Guest Post: Time to Talk Playoffs
JMU Salerno won last week’s prediction contest by coming closest to nailing the JMU over UNH score (only 2 total points off!). Here’s his guest post to get you pumped up for tomorrow night’s playoff game.
First off I’m freaking pumped and if I hadn’t used all my vacation for paternity leave, I’d probably be home pacing until Friday.
This is the biggest game in the modern era of JMU football (the number of TV games, Madizone, renovated BFS) and I’m both humbled and terrified to be able to bring the JMU Sports Blog, and it’s fans, my ramblings. I personally hold myself responsible for pumping up our already rowdy group of alumni who still hold onto the memories associated with the magical place we all call Virginia’s Disneyworld, ok that’s just me.
We all saw the writing on the wall when the selection committee gave us a place in the bracket to eventually meet Sam Houston State and at halftime of last week I began to look at their stats and their schedule. For fun I decided to look at their schedule to determine why a team previously ranked #1 by one poll before the playoffs was moved down to #5 by the selection committee. I mean their QB has thrown for 57 TD’s which is incredible, but considering I recently controlled the 2016 New York football Giants on Madden 2017 and used the better Manning to throw 86 regular season TD’s, it’s really not that impressive – the difficulty was on easy but pay no mind to that.
That is the direction I’m going when looking at this team – honestly who is it that they have really played to put up that record and those statistics.
With the power of the Interwebs let’s go ahead and take a look at the schedule:
Oklahoma Panhandle State (59-21) – no, I’m not googling that
Lamar (44-31) – finished 3 -8, with a 5 game losing streak in conference
Houston Baptist (52-16) – finished 4 – 7, with 3-5 in conference
Stephan F. Austin (63-28) – that beast from the NCAA basketball tournament wasn’t playing, this game doesn’t count
Incarnate Word (63-48) – finished 3 – 8, with 3-6 in conference
Ok enough… you get the point they had the settings on easy.
Their last two games were the best teams they played all season – Central Arkansas and Chattanooga. I watched some of the Chattanooga game after the JMU/UNH game was done and what I saw was a team that despite throwing the ball well didn’t seem to run the ball that well (correction at all) and wasn’t successful in stopping the run (236 yards allowed). It stands to reason that with it being extremely cold in the Burg Friday night, both stopping the run and establishing the run “may” be important. JMU is a team that rushed for 209 yards against UNC, a school you don’t have to Google, and averaged 285 yards a game on the season in arguably one of the best conference in FCS. I’m not even going to mention the balance of JMU and what they have done in the passing game and on defense recently – I’m going all Sam Houston and just ignoring what I want to.
I’m going to say this first off as my selections Friday:
Beer of the week – All
Whiskey of the week – All
So now for a little bit of crazy talk – for those that know me, “but Nick you’re already crazy”, that’s fair but not relevant. How in the world does a team that the selection committee and fans (see North Dakota State/Eastern Washington) believe was over rated at #1 start to attack the credentials of a higher ranked team that played tougher teams and put up similar numbers. In fact their own sports information website believes they are still number 1; despite the rankings and the fact that well…they’re not.
I tell you how they do it; they haven’t been punched in the mouth all year because someone that runs their mouth the way their fans and program do needs to be shown a certain kind of treatment. Unless Animal and Hawk plan on coming to the East Coast this week they need pump their brakes and give props where props are due because I’m sure Gage Steele and the gang have access to all this garbage . Friday night they plan to come into our house, with a stadium full of what happens to be 5 times as many people as their recent attendance? On a colder night than some of their players have ever experienced? Trying to air the ball out when it’s deflated at Tom Brady levels…nah bruh.
Being that I am a new father, I asked my son (shameless plug) how to look at people that speak to us and that disrespect us and want a piece of us?
They want the Dukes they got the Dukes. Shut your mouth and LOCK THE DAMN GATE!
It’s time to go to work…
Great post! I am jacked. Let’s go DUKES!!
I love this guy as much as I did when we were roommates at JMU. For anyone that questions his level of crazy, just know this… he and my father are no longer allowed in the Pizza Hut back home in NY because they got into it with an ENTIRE high school football team over the all you can eat lunch buffet.
Congratulations Nick… you have me pumped up. Go Dukes!
I think “Lock the damn gate!” should be a t-shirt.
Great guest post! Lock the damn gate!!! DUKESSSSSS
It’s a buffet – you are NOT supposed to take full pizzas back to the table. If you do I reserve the right to take my selections off your plate..
Go Dukes!
Great Post….and yes I would buy a “lock the damn gate!!!” shirt.
@Drake… great idea about the shirt!
@Drake – I’d buy minimum 3 and maximum 275…ok maybe 5
Also should be noted:
A) Sam Houston is not a state
B) A bearcat is neither a bear nor a cat (it’s a boarder line endangered weasel from souteast Asia)
C) We are the Dukes of JMU!!!
Yeeeeeesssssss! Great post.
+1 on the LTDG shirt
Excellent post and breakdown. See y’all in the burg tomorrow afternoon!
Turn down for what!!! Dances* yeah I’m old so what!?
Your kid look like he roots Salerno.
And we’re looking into shirts as I type this. Hope to have more purchase info soon.
good post. cute kid. GO DUKES!
Incredible post, Salerno. Epic in fact, to quote the young folks. Glad that the Almalfi Coast is being represented here. Between your post and Coach Houston’s pregame speech last Saturday, I’m ready to get up from my desk and pop someone in my office and scream LOCK THE DAMN GATE! It’ll be a good clean hit though, I won’t launch myself or initiate head-to-head contact.
Tomorrow night can’t get here fast enough as far as I’m concerned and I’m sure lots of other folks feel the same way. I’ve been checking SHSU boards this week and some of the stuff that’s been posted about Abdullah is just scary. Not just typical keyboard warrior stuff, but real hatred. Say what you want about UR folks, but the SHSU faithful have gone next-level, and not in a good way.
Go Dukes!
Question of the day? Should I go to the JMU Playoff Game? The link says it all lol
https://t.co/fTHvlLybVV
#LockTheDamnGates
Just saw this on one one of the JMU Sports posts:
“The largest crowd the Bearkats have played in front of was 8,343 at Lamar in week two. Let’s show them what it is like to play in front of 20,000 and how tough it can be to play in a noisy road environment.”
They have no idea what to expect, do they…
Anybody have a link to the LTDG speech vid?
I rather enjoyed this…
https://twitter.com/JMUSports/status/806922568267538432
Awesome post