The Good, Gooder, & Goodest from JMU over Elon
The JMU Dukes took care of business on Saturday and beat the Elon Phoenix 31-3 in their house. The win clinched the outright CAA title for the Dukes and in all likelihood, the #1 seed in the FCS playoffs. It was pretty great. Pretty, pretty great. Bryan Schor led the way on offense with 290 total yards and 3 rushing touchdowns. And, stop me if you heard this before, the defense was dominant. It wasn’t perfect (because it’s football) but we’re not going to dwell on the negative. Instead of a “Good, Bad, and Ugly” recap, we thought we’d go with a slightly more positive approach. Here’s the Good, Gooder, and Goodest from the big CAA Championship clinching win.
Good
Running Game – The Dukes ran for 190 yards and an average of 5.4 yards a carry. It was another running back by committee sort of game, but Trai Sharp stood out. He managed 68 yards on only 11 carries. Overall though, the entire unit was very effective. The o-line opened up holes and all the ball carriers showed good patience.
Terrance Alls – He led the team with 73 yards receiving. More importantly, he seemed to serve as a bit of a safety valve for Schor, grabbing several tough catches when the Dukes needed to move the chains. All the receivers played great (although Ish might take some hits in the film room for that uncharacteristic drop), but Alls and John Miller were standouts.
Bryan Schor – In a weird way, he’s so efficient that’s it almost underwhelms fans. We’re spoiled. Yesterday he completed 22 of 29 passes for 214 yards. And that was in seriously windy conditions. He also scampered for 76 yards and 3 TDs on the ground. Ho hum.
Gooder
Special Teams – Blocked punts make us smile. Blocked punts that are recovered for touchdowns make us jump out of our seats. D’Angelo Amos had us on our feet yesterday with the terrific block and recovery for six. And Harry O’Kelly kept pinning Elon back deep in its own territory all day.
Offensive Line – That was the best game the offensive line has played in months. Bryan Schor had so much time to throw he could have taken a nap on some plays. And the running backs had holes all day. We were pretty determined to live in the moment and enjoy the game for what it was. However, it was hard not to get at least a little bit excited thinking about what the line can do in the playoffs if it continues to improve.
Goodest
23 Straight – The win extended JMU’s 23 game winning streak. Think about that. Are we as fans kind of sleeping on it? JMU just continues to win, week in and week out. The Dukes take the best that every opponent has, and just keep winning. Every fan knows how many games it is, but are we really grasping how damn amazing this streak is? To not have a single off game or game changing bad break in over a year is unreal.
11-0 – So the entire construct of this is not only grammatically incorrect, it’s also illogical. Because there is so much to be excited about that we can’t declare a single thing the goodest. The Dukes just went undefeated in the regular season. It’s their second year in a row going undefeated in CAA play. That shouldn’t happen. But it just did.
Defense – No matter what happens from here on out, when we look back at this season we’re going to think about the defense. We’ll say it. There’s never been a better defense in JMU history. I got a text from a buddy after the game yesterday saying “We’re so spoiled that the first thing I thought of after a 31-3 win was that I was pissed we didn’t get the shutout.” It’s that kind of year with that kind of defense. They were absolutely spectacular against Elon, just like they’ve been all season.
Hero Sports is apparently working on an article on just how this JMU D stacks up against other historic FCS defenses. It’s going to be a long 2 weeks, but giving Coach Houston 2 weeks to prepare, and the team getting 2 weeks to heal/rest is an amazing advantage. Trying to talk my old roommates into getting the band back together and make it to Bridgeforth for that 1st game.
I think you meant that Schor is so efficient it’s ho-hum…
The Dukes though, they’re the GOODEREST!
Great game by the players yesterday and great turn out by JMU Nation at Rhodes Stadium at Elon. It was like a JMU home game and the fans were on their feet throughout amd loud when Elon had the ball. It was very nice to drown out the oppossing fans in their stadium on senior day, playing for the conference title against a team ranked in the top 15.
@Tripp thanks for pointing that typo out. Pretty critical difference. Haha.
Does anyone know exactly what time tickets go on sale? Website says after the selection show, but no specific time.
so without the hail mary yesterday, does SB make the field? Definitely not hosting Lehigh on Saturday, at best they are a week 1 road team. Austin Peay should have made the field.
And they lost to Delaware, who didn’t make the bracket. Looks like they have a stout D, but I’m not too worried about Lehigh or SB.
You mean he is so EFFICIENT
I feel like our side of the bracket is much tougher than the 2 side…
Epic fail by ESPNU showing Jacksonville State/Murray State “highlight” in the middle of the JMU highlight montage. Clueless in Bristol.
@Rob – didn’t want to be “that guy” but yea it makes a difference! Haha! No denying Schor is an excellent QB!
@Tripp no worries. I actually appreciate it when people politely point those sorts of mistakes out like you did. That way I can fix them.