Mickey Matthews Has Never Even Seen a Twat Apparently
Anyone who attended last night’s Coaches Caravan in Arlington expecting to be entertained by Mickey Matthews, went away pretty pleased. Coach Matthews was in rare form and he had the room chuckling with his Texas twang and Mickey-isms. And then he unleashed the big one, telling the crowd “I’ve never even seen a twat…or tweet whatever you call it.” It’s fair to say he brought the house down with that one little comment. He also pondered the wisdom of scheduling a game against JMU explaining how he was much more excited, BEFORE he watched the Mountaineers play Clemson. As he put it, “The numbers on the scoreboard were flipping over so fast it looked like a pinball machine.” If you put all of Mickey’s humor aside, it was clear he is really excited about this year’s team. He pumped up the younger players and the quality of the coaching staff. Hitting both points he told the crowd that he thought Defensive Backs coach Tony Lezotte (an all time great Duke) got off easy because he got to Dean Marlowe in his first coaching stint. Matthews said it made it too easy on Tony, “We should have given him some guy who was 5’7″ and ran a 4.9 40” to see if he could really coach. And after referring to Justin Thorpe’s “sabbatical” and it’s impact on the team, he informed everyone that he’s pretty confident the NCAA is going to grant Justin a 6th year of eligibility.
Kenny Brooks, head coach of the women’s hoops team, was also outstanding. As an alum and former basketball player himself, Brooks definitely bleeds purple. His enthusiasm is overwhelming and his passion for taking on bigger programs (and beating them) is unmatched. He had the crowd laughing almost as much as Mickey did, particularly with his comments about scheduling. He insisted that bigger programs are on the run from JMU and that “We’ll play anyone…except UConn.”
If you went to last night’s event expecting to get a bunch of facts on the state of the CAA and JMU’s conference alignment, you’d probably be disappointed. I’m sure most of you have already seen the email from AD Jeff Bourne. Last night he essentially stuck to that script and tried to calm the masses. And honestly, I don’t know what else the man can do at this point. While he certainly didn’t say it, I don’t how he can trust any of the other CAA schools at this point. Everyone is out for their own interests and playing things close to the vest. While many fans would have loved to hear a definite plan or list of options (including yours truly), letting the cat out of the bag probably wouldn’t help behind the scenes. So we’ve got nothing really to report as far as conference alignment. It’s patently obvious that Bourne and the rest of the AD are working hard to put JMU in the best possible position going forward. We’ll need to wait and see if they’re successful.
Living in Hampton Roads, I have the misfortune of listening to ODU drivel on the radio every afternoon. The sense of entitlement amongst ODU fans is repulsive. On the local radio show yesterday, they took about an hour of callers all saying ODU should actually turn down C-USA and wait for the Big East because it would be a “better fit for ODU”. They play football for ONE YEAR and think they’re freaking Alabama.
Additionally, the subject of JMU came up and the host said “JMU fans should be scared. They aren’t getting any attention, and they sunk all this money into that big new stadium. Let’s face it, ODU has a much larger market than harrisonburg. I don’t know why anyone would really want JMU when they could take on ODU.” First, Blacksburg is in BFE and it doesn’t seem to be a problem for the chokies. Second, I have never IN MY LIFE met an ODU alumni outside of the 757. JMU alums are all over Hampton Roads, Richmond, and the DC area (not to mention the entire mid-atlantic corridor). I would argue that in reality, JMU’s potential market DWARFS ODU’s.
Thoughts?
As someone pointed out to me last night, the flip side of ODU having a relatively week alumni base outside of Hampton Roads, is that the overwhelming majority of their alums can make it to all home football and basketball games (because they all stay local). JMU has a lot of alums w/in 3 hours or so, but there all also folks spread out across the entire country like you said. I think networks are attracted to the potential to dominate the Hampton Roads market, more than having a few thousand fans in multiple markets.
I bet JMU has reams of stats and research to show where ticketholders come from. The problem in selling to a television network is that there’s a difference in saying 2k plus come from the DC area to watch a football game, and saying JMU fans will deliver a certain numbers of eyes to a tv broadcast. I always have to laugh unhappily when people talk about JMU penetrating the DC market. At the moment, there are a lot of JMU alums in the area, but football and basketball results are barely more than blurbs in the Post, merit no mention on nightly sportscasts, and the only local radio station that broadcast JMU games was bought and turned into a catholic station.
At this time I am going to do my breakfast, when having my breakfast
coming over again to read other news.