The JMU Dukes have made a decent start to the 2013 college football season, though there are still some areas of their game that will require work, if they want to win a testing looking home game against Charlotte. Last time out, the Dukes beat Saint Francis 24-20, to the relief of their fans who enjoy betting on sports. They will have to work harder if they want to make it back-to-back home victories, though.
For sports betting fans of college football who are looking for the best sportsbook at Bodog88.com, the JMU Dukes are certainly an interesting prospect. A strong defense might well take them to victory against Charlotte, but their offense will also have to improve. If Birdsong can strike up a relationship with some unfamiliar receivers then they might well record an impressive win.
One of the main problems that the Dukes encountered against Saint Francis was the way in which their passing game was put under pressure. The Red Flash used a lot of man-to-man coverage against the JMU wide receivers, something which head coach Mickey Matthews identified as a real issue in post-game press conferences. Matthews also anticipates that the Charlotte coaching team will have watched the game against Saint Francis closely, and learned some useful lessons from it. Bodog sports betting fans would do well to take a closer look at how the Red Flash defense was able to exert so much pressure.
“I think we’re going to see how teams play us now,” Matthews told reporters.
“They did a ton of man and got up in our face. It was an odd defense. They put somebody over the center and our offensive line was not handling that.”
The JMU quarterback, Michael Birdsong, passed for 145 yards and one touchdown, completing 10 from 23 attempts. He also threw three interceptions, though. The pressure that the Red Flash exerted on the Dukes quarterback was intense, and that forced the JMU offense to look to their running game to make the required yards. The running backs responded well, and JMU rushed for 253 yards, an impressive tally.
The Dukes’ problems with passing were compounded by the absence of some key members of their receiving corps, though. DeAndre Smith’s ankle injury looks set to keep him out of action for the coming clash with Charlotte, and his absence will continue to be keenly felt, not least by Michael Birdsong. While Quintin Hunter’s bruised kidney kept him out of the game against Saint Francis, he may well return for the clash with Charlotte. Sports betting fans with a soft spot for JMU will hope that he does.
There are also injury issues at running back, which will concern all sportsbook betting fans who might be thinking of placing a wager on the Dukes against Charlotte. Jauan Latney, who ran for 23 yards with three carries against the Red Flash, was forced to exit that game early with a dislocated knee. He is expected to miss the game against Charlotte as a result. Jainard Lambert, another running back, played with a cast on his thumb as a result of a torn ligament. Sadly, it seemed to affect his performance. He carried the ball three times, managing to gain six yards, but also fumbled the ball. He will not now play, according to his coach, until the cast is removed.
Thankfully, for those Bodog sportsbook betting fans who pay close attention to JMU, the team’s defense has looked steady and solid so far this season. Anyone who uses online gambling sites to bet on football will know that a strong defense wil often grind out wins even when the offense is misfiring somewhat. Wile the Dukes conceded touchdowns on two big plays against the Red Flash, they also restricted their opponents to a measly 131 yards in the whole game. Online sports gambling fans who saw the game will have noticed just how well the Dukes’ defensive line was able to exert pressure on the Saint Francis quarterback. Lineman Sage Harold recorded three of the Dukes’ eight sacks in the game.
Here you go folks. Consider this the spot for all of your pre-game, in-game, and post-game chatter. Stay dry and root fer Dukes!
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?!
Since Charlotte football is only 3 games into its inaugural season, we figured a lot of JMU fans could use a hand getting up to speed on the 49ers. Thankfully Sydney Hunte, the site editor for the Charlotte blog Pick Axe Digest, agreed to help us out. Here’s a brief Q&A we did with him about the brand new 49er football program.
Amy Clark won last week’s prediction contest and earned the right to guest post. Here she shares her perspective on the gameday experience. Take it away Amy.
I will start by saying yes I am a girl that watches football and goes to all the JMU games when work allows. My husband played at JMU and has been going to the games ever since. So of course when we met and football season started he introduced me to the game. Before I met him I didn’t even like football, but it turns out that was because I didn’t fully understand it. Over the years I have learned enough to appreciate the sport and love JMU. With that said, I’m still not knowledgeable enough to write about all the ins and outs of the game or all the stats of the Dukes like previous blog posts. But what I can share with you is a little bit of a different perspective. Watching JMU on Saturdays is probably much different for me than for you. When I go to a game I see a lot more than just the football game going on. For me there is a game within the game. read more…
This little gem was created by DukeDogDad over on the message boards and brought to our attention by @jmusuperfan. And yes, it’s fantastic.
The Dukes welcome the Charlotte 49ers to the friendly confines of Bridgeforth Stadium this Saturday. The Dukes are coming off a win over St. Francis (yes, a win), but looking to build some momentum before CAA play begins. Charlotte is a brand new program and it will be attempting to bounce back from its first loss ever, a 40-13 defeat by NC Central.
And it’s time to make predictions. As a quick reminder, here is how this works. Enter a comment with your prediction for the outcome of Saturday’s game. Include your winner and final score. The person who comes closest to correctly prediction the outcome (winner & score) will get to write a guest post next week. Easy as pie. So will JMU get its mojo back after a win that created more than a few question marks? Or will a first year program come into Bridgeforth and get its first road win ever? Let us know in the comments.
First things first. When is a win not a win? Never. The Dukes are 2-1 and avoided what would have been easily one of the worst losses in program history. The season remains in front of JMU. And thankfully we have two position groups that managed to find their way into The Good this week. Beyond that, let’s just say Rob threw up on his laptop watching the game last night and neither one of us is really able to muster our usual “glass if half-full of purple kool aid” outlook. Paraphrasing our good friends over at Mister Irrelevant, just choosing to even write a postgamer on this one is really the ultimate proof of our love for the Dukes (and/or our love of self-inflicted torture).
The Good
Thanks for saving our asses DQS!
Before we get to the laundry list of complaints, it is worth noting the incredible efforts of a very small group of Dukes players who collectively, and mostly alone, helped the Dukes avoid the bottomless pit of humiliation this season could have quickly become had they lost yesterday. The entire defensive line, plus RB/KR’s DaeQuan Scott and Dejor Simmons. That’s it, that’s the list. The D-Line had easily the best performance by that position group since the annihilation of Aaron Corps and the Richmond Ticks at BFS two years ago. Having Tyler Snow back must’ve helped a bit, but the entire group, and Sage Harold and Jordan Staunton in particular, were explosive and dominant all night. After the slow start from that group in the opener, this is two weeks of steady improvement. If the defensive backfield can stop having epic brain farts (and that’s a big if given what we’ve seen), this defense could still be really special. On the other side of the ball, the two running backs and kick returners, DaeQuan Scott and Dejor Simmons, did everything they could to take the inept passing attack out of the equation and rescue the Dukes in the second half. Before what turned out to be the game-winning drive, Rob texted me: “Bad, bad game. Starting to think JMU could really blow it.” I responded: “Nope, MM taking over playcalling here. Will take a while, but DQS will ice it.” Thankfully that’s exactly what happened as DQS rumbled nearly the entire drive, though I’m not convinced that’s a good thing at all for JMU’s long-term offensive development. Anyhow, thanks DQS, Dejor, and the DLine!
The Bad
Madizone. Look, we’re very thankful it exists. We’re even more thankful the JMU Alumni Association is sponsoring it so that it’s free for everyone. And we’re thankful it’s come a long way in the last few years. But for as great as it was last year, it’s struggling a tad this year and froze on many users during the second half yesterday. Any other week this would fall in The Ugly, but really maybe it was a good thing some people were saved from having to watch that. Yes, we all should’ve been at BFS, but hopefully they keep improving this invaluable product.
The Ugly
Everything else.
– The utter unpreparedness of the team falls squarely onto a coaching staff that seems to have dwelled on the ending to the Akron game like a bunch of lunatic fans and allowed their players to do the same. Sure looked like the team’s brain was still in Ohio and that’s on the staff.
– We try not to crush individual players, but let’s hope this was a real learning experience for the Ginga Ninja; no need to attempt hero plays against a lesser opponent, just play smart.
– The OLine’s penalty problem. Look, these guys may be a strength of the team when they get it together, but they’re spending entirely too much time complaining to the refs instead of NOT COMMITTING PENALTIES.
– And finally, the DB’s. Seriously, this defense has the bones of something great, but for the second week in a row, they gave up random HUGE plays that appear to have been entirely mental. First play of the game, overamped and overcommited and you get beat over the top and then later you give up on a play because you assume someone else has already made the tackle. Those are STFU’s two TD’s on a night the D looked dominant most of the rest of the way. But just like Akron, that’s enough to lose.
– WR’s get a pass this week due to massive injuries. Depth was a strength with this group, but it will be tested now.
Moving Forward
Let’s hope the team can move past this one faster than they did last week and get ready for (hopefully future conference-mate) Charlotte. As Rob said last night to the pitchfork-in-hand mob gathering outside the Plecker, a quick reminder that it’s week 3. We get as emotional as anyone during the games, but there’s a LOT of football left. Other than Towson, the rest of the CAA also appears to be working the kinks out (UR lost to something called Gardner-Webb, just sayin’). Keep the faith. Go Dukes!
It’s another beautiful Fall day and the Dukes are playing host to St. Francis. Kick-off is set for 6:00. Here’s your open thread for pre-game, in-game, and post-game chatter. And if you missed it, Akron nearly knocked off Michigan in the Big House earlier today. They fell 28-24, but the strong effort might change some folks’ opinion on last week’s JMU loss. In any case, root fer Dukes everyone.
We’re posting this one with a whole range of caveats. According to a message board post, the Speaker of the JMU Faculty Senate emailed his colleagues in the Faculty Senate in some sort of attempt to encourage them to hold-off on weighing on on the JMU to FBS move until after they’ve examined the Carr Report. We have not done any research to determine the validity of this supposed email. It may be a complete hoax for all we know.
With that being said, if it is legitimate, there are multiple ways you could view it. You could choose to believe that its the smoking gun that proves the Faculty Senate is colluding to prevent JMU from jumping to FBS. Or you could argue that it’s a case of the Speaker of the Faculty Senate attempting to encourage his peers to be patient and weigh the facts before making a decision. And how you view the message as whole, probably comes down to how you interpret the following excerpt.
I think the Faculty Senate can make better, more well-reasoned arguments if we can look at the data in the consultant’s report before we take any action. I think doing so will make us look better – it will make us look as though we’ve based our conclusion on the evidence, rather than on a knee-jerk, “we-hate-football” attitude. read more…
