Vad Lee is Down, but Don’t Count the Dukes Out (Updated)
At his press conference, Withers said Vad Lee is having MRI done on left foot. He’s out indefinitely.
— Matt Jones (@MattJones36) October 26, 2015
Update: Coach Withers announced today that Vad had season ending surgery on his foot. His JMU career is done. Tough way to go out for an all-time JMU great.
Vad Lee, JMU’s star QB, is out. He’s not playing in this weekend’s game at William & Mary. He hurt his foot and is having an MRI done. That’s pretty much all we know. Because that’s all JMU is telling anyone. Which is really fine when you think about it. We know he won’t be in uniform Saturday. It’s fair to leave the details of his medical condition between him, his doctors, his team, and his family.
Obviously, this is a huge blow for the Dukes. More than anything else though, it’s just sad. Lee was in the midst of a truly historic season. He was one of the frontrunners for the Payton Award. And now he’s out for at least this week and maybe longer. There’s just no denying that this is a loss the Dukes will feel. However, it’s not reason enough to count JMU out.
Bryan Schor is the next man up. As the backup QB, he’ll now be thrust into the starting role with Lee out. Obviously, we should expect some degree of a drop off from Vad. That’s not exactly an insult when you remember that Vad was in the midst of one of the greatest, if not the greatest, seasons ever for a JMU QB.
Schor doesn’t need to rewrite the record books for the Dukes to be successful. He just needs to limit mistakes and utilize his many weapons in the JMU system. We think he’s more than capable of doing that. He’s got a strong arm, a quick release, and he’s more athletic than folks give him credit for. He might not put up “Vad vs. SMU” sort of numbers, but if he spreads the ball around and executes the game plane, the Dukes offense will be fine.
As upset as we are about Lee going down, his injury alone isn’t the end of the world. If you saw the game on Saturday, you surely know that the defense was bad. And by bad, we mean historically bad. And by historically bad, we mean it was without a doubt one of the 5 worst defensive performances in the history of JMU football. The defense needs to turn around completely. The offense on the other hand, just needs to operate at 75% of what it had been under Lee and it will still score enough points to win. Provided the defense isn’t historically awful again of course.
Again, Schor probably isn’t Vad Lee. But he’s our guy now and we’re rootin for him. The best thing to do is probably to hope for a speedy recovery for Vad and agree to never subject Schor to being compared to him. Because he’s never going to measure up in some folks’ minds, and he’s got his own set of unique skills to bring to the table. And in this offense, he’ll have a chance to succeed.
Schor looked really good on the last few drives I thought. I’m still trying to figure out we allowed only 720 yards and lost the game. With our defense only giving up a cool 720 and our defense getting 1 QB pressure I expected much better!
Nobody wanted an undefeated season anyway…the loss gets the taste in your mouth so they are motivated to never let it happen again this season. Is it time to do the prediction content cause I’m taking 71-3 JMU over the Whigs.
I agree we shouldn’t compare the QBs they are different. I feel Schor can win and he is a good QB. He has skills and a strong arm if he does what he can and eliminates mistakes the offense will come through. I feel more positive about the offense then the defense. I hope we can stop the run and put pressure on their QB and the secondary can finally cover someone would be nice. we are going into this game 3and half point underdogs so at least we have that working for us. Let’s get behind the team and GO DUKES!!
My big question going into the weekend is how much the coaching staff will need to “water down” the offense for Schor, if at all. While he is relatively inexperienced, he’s been at JMU just as long as Vad has, so I would like to think he knows the offense inside and out. Therefore, I’m hoping the coaching staff can plug him in to this historically good offense without much of a hiccup.
I just hope the attention on getting Schor ready doesn’t take away the coaching staff’s focus on what really needs to be worked on: that abysmal defense we saw on Saturday.
Go Dukes
Historically bad is right. And I have no idea why there weren’t more blitzes called on defense on obvious passing downs. As has been said, I’m more concerned with the defense and the special teams than the offense. At least there’s a running game to support the QB.
I was a recent JMU alum during the Rip Scherer years and I recall how good the offense was with Eriq Williams and Kenny Sims, and we still ended up losing games or barely winning with scores like 52-49. This JMU team reminds me a lot of that period in the football program.
My biggest question going forward:
is the defense still listed as “questionable”?
Vad is done. Hope he gets a shot at the next level.
Man that hurts. That game ruined our season in multiple ways. Wish I hadn’t bought tickets to the game this Saturday.
guys.. watch the game again… we blitz and stunted all game.. reason why you thought we didn’t is because they didn’t work. Their O was more physical than our D on Saturday and they beat our asses.
It was the helmets’ fault. I hope they’ve all been crushed.
Here’s an idea: since JMU keeps feeling the need to parade former coaches around, and since the football season just went down the crapper….during the bye week after the W&M game, Jeff Bourne in his imminence and wisdom decides to suggest to Withers that they form the League of Extraordinary Ex-Coaches. It can be a toss up between who runs the offense – while Rip Scherer had much better offenses, it sure would be fun to see Joe Purzycki’s Winged-T again. Maybe Scherer could do the special teams. Or they could give Alex Wood something to do. Of course, Mickey Matthews would have to bring back the 4-4. It would be entertaining and there couldn’t be a whole lot else left to lose.
@Charles F. Sweet: not sure I understand what you mean…were there a bunch of former coaches around last weekend — other than Coach Campanelli? Is there a trend of former coaches showing up as invited guests of the AD? Or am I missing some obvious sarcasm here?
JMU should have more coaches like Coach C — he’s still the best hoops coach the school has ever had – though Coach Brooks is within 1/2 length of the lead in that race. Before everybody gets their “Lefty glasses” on, notice I used the word ‘coach’ – not promoter, huckster, or recruiter. I fully admit to being partial to Coach C. I was a student manager for the 1st D-1 NCAA tourney team and worked with the Sports Information Office as a statistician for the 4 succeeding years. In my opinion, Coach C would have produced at least 3 NCAA teams given Brady’s players.
Very sad to hear the news on Vad Lee. He was so exciting to watch and definitely someone that made JMU proud on and off the field. Been watching the Dukes play for 35 years and he quickly became my favorite Duke of all time. Sorry we didn’t get a chance to watch him see this season through.
I still have faith in this team. It is definitely going to be more difficult now, but still plan to root for the Dukes every week.
Go Dukes!
@KW. I stopped by the bookstore to see Coach Campanelli and get a copy of his book. Iy was good to see him at JMU again and it brought back alot of memories of JMU basketball when I was a kid growing up in Harrisonburg. Lots of memories of watching games in Godwin Hall and tge Electric Zoo when the move was to the Convo. There was just alot more enthusiasm about basketball at JMU then and there have been alot of missteps around it since he left. His book is a little thin but still was good to read for the memories. I think Brady is a good coach and the outlook is good for this years team. College basketball is a very different game tan when Coach C was coaching. He’d probably adjust fine but it is a vastly different game now than what he put on the floor.
More difficult for the Dukes to reach their goal, not more difficult to root for the Dukes…
@Mike in Ohio: glad you were able to make it back and got to see Lou. I agree the game is different (mostly the players are different — his apparent unwillingness or inability to adjust caused the rift @ California with Jason Kidd that eventually led to his ouster) but think he would’ve adjusted and won. His biggest challenge might be figuring out how to use a player / starter bigger than 6-8 🙂
Lots of potential this year without the A. Nation situation to navigate. I’m looking forward to going to Charleston and Huntington for those games.
My copy of the book is en route to the Derby City; hope to have it by week’s end.