Playing better than ever – and that’s really saying something.
JMU played its most complete game of the season yesterday in a 31-21 Homecoming victory over Villanova. They deserve full credit for showing up big-time in what amounted to a playoff elimination game. Best of all, we’re thrilled to know that the season lives on and if the Dukes can finally find a way to win a road game this week, things could still get very exciting the last few weeks!
On a personal note, we’re a bit beat up from a rough old-guy weekend so excuse us if this is a little shorter post than such a wonderful game deserves.
The Good
In a delightful twist, this section is chock full of items while The Bad and The Ugly struggle (a bit). First and foremost, the resilience shown by this team was outstanding. On a macro level, the Dukes bounced back from a disheartening game in Williamsburg last week and proved definitively the players haven’t quit on any their larger goals yet. In this game itself, the team also did an outstanding job overcoming what could have been a number of huge setbacks. They overcame two redzone penalties to score td’s on both drives and also got around a dropped big play a couple of times by coming right back with first downs. Need to carry that focused belief with them up to Durham this week.
The D just did an exceptional job shutting down John Robertson and Nova’s vaunted running game. They harassed him all day, sacked him a ton, and of course turned in the game-sealing play on pressure-forced pick 6.
Stephon Robertson. Good doesn’t say nearly enough. They should just rename the CAA Player of the Week award for him. PLEASE try to enjoy watching 27 while we still have the chance no matter the team’s results the rest of the way. He truly has become a Dukes legend and is playing on an entirely different level.
A balanced attack. THIS was offense we saw against Richmond and it was a pleasure to watch at times. It’s also possible we all really underestimated just how good W&M’s defense really is given the 17-0 shutout they threw against UNH yesterday.
Harrisonburg – The Valley was in full show-off mode this weekend and we were all thankful for some glorious fall weather to go with the always stunning backdrops after some really crummy weather for many of the other home games this season.
Kenny and the Massanutten crew! – Thanks gents! Great treat for HC and we’ll try and hold back some good stuff to exchange for another game soon. Generally, great to meet, or hang out with again, so many readers and friends yesterday (Swag, superfan, Mike, Tremonkey, etc.). We never dreamed how much doing this project would deepen our own alumni experiences, but we’re humbled and thrilled every time we get to meet other passionate Dukes.
The Bad
Student section. Late arriving is a bit understandable at Homecoming, but the continued halftime exodus is shameful. We don’t usually weigh in on this because it’s almost unfair to those students who do stay, and care, but hopefully a little winning streak might help.
The FG on 4th and a foot at the ten late second quarter tied at 14. In hindsight it worked out, but I nearly had to be restrained. Again, what has happened to our swagger on these calls. Go. For. It.
The Ugly
Mickey’s meltdown. The refs let him get away with the first one before justifiably and understandably hitting him with an utterly indefensible and inexcusable 15 yard penalty. Doesn’t take a genius to connect the consistent similar penalties from players to the example they’re following. Nothing else to say about this.
Next
At New Hampshire at 12:30 Saturday. For those who had viewing issues where Comcast “joined in progress” this weekend, you can rest assured this one’s on the national NBCSN broadcast for all to see. We’re working on setting up a little Falls Church viewing party ourselves, details to come.
It’s Homecoming! This afternoon the Dukes will try to bounce back with a win over Villanova after a disappointing loss to William & Mary. Kickoff is set for 2:30. And it’s supposed to be beautiful, so stop reading, get in your car, and meet us at the game. We’re hitting the road momentarily. Consider this your open thread for all pre-game, in-game, and post-game chatter.
One more thing. Yes, we did read the Deadspin post by an anonymous former player from an unnamed school. And yes, it describes a football program that sounds a whole lot like the one we know and love. Two things to take away from this regardless of what school the guy is referring to. First, alleging that someone is a racist is a very serious matter. It’s the sort of thing that could ruin a man’s career and reputation, because it’s deplorable and inexcusable under any circumstances. Period. It’s serious enough that it’s not wise to jump to conclusions and judge someone based solely on anonymous and indirect allegations. And second (and on a much lighter note), stay for all 4 quarters people! And root fer Dukes!
JMU welcomes its old friend Villanova to Bridgeforth Stadium on Saturday. It’s a Homecoming showdown for two teams fighting to keep their playoff dreams alive. A win would get the Dukes to 6-3 and provide some much needed momentum to carry into a brutal closing stretch. A loss for the Wildcats would pretty much shut the door on their postseason chances.
Just the Facts
Match-up: JMU Dukes (5-3, 2-2 CAA) vs. Villanova Wildcats (4-4, 3-2 CAA)
Kickoff: 2:30 at Bridgeforth Stadium
Weather: Mostly sunny with a high of 61
Broadcast: Televised on Comcast SportsNet Regional. Streamed via CAA.tv and Madizone
All About Nova
Villanova earned a place in sports history when a ragtag group of underdogs, a blow-fueled point guard, and a coach that looked like Paulie from Rocky, upset Georgetown in the 1985 NCAA Basketball Championship. But Villanova deserves to be known for much more than just that one basketball team. Among the many other things Nova is known for is, well, um, nope that’s pretty much it.
Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics
Villanova’s passing attack is 10th in the CAA. You’d be a fool to assume that means they can’t throw the ball though. They can. QB John Robertson throws it quite well actually, completing a league best 71% of his attempts. The Wildcats rank so low in passing offense because they simply don’t throw much. For comparison’s sake, they have 67 fewer attempts than JMU. And they don’t air it out much because their rushing attack is so strong that they don’t need to. They rush for an average of 242 yards a game with an attack spearheaded by Robertson and a stable of capable tailbacks. Robertson has already eclipsed 1,000 yards on the ground to go along with 15 TDs. If you’ve never seen them play, Nova essentially has Mickey Matthew’s dream offense. read more…
You wanted a home playoff game? Well, you pretty much got one. Villanova rolls into town to play the Dukes on Saturday. Both teams need a big win to keep their playoff dreams alive. It’s about as close to a must win as you can get for a week 9 game.
And now it’s time for our prediction contest. By now, we trust the majority of you know how this works. Here’s a quick refresher just in case though. Add a comment letting us know who you think will win and what the final score will be. The person who comes closest to predicting the outcome correctly (winner & score) will get to write a guest post. Simple, right? So let us know who you think will win Saturday. And keep rootin fer Dukes.
It’s about that time!!
To paraphrase a favorite Drive-By Truckers songs, Shut Your Mouth and Get Your Ass to the ‘Burg! It is, after all, Homecoming. Yes, it comes a little late this year, but the weather’s looking perfect (Sunny, 63) and pumpkin beers are thankfully mostly gone from the shelves of your local store. Kickoff time (2:30) is a tad early for our liking thanks to television, but a) that’s a good reason and b) is hopefully in a sweet spot in this binge-alicious weekend for students where they can stay the entire game without fear of missing out on parties or even getting cold. Plus it’s daylight savings night so you all get an extra hour to party and/or sleep it off later anyways!
And best of all (ok, maybe around 121st best for most people), we’ll be setting up and a good ole’ fashioned JMUSB official tailgate, and we’ve even got Godwin Field parking for what we hope will be the most central location we’ve ever had for getting a lot of us together! We’ll have the Start Wearing Purple JMUSB Banner up on the tent nice and early this weekend and we even have a real crew of our own this year (10 deep including two little ones!) so stop by, say hi, and share in some rootin’ fer Dukes! On that note, if you park in a satellite lot like we sometimes do, feel free to bring a cooler and a chair and come set up with us. [We’d especially like to extend an invitation to those great Hanson Field gentlemen with the ‘shine we met last year!]
For the next five days, we’re calling for a moratorium on ALL negativity surrounding JMU Athletics. Here’s a quick, but certainly not all inclusive list of things we as a community can surely agree for this short period of time not to bitch, whine, or get angry about: Mickey, Realignment, Bourne, King, O-Line penalties, JT, Nation, MadiZone, playcalling, realignment, mickey, realignment, and mickey. If the Dukes lose and fall entirely out of the playoff picture, they’ll be all the time in the world for hashing, rehashing, and thrashing about what JMU needs to do from here on out, but again, it’s freakin’ Homecoming! In case you’ve forgotten (and we certainly have at times), Homecoming’s about way more than the run/pass ratio. Dukes have lost games through the years, but we’ve never lost a party! The Elias Sports Bureau is very clear that JMU has never lost a tailgate! And this week we’re even playing the ultimate anti-tailgate opponent: Vanillanofun. We know you’ve got one more great one in you for old times’ sake!
In fact, here’s a quick, but certainly not all inclusive list of things we as a community can surely agree to get fired up about: Tailgating in the ‘Burg on a beautiful fall day (and if you graduated pre-05 you know how much that means!), morning parties, Four Roses Bourbon, MRD’s!, Start Wearing Purple, Brighten the Lights, Plymouth Gin, P-Lot rootin’, streamers, purple Solo cups, reheating bbq in a crockpot hooked to the car’s lighter, walking to the stadium with a full purple solo cup and taking pics on the DukeDog statue, afterparties in what was just named “Best Beer Town” by Blue Ridge Outdoors (we recommend Clementine’s but plenty of options abound), overspending at the bookstore (and telling yourself your just knocking out all the holiday shopping), making a weekend of it and attending either Friday or Sunday’s field hockey game, a Three Bros. Brewing tour, mountain biking at Flagpole, a Route 11 chip tour, and of course crashing a college party only be chanted back out to the sweet stylings of an “Old Guys Leave!” chant.
Feel free to add to the “fired up” list in the comments and leave your Debbie Downer jeans at home! Let’s Go Dukes!
Mickey said on the CAA conference call that Dae’Quan Scott has an ankle injury. May not play vs. Villanova.
— Matthew Stoss (@MatthewStoss) October 28, 2013
The hits just keep on coming, don’t they? After a particularly disheartening loss over the weekend, today we found out that Dukes tailback Dae’Quan Scott might miss the game against Villanova. In case you haven’t been paying attention, the coaches seem to consider Dae’Quan one of the focal points of the offense. He’s the Dukes all time scoring leader and he was responsible for one of the only offensive highlights for JMU last Saturday, when he took a screen pass 40 yards to the house. He’s very good (duh) and will likely be a key part of Mickey and O’Cain’s gameplan if he plays (duh again).
Maybe, just maybe, this wouldn’t be the end of the world. Because as good as Dae’Quan is, some folks might make the argument that at times his talent causes the coaches to put blinders on and restrict the offense a bit. Actually, I have no idea if there are folks out there who’d make that argument, but I certainly would. I love Dae’Quan’s game. He’s great. But sometimes, it certainly appears as if the coaches dial everything back and rely on him a little too much. Maybe the simple threat of him missing the game, will force Mickey and his staff to get a little more creative with the gameplan. And Khalid Abdullah looks ready to step up if called upon anyway. In fact, I could probably write thousands of words about how the coaches failure to consistently involve Abdullah and some of the other talented weapons at its disposal has lead JMU down this path to mediocrity, but I’ll save them for another day.
Yes, at face value this isn’t great news. But it might not be terrible. It’s clear this team needs a spark or something to rally around. Besides, there are two things everyone loves, an underdog and a party. As JMU fans, we’ll be treated to both on Saturday. Keep rootin.
Really getting tired of running this pic.
JMU lost 17-7 in an incredibly disappointing, frustrating, ugly game at William & Mary yesterday. Pathetic is really the only word to describe nearly everything about this one. We really would rather not rehash much of this anger-inducing game and would love to get on to Homecoming but here’s the usual thoughts.
The Good
???
Most people hated them, but I actually thoroughly enjoyed the Griffins’ wonderfully incompetent and gloriously homerish announcing tandem. Hard to believe that’s the only thing I can come up with, but the truth is the truth.
Some might argue the defense was “alright” and created turnovers but that “alright” came against a second and third string QB and wasn’t there when it had to be.
The Bad
O-Line just refuses to play a clean game. We don’t call student-athletes out by name often, but let’s just say that the supposed leader of this group has gotten to the point that we were betting the over/under on his number of penalties yesterday with a group of fans before the game even started.
Daniel Brown – One catch unless I missed something. W&M’s defense is legit and I’m sure they were rolling a double-team to him even if we couldn’t see much on W&M’s poor-man’s version of MadiZone (and that’s a really poor man). How JMU couldn’t find a way to get him involved is pathetic.
3 turnovers by W&M in their own territory led to a whopping grand total of ZERO points for the Dukes.
Obviously the GinjaNinja’s dreadful overthrow for the INT late gets the headlines, but that’s just a bad throw. What’s annoying lately is his consistent lack of situational awareness on things like when to throw it away instead of taking a sack once he’s already out of the pocket, and confusion over where the first-down marker is. Obviuosly he can improve, but those kind of things can be coached. A lotta regressive Logan Thomas in this one right now, not that there’s any coaching connection between the two or anything.
Kicking game. Not sure if that was on Starke for the line-drive or the line for the blocking, but special teams errors are also reflective of sloppy coaching if you’re seeing a theme develop.
The Ugly
The utter lack of an identity continues to plague this team. It’s almost like once the Dukes get any kind of scant lead at any point in the game, we get only the really bad part of old Mickey and none of the good. It’s very confusing and is killing this team. The thing that scares us the most is that Mickey appears to have lost his nerve and/or is coaching like a guy on a really hot seat, always deflecting criticism to his players and failing to explain why he’s completely abandoned his old gunslinger mentality. If nothing else, the old Mickey didn’t give a shit about “the percentage play,” especially on 4th down decisions. We all painfully remember the results of taking this to its extreme in the playoff game in Boone, but it also earned JMU bonus points, stretched leads, continually put pressure on opponents, and maybe best of all instilled a sense of confidence and belief in the players on the field. Yesterday the Dukes, having already had a FG blocked, were faced with a 4th and a foot (and another 4th and 5 later) solidly in W&M territory down 10-7. Anyone who came to love JMU football between 04-09 knows that would have been a no-brainer no matter what the hell all of us armchair QB’s thought. This bullshit, fraidy-cat version of MM just orders another cutesy pooch punt by a field-goal kicker or Birdsong, inevitably ending up in the end zone and gaining a whole 14 yards of field position in the process while broadcasting the “we’re playing not to lose and I don’t believe in you” message to the players.
This team also plays great at home and/or with a lead, but is a shell of its potential on the road or when facing adversity. Might even invoke the “soft” moniker.
The Big Picture
Before this game, we thought that 8-4 would give JMU a great shot at the playoffs. Not anymore. Because they now will finish behind both UD and W&M even if they “tie” them by virtue of awful head-to-head losses, that really means 8-4 will be unlikely to get them any higher than 5th or 6th place in the CAA and leave them on the outside looking in no matter how much MM protests. That means only 9-3 will do it and that, in turn, means they have to run the table to make the playoffs and potentially save MM’s job. Obviously this is unlikely, but we’ll all be rootin’ next week against an equally desperate, three-loss Villanova team at Homecoming. And hey, cynics and the pitchfork crowd can celebrate even in defeat as one more almost certainly signals the end of the MM era.
It’s a beautiful fall day in the Commonwealth, perfect for a football game between the Dukes and their old rivals the William & Mary Tribe Pantsless Griffins. Kick-off is at 3:30 and you can purchase the stream of the game here. DC Metro Dukes can join the official viewing party at Penn Social at 801 E St. NW in DC. Consider this your open thread for pre-game, in-game, and post-game chatter. Enjoy the game everyone. And root fer Dukes!
NEEERRRRDDDDS!
It’s one of our favorite games of the year this week as the Dukes travel to the land of butter churns and chastity belts to take on the Tribe in what always seems to be a very tight matchup.
The Basics
William & Mary is a really stout defensive team that has struggled on the other side of the ball this season. They’re probably better than their record (three losses were all close and came against @ WVU, @ Villanova, and @ Maine) and always well-coached by Jimmye (the e is silent and ridiculous) Laycock and company. Defensively, the Pantless Griffins lead the conference in Points Per Game [allowed] and have been solid all around. If JMU can continue developing O’Cain’s offense into scoring big points again this week, it will make a huge statement. But on offense, they’ve had all kinds of trouble at QB (though as usual, Jimmye is doing the W&M thing and sticking with his injured, inconsistent senior no matter what) and really haven’t been able to do anything consistent in the passing game. That “should” be a favorable setup given the Dukes’ D’s relative strengths and weaknesses!
Seriously, where are my pants?
Hopefully we’ll continue learning good things about the Dukes again this week and they don’t overlook this with Homecoming on the horizon.
Coverage
Strangely, this in-state rivalry game is the last of JMU’s games that won’t have broadcast tv this year and the only one not available on MadiZone (audio is available through Madizone). But it is available through W&M’s version of Madizone which can be accessed here. It’s $10.95 for a monthly subscription which you can cancel after the game. Grab a few buds, split the small fee and don’t miss this big one. Or better yet, if you’re in the DMV, join the MetroDukes at Penn Social to watch the game. Or even better yet, do your rootin’ at the game in Williamsburg.
The other good news is that beginning next week, the Dukes last four games all are available through NBC (National twice and Comcast regional twice)!
Beer of the Week
Devil’s Backbone Brewing Company’s Stringduster. Made specially for the incomparable Infamous Stringduster’s great festival, The Festy Experience, two weeks ago at the DB Basecamp near Wintergreen, you can still get this malty bit of fall goodness on tap in growlers down there thanks to the rains that kept the crowd down this year. DB is rapidly becoming one of the lead dogs in Virginia’s beer renaissance and took home a slew of medals at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver last week. Their signature beer that’s widely available is probably the crisp Vienna Lager, but the harder to find Stringduster and the Blue Ridge Hop Revival (wet-hopped) are worth the trip!
JMUSB Prediction
This game has all the makings of one that should be scary. The Vegas line actually has the Dukes as four-point underdogs. It’s a rivalry against another team like JMU that’s probably played better than their record and it’s tough to tell exactly how good they are based on either who they’ve beaten or who they’ve lost to. But we’re still big believers in the Dukes talent level and development and we think they’ll continue to grow off the bye week into the squad we all think they can be.
Dukes 27, Tribe 23, Rootin’
The bye week is over and it’s time for the Dukes to get back at it. On Saturday, JMU will travel to Williamsburg to take on its old rival, the William & Mary Tribe (or Pantsless Griffins if you’d prefer). Of course that means its also time for our contest to see who can predict the winner. Here’s a quick refresher on how the contest works. Leave a comment indicating who you think will win the game and what the final score will be. The person who comes closest to predicting the outcome correctly (winner and score) will get to write a guest post next week on anything his or her heart desires. Well, that’s not exactly true. You can’t write anything offensive (porn, praise for Richmond, etc) but you get the idea.
So where were we? Ah yes, the game. It’s William & Mary’s homecoming on Saturday, which means the stands should be filled with alums anxious to see their Pantsless Griffins avenge last year’s double-overtime loss to the Dukes in Harrisonburg. We will have our full preview tomorrow, but if you haven’t been paying attention here’s a little info to help you make your picks.
William & Mary is in a situation that might be eerily familiar to Dukes fans. The Tribes defense ranks number one in the CAA, but the offense hasn’t exactly been keeping pace. And according to most fans, the offensive shortcomings are largely attributable to inconsistent QB play. In fact, one of the hot topics this week for William and Mary fans seems to focus on debating which QB should get the start. We’ve been there Tribe fans. It gets better. At least it did for us, because JMU has the Ginga Ninja.
In any case, expect this to be another tough game for the Dukes. Whether you’re going to the game in the other ‘burg, spending the day checking out William Hill horse racing, or tuning in via the Tribe’s stream, we know you’ll be rootin fer Dukes.
