JMU Defense Comes Through in the Clutch

Cuffee and the D came through all season

The JMU Dukes’ defense has come up big nearly every week this season. Today, they came through when it mattered most and stopped Maine just short of the endzone as time ran out to save the game. JMU defeated Maine by the final score of 14-10. The win gets the Dukes to 6-5 and gives them their seventh straight winning season.

Maine marched down into JMU territory with time winding down and the Dukes clinging to a 4 point lead. With 12 seconds left, the Black Bears found themselves with second and goal from the JMU 3. Rather than throwing the ball into the endzone however, Maine tossed it to Jeff Falvey in the flat?!?! Taveion Cuffee and Jonothan Williams met Falvey head on, tackled him, and time ran out. It was a fitting way for the 2010 season to conclude.

After last week’s dynamic offensive performance (relatively speaking) we were hoping to see the Dukes pick up where they left off. They didn’t follow through. Today’s game was another gritty (or ugly) offensive effort. Dae’Quan Scott saw the majority of the snaps at QB as expected. Scott completed his first collegiate pass (good). He also threw his first interception (not good). For the game, Scott only had 61 yards, with 43 of those yards coming on an exciting TD scamper that put the Dukes up for good. In his final game at JMU, Drew Dudzik saw limited action, but played very well. He was mostly brought in for passing situations and he completed 5 of 6. He also had a classic Drew Dudzik run in the 4th, willing his way to a first down for JMU. Unfortunately, he appeared to get hurt on the play and had to be helped off the field.

This game wasn’t pretty, but it was a fair representation of the Dukes season. The offense didn’t do much, except for briefly coming to life for a TD drive in the closing minutes of the first half and Scott’s long TD on the first drive of the second half. JMU also fell for 2 fake punts in what seemed to be about a 5 minute span, making the Dukes the team Jim Zorn most wants to coach against in the future. The Defense played a classic “bend but don’t break” game, buckling down and only giving up 10 points despite Maine reaching the redzone 5 times. For the season JMU surrendered only 11 TDs in 36 trips inside the redzone by the opposition.

This has been an up and down season and ultimately, a fairly disappointing one. At least the Dukes ended on a high note though, with back-to-back wins and a 6-5 record. There are lots of questions to address in the offseason. Interestingly enough, Mike Barber of the DNR tweeted that Matthews refused to answer one of the biggest ones in the post game presser. Mickey wouldn’t say if Dae’Quan Scott would be playing QB, WR, or RB next season. Let the speculation begin!