JMU vs. Akron Gameday Open Thread
It’s time for some MACtion. JMU and Akron kick-off in just under 6 hours from now in InfoCision Stadium. It’s the Dukes lone FBS game this season. Here is your open thread to comment before, during, and after the game. And remember, the game is available coast to coast on ESPN3. Enjoy this beautiful day and Go Dukes!
I’m a former JMU Football Duke and in town for business. Looking forward to seeing my Dukes, Coach Edmonds and the Ques (Bangura and Jacques). D.Forbes aka JMU QUE
Time to clobber some Zipperheads! GO DUKES!!!!
3 potential CAA-over-FBS upsets on tap today: Maine up 10-7 at Umass early in the third; UNH up 13-0 over central Michigan; and, of course, *in Curt Dudley voice* your JMU Dukes.
Maine is giving UMass the business right now, 24-7 in the 4th quarter. This is giving me a lot of warm fuzzy feelings about the Dukes’ chances
Seriously…. if we can’t handle a 1-11 MAC team, we need to just stop all this “moving up” talk. Seriously.
Is that unreasonable?
Not unreasonable at all. JMU should beat Akron if Mickey doesn’t play the “I don’t want to pull out all the plays since its a meaningless non-FCS game” game. I am feeling good about our chances given Maine and New Hampshire’s success today.
Doesn’t it just warm your heart to see ODU playing so well against Maryland…
Let’s go Dukes! <3 Sending love and luck from campus!
Say it with me Chris berman….. WHOOOOOOOOOOP.
going for 2…really?
Nice opening drive!
Wtf Mickey??? Going for 2 with 9 mins left in the FIRST QUARTER? Really?
Welcome back mickey-matthews-sky-kick!
pooch kickoff…one way for the special teams coach to redeem himself….
Why don’t we make this kind of effort to win against Maryland/UNC/Duke/WVU?
(VT was intentionally omitted. #burn)
how much punishment will birdsong be able to absorb.
defense is well-rested….
nice opening 3-and-out for the zips…are they really THAT bad?
How horrible is this color commentator? “The satellite”?? Really???
NOOOOOOOO. NO MORE WILDCAT. EVER.
and the tight end chose to not block the linebacker why?
The ginja Ninja is hurt b/c #85 was too chicken to throw a block. #sawthat #eyeintheskydoesnotlie
watching this on line while watching oregon take uva well past the woodshed to the outhouse, 59-10.
disappointing to see new hampshire spit the bit at central michigan.
Yup. I thought UNH would pull it off
My grandmother could run tighter pass coverage than our secondary
and offsides gives them a touchdown….no discipline
Our WR’s really suck at blocking
Run
run
run
Run
Run
Run
pass on 3rd and FOREVER.
Good work, coach.
#passthedamnball
Dumb penalty extended Akron’s drive and a dumb one stalled JMU’s. Also, when opening up 10 foot wide holes and running North-South with ease, keep doing it. Don’t try to work around the edges. Need a big defensive stop here.
Running north-south and mixing in the pass was working too well. MM had to put a stop to it.
nice pass rush gives the O one more shot…and they promptly put it on the ground.
I’m actually glad we fumbled. The coaches were too chicken to pass and they turned it over anyway. Serves you right.
horrid turnover, poor discipline, and 1st possession to akron in the 2nd half; going out for mexican.
Halftime adjustment: lock MM in a bathroom stall.
didn’t even take until the 4th quarter for us to wear down….
We can still win this game….we aren’t “tired” or worn-out yet I don’t think.
Great start for the Dukes but since then it’s been costly penalties, lifeless play-calling, and bad turnovers. Need to big stop out of the half to take the momentum back.
OMG…. Passed. Got 1st down. WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED??????
Please go back to what worked. Don’t play not too lose even when you have the lead. It is not little league, you don’t have to play nice. And quit giving lambert the ball, dude has very poor ball security from what I have seen.
He also has no burst through the hole
agreed. ride DQ and Latney
These ESPN3 announcers sound like they are computer generated.
this sloppy play by the offensive line HAS GOT TO STOP
lazy downfield blocking and penalties are killing the drives
Omg please don’t start this sky kick-every-time-give-away-field-position crap again
OMG our db’s SUCK.
i guess ‘playing until the whistle’ is too complex a concept….
That was some high school level technique by our corner. Ugh.
the sky kick worked once so now we will use it for the rest of the season.
come on guys don’t stop on plays
even the horrible commentators said that running up the middle was there all night….
i’m shocked…absolutely shocked; two straight north/south…
Between this and the WVU game, there is a 100% chance I will have a heart attack and die before midnight.
It’s been nice knowing all of you.
i like the 2 pt formation……
Lol… pass the ball. Score TD. Funny how that works. Must have been a total coincidence.
Nice drive there Dukes! Amazing how easily they can move the ball when they mix some good ol’ North-South running with the pass. Beautiful touch by Birdsong on the TD pass as well.
please find someone with leg enough to put it through the end zone….PLEASE!
Why yes lets kick it out of bounds!
What. The. Hell.
robertson = non-factor
Our secondary is so bad the other team can play either of the top 2 QB’s on the roster and still light us up. Awesome.
if you are going to give up this many big plays, BLITZ.
set…stand…look at sideline…why dispense with the huddle at all?
Starke FG pulls JMU back to within 1. Down 28-27, will the D step up? It better.
Now KICK the ball…
who snuck the high school kicker in for the kickoff?
that’s funny, that is such a HS kicking move if you don’t have a kicker.
nice booming kick and nice stop on D
way to flip the field…the wrong way.
i need to stop because my cynicism will take over completely…..
is there a blitz ANYWHERE in the defensive playbook?
We should just run cover zero for the rest of the season and add a 5th d lineman since the secondary doesn’t actually cover anyone.
@2004 Duke but then who would miss the arm tackles?
BLITZ!!!
I thought the purpose of bend don’t break was to tackle and not give up big plays.
@ 2004 Duke i was thinking cover 11 with no rushers; surely eleven can cover 5?
Oh my freaking god. I will play corner next week. Put Cameron Starke in at corner. He might at least make an effort.
Lol to all of the above commentary.
Jmu- home of the bend and then break defense.
i just don’t understand how the coverage can be this bad, keep it simple and play backyard man-man coverage.
I love daniel brown.
Man, Taylor Reynolds is just getting schooled. By Akron.
game management after 15 years….ugh. did they not have their 2-point play ready because they didn’t think they’d actually put it in the end zone?
That idiot 2pt call in the first qtr is really eating me right now.
I can’t be the only one wondering if the ESPN3 announcers are on generic Prozac.
arachnids are still hanging tough…gotten to the 4th quarter w/a 1-point lead
would be nice to have a timeout…or 2 right now.
GO TO UREC AND RECRUIT SOME D-BACKS.
rip and strip….
please encourage the secondary coach to seek employment elsewhere…tonight.
ok…maybe terry bowden isn’t that much smarter than mm.
Ball for the win now. 1:18 left.
DID WE SERIOUSLY JUST CALL A RUNNING PLAY?!?!?!
kick DQS off the team.
nothing like senior leadership.
Overreaction. But a boneheaded penalty by DQ.
DQ is was just a first down, calm down.
Damn. But for one time out.
please move back to division 2
This one’s on the coaches. One lousy time out was all we needed.
did we really just get screwed like that. please teach the bridgeforth stadium clock operator to work with us like that.
Can this not be reviewed by the refs????
blame the head coach for going for 2 with 57 minutes to go in the game.
That was an absolutey piss-poor performance. Mickey Matthews owes Birdsong an apology.
DQS is (still) grossly overrated. Our secondary couldn’t cover a high school scout team. We play stupid. We make stupid penalties. We go out there and crap our pants yet still score 33 and lose by two. We clearly have tons of potential that we are not even in the same zip code of living up to, and IMO, that is a worse sin than just being a terrible team.
^agreed. Usually i feel bad about talking bad about my teams, but the JMU Ducks deserve it tonight. I am slowly becoming a proponent of a head coach job search.
Ugh. Stupid penalties, pathetic game mgt (timeout before a 2pt conversion?!) and typical bizarre play calls doom the Dukes. Can’t argue with Mickey’s overall record, but damn if his in-game management isn’t the most aggravating thing to watch. On the bright side, the multi-dimensional O is nice, Birdsong looks legit, and D Scott is a stud (who needs to lead better by not taking stupid penalties). The prospects for this year look sweet!
That wasn’t a work. The ref couldn’t get the ball down. Just not enough time without the TO.
DQS is definately not a stud. I actually think we will be better when he graduates, because the coaches will spread the ball around more and keep defenses off balance rather than run DQS right, DQS left, DQS center, Punt.
2012 Graduate right here!!! All in all.. take the stupid penalties away.. we have a lot to look forward to this year: Our QB is a man and is everything we all “dreamed” about over the summer.. our Offensive Line showed it can be physicall dominating.. and Our Defensive Line is full of studs that can make plays… Let’s go Eat versus St. Francis next week!!
After calming down for a solid 30 minutes…I can look at the big picture. I’m still mad as hell about the events in the closing seconds and I think what happened wasn’t right. However, taking into account the entire game…WE SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN IN THAT SITUATION. So many mistakes(stupid penalties, blown coverage) and missed opportunities that any good FBS team would have blown us away. Akron is NOT one of those good teams.
I think that at times we looked really dynamic on offense. Birdsong had a solid performance although at times really needs to get rid of the ball or commit to a run. Most of the sacks or knockdowns/hurries seem to result from him holding onto the ball for too long vs. breakdown in the O-line. We had some receivers come up with big plays and we showed that we have some backs that are capable of busting big gains.
I’m going to take this for what it is…a tough (gut-wrenching) loss to a program we could have (should have?) beaten…but also a game that really won’t mean anything if we can take care of business in FCS games (and obviously CAA play).
Upsetting the Akron Zips doesn’t sound nearly as good as 21-16 against the Hokies anyways right?
Well said JMUDRU. JMU could have (should have?) won the game easily if not for a few mistakes. And they appeared to be very fixable mistakes. Birdsong looks like the real deal, but he’s got to get rid of the ball quicker under pressure. The dumb penalties need to stop and the coaches need to fix the pass D. Reynolds had a rough night, but it was his second game in a position he just switched to. He’ll improve.
The ending sucked and it would have been great to see JMU at least get a kick off. Maybe the silver lining is that because they didn’t, they now will fix the mistakes instead of celebrate a relatively meaningless FCS vs FBS win.
Defense strongly resembles that of a high school in that we absolutely cannot cover the pass. Didn’t MM want to double-down his focus on the Defense this year? Is that the problem? I was done with Lambert last week after his fumbles. I was very surprised to see that he had the opportunity to fumble again this week. Don’t want to see him back on the field this year. Looking at the efforts put forth by the other CAA teams on our schedule, and our inability to play defense, I don’t see better than a .500 record in the conference. If we had not done so already, I suspect and expect that we have not officially begun the search for a new head coach because I’m not sure we can win enough games to make the playoffs much less win a game if we get there.
Now that i’ve had about 12 hours to calm down, take a few breaths and collect myself:
1. If MM blamed or critisized anyone other than himself at the post-game presser, he should be fired.
2. Having a CB that is “new” to the position is fine. Laying a giant turd sandwich like he did is inexcusable. Seriously… they could have some random kid from UREC just show up and play backyard football coverage and do a better job. Did anyone realize that we didn’t actually break up a single pass the entire game? The only incompletions were because they were uncatchable passes.
3. Why is it that we call one drive that is nicely balanced between run and pass…score a TD, and then call the next 2 or 3 drives run-run-run-punt. It’s like there are two different coaches calling plays.
4. I have always supported coach matthews, but it is clear to me that he cannot compete in the MAC, Slumbelt or C-USA. No more conference realignment talk until we resolve this coaching issue. Our program just isn’t on that level. That is the fact.
5. We should either run cover-11 with no rush, or run cover zero and rush everyone who isn’t manned-up. Our secondary is so horrible that we need to resort to video game tactics of running “punt block” on 3rd & 10.
I agree with @Deacon Danny…. if we don’t make some drastic changes, we are not even going to be .500…. and don’t give me any of this “well the MAC is FBS and has 85 scholarships” crap….. Akron sucks. UR, W&M, Towson, Villanova and probably UD and UNH would have all beaten Akron. Probably by a few TD’s.
I agree sleeping on it does not make me feel any better about it:
1. Put the deep freeze on Lambert until he figures out how not to fumble all the time.
2. Run the ball north-south and scrap all the wide runs.
3. Keep throwing the ball, throw the ball 60% of the time. JMU is actually good at it and we have WRs that can make plays.
4. Get Snow back on the field ASAP to help with pass rush.
5. If the secondary is too young to play zone, complex coverage…..just man-up until they get that experience. We cannot continue to give up big plays.
6. Stop the drive killing penalties. I don’t think Akron stopped JMU once, we stopped ourselves with penalties far more.
7. Leave the HS kickoff in Ohio. I don’t care if it does not get to the endzone, but kick the ball deep every time, unless it is a legit on-side kick (which if the defense isn’t any better we should probably do, Starke is real good at those). It is inexcusable to have kickoffs going out of bounds.
All that being said the offense still played ‘good enough’ to win. If you score 30+ points you should win. You should be able to count on your D to keep a team under 30.
“You should be able to count on your D to keep a team under 30.”
+1
I agree with you Shady_P. That’s why I’ve been defending Reynolds. It seems silly for folks to single him out for blame, when he was obviously struggling and the coaching staff appeared to do absolutely nothing to help him out with adjustments.
I’m not sure if it’s the scheme or what, but plenty of experienced defenders looked lost in pass coverage. On the the big third down conversion the WR had nobody near him. The QB made a terrible pass, yet with no defenders anywhere to be found the WR was able to just stand there and wait for the wounded duck. It’s inexcusable to give up so many big plays to a team as bad as Akron.
Samford…not exactly a powerhouse…. held the SEC (Ark) to fewer points yesterday than our defense did against MAC powerhouse, Akron.
With having a little time/space to cool off, in the end, while disappointing to lose a game I think was winnable, the game really WAS just a meaningless game with the exception of JMU ever wanting to gain recognition and respect as a team with aspirations of moving up. It doesn’t really mean anything in terms of our season in the CAA or in FCS in 2013. It continues to show that even with beating VT, JMU really is not FBS material yet. Just keep focused on winning the games going forward this season that really matter for playoff contention, and try again against UMD next year and see what happens.
nothing like a good night’s sleep followed by an excursion through the countryside to a collegiate field hockey game to alleviate – almost – the gut-churning, tooth-grinding angst from last night.
1. matthews’ clock/game management makes les miles look like a genius.
2. the secondary would’ve been beaten just as badly in a TOUCH football
game.
3. jaw-dropping lack of composure and leadership from a senior denied the
team the attempt at a game-winning field goal.
4. general lack of discipline after the whistle.
5. marlowe and robertson were essentially invisible
6. lee is a really good player at DE.
7. mm had the gall to get in the referee’s face after time expired; how
pathetic and unprofessional.
how long will coach matthews get a free pass because of 2004 (i wonder if he sends that montana defensive lineman a christmas card each year)? the administration might want to look at appalachian state or delaware to see examples of a courageous course of action.
@ maddukes98:
i don’t agree: no games are meaningless; a win last night means the dukes can lose three games in conference and still get to the playoffs. given the strength of the western conferences, the caa lite will be lucky to get more than 3 teams into an expanded playoff field.
the likely reality is we won’t have to worry about interrupting thanksgiving weekend for a dukes’ playoff game — again.