JMU Football is Back and So Are We
As you might have noticed, the blog has been a little devoid of fresh content for a while now. And we feel like we owe everyone an explanation. So here it is. Simply put, we’re lazy.
Now if you could permit us to abandon our typical tone and actually approach earnestness, it’s more than just that. We started the blog all the way back in 2009. We’ve published 1,756 posts, several of them mildly tolerable. For the most part, it’s been incredibly fun and rewarding. But it’s a labor of love. And it’s been way more “labor” than “love” in those off-season periods in between the end of hoops and start of football in the Fall.
Sure, we’ve had fun writing about deep postseason runs by softball and lax, but the blog has primarily been focused on football and basketball. So when the college sports world shut down last March, the blog kind of did too.
Things had been slow in the weeks leading up to Covid anyway. Rowe was a dead man walking and we were just waiting for JMU to turn the page. We’d be lying if we said we had any sort of plan at that point. Scraping together “content” over the summer when there’s no JMU sports in progress, has never been our favorite thing. The thought of doing it for an indefinite hiatus wasn’t particularly appealing. We tossed around a few ideas, discussing posting about classic JMU games, creating some sort of wacky bracket, etc. But much like the jigsaw puzzle that currently sits 3/4 completed in my house or the sourdough starter I carefully nurtured, but never used, some plans never came together during quarantine.
That’s enough looking back. It’s time to move forward. College basketball has been a stop and start affair, but the early returns on Mark Byington are positive. Our guy Coach O has a young team that has struggled to find consistency, but still has a very high ceiling and a bright future. And of course our Dukes are ready for the brave new world of Spring Football.
So we are back. We might be using training wheels for a while, but we’ll be trying. It should look largely the same for long time readers (if you’re still out there). We’ll be doing our weekly game prediction contests, Friday previews, and being smugly dismissive of Richmond. Beyond that, we’ll take things as they come.
Love the pod but missed the blog. Glad you all are back.
Thanks Cory. Happy to be back as well!
JMU Basketball! Let’s Go Dukes. How about something written about this year’s basketball team when you get time? Today’s game was 180 degrees different from the last 10 years of JMU basketball. They actually hung in when being down the whole game whereas before they would hang in but fold in the last few minutes. Probably not going anywhere in the post-season and with covid causing cancelling a bunch of upcoming games making the momentum questionable, they might fall back some, but still, the effort and coaching and enthusiasm is good to see. Did have one thing to get your opinion on. What are your thoughts about the end of the game strategy that all college teams seem to employ now….team is behind, they make a basket, foul immediately, send the other team to the line in an endless parade of free throws that just lengthens the game to what seems forever. Know the answer is to make free throws but this strategy does seem to really slow down the game and make the last 2 minutes seem to take 15 minutes to play. Just wondering what your thoughts are on this. Ok go Dukes and let’s get Hofstra again tomorrow.
MBB…wow. What. A. Difference. A. Coach. Makes.
Pretty stoked about the football home opener next week too. Although in these crazy times of COVID, nothing is quite certain as far as outcomes are concerned. Still, I’d love to get another shot at NDSU.
Looking forward to seeing some football again. Been missing it even more than I thought I would (and I was thinking I’d be in deep withdrawal).