JMUSB Playoff Game Preview #1: New Hampshire at JMU
The Basics
Match-up: Round of 16, New Hampshire Wildcats (8-4) vs. #4 JMU Dukes (10-1)
Kick-off: 2 p.m. Saturday, Bridgeforth Stadium, Harrisonburg, VA
Weather: 47 degrees, sunny. Can’t ask for better December football weather!
Broadcast: ESPN3, available in approximately the 780’s or 790’s on most DirecTV bar packages
What’s At Stake
The season. A home game for the Dukes against the winner of Chattanooga @ Sam Houston St.. A chance for Coach Houston’s staff to prove once and for all that they’ve improved on what Coach Withers started. Simply, JMU needs to win to put the postseason failures against Liberty and Colgate behind them and prove the program is really back into national contention. Granted, UNH may be better than either of those two teams, but we really hope JMU is MUCH better.
How The Dukes Can Win
By being awake off the bye in a way they weren’t last year, by using the motivation of that debacle of a 4th quarter up in Durham midseason, and by being hungry to do what they’ve done all season. On D, the Dukes need to build on their late-season surge and once again slow down all-purpose back Dalton Crosson and force UNH to throw, something they have not proven very adept at, with last week’s beating of Lehigh as the exception, this year. On offense, the Dukes need to basically do what they do, but we do think you can look for a lot of short throws trying to get our deep and athletic receiving corps in space this week. If UNH is able to “contain” the Dukes running game again, JMU will again need a couple exceptional plays from their receiving corps like they got from guys like Alls and Ravenel up north earlier in the year. The Wildcats are good, but they don’t have the depth of athletes to keep up for 60 minutes if Schor or Johnson can make the right reads and give our guys a chance. Though you should be prepared to be annoyed by Safety Casey DeAndrade, who is somehow still there. He’s like the UNH version of Andrey Semenov apparently.
How UNH Can Win
By jumping on a rusty-off-the-bye JMU team early, winning the turnover battle, and not freaking out on their first trip to new BFS (yes, you read that right, in the new Crumbling Athletic Association, this is somehow their first trip to new BFS). Like so many years during UNH’s 13-year playoff streak, the CAA has them set up to coast again as they missed Richmond and Villanova so had they not blown out a decent Patriot League Champ last week, we’d be more confident. UNH proved earlier this season they can go nose-to-nose with the Dukes in the trenches, but they can’t give up the big plays or enormous special teams gaffes they did in the first matchup and hope to hang with the new-era Dukes.
[Personal JMUSB note: Keep a lookout for UNH Safety #26 Geno Miller. He doesn’t see the field that much but he’s a local kid (McNamara/Bishop Ireton) and his awesome mom is a former co-worker and friend of JMUSB. He made a few big-time plays in last week’s game too]
JMUSB Beer of the Week
Sierra Nevada Christmas Jam Session Ale – We can all exhale and be thankful that the awful season of pumpkin beer is behind us. We’ve moved on to wonderful winter beer season, hurray! We’re doing a D-Lot oyster roast this weekend so they’ll be lots of Cava and pilsners to go around, but this particular session ale is so good that we had to remark on its quality this week. For the uninitiated, “Christmas Jam” is the annual all-day festival of all things noodly and nuggety put on by Warren Haynes and company in Asheville each December. It’s a great (if interminably long) show and a kick-ass weekend in one of the nation’s best towns and this is the specialty beer produced in its honor. In past years, this special edition has been produced by the no-bullshit and most underrated brewery in the East Coast’s beer mecca, Asheville Brewing Company. Normally, we’d be pissy that Cali’s Sierra Nevada bought the chance to do this when they moved their eastern HQ to AVL, but this brew is just so darned perfect we can’t resist loving it. Seriously, this is better than their more celebrated Celebration Ale. Just pick this up if you see it and enjoy!
Official JMUSB Prediction
UNH is absolutely capable of winning this game so do not take this lightly. And nothing would crush our hopes and dreams more. Well maybe the Lou Rowe era of JMU Men’s Basketball would – seriously, how in the name of Sister St. Francis is Jeff Bourne capable of going Mickey to Withers to Houston in football while simultaneously making the worst decisions imaginable in hoops?!
But the Dukes are the better team this year and we think they’re hungrier than any JMU team since ’04. We also think that 4th quarter near-meltdown up north earlier this year may be a blessing in disguise in that the Dukes will be ready to prove they aren’t giving quarter to these Cats this time. Again, it’s actually really hard to know what to make of UNH’s results so far. That loss to Dartmouth is ghastly, the 13-10 eke-out at Elon was played in horrendous weather from Hurricane Matthew so who knows what to make of that. The season-opening blowout at a strong FBS San Diego St. team this year is not a mark against them and they beat W&M 21-12, but allowing Holy Cross to be in a shootout to the end and struggling to put away RhodeI might be worse than anything else. But then they threw sixty something on the board in a playoff game last week. Our thinking is the Dukes will be determined to run the ball better than last time and do what they do on offense, which is running the ball all over the place and making a few exceptional plays in the passing game. The pressure to keep up will force them into enough passing situations that their interception and low efficiency issues will sting UNH. The line may be only Dukes by 7 and a hook, but we think the rested and ready Dukes roll this time regardless of who plays QB or for how long.
Dukes 42, Cats 23
Keep Rootin.
This UNH team looks like a team that plays to the level of their opponent. I still think we roll, but I’d rather have had whomever they beat last week.
Any official word if Schor is starting?
I’m guessing we may not know which QB starts until the offense takes the field on Saturday. It seems to be the way Houston is playing it, and I frankly don’t blame him. But, like many, the suspense is killing me.
I’m excited for tomorrow. Go Dukes!
Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there are 19 days left of fall, which means 19 days to enjoy the coveted concoction some may call “pumpkin beer.”
#GoDukes
If we can avoid making either of their QBs look all-world, this will be a blowout. But we have, haven’t we? Control the run, simply contain on the pass, and we’ll be through (he said while counting gray hairs growing in).
And Nick, you’re the beerer of bad news, clearly.
@Nick You’re killing me Smalls.