Dukes Show Some Serious Mettle in Win Over Villanova
Wow, that was something this weekend. The Dukes defeated two top-five teams at the same time – Villanova and the CAA Officials – to storm back for a huge conference victory. Whatever your complaint about JMU is, zip it. That Villanova team cheats every passing play (needless to say, the CAA has not caught up with the NFL’s recognition of pick plays and offensive PI) and still has atrocious special teams, but they are damned good. They run a great scheme offensively and were stronger up front on both sides than anyone the Dukes have played thus far, including WVU.
The Good
John Daka – Absolute monster. Villanova took the lead 24-17 and got the ball back for one play. Daka blew it up, caused a fumble, and ignited the Dukes to 21 straight points to win going away. And that’s before all his other great stuff. If he plays like the FCS’ version of LT, JMU is awfully tough to do anything against.
M.J. Hampton – Still learning, but what can you say except “bravo” to ejected Amos’ replacement after he made the biggest play of the game and nearly had two other picks (the one in the end zone where he and Smith collided and the deep pass he broke up late)
Riley Stapleton – Our whole section called the second TD on a back-shoulder as soon as Villanova showed man coverage. The way he was used on the first two TD’s makes him the unstoppable force we all remember from Frisco vs. NDSU.
Resiliency – Seriously, a standing ovation to the team and coaches. While me and most of the crowd was panicking about the secondary and losing our mind with the officials, Coach Cignetti stayed calm and the team rallied back with a 21-0 fourth quarter that shows just what is possible from this group. Also doesn’t hurt to have a Marshawn, er, Latrelle Palmer, to throw at them just when they other team is wearing down.
Crowd – This was a top-10 New Bridgeforth performance from the crowd with no caveats even needed about Family Weekend. Incredible job by parents, students, everyone sticking around and making an impact on this one in the fourth quarter. If we can get that kind of performance for four quarters every week, that place is impossible for visiting teams. Can’t wait to do it again in two weeks!
#FCSonGameday – The effort appears to have worked as the JMU vs. Villanova game was one of the featured games to pick on ESPN’s College Gameday’s last segment. Plus it was very cool to hear Walter Czobcak himself John Goodman say “I like the Dukes!”
The Bad
Pass Defense – Lather. Rinse. Repeat. McCormick out. Amos ejected. Drew injured. But there’s still no excuse for a bunch of speedy and talented players to be consistently burned very badly by a bunch of try-hard types on the outside for Villanova (except for Hodge, he’s good). I mean, sometimes we are beat so badly we aren’t even in position to commit a last-gasp pass interference that would be preferable to the catch and/or score. We used to get on Mickey’s defenses for playing soft and allowing easy catches in front of them, but at this point, isn’t switching to that softer coverage almost necessary?
All that said, the secondary did make the play of the season to date and come up with three straight picks to ice the game. So we can hope they come away with some growing confidence and something to build on headed to Williamsburg to face the Tribe’s suddenly potent run n’ shoot.
Lobster! – For the second time ever, lobster won the food race and lobster rolls were 3.50 in the fourth quarter. But having it happen when the Dukes were down and no one could steal away for more concessions was tough look. But cool move pulling that on Family Weekend.
The Ugly
CAA and Officials – We try really hard every year to stay out of the homer-filled blame-the-refs game. But even putting aside the accuracy or inaccuracy of specific calls, we cannot recall ever seeing a more inconsistent, dysfunctional, and unprofessional game by an officiating crew. This was beyond our ability to even joke on Twitter with @AverageCAARef because this was dangerous and potentially season-altering garbage. Most coaches will tell you all you really hope for is consistency. And not only was this inconsistent, it was just an all-out debacle and the CAA should be embarrassed. Inordinately long replays, lack of any explanations, replays of replays, getting things wrong and then stopping again to get them wrong again (How can a 15 yard penalty be mis-spotted and then suddenly “corrected” only to become a 16 yard penalty?). The list was long and undistinguished of things wrong with that performance but Clown Commish Joey D (apparently there isn’t enough time to evaluate refs between all the times a middle-aged man puts on a uniform to play soccer with Northeastern’s women’s team) and someone at the league office better make darned sure this crew NEVER works another CAA game again.
It was a great come-from-behind victory. I agree about all the pick plays – especially involving their TE. I think every pass to him involved some kind of pick to get him open. A few other things that I liked:
1. Clock management. As I think everyone here recalls, clock management was not one of Houston’s core strengths. We are much improved in that area this year. We drained the clock at the end of the first half so that we were either scoring a TD or a field goal with little time for Villanova to do anything about it. Same towards the end of the game – with Nooch allowed to milk the clock down on the snaps once we had a lead.
2. Going for it on 4th down. Granted, we didn’t make either attempt, but both were the right calls. Much more satisfying to try and go for it rather than the Houston era where we couldn’t get the punt team out fast enough.
3. Everything about Palmer. I love that we have a 230 pound running back who has a jump cut that can make LBs miss, and the speed to outrun a safety on a long run.
4. Our special teams. You really saw the difference what an above-average special teams unit can do compared to Villanova’s below-average unit.
5. That was not targeting.
I totally called that lobster win.
The pick play on their touchdown was obvious.
Palmer coming in late in the games, with his punishing style, could be an enormous weapon in cold-weather games.
I fully expect this team to not overlook W&M. It looks like if we handle the next 3 games, we could have the CAA in control. Homecoming is going to be fun.
I’m confused as to why there is so much angst over the targeting call. The rule:
“Launch–a player leaving his feet to attack an opponent by an upward and forward thrust of the body to make forcible contact in the head or neck area.
A crouch followed by an upward and forward thrust to attack with forcible contact at the head or neck area, even though one or both feet are still on the ground.
Leading with helmet, shoulder forearm, fist, hand or elbow to attack with forcible contact at the head or neck area.
Lowering the head before attacking by initiating forcible contact with the crown of his helmet.”
Did Amos not lead with his heads to make forcible contact the helmet? He did. It doesn’t matter if that was his intent, or that the Villanova player moved in such a manner that Amos couldn’t react. Targeting does not have to be helmet to helmet.
MJ Hampton.
That guy won the game for us. That pick six was the game changer. Without that Nova likely would have scored and led us into a scoring shootout like Stony Brook, and anything could have happened after that. MJ f’n Hampton was the difference.
Still, the Dukes secondary was a major weakness. I observed many instances where the Villanova receivers were open, but dropped ball or the throw was off. Several of Those were potential scoring plays. We obviously tightened up well later in the 4th quarter, but Villanova May have been desperate by then. Expect future opponents to continue to hit our secondary, it’s proven to be the way to score on the Dukes.
I thought it was Another good showing by DiNucci. Hope he continues this upward trend. we’re going to need him to be clutch in the playoffs, the matchups will be tough.
Now the goal is to lock up that CAA title and get that first round playoff bye. As JMU tends to rise to the occasion against their big opponents, I actually worry more about a lesser team sneaking up on us … like URI (who played us tough last year) or even W&M (who I thought fared pretty well against ECU, although it may have had more to do with ECU not being a great team).
Regarding targeting, I wasn’t watching on TV, so I saw only the replays on the jumbo screen, but watching live and in the stadium it looked the primary contact was to the shoulder first.
Anyway, one other random observation was that because Daka was such a stud, we were getting the same amount of pressure rushing three late in the game as we were getting rushing five earlier in the game.
After fighting through two backups on 64, ( what idiot thought that closing two lanes of 64 near C-ville was a good Iidea . GOT to P about 1:10 only to find that someone was in my space. I swiped someone else’s. Had to watch the officials totally bonehead the game. Once, back judge was standing over the ball until we had 4 seconds left on play clock. Who are these people Pop Warner officials? Great job by team in fourth quarter. W&M may be trap game.
Great composure and maturity shown by the team and coaching staff. A less experienced or immature team and staff would not have been able to persevere and overcome that horrid officiating. This shows that the coaching staff has done an excellent job preparing this team to function well under difficult circumstances.
I will echo the UGLY — I think we all know CAA officiating is questionable at times, but that was by far the worst officiated football game I have ever witnessed at any level. This crew was just AWFUL, in general they seemed confused and indecisive about everything they did on top of just getting things wrong. Every team, coach, and player work to hard to be subjected to this level of officiating. Simply they deserve better than what the CAA is providing. The level of professionalism and officiating is noticeably better come playoff time, when JMU gets crew from anywhere but the CAA.
Well summarized on the horrible state of CAA officiating Shady! Sombody needs to let those clowns know that they are NOT the feature attraction!
Wow you guys win and still bitch??? You have issues