It was somewhat fitting that Paul Johnson announced his retirement from college football coaching on the same day as the annual Army-Navy press conference.
After all, Johnson’s two most prominent pupils had just spent considerable time talking about his mentoring and how they followed the template he created after being hired as head coaches at their respective service academies.
Navy head coach Ken Niumatalolo and Army counterpart Jeff Monken worked with Johnson at multiple schools. Johnson hired both men as graduate assistants at Hawaii and that is when they began to learn the version of triple-option offense he developed.