Three years ago today we published our very first JMUSB post. I guess that means that today is our blogiversary or birthday or whatever we’re supposed to call it. We’re not pointing this out as some cheap ploy to encourage you to leave comments telling us how great we are (although by all means go ahead and do that). We thought it was worth mentioning because 1.) we never thought the blog would survive this long and 2.) we wanted to sincerely thank each of you for reading.
Since we started this blog three years ago, we like to think that things have gotten if not much better, then at least progressively less terrible. And over the past year, we feel like we’ve grown a little more comfortable in our own skin and have carved out a nice little (and we mean little) spot for JMUSB in the world of online sports. And that is largely due to each of you who read, comment, or share the link with friends. Because without a doubt, the most exciting thing that has happened to the blog over the past year has been the huge uptick in comments. And not just any comments, but insightful, funny, and engaged comments. It’s not exaggeration to say that often the comments have become more interesting and thought provoking that the posts they go with.
While we appreciate the accomplishments of each and every student who puts on the purple and gold and plays for JMU, we’re primarily focused on football and men’s hoops. And both programs have been mediocre (or worse) since last December. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t have plenty of personal highlights surrounding JMUSB. First and foremost, it was exciting for us to venture outside of the world of sports and get such a terrific response to our Q&A With Matt Bondurant, the JMU who’s book was the basis for the movie Lawless, and our little tongue in cheek advice column for the class of 2012. And we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention all of the great guest posts, which put the spotlight on some of our very talented readers for a while.
We could go on and on (trust us), but we’ll cut it short and just say thank you again for reading. We appreciate it and look forward to the day we actually get to blog about the Dukes return to March Madness or run to a FCS Championship…or maybe a bowl game.
By now you probably know that Jeff Durden and Chris Malone were fired by JMU on Friday. Durden was the Dukes’ offensive coordinator for the past 9 seasons and was also serving as the assistant head coach and quarterbacks coach. Malone coached the offensive line and had been on the staff for 6 years. He was also the coach who lead recruiting in Northern Virginia, a region that has become increasingly important for JMU in recent years. In addition to Malone and Durden being let go, JMU announced that QB Justin Thorpe, RB Jordan Anderson, and WR Renard Robinson will not be returning to the team next season. read more…
Our good friend and reader, Tedward, was at the Convo last night for the Dukes 83-82 OT loss to Richmond. As a former coach, he knows the game really well. And he has a unique perspective as JMU alum with real family ties to Richmond hoops. He agreed to write this guest post for us about the game.
JMU was favored over East Tennessee State tonight. The Buccaneers weren’t a particularly strong team to begin with, and due to injuries and various off the court transgressions they’re down a few players. But nothing is certain and there probably weren’t too many people who thought JMU would cruise to a 25 point win. They did though. JMU beat ETSU by the final score of 70-25.
There is no rational reason to get too excited about JMU beating an overmatched and undermanned opponent. Except that JMU doesn’t always defeat overmatched and undermanned opponents. Which means I’m excited anyway. Mock me if you must, but for the first time in a while I really enjoyed something JMU sports related. I’m sick of hearing folks call for Matthews to be fired, or Brady to be fired, or Bourne to be fired. I’m tired of listening to fans complain that JMU is screwed if it doesn’t move up to FBS. And tonight, my boys and I got to tune in to Madizone (which is awesome by the way) and watch the Dukes roll over ETSU for an easy win. And it was a hell of a lot of fun. read more…
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year: More Realignment Discussion!
Maybe we’ve just become to fanatical ourselves, but we’ve been going round and round here at JMUSB HQ the last few weeks with all of the conference realignment talks and our thoughts on JMU’s future place, or lack thereof, in college athletics. We may be wrong that you all care about this issue as much as we do, and it’s certainly possible that many JMU fans, at least those of our era, are still “casual” enough that all of this isn’t causing them heartburn. But one thing we are sure of is this issue is ready for a slow, somewhat detailed, hopefully somewhat objective, and certainly rational treatment. Our own shared Twitter account @JMUsportsblog, the writers that cover the program day-to-day, and the message boards are all too lurching and anxious and generally too minute-to-minute at times to really stop and cover all the angles that need mentioning when it comes to the stay-or-go debate in the CAA and FCS as a whole.
Over the next few weeks, or so long as Men’s Hoops gives us nothing but crap to write about and/or no new news is announced about JMU’s future, we’ll be coming back to certain issues surrounding the larger topic. Just to prove how serious we are about all the issues, we apologize in advance that we’re kicking off the series with one of the ultimate “inside baseball” subtopics that needs addressing, mainly so we can have something to reference back to when this issue inevitably surfaces in debate
A Brief Explanation of the Student Fees Issue
This is an admittedly non-expert report on the subject, but regardless of our individual and ever-evolving positions on moving up and leaving the CAA, one of the most frustrating items that needs correcting is when those, in this case usually those opposed to moving up, raise the issue of high student fees in opposition to the move. Yes, non-tuition student fees at JMU are among the highest in the nation and they would likely increase were JMU to move up. In large part, these student fees subsidize athletics,and yes, it’s incredibly valid to raise concerns over how athletics subsidies should compare to everything else on campus that requires financing from faculty salaries to study abroad programs to infrastructure improvements like IT or parking. But simply citing the national lists often published by a lazy media and outright opponents in commentary about the FCS/FBS issue is just crap.
Without wading too deep into the muddy waters of state law/higher ed transparency, those numbers mean NOTHING to a Virginia public school. If you’ll notice, there are a disproportionate number of Virginia schools on all of those metrics. The simple version is this: Virginia is one of the only states (Commonwealth actually) that has a law that actually prohibits burying or hiding the percentage of money paid by students for athletics in the tuition figure. Basically in most states a college or university can say “tuition is 25k” and you just have to pay it without actual knowledge that X dollars are subsidizing athletics. In Virginia, a school can only place that subsidy in the “student fees,” where it stands out clearly that much of that fee is actually subsidizing athletics. Only two things can be gleaned from this. First, Virginia seems to have taken a reasonable and responsible position on this matter. And second, even when you add that substantial student fee to the cost of tuition, most Virginia schools are still among the best bargains in the country, in particular James Madison as we all know. Oh yeah, and in many cases (definitely not all, but quite a few), there’s nothing “student” about who is paying the student fees.
As we move forward with this series, let’s all try to keep this in mind.
Lastly, please continue to check out this new blog specifically covering a team we can all be proud of, Kenny Brooks’ Women’s Hoops team, despite a tough loss to Liberty tonight. Just another great JMU fan taking it upon himself to fill a gap in coverage and we are grateful for that!
Well that was quick. After being suspended Saturday morning for a violation of team standards, A.J. Davis has been reinstated. Coach Brady said he and Davis discussed the issue and came to the conclusion that Davis has earned the right to rejoin the team. There has been a lot of teeth gnashing over Davis and Brady and Davis’ seemingly poor attitude and Brady’s struggles to connect with players, etc, etc. For now though, it appears that the head coach and his arguably most talented player are ready to move forward. And that is a good thing.
The JMU Dukes picked up their second win of the season with a 71-61 defeat of Winthrop. After a back and forth first half that saw Winthrop lead for a stretch, JMU took over in the second half and cruised to a double-digit win. After Wednesday’s performance agains George Washington, we were touting Andre Nation and the younger Dukes. Yesterday however, it was the seniors who stepped up and led the way. Andrey Semenov returned from a back injury that had kept him out since the opener and was his typical scrappy, long-distance shooting, loose ball getting, high-energy self. Andrey finished with 17 points and Rayshawn Goins had a team high 19 on 6 or 9 shooting. The big story of the day came before tipoff however, when JMU announced that senior A.J. Davis had been suspended indefinitely for a violation of team standards. read more…
In what has become somewhat of annual ritual for me this time of year, I’ve been slow to transition from college football to college hoops. Instead of jumping in with both feet, I’ve sort of watched this year’s JMU team from the fringes so that I could convince myself their was reason for optimism. Of course this strategy went out the window on Wednesday night when the Dukes played against the George Washington Colonials in a nationally televised game that I felt I had to watch. And I’m assuming that by now you know that JMU lost. And they lost to a, hmm, not very impressive GW team. And they lost in a fashion that was brilliantly described on Twitter as “just so outstandingly JMU-ey“. Yes, JMU-ey. Given the past two decades or so of relative futility in hoops, JMU-ey is the perfect word to describe a loss in which JMU couldn’t even attempt a shot to tie because two seniors (5th year seniors by the way) failed to connect on an inbounds pass. And while we’re at it, the fact that many fans appeared to be legitimately cheering a meaningless buzzer beating three pointer that resulted in the Dukes still losing by one, should probably be described as JMU-ey as well. But all is not lost. In fact I’m here to tell you that it’s way too early to throw in the towel for your 2012-2013 JMU Dukes. And it’s too early because JMU has a least a couple things going for it. And here are two of those things.
We’re back from our grieving period after another thoroughly underwhelming and maddeningly disappointing football season which led to all kinds of justifiably distraught, angry questions being asked about Coach Matthews’ future, Coach Durden’s future and the inept, misguided, antiquated offensive scheme as a whole, Jeff Bourne’s future, President Alger’s involvement in athletics, and the general malaise within the fanbase. Thankfully we had an excellent post wrapping things up from our guest poster last week and felt confident we could step back, enjoy our Thanksgiving travels, and come back with a fresh outlook as we turned to hoops season this week.
We even heard yesterday that Tarik Hislop won the ESPNw Player of the Week award last week and were excited to share such good news. And former Dukes cornerback Evan McCollough was a presence in the Toronto Argonauts Grey Cup win!
But then over the last few days the unstoppable, crazed, maniacal crack addict that is conference realignment in college sports started lurching around fiending desperately for any type of fix it could get its hands on. First, it made big waves when founding ACC member Maryland announced they were packing for the B1G (along with Rutgers from the Big East). While this made news nationally, it was today’s news, mocked by many in the power conferences and major networks but potentially landscaping-altering for the trickle-down schools and conferences like JMU and the CAA, that Tulane (all sports) and East Carolina (football only) were leaving CUSA for the Big East that drove us back to football and realignment despite our best efforts.
Wait, CAA game on national tv?! Couldn't be, could it?!
[By the way, PurpleOut for the home opener at the Convo tomorrow night against GW and extra good news is the game will be televised nationally on NBC Sports Network!]
In no particular order, here are some random thoughts about what this all may mean. Whether or not it actually means something to JMU is a whole other matter.
– CUSA doesn’t look like such great shakes all of a sudden, does it? This is not necessarily just trolling ODU, but now that almost all of what was CUSA is actually going to be in the Big East and ODU’s biggest hope for a regional rival (ECU) is gone, do you really think CUSA is quite so attractive if it’s this unstable? ODU, UMass, and the like still have a huge leg up on JMU because there feet are already in the collective door, but not sure we’d want to be jumping from a fracturing iceberg (CAA with it’s football/bball split) to a rickety old ship (CUSA).
– The MAC looks like a downright bastion of stability these days! Seriously, for any JMU fans that were bashing the MAC, and don’t get us wrong it has it’s warts (doesn’t sponsor all JMU sports, fairly far afield geographically with few if any potential true rivals), in all of this craziness, the MAC is really the only non-BCS conference that seems to have maintained both its shape and its integrity throughout the last few years.
– Is the ECU/UMass football-only move a possibility for JMU? Who knows, but we certainly could get behind that idea. Sounds like ECU may actually be returning to the CAA in all other sports which is actually good news for the CAA overall, but don’t get overexcited. It’s still shitty news for the withering football playing (and paying) members who are now even two more votes to the bad side of conference decisions with non-hoops members CofC and EZU.
– Is the Big East actually any better than CUSA, MAC, etc. at this point?! With Louisville, Cincy, and UConn basically begging anyone who will listen to throw them a liferaft out of the Big East, the essential lack of playoff access, and the same crummy voting considerations with so many hoops-only members just like in the CAA, really not sure what kind of future that road holds either? Not to mention the fact Boise and SDSU will never play a down in the Big East most likely since really what’s the difference from the Mountain West except for not having to listen to all the hoops whining from places like Georgetown, Villanova, and company?
– One thing is for sure, things are finally trickling down and if you’re an AD/President in Boone, Statesboro, Lynchburg, or Harrisonburg, you better be working the phones like a pollster on election night right now. Unfortunately, it has to be said, chances are we’re simply “monitoring the situation.”
– Is there more hope for an East Coast Conference that would actually be a great situation for JMU given all the instability in the Big East, CUSA, and to a lesser extent even the SoCon, MAC, and SunBelt? Who knows, but this still seems unlikely if only because FBS doesn’t want more conferences competing for that single spot in the “access bowl.
One final thought that we’ve been preaching for two years. 1-AA/FCS is already dead, only no one has bothered to check for a pulse yet. When you really stop to think about it, the four-team playoff was actually the death knell. Any championship dreams an undefeated Boise St. type team may have had a couple years ago before the kicking debacle against Nevada are even less than dreams now if you’re not in one of the Big Five conferences (which really may be the Big Four if the ACC gets destroyed by the B1G and the SEC as appears to be at least somewhat likely). It’s very clear that the non-BCS/playoff leagues in whatever form they end up (CUSA, MAC, MWC, SunBelt, and BigEast) are really just the new 1-AA. The 1-AA we all sort of still love, the one with the actual playoffs controlled by the NCAA cartel JMU didn’t make – again – is really just the new D2 and on down the line. Still not sure we care one way or the other if the JMU administration would just be more open and honest about their vision, assuming they have one, but two things seem clear: JMU has built enough in the last decade that they are, for the time being, out of place in this new D2. Second, unless they make a move now, the fire of support and excitement lit in the last decade will be extinguished faster than you can say Albany Great Danes.
Shady_P saw it coming folks. He predicted ODU would beat JMU 38-27. Sadly, he was almost dead-on. The good news is that he won the right to be our guest blogger this week. Here’s his take on the head coach of your JMU Dukes, the state of the football program, and other JMU sports. News Flash – Harrisonburg, VA – November 17, 2012
Mickey Matthews out-coached again.
read more…
