Your High Level, Completely Biased, and Unscientific JMU Football Outlook
Gameday is almost here and we’ve managed to avoid revealing anything at all about our expectations for the 2013 JMU football Dukes. I guess we can’t put it off any longer. This will come as no shock, but we’ve managed to convince ourselves that the Dukes can and will contend for the CAA title. And how did we come to that conclusion you might ask. Was it through careful analysis of the JMU roster and the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition? Was it after poring over mountains of statistics? After conversing with FCS experts from across the country? No. It was none of those things. We’re just homers.
That’s right. While demanding logic and reasoning to support the arguments of others, we’re absolutely no better than one of those mouth breathing, face painting, overly enthusiastic super fans, who insists his team is championship bound no matter what. At least we own it. With that being said, here are the top 3 reasons why we think this could be a big year for the Dukes. And in an attempt to remove our purple colored glasses, we’ll offer a caveat or counter-argument for each.
1. Stephon Robertson, Dean Marlowe, and the Defense
If you’ve been paying attention the past few years, you already know Robertson and Marlowe are absolute studs. Robertson is all over the field making plays week in and week out. Marlowe roams the field from the safety position and can deliver the big hit or play the ball with equal success. This year it’s unquestionably their defense. Defense has long been the Dukes calling card. Objectively speaking however, last year’s D had a number of mediocre (or worse) outings. My personal theory is that there was so much focus on fixing the offense, that the coaches took their eye off the ball with the defense. Now Mickey has an OC with head coaching experience who appears to have full carte blanche to run the system he wants. And that means Mickey can focus on his beloved defense. That’s unquestionably a good thing and I expect the results to be stellar.
Caveat
Depth in the defensive backfield. They don’t have much. On paper they don’t at least.
2. The Ginger Giant
Michael Birdsong is unquestionably “the man” for JMU when it comes to the QB position. There is nobody looking over his shoulder. He’ll be the first JMU QB since Rodney Landers left town who isn’t looking over his shoulder after every bad throw to see if a new QB is checking in to take his spot. And as we saw last year when Birdsong played as a true freshman, he’s got a lot of talent. He’s got a big arm and surprised everyone with his rushing ability. The new offense O’Cain is implementing supposedly is much more dynamic and fast paced. Once Birdsong gets comfortable in it, we expect him to shine.
Caveat
We’re talking about a guy who has 77 career passing attempts.
3. Mike O’Cain’s New Offense
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We didn’t exactly set off fireworks when we heard Mike O’Cain was hired to be the new offensive coordinator for the Dukes. In hindsight, that had everything to do with our disappointment in JMU not landing Hal Mumme and very little to do with O’Cain’s qualifications. O’Cain is an experienced coach who has run a number of very successful offenses at the FBS level. And as we mentioned above, he appears to have more leeway and autonomy than his predecessor Jeff Durden did. Mickey Matthews is many things. He’s not an adventurous or aggressive play-caller though. By handing over the offense to a guy like O’Cain and giving him the freedom to finally implement a more balanced and fast paced attack, JMU should drastically improve on offense.
Caveat
The 2012 Virginia Tech offense, which O’Cain played a part in.
O’Cain is the key, specifically how long a leash the Mick gives him. Maybe we will finally change the roster title of “outside blocker” back to “wide receiver.” I, too, am a big believer in the Bird. He showed glimmers of brilliance in 2012 when we didn’t have an offense necessarily suited to his strengths. I call him a “fullback with a cannon.”
All those other pieces being very important to JMU’s success on the gridiron this fall, without a big, strong, healthy O-line it is all just a pipe dream. Looking for big things from the Dukes this year. I have to watch via Madizone, as I am pretty remote (Hawaii), but I still bleed purple. Thanks for your blog and all that you do to support the purple people. GO DUKES!
“Now Mickey has an OC with head coaching experience who appears to have full carte blanche to run the system he wants. ”
PICS OR IT DIDN’T HAPPEN.
Um, while Ginger Giant is an acceptable Alias, MB should always be referred to first as the Ginja Ninja.
Most years I get upset at JMU’s failure to schedule challenging non-conference games (because having a lot of cupcakes doesn’t impress any selection committee and bores some of the fans). But with a new OC and Birdsong having so little experience, I’ll gladly take the CCSU and St. Francis games. Hopefully we can be in prime shape by the time we hit the road to Delaware. Go Dukes!!
As long as our DB’s are still playing ten yards off the line every play the depth of our secondary won’t matter. Teams will still take advantage of the free five yard hitch route we consistently hand them. Mickey seems to want to always solve that problem by hoping his defensive line and line backers can get to the QB before he can get get the easy five yard pass off. Its a nice strategy when you had guys named DJ Bryant and Arthur Moats roaming around out there. Robertson is certainly of that caliber, but the defense’s success may be hinging on DE Tyler Snow and the rest of those big boys up front. If they can get pressure consistently they will be the best defense in the CAA.
Big Red all day every day off camera every way.
DukeDog makes a good point. I did not think our defense played as well last year as in years past, I think that could have possibly been because they were afraid to take too many chances because of our lack of offensive production. We must play more aggressively on defense this year to have a chance, and our offense must be good enough to allow them to do that.
One minor concern, if MB does not pick up the new offense or gets hurt. QB2 is a walk-on true freshman!!! Good job recruiting Coach.