JMU Sports Blog

Just get used to the fact that this week sucks. Mickey would say it’s a necessary evil, especially on a 12 game schedule, and it should give JMU a victory to pad their record, but other than the goodness that always comes from tailgating in the ‘Burg on a fall Saturday (and thankfully we’re heading for clear fall weather this weekend), there’s absolutely nothing else to see here.  St. Francis sucks ass. I mean they suck like a porn star that’s been finger dippin’. We don’t need to speculate about this based on their sucky conference (NEC) or their sucky results from their only game this season (another guarantee game blowout at the hands of the real GSU) because we all wasted our money watching the Red Flashes in all their suck at the beginning of last season when JMU destroyed them 55-7 at BFS and we’re all gonna do the same again this week.

KSt. loooves sloppy seconds!

The Basics (Mostly Verbatim from Last Year)

St. Francis is called the Red Flash.  Yes, that’s Flash, not Flashes.  They are from what appears to be a beautiful town on top of a mountain called Loretto, PA.  That town is likely just a small outpost where people talk about how you should’ve seen it when the mine was working.  St. Francis is one of the smallest schools in Division 1 athletics and someday they’ll probably make a great story for March Madness.  But limited scholarship FCS participation in the NEC is a tough way to go (ask URI) and they were terrible last year and are likely to be terrible this year.  This is not CCSU from two years ago or even CCSU from two weeks ago. St. Francis is moving to a more uptempo offense like the Dukes and actually had 79 plays and more first downs than GSU last week, but a blowout is inevitable and anything less is a disaster. This team is terrible.  If you want a more thorough examination, you’ll have to go over to JMU Sports.

Quick Note on Playoffs

In case you’d forgotten, the big news this year was the field expanding to 24 teams (and with only 90+ eligible not making it is a fireable offense no questions asked). But thankfully, at long last, mostly lost in the larger field, FCS is also instituting a “strength of schedule” component similar to the RPI used in hoops to make distinctions between potential participants. In the long run over the course of a CAA schedule that contains neither URI nor Maine, this should benefit the Dukes mightily.  But after CCSU, STFU, Charlotte, and even Akron, but mostly thanks to this crummy game, don’t be surprised that the Duke are going to be looking up at a lot of folks during the earlier part of this season.

Beer of the Week

This is important this week as it’s one of the highlights of the day. Could be one of the last warm-weather home games, so let’s keep rolling with the summery IPA types.  This week it’s Finch’s Beer Company’s Threadless IPA.  Just a solid, sessionable IPA from Chicagoland that comes in tall-boy cans, our favorite tailgate vessel.  We actually don’t love a ton of Finch’s offerings, including the more ballyhooed Fascist Pig, but the Threadless won’t steer your wrong.

Prediction

Dukes 41, STFU 10

This post may not be for everyone, but if you love JMU for more than fall Saturdays or maybe just need a refresher on perspective the way we did after the Akron game, we’d encourage you to give it a quick read. As long-time readers (there are at least a few of you out there; maybe even some who aren’t related to us) know, of all the non-football, non-men’s or women’s hoops programs, we tend to give a disproportionate amount of love to the Field Hockey team. Through a series of coincidences largely based on where are season tickets were located in Old Bridgeforth we got to know Head Coach Antoinette Lucas back before we even started this little project.  Once we learned she was actually the best athlete in Harrisonburg of any age, was really into endurance racing, and enjoyed hustling the football coaches on the golf course, we knew we’d struck gold in the friend department.

Oh yeah, Coach Lucas was an Olympian, and was in this unreal ad for Virginia Tourism!

We’ve learned quite a few things from Coach Lucas – most importantly what a family those in the athletics department in a small college town become and just how seriously these coaches take their jobs and careers despite how cavalier some of us on the outside looking in occasionally act about the “Olympic” or “non-revenue” sports and/or the job security we feel is deserved by those in the bigger name sports.

Unfortunately, other than some general “we’re getting better” or “we’re a little banged up right now” type things, one thing we never learned was hardly anything about Field Hockey. We promised Coach L we’d make a game, but never delivered, largely because we were lazy and life (and Dukes football) got in the way. We finally got our chance this weekend and it was an incredibly good time that we highly recommend to current students and alums alike.  In our case, we only even made it to a road game at American near our homes, so the purple crowd was even sparser than we imagine it may be in the ‘Burg, but I’m delighted to report we’d do it again in a heartbeat (and are already making plans for one of their two games over Homecoming weekend). Rob’s kids prevented him from making the trip, but our good friend Rich (CoachPriz) made the trip with me. First of all, NOBODY tailgates better than the Field Hockey parents!  As soon as we pulled in, a couple of them were already strolling down to the field with full purple solo cups despite any teetotaling Patriot League rules – now that’s what we’re talking about. (all names are withheld to save parents from getting called out by their daughters for hanging out with those stupid old alumni guys). And even better, we can’t imagine a more welcoming, fun, passionate group of JMU fans anywhere, though we’re betting similar things take place at softball, baseball, lax, soccer, etc. all the time.  Thankfully we brought a JMU tent and it’s attendant shade, so at some time or another most all of them came by to say hi.  A few of them plied us with food and drink and a few others stayed with us on the sidelines and let us ask stupid questions about the game in rapid succession. Many of them asked us whether we were actually gainfully employed JMU grads and if they could hope for the same for their kids.  But seriously, students: fire up your livers and head over to the Field Hockey complex across from Festival and these people will make it well worth your while.  And alumni: if you’re in town for the weekend and get to attend a soccer or hockey or softball game sometime, it will really remind you of all the things you loved about JMU even before all the glitz and glammer of New Bridgeforth and NCAA tourney runs.

I’m still not sure we learned too much about the game..  We learned the whistle blows a lot.  Like all the time.  And most of the time the action happens too fast to know why unless you know what you’re looking for, which we clearly didn’t.  With full credit to Rich, we also learned when good things happen, you get an insertion, when bad things happen they get a stroke, and people yell “stick it in” and “too high.”  In a lot of ways, it’s a micro version of senior year really.  (hope those same wonderful parents don’t hate us for that one now).

In the end the Dukes fell 2-1 to Columbia on a controversial call (just not JMU’s weekend with the officials) against our stud goalkeeper despite outshooting the Lions 20-8 and mostly dominating the second half. It certainly appeared to our very untrained eyes that Sam Smiertka, Dana Allaband, and Adrienne Le Vatte all had solid performances and we’re pretty sure Taylor Bailey scored the goal, continuing her early scoring surge this season. No one called for anyone’s heads or screamed at individual players. And in the end, our friends on the coaching staff were left miserable and facing a long, hot ride back out of the city.  Oh yeah, a few of the parents and supporters seemed to like the streamers we brought from our football tailgates for the goal we did get to celebrate and hopefully that can continue for FH too! Thanks to everyone who welcomed us and made Sunday a day that truly reminded us why we’re all so lucky to be Dukes!  See you in November.

First of all, a huge thanks to all of you for making the open thread for the Akron game one of our most active ever! Amazing what a horse manure ending and treating timeouts more frivolously than Gilbert Arenas with a new contract will do to stir up the masses. Second, our sincere gratitude to the Field Hockey parents, supporters, coaches and players who made our trip to AU such a good time!  We’ll write that trip up tomorrow night so it’s not buried beneath 1300 venomous words about football.

The “Issue”

Everyone who cares about JMU football has been knashing over the final 20 seconds of last night’s game (and the whorish unsportsmanlike on DQS to start that fateful drive) for 24 hours now and the complete and utter bullshit inflicted on the Dukes by the MAC referees hasn’t changed one bit. It just doesn’t feel any better and we wish we didn’t have to mention it ever again, but we can’t very well step back and take the long view without addressing it so here goes. EFFORT – that’s all we ask. With the new college rule that you can’t spike the ball to kill the clock under :03, who knows if the Dukes pull it off, but the failings on the final play by the officiating crew were in four parts. No matter how much some of you blame Mickey and the coaches or rightfully point out it shouldn’t have come down to that, the fact remains the Dukes deserved better than that.  After the pass was completed, my first thought was “sweet, first down, clock stops, time to kill it.”  My next thought was “even if no first down PLENTY of time to stop it.”  It never even occured to me they wouldn’t spot it in time.  (Side note: The announcers were so bad they made Craig James look like a sane, decent, competent alternative and their complaints about the JMU WR not getting down were just flat-out wrong in my opinion – he was trying were it not for the nine Akron players holding him up).  So begins the comedy of errors.

1) It was a nine-yard gain with a confusing spot based on the scrum.  Given all the reviews and measurements in this game, would it have been too much too ask for a measurement here. 2) The refs are allowed to blow the whistle for a momentary stoppage, and should have, once forward progess is stopped, which it clearly was when our guy was being dragged all the way back to Columbus. 3) Could’ve been an unsportsmanlike for the continuous hounding after the whistle was blown of our player. 4) But last, and most egregiously, it is absolutely without question that the officials have to at least make an ATTEMPT to spot the ball ready for play.  You have got to be ready if you’re half aware of what’s going on and quite simply, these MAC buffoons were either not ready or something worse.  All we ask for there is an effort to run the ball back to the spot and be ready. These assclowns made zero effort and that’s a) something I’ve never seen before in similar situations, and b) the most hauntingly frustrating thing about this game. read more…

We’re old, and we live a couple hours away, but mainly we’re old, so as much as we’d like to find the time and occasion to support some of the Dukes teams beyond just football and hoops, we really haven’t been in able to come through on that front. But we’re giving it a shot this weekend for a road game that luckily takes place right here in our backyard.  While both soccer programs our still on the list, the inaugural JMUSB Non-Football/Non-Hoops Tailgate hits the road with Field Hockey this Sunday!  The FH Dukes are out to a blistering 2-0 start in which they’ve outscored opponents 13-2, but they’ve got two tough games on tap at American University this weekend.  Friday at 3 they take on AU and Sunday at 1 they take on Columbia.  We’ll be there Sunday around 11:30″ish” to “get ready” to cheer on our good friend Coach Lucas’ awesome squad.

Surprisingly, AU actually has an established policy for Field Hockey tailgating, which is great!  Visitors (I guess that’s us given both teams are really visitors) are designated to tailgate behind the scoreboard.  Map and explanation available on AU’s site here.  However, you should read all the policies, which include “Patriot League policies” regarding tailgating that are, how shall we say it, somewhat restrictive.  Have fun with that W&M Pantsless Griffins when the time comes!  (seriously, I wonder if W&M wouldn’t fight this if they really do join the Patriot someday soon? – their fan base is not large, but they are one of the few CAA schools that have never been anti-tailgating)  But we’re Dukes, and if there’s one thing we know about, it’s how to bring “good times” (or Early Times) with us wherever we go no matter the circumstances.  I’m sure we don’t have to spell it out, but please plan accordingly.  (We will have purple Solo cups of course).  Does look like a “park and walk” so pack a bag and a camping chair.

JMU’s Taylor West

Skins are Monday night, Giants are Sunday night, so this really worked out for us and hopefully for you too!  We’ll have the tent up and maybe even the banner, though in the interest of full disclosure we are accutely aware, and you should be too, that there’s a very distinct possibility this entire “tailgate” will be the three of us sitting under a tent alone at the end of a nondescript, city-school field.  We’ll have fun anyways, and we hope to meet a few of you in the process, so if you can’t make the Akron trip, don’t hesitate to take this bonus chance to throw on your purple, enjoy the great weather and meet your fellow blog dorks.  Oh yeah, and you get to watch JMU’s badass FH machine, Taylor West, light up some smart kids!