Second-year Army football coach Todd Berry announced 42 members of his incoming freshman class during an informal press conference open to the public April 20 at Michie Stadium.

During the gathering, football coach-speak was at a premium.

I feel it is my duty to try to share some of the choicer tidbits. But remember, most of the football that I know and understand, I learned from either former Army football coach Bob Sutton or Berry, so I really only know what they tell me.

Here are a few Berryisms concerning his first full-recruiting class.

Berry said he doesn’t want to hear anymore that it’s hard to recruit at Army.

"We dispelled that notion this year," he said. "It’s just not true."

This marked the first time that Army has announced the names of any of its athletes before the new cadets (what members of the incoming class are referred to until Acceptance Day in August) complete Beast Barracks.

While athletes at service academies don’t sign letters of intent like other college-scholarship athletes, Berry feels that he must recruit as if national-letter-of-intent-day Feb. 7 is the cutoff.

That’s the day when high school seniors have to sign with Division I-A colleges to be eligible for scholarships the following season.

Berry said only one of his players from last year’s abbreviated recruiting class left the academy. He doesn’t expect the potential loss of a player here to be any different than if a recruit leaves another college program.

"It happens all the time at other schools," he said. "I had one player, when I was at another school, leave because his girlfriend showed up during practice one day. He was homesick. He just up and left. It happens."

Of course, Beast Barracks and the rigors of academics here are the usual culprit around these parts.

"We have nothing to do with the admissions process," Berry repeated many times during the press conference. "We recruit who we want and then hand the names over to Admissions. They determine who comes here directly and who goes to the Prep School. Not us."

As far as who he recruited, Berry is confident that this class can match up with any other school in Conference USA.

In fact, he recruited against C-USA schools for many of the same players.

"It was interesting to hear some of the things that schools from different regions of the country would say about Army," Berry said. "Some of the negative recruiting."

Negative recruiting is something Berry swears he and his coaches will not do. He says he doesn’t have to.

"This place sells itself," he said.

Berry said he knows that opposing coaches told some of the players he recruited this year that if they had a chance to go to the United States Military Academy they should take it.

He said he expects some immediate impact from this class, but that he won’t play a player until they are ready to play.

"I’ve seen players ruined because they were rushed in before they were ready mentally to handle the situation," Berry said.

During the six-week recruiting process -- three weeks before Christmas and the three before national signing day -- Berry visited recruits in 39 states and went to 63 homes.

He believes that during the first full-recruiting year, while rebuilding a program, it is important to build a solid foundation.

"We need good players who are conference caliber in place," he said. "Then we can roll the dice and go after some top-five recruits at specific positions."

The bulk of this class is made up of linemen. His reasoning is that it takes longer for them to develop.

So Berry has started to fill the pipeline. Don’t expect a huge immediate impact, though. He wouldn’t dub any of them "war daddies" just yet. "War daddy" is a term he reserves for players who have it all.

"Let’s not put any more added pressure on them than what they will already have during Beast," Berry asked. "Ask me again in August when they show up for summer practice."