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Army kicked off its season on a sour note after losing to an FCS team in double overtime on Friday. However, a member of the Black Knights rose to the occasion the following night by jumping into action to rescue a man who was involved in a car crash near West Point.
Last year, Army’s football team announced its arrival to what is now the American Conference with a bang by getting off to a 9-0 start before ultimately ending up at 12-2 and finishing one of the most successful seasons in the history of the program ranked at #21.
The Black Knights were hoping to pick up where they left off in the wake of a campaign where senior quarterback Bryson Daily was a force to be reckoned with, and Dewayne Coleman had some big cleats to fill after being tapped as the starting QB ahead of their season opener with Tarleton State.
Prior to Friday, Army hadn’t lost a home game since falling to UMass midway through the season in 2023, and Tartleton State’s only victory over an FBS opponent had come against New Mexico State in 2021 (a win that deserved an asterisk when you consider that contest transpired at the end of Februrary and was the first of just three games the Aggies played that year adopting an abridged schedule as a result of the pandemic).
However, the Texans managed to pull off the upset with a walk-off field goal that gave them the 30-27 victory in double overtime. That game marked the college debut for Army safety Larry Pickett Jr., and while he didn’t make a huge impact on the field on Friday, the same can’t be said for the heroic rescue he was at the center of on Saturday.
Army’s Larry Pickett Jr. didn’t let downed power lines stop him from pulling an unconscious man from a car crash before the vehicle caught on fire
Pickett is a second-year cadet hailing from Raleigh, North Carolina who didn’t see any action in 2024 and recorded an assisted tackle against Tartleton State in his first college football game.
According to ABC11, his father (and namesake) made the trek to West Point for the contest before the two of them went out to dinner on Saturday. They’d headed down to New York City to grab dinner in Times Square and were driving back to campus when they saw a car crash into a telephone pole in Fort Montgomery.
A bystander captured both of them springing into action while braving the power lines that were sparking in the vicinity of the vehicle, and they were able to drag the driver away before the car was engulfed in flames.
#ArmyFootball player Larry Pickett saved a man from a burning vehicle in Fort Montgomery last night pic.twitter.com/XRyskXjCSW
— Black Knight Nation (@BKKnightNation) August 31, 2025
That’s the kind of guy you want fighting for your country.