JMU vs. Charlotte Preview

The Skinny

The Dukes need to get it together in their last chance to do so before conference play starts in a big way at Delaware next week.  That’s really all you need to know about the Dukes.  Questions all over the place including Birdsong’s shoulder, WR health and can someone step up, Cam Stark’s health and consistency, can the DB’s figure out what the heck is going on, but really…just give it the hell to DaeQuan and start moving people on both sides of the line of scrimmage.

As for UNCC, you should first know that they’re bringing the most fans for a visiting team to BFS we’ve seen in quite some time and they HATE being called “UNCC” now that they’re trying so hard to be “Charlotte.” Thankfully, their fans seem genuinely excited to have a new program with great potential and excited to be playing a school with some actual fandom and tradition in JMU after starting their inaugural season against three afterthought programs.  The 49ers are playing their very first season of football, but they’re not your average expansion program.  They’ve already built their very own pretty sweet stadium (15k, set for expansion) thanks to huge backer and Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson.  Needless to say, that’s the kind big gun in terms of financial muscle that has led to explosive growth for schools like Oregon and Oklahoma St.  Charlotte is also headed straight for CUSA, already their conference home for all other sports.  They won’t fully join CUSA until 2015 and are technically a “FCS transitional” team this year and next, ineligible for both FCS playoffs and FBS bowl games.  But make no mistake, despite being a first-year program loaded down with Freshmen and Redshirt Freshmen they have as many schollies as JMU already and blew out their first two opponents before having the favor returned to them by North Carolina Central (don’t laugh, Central has also beaten crApp. St. already this year, plays at Towson this week).  You can find out all the details in our great Q&A with PickAxeDigest (you know you can feel good about a school’s athletics program when they have such a solid blog going!).

CUSA Audition?

Look, we’ve expressed our feelings – that the CAA is a crumbling heap of stinking, cooling dog poo from which JMU needs to extricate itself as fast as possible in case you forgot -many times. We also have no illusions either that a) a CUSA invite is even likely or b) that one game means anything significant at this point (infrastructure and growth potential mean more than any specific day OR on-field performance at this point).  But it really wouldn’t hurt to make a good showing on and off the field against a school whose fans seem to genuinely support a JMU-to-CUSA outcome and would truly be a great regional rival many JMU fans could learn to love/hate very easily should such an outcome ever play itself out. So show some JMU hospitality in the lots and some Duke Dog Pride when it comes to rootin’ in the arena!

Beer of the Week

The weather is changing and you know what that means.  Rob and I being miserable because all the space for real, tasty beer at the market is being taken over by crummy, girly-man, awful, mediocre, cliched, horrible Pumpkin beers. In the old days (five years ago), you could get a ton of solid brown ales and fest biers during what is clearly the best actual season of the year (no humidity and JMU football!), but these days it’s one long row of chintzy, cheap, orange-clad pumpkin beers.  Just stop.  Don’t do it.  Try to control yourself and find yourself an early porter or stout if the weather is cool enough.  This week we’d suggest a Founders Porter.  One of the few year-rounders from Founders, always a JMUSB favorite, this dark, silky beer still goes down easy and is perfect if you need to huddle under a tailgate tent from a cool Valley rain this weekend.  If the weather holds, it’s still darn good and at 6.5% should lead to some quality Rootin’ for a 6 p.m. kickoff!

Official JMUSB Prediction

This is an odd game for prognostication.  On one hand you’ve got a first-year program playing their first-ever road game in a real-deal hostile football environment (Students: please help us out with that, even in the 2nd half!).  On the other hand, they’ve played pretty well so far and the Dukes remain a mystery.  We say the Dukes pay attention to last week’s wake-up call and restore order before embarking on the CAA journey.

Dukes 35, 49ers 17

Want to troll a 49ers fan?!