As an outlier in the new college football world, Air Force head coach Troy Calhoun hopes 2025 brings the start of an upswing.
Air Force athletes do not sign Name, Image and Likeness deals, because they are considered government employees and are thus prohibited from doing so. They compete for the only athletic program in the Mountain West that opted out of the House settlement permitting universities to share revenue directly with athletes.
Calhoun, in his 19th season at Air Force, realizes what he’s up against.
“Is sustainability (of a bowl game every season) possible? Probably not,” Calhoun admitted. “Yet there still can be some seasons where we have strong teams. We’re going to go through some cycles. We just hope there are more ups than there are downs, because you aren’t able to immediately backfill positions (through the transfer portal).”
Air Force is coming off a 5-7 campaign in which the Falcons lost seven straight games, including blowouts vs. rivals Army and Navy. But they closed the season strong with consecutive wins over Fresno State, Oregon State, Nevada and San Diego State.
The Falcons open the 2025 season on Saturday at home against Bucknell, but the slate will toughen up quickly, as Air Force hosts perennial Mountain West powerhouse Boise State on Sept. 20. The Broncos weren’t on the Falcons’ schedule last year, and neither was fellow Mountain West championship game participant UNLV, whom Air Force plays on the road on Oct. 11.
Calhoun hopes last year’s growing pains — the Falcons entered the fall ranked last out of 134 FBS programs in returning production — will help accelerate the learning curve.
“We developed some depth up front on both sides of the ball, with our front six on defense and with our offensive line,” Calhoun said. “Even in early October, you could see our linemen were getting better and they were going to be good college football players. They just needed more snaps, more time.”
Air Force remains raw in two critical spots: quarterback and the secondary.
Junior Josh Johnson and sophomore Liam Szarka enter the opener as the co-starters at QB. Johnson played sparingly in six games last season, while Szarka, a Grandview High School product, has yet to see the field. The two split first-team reps throughout training camp, and Calhoun said both will get opportunities to take hold of the full-time job.
“We’ve had a bunch of good seasons where we’ve had two (QBs) who have been really impactful,” Calhoun said. “Can we realistically, in 12 games, play two different guys at least 30 snaps (each)? I don’t think that’s ideal, but we’ll just see. We don’t have an exact map for the path in the road yet. We just have to see what direction the buggy heads.”
Meanwhile, Calhoun stressed patience with his fresh-faced secondary.
The only player on that unit who is experienced is senior cornerback Levi Brown. How quickly the secondary gets up to speed will be a critical factor in making the postseason for the Falcons, who won 29 games and three bowls from 2021-23.
“We are pushing like crazy to get to a bowl game this year, because I think it would be a heck of an accomplishment,” Calhoun said. “Especially because (only Brown) has ever played 10 snaps in a game in the whole secondary, and in this day and age of college football where the ball gets distributed all over the field, those guys can’t be afraid to make mistakes. We’ll see how quickly we develop.”
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