Villanova Preview (The Family Feud)
Are you friggin’ kidding me?! I get off the Metro to walk into the job this morning and this big stinkin’ turd is parked across the street from my office .
Yes, it’s a bus full of toothless tourists from Boone, looking resplendent with the “back to back to back” logo and accompanying rings.
- Really? Really, really?!
I mean seriously. This pretty much describes the way the Dukes’ season is going. Ugghhhh.
Not a good omen at all as JMU makes the trip to the Main Line for Vanillanova’s homecoming game. The Wildcats are the defending Nat’l Champs, they’re getting back All-World WR/QB/RB/PR and absolute Duke-killer Matt Szczur from injury, they have the conference’s best player and potential high NFL draft choice on the OLine in Ben Ijalana. Also highly annoying that their star linebacker’s dad is also the CAA columnist on the most garbage FCS site ever created so don’t expect much pro-JMU coverage elsewhere.
Oh yeah, I haven’t even mentioned that the Dukes are banged up all over the field to the point where Coach Matthews is talking about pulling redshirts off of kids, most notably with the huge loss of Defensive Tackle and team leader Ronnell Brown to injury last week. For the first time last week, even our vaunted Defense showed signs of weakness in the second half against UNH.
But even after saying ALL of those things, I’ve got a feeling about this one. Given all the uncertainty and trepidation this week in the ‘Burg (who’s going to be healthy enough to play? will the team quit? is Offensive Coordinator Durden actually the inbred offspring of Les Miles?), there’s only three things I’m sure of:
1) Mickey closed practice this week to crack some skulls.
2) The Defense told the offense they’re through with this crap at some point following last Saturday’s shitshow.
3) There are a bunch of hungry, young players who are going to get their first opportunities this week.
For these reasons alone I’m thinking the Dukes are going to give a proud effort that we can all hang our hats on for playoff chances for at least another week.
For a good time, check out our preseason preview, which explains the Family Feud in my own household when it comes to this game.
JMUSB Beer of the Week: Despite the best efforts of Magoo, it appears Bailey’s and its multiple tap options may not be available for the game tomorrow (game is only available PPV through Nova’s website and the bar hasn’t gotten permission to show it – I’ll update here immediately tomorrow if that changes). Therefore I’m going with Dale’s Pale Ale, which is simply my favorite beer of the last couple years. The avant garde of the new canned-beer parade, Dale’s is a Colorado brew that tastes sticky good and packs a serious punch! Plus I’m going to watching this on a computer screen on my windy back porch so cans just seem right.*
JMUSB Official Prediction: Villanova 27, Dukes 23 – I’m expecting a gutty performance by the Dukes, maybe even a bit of a spark on offense to claw back into this game at some point. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t appear JMU has enough healthy scholarship players to pull this one off and they’ll have to make us sweat another week (and let the wagoners jump ship) before getting untracked and driving towards a final-week showdown for a berth with Will&Mary.
*Should this go badly, I’m going to switch to whiskey early in preparation for the Jason Isbell show tomorrow night.
love that car! (sorry)
I’ll be “pre-gaming” at my nieces 3rd birthday party. On the day of her 1st birthday party I witnessed the Rodney Lander’s last second Hail Mary win up at Nova, so maybe it’s an omen.
Also, as bad as things seem, the Dukes are 4-2 and a win today puts them in a great spot. They still play most of the teams ahead of them in the standings.
Go Dukes!
Although Durden’s O is the unit everyone will be scrutinizing … Mickey and Gillenwater might have a bigger challenge gameplanning for this one. There are so many athletes on D I feel we can get a good 11 out there … but it’ll have to be a different look w/o any tackles healthy.
Love the optimism!
I actually had a dream about Dale’s Pale Ale this week, so that’s a good sign.
Game IS going to be shown at Bailey’s in Arlington. Last minute, but they just got the rights.