Likes and Dislikes From the JMU Win Over URI

The Dukes went on the road and took care of business against Rhode Island yesterday. JMU won 32-7 to pick up its first conference win of the 2012 season. This was a game that most people expected the Dukes to win in convincing fashion. And the important thing is that they did just that. There’s obviously a lot to like about any 25 point road conference win. And like any early season contest, there are some things to improve upon as well.

Things We Liked

The aggressive playcalling on offense. JMU marched 83 yards in just four plays for a TD the first time Thorpe and the offense got the ball. And 59 of those yards came from 2 big pass plays. Then to top it off they went for, and converted, a 2 point conversion to jump out to an 8-0 lead. That’s not exactly the rush heavy, only throw when they need to, JMU offense we’re used to seeing. And it wasn’t just some sort of “surprise them with the pass early” and then return to rushing it. Thorpe threw the ball a relatively ridiculous (by JMU standards) 42 times, completing 27 for a whopping 347 yards. Not only was that a career best for Thorpe, but it was the most by any JMU QB since Rodney Landers.

After giving up an amazing (or fluky depending on your perspective) TD to the Rams to let them back into the game, the defense was very impressive. The offense might have been the story of the day, but it was another stellar day for the defense. JMU completely shut down the Ram rushing attack, limiting them to 19 yards on the day. And they didn’t do that bad against the pass eitehr, limiting URI to only 164 yards in the air. Rhode Island isn’t known for lighting up the scoreboard, but any time a team holds it opponent below 200 yards on offense it’s doing something right.

The thing we liked best of all about JMU’s win however, was probably the resiliency the team showed. You don’t normally associate a word like resiliency with a 25 point wins, but I thought the Dukes showed a lot of it yesterday. After marching out to an early 15-7 lead, the offense sort of went to sleep. The attack was ineffective and the players were making careless mistakes. Thorpe in particular made a couple of poor plays. They team never seemed rattled though and kept plugging away. And then it just started clicking and they put together a couple really nice long scoring drives.

Key Number: 10

That’s the number of Dukes who caught passes yesterday. For comparison’s sake, only 12 Dukes caught passes all of last season.

What We Didn’t Like

As we mentioned above, the offense had a brief period of hibernation. And despite the fact that the defense was pitching a near shut-out, JMU was letting Rhode Island hang around. At half-time, it still seemed like the Rams had a chance to steal the game. That chance seemed even more real after Thorpe threw a pick to end the first drive after the break. We couldn’t see it (the URI stream, or lack there0f, was another thing we REALLY didn’t like), but it things sure seemed bleak. It was great to see the Dukes bounce back and put the game away, but we were adjusting our 2012 season expectations downward for much of the second and third quarters.

The offense definitely did bounce back, and was able to move it on the ground late. For the game though, JMU only averaged 3.3 yards per carry on the ground. That’s not good enough against a team like Rhode Island. Hykeem Brodie and Dejor Simmons had pretty solid days on the ground. Jordan Anderson and Justin Thorpe struggled to get it going however. Anderson had 13 carries for only 22 yards. We’re just dismissing it as an off day, but the Dukes are going to need Jordan and Justin to run the ball more effectively if they want to make noise in the CAA.