Dec 19 / Todd

Texas Bound Baby!

If you’re reading this, you pretty much already know about everything from Friday’s celebration of the Dukes ending the North Dakota St. dynasty. There’s one more game to go and we can’t wait to see you all in Frisco, Texas in 2017! So we’re not gonna go too deep here because if you’re like us you’ve already rematched Friday’s game enough to know more than we do.

The Good

Duuuuuukes! – What can you say? Dukes. Never. Disappoint. (at least in football). What a night, what a team, what a fan performance in selling out the JMU allotment of tix for Frisco already!

Tyler friggn’ Gray! – We usually save that middle name for Jimmy but the Dukes’ kicker earned it Friday.

Mack Patrick, Dimitri Holloway, Ish Hyman, John Miller – “Next man up” is nice to say but in reality doesn’t always lead to the same production. This group balled out on Friday and may all be needed in the Natty. Just incredible work.

Blocking on the outside from Jonathan Kloosterman and Domo Taylor – The Bizen back seven wanted no part of these two!

lockKhalid Abdullah – Really not a lot to say except there were a lot of great college ballplayers on the field Friday. And one NFL running back. Best player on the field and it wasn’t close. His OLine wasn’t bad either!

Playoff Revenge Tour – JMU avenged one bitter playoff loss (’11) on Friday and will now get a chance to get payback for one of the all-time bitterest (’06) against Youngstown St. in January! Also, Dukes are the designated home team so we should get to see PURPLE!

Greensboro Watch Party at Gray’s Tavern – This is personal, and I know there were incredible watch parties all over the country because Dukes Errywhere, but that was one of the bigger thrills I’ve had as a Dukes fan to think maybe we’d get 5-10 and instead be greeted with a packed house singing the fight song, going particularly nuts for Taylor Reynolds thanks to family in the house, chanting throughout and generally celebrating a completely unexpected opportunity to go nuts with fellow Dukes. We’ll be in Frisco, but needless to say that place is begging for a chance to run it back. That. Was. Awesome. (Farley voice)

The Bad

Dukes fans complaining about Tyree Chavious – get over it. Kid is uber-talented and he’ll be starting in North Texas too. Plus that game won’t be in the Thunderdome and won’t have the noise when the Dukes are on offense. We absolutely believe he’s a beast-in-waiting.

Rumors only half the MRD’s are making the trip – We need the full band. They’re the best fans by a wide margin and if there’s anyway we can help in getting the full 400+ to Texas in January please let us know.

The Ugly

The outright disrespect of YSU and FCS fans generally for the Dukes on Any Given Saturday. Fair warning: this is the rabbit hole. Don’t go too deep over the next few weeks if you want to enjoy your holidays and not get fired.

 

 

26 Comments

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  1. KB / Dec 19 2016

    Great recap, Abdullah looked like a man against boys out there just an incredible effort by all.
    Two thoughts, make sure to not underestimate the unranked penguins they remind me of a road warrior underdog team who no one thought could win in 2004.
    Mike Houston is the greatest coach we have had and it will be interesting to see how long he stays. COTY 5 of 6 seasons that’s incredible I hope he is here for a long time.

  2. ShadyP / Dec 19 2016

    Awesome performance by the entire TEAM in Fargo.

    I trust that Houston will not allow this TEAM to overlook any opponent.

  3. sekudog / Dec 19 2016

    Agree with KB, I was rooting for EWU to win, they seemed to me a bit better version of SHSU and I think we would have routed them. YSU is tough, hard nosed and has a chip on their shoulder, we have to be on our A game to beat them and they will be playing up the underdog thing….will need to be able to stop the run against another huge O-Line…GO DUKES!

  4. Sunchase / Dec 19 2016

    Couldn’t agree more on Chavious. Yeah, he had a rough game in a big spot, but 10-15 games from now, he’s going to be smashing dudes at the line.

  5. Jay / Dec 19 2016

    This was a great game friday night. I believe houston will have the team ready and not take anything for granted. All the Dukes did a great job! Houston needs to stay and make us the next dynasty. GO DUKES!!!!!

  6. Chris / Dec 19 2016

    Very proud of our guys.

  7. '04 Duke / Dec 19 2016

    “Dukes fans complaining about Tyree Chavious – get over it. Kid is uber-talented and he’ll be starting in North Texas too. Plus that game won’t be in the Thunderdome and won’t have the noise when the Dukes are on offense. We absolutely believe he’s a beast-in-waiting.”

    Kirsch won’t be back for the national championship??? I didn’t care about Chavious’s false starts as much as I did him playing matador with the LDE. He failed to even get a hand on that guy on close to 50% of our pass plays. It’ll be tough sledding to win on Jan 7th if we don’t get better at RT.

  8. Ken / Dec 19 2016

    ’04 Duke: agree Chavious has some work to do, but keep in mind:

    had a decent game against a good DE from SHSU (did have a false start on the 1st real drive (schor threw the INT on the 1st play of our actual 1st drive).

    the ‘Ole’ defense was the result of cascading events — crowd noise required silent/near-silent counts. OL mitigation technique was to hold hands — may or may not have reduced their splits. Pile in the false starts and eventually the guy just doesn’t move until the guard moves — at that point he’s beaten off the line by any DE.

    Won’t have that noise-amplifying ceiling in Frisco or the opponent’s 17,000 fans. He will have 2+ weeks more of 1st team reps to get ready.

  9. Ken / Dec 19 2016

    ’04 Duke: agree Chavious has some work to do, but keep in mind:

    had a decent game against a good DE from SHSU (did have a false start on the 1st real drive (schor threw the INT on the 1st play of our actual 1st drive).

    the ‘Ole’ defense was the result of cascading events — crowd noise required silent/near-silent counts. OL mitigation technique was to hold hands — may or may not have reduced their splits. Pile in the false starts and eventually the guy just doesn’t move until the guard moves — at that point he’s beaten off the line by any DE.

    Won’t have that noise-amplifying ceiling in Frisco or the opponent’s 17,000 fans. He will have 2+ weeks more of 1st team reps to get ready.

  10. '04 Duke / Dec 19 2016

    Ken, good points. Crowd, hand holding, and splits certainly played a part. I would just feel much more comfortable with Kirsch. Is he really out for that game too?

  11. down south / Dec 19 2016

    need some recommendations — JMU ticket office unable to fill my ticket request. Looking for seats, preferably in 105-107 but not finding anything reasonable on ticket broker sites.

    if anyone knows of anyone selling or a JMU fan exchange site, please let me know.

  12. GJ / Dec 19 2016

    At the risk of sounding like UVa’s Larry Sabato during the 2016 presidential election (and we all know how that turned out for Sabato), I’m going to make a confident prediction: I really see no path to victory for Youngstown State. Might as well start getting the NCAA championship banner ready right now.

    Seriously, I don’t mean to jinx us, but YSU is not anywhere near the quality of team as NDSU or SHSU. The Dukes are firing on all cylinders right now. They’ve really hit their stride and established themselves as the best team in FCS this year. The big difference between this year and last year is that the defense has finally shown up.

    Now the only question that remains is how long JMU can hold on to Coach Houston. Give him a lot of credit for going all the way to the championship in his first year as head coach. He will definitely be getting the attention of some FBS schools from now on.

    While I’m really excited about Madison having another championship season in football, I can’t help but be amazed by how disastrous the basketball program is this year. Too bad we couldn’t find a Mike Houston-type coach for that program.

  13. Cory / Dec 19 2016

    Aaaand we’re back. I like what Houston has done this year (with a lot of Mickey and Everett’s guys). Is he the greatest JMU coach ever? Not yet and he probably won’t be here long enough to see it happen (off the top of my head – 1. Mickey, 2. Challace, 3. Rip).

    As for Chavious..no one (not even those “vaunted” 2004 Olinemen) could have done what he did in the Fargo Dome. I watch this game on TV with a friend and talked with other coaches after the fact about this game. We are all in agreement that their DE was false starting on purpose (which is a penalty in college) to get Chavious to false start. Won’t happen that way in Frisco, just like it didn’t at JMU.

  14. Alan / Dec 19 2016

    May I put in an early plug for Laguinita’s 12th of Never for Beer of the Week in Frisco? Great taste and comes in a perfectly colored purple can. See you in Frisco.

  15. Mike in OHio / Dec 19 2016

    @CJ…I am a Dukes supporter all the way but I would not be too overconfident when it comes to beating Youngstown State. We get only moderate information on them here in Columbus papers but while they probably are not up to the level of NDSU, from what I saw of Sam Houston St., YSU is playing better than that. They have been on a roll of their own lately and one never knows how things will match up. Just remember last year’s Colgate game when no one thought there was any way we’d lose that or the year before when Liberty came in and whipped out butts. Granted Withers was the coach but I just would not get too cocky thinking JMU has it in the bag before they step on the field. YSU mostly recruits out of NE Ohio and there are some pretty good high school players out of that region that go there. I am not sure they can stop our running game but when they beat EWU, I got a little nervous about them. Go Dukes.

  16. Ken / Dec 19 2016

    @Cory. Roger that on Chavious — looked a lot like the NDSU DE was barking and juking to simulate the snap count. One of the false starts on Chavious was called by the linesman on the opposite sideline. One was called when there was absolutely NO movement from the OL, but the right DE blasted across…

    Chavious and the rest of the line will be OK.

  17. Spunky ('91) / Dec 20 2016

    First of all, our football team gave me my Christmas present for the year (don’t need anything else at this point except maybe 1 more victory come January 7th). Watched the Mike Houston show last night and his implication that he’d rather be playing Eastern Washington got me a little nervous. Also, I really wish we’d have a fully healthy Offensive Line on January 7th, but I guess no team is 100% this time of year. Regardless, I trust our coach, our assistants, and our incredibly tough players and know they will be ready for our final game day. Speaking of Coach Houston, does anyone know any links to his pregame speech for the NDSU or SHSU contests? Would LOVE to hear those speeches again (is there anyone better at delivering these?).

  18. JMU2003DUKE / Dec 20 2016

    7 players suspended for the title game? Hoo boy.

  19. Rob / Dec 20 2016

    @JMU2003DUKE the suspensions were in place prior to last week’s game. While it’s not great news, JMU already showed they could overcome it. Holloway played great and there is plenty of depth at WR.

  20. ShadyP / Dec 20 2016

    I think it should be the same players that were suspended for NDSU game. My guess is that Alls and Hereford are the only 2 that play significantly so they were the only two addressed for the ndsu game.

  21. JMU2003DUKE / Dec 20 2016

    Check. Thanks Rob and Shady. Have you all heard anything about the suspended YSU players and their availability for the title game?

  22. ShadyP / Dec 20 2016

    From what I have heard the YSU players are done for the championship game too.

  23. OBXDuke1983 / Dec 20 2016

    That is too bad. Hate to see young men make bad decisions that keep them from what could be once in a lifetime experiences. Happy that the coaching staff is willing to take action. Just a shame.

  24. Dukes4 / Dec 20 2016

    hm, funny how the official announcement came out today…..subsequent to the tremendous ticket sales and travel arrangements we all made. I need a shower.

  25. Mark / Dec 20 2016

    1)Go Dukes

    2) Game tickets are flooding the secondary ticket market

    3) get on AGS and find some Bison fans; they have many tickets

    4) I ordered my LtDG shirt, however I want to be certain of the origins of the phrase. Please advise.

    May Frisco be Bridgeforth West

  26. Drake / Dec 20 2016

    Looks like the JMU allotment of tickets sold out plus the 3,000 or so YSU couldn’t sell. Looking to be a home type crowd and I can’t wait to hear it on tv. Madizone doesn’t pick up the crowd noise. Glad to hear the suspended players also missed the semi finals. Not too worried at this point.

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