night games, putting it at 8:30 pm ET on ESPN2. I don’t know if that’ll make a difference on the field, but if it’s cold, maybe that’ll help the Black Knights a little.
Elijah Green has been named to the Chuck Bednarik Award Watch List, recognizing the nation's top defensive player.#ReignCane pic.twitter.com/lROFfU4uP2
— Tulsa Football (@TulsaFootball) August 21, 2026
Week 9: at Memphis (8-5 in 2025; 4-4 in the American)
Memphis is a big-time American Conference program that’s had a heck of a lot of success in recent years. But they’ve got a coach in Head Coach Charles Huff along with most of a brand new team. Last year’s 8-5 record might count as a down year by recent standards, but the Tigers still beat Arkansas and USF when the Bulls looked like world-beaters, and the games they lost were all one-score affairs that could’ve easily gone the other way. Now, though, they’ve gotta reboot the team from scratch — again.
Their new head coach won the Sun Belt with Marshall in 2024 then famously decamped for in-conference rival Southern Miss, taking almost his entire team with him. This led to Marshall forfeiting a bowl bid, which in turn gave Army one of its most commanding bowl victories of all time over a truly outclassed fill-in squad from La. Tech.
But 2026 is a new year. Ohio State and South Carolina transfer QB Prentiss “Air” Noland III has been generating headlines out of camp, but he’s surrounded by a bunch of guys who’ve never played together. The same is true on the defense. Sure, Coach Huff brought some guys with him from Southern Miss, but so what? Any Memphis team from the last decade would beat Southern Miss by three scores.
FPI: -1.9
SP+: -1.1
Projected Line: Army (+5.8)
This Memphis team will have had time to gel by late October, but that doesn’t mean they’ll meet expectations. Indeed, both FPI and SP+ are further down on Memphis than they have been in years, precisely because no one knows what to expect. The Tigers have plenty of money, and they should have some good players, too. We’ll see if they can turn that into a good football team. If Army can run on their rebuilt front seven, it might not matter.
As of this writing, Army at Memphis is scheduled for Saturday, October 31, with time and network to be determined. If both Army and Memphis rise to expectations, that could be a marquee game. If neither do, this one might just wind up on ESPN+.
Focused.#GoTigersGo | #CloseTheGap pic.twitter.com/6LblHhvBUr
— Memphis Football (@MemphisFB) August 21, 2026
Week 10: Air Force (4-8 in 2025; 3-5 in the Mountain West)
The Zoomies found an exciting young quarterback in QB Liam Szarka last season, but their defense struggled, and then Szarka got injured, and they wound up missing a bowl game again. The good news, then, is that Szarka is back, and he should be better than ever. Last year’s injury was a broken arm, so it shouldn’t have any lingering impacts. On top of that, the Mountain West looks like it might be a slightly weaker conference, having traded Boise State, San Diego State, and others to the Pac-12 in exchange for UNLV, New Mexico, and FCS world-beater North Dakota State. Friends, the Zoomies could win this thing, though I think I might personally put my money on the Bison.
With Szarka on offense, Air Force should be good on that side of the ball — assuming he can stay healthy. But the Zoomies still need a defense, and if most of their linebacking corps returns, they’ll still have to come up with a new D-Line. That’s been a major issue in their down years over the last decade or so.
Really, if you want to know how Air Force will do as a team, the quickest shortcut has long been to look at their experience on D-Line. When they have it, they’re usually pretty good. When they don’t, they often struggle.
FPI: -6.8
SP+: -2.4
Projected Line: Army (-3.4)
The Zoomies don’t have the world’s hardest schedule, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see them come into Michie Stadium carrying momentum. Indeed, if they get their defense figured out, this team promises to be legitimately dangerous. But that’s a big if, especially for the service academy that seems to struggle the most with losses to the Transfer Portal.
Let’s see how these guys do at home against Navy before we worry about how they’re gonna play at Michie Stadium. Until we see that, it’s hard to have any sense of how this game might go.
In an interesting twist, CBS has made Army-Air Force its primetime showcase for the first week of November. The game kicks at 7:30 pm on the main network.
We’re under the lights. Now the Black Knights just need to deliver.
𝟬𝟴.𝟮𝟱.𝟮𝟲#FlyFightWin | #BoltBrotherhood pic.twitter.com/VimDRYsbeR
— Air Force Football (@AF_Football) August 18, 2026
Final Thoughts
The Black Knights get a Bye Week after this stretch, and honestly, that timing could be better. The team might’ve preferred to get the break either before or after the Memphis game. Depending on how the rest of the season shakes out, this particular three-game stretch could go a long way towards deciding how fans remember the 2026 season overall. All three games promise to be challenging, though perhaps in different ways. Getting a break after them is hardly some disaster — it ensures that the team will be relatively rested heading into Army-Navy, and that could be worth quite a lot this year — but obviously, you’d probably rather get the break before one of your highest-leverage stretches overall.
📈 PERSONAL PROJECTED CEILINGS FOR ALL 138 FBS TEAMS 📈 pic.twitter.com/ZikhlrYH9H
— CFB Redzone (@redzone_cfb) August 23, 2026
Meanwhile, national prognosticators suddenly seem to have realized what Army returns on offense, and that with the way the team plays, that could matter a lot. If we’re in for a great season and not just a good one, we’ll find that out during this stretch, the season’s third quarter. That’s when the temperatures drop and contenders separate themselves from the teams that are merely good.
Can Army be one of those contenders? We’ll start finding out soon enough.
Go Army! Beat Bryant!!!
