WEST POINT, N.Y. — Rich Ellerson thumbs through the old program that sits atop the coffee table in his office. It's from the 1962 Army-Navy game.

The Black Knights' new football coach quickly finds the page he's looking for — clearly he has done this before — and points to a picture of John Ellerson, Army defensive end, team captain, Rich's older brother and one of three men in the family to graduate from West Point (their father and another brother also were cadets).

So when Ellerson, a former University of Hawai'i assistant, calls his gig "the most important job in the country" he is not dealing in hyperbole.

He didn't attend West Point, but turning around a tattered program and making Army a winner again is a personal mission for Ellerson, not merely a step on the career ladder

"The United States Military Academy in a time of war struggling in a game that's a metaphor for combat, that's not right," said Ellerson, his square jaw, close cut hair and wiry frame giving him a straight-from-central-casting look for the job. "Everybody wants to win. We need to win.

"In my world that's a big deal."

It's also not hyperbole to say Army football has never endured such a terrible stretch as it has the last dozen seasons.

The program that produced college football icons such as Hall of Fame coach Earl "Red" Blaik and his famed Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside backfield of Heisman Trophy winners Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis has become a doormat.

One of the great venues in all of sports, 85-year-old Michie Stadium, sitting on a bluff above the Hudson River, has not been home to a winning team since 1996.

That season, coach Bob Sutton's Black Nights went 10-2.

Army is 30-108 over the last 12 seasons, each ending with a losing record. Even worse, the Cadets have lost seven straight games to Navy, the Middies' longest winning streak in the series.

Where most people see stumbling blocks to success on the football field at Army — high academic standards, rigorous dawn-to-dusk responsibilities, a military commitment after graduation — Ellerson sees the perfect breeding ground for a winning football team.

"It's a martial game. This institution is about leadership and developing leaders in character in the United States Army," he said. "There are some things about the West Point culture — duty, honor, country — that set our guys completely apart from their contemporaries and draw them nearer to the game.

"We're trying to tap into that culture, to those experiences and make them translate."

ALABAMA

No. 5 Alabama will have two of its key offensive players for the opener Saturday night against No. 7 Virginia Tech.

The NCAA reinstated receiver Julio Jones and tailback Mark Ingram yesterday on the condition that they repay the cost of a Gulf Coast fishing trip paid for by businessman Curtis Anderson during the spring. An Alabama spokesman said the money had been paid to charity.