While we continue to play the waiting game until the CAA expansion candidates are announced, here’s your fix of JMU related links.
Reigning MLS Rookie of the Year and JMU alum, C.J. Sapong is on the ballot for the MLS All Star game. Fan voting will determine the starting 11 from MLS who get to take on 2012 European Champion Chelsea FC on July 25. Vote early and vote often.
Sapong had a brace (look it up) in Sporting KC’s win over Dayton Dutch Lions to advance to the US Open Cup Semifinals.
This Washington Examiner headline says “More Bad News for the CAA”, but it’s really not news if we all knew about it months ago is it?
Redshirt freshman Kenyan Pittman is considering transferring from JMU according to the DNR’s Mark Selig. I’m trying to muster up some outrage, but I’m sort of numb at this point.
The CAA announced its schedule for the 2012-2013 championships, including for the Magnificent Seven hoops tourney next March. It looks like Drexel and George Mason will play the final on Monday, March 11.
And finally, the Virginia Pilot’s editorial board took an entirely predictable (yet entirely wrong) stance on ODU’s ineligibility for CAA championships. First of all, get the facts straight. It’s not accurate to say that last week the CAA presidents “voted to bar the Monarchs from conference tournaments in the school’s last season in the CAA.” They didn’t. They voted to deny ODU’s request to overturn the rule that prevented teams leaving the CAA from competing for CAA championships. A rule that has existed for years, yet ODU never felt the need to challenge until after they were subject to its consequences. Second of all, just reread that last sentence again. The ODU administration knew the rule when they decided to jump to C-USA.
The editorial goes on to state that “each championship for each athlete in each team sport is an achievement, a validation of the sacrifices a student makes to compete, proof of her devotion to her alma mater.” No argument here. Of course making a move purely for football to a conference that doesn’t even sponsor competition for four of your university’s varsity teams (including the 9 time National Champion field hockey team), doesn’t really give each of those athletes the chance for that validation to prove her devotion to good ol’ ODU does it? This does suck for the ODU student athletes. I feel bad for them. I really do. The blame falls on their own administration though, not on the other CAA presidents. And while I’m sure some ODU fans will accuse me of being bitter and vindictive (just like those nasty CAA presidents), I’m in favor of doing what’s best for the student athletes. And that’s why I think the CAA should push ODU out right now. Let them pull a VCU and make the move to their new conference ASAP. It’s better for everyone.
If you haven’t heard by now, the CAA “formally contacted” College of Charleston, Davidson, and Appalachian State last week. There are also rumors that Elon and Furman are under consideration. We don’t know what the “formal” contact consisted of, but it’s safe to assume that it was an attempt to gauge each of the schools’ interest in joining the CAA. There is a world of difference between contacting a school and extending it an offer. There is an even bigger difference between extending a school and offer and a school actually joining a new league. The fact that CAA commissioner Tom Yeager and his colleagues are possibly targeting App State is huge though. It’s a sign that they’re serious about solidifying the CAA spot at the top of the FCS pecking order.
Virtually everyone is skeptical that App State will leave the Southern Conference for the CAA. And with good reason. The Mountaineers have officially acknowledged its desire to move up to FBS. Making a move to another FCS conference doesn’t really track with that plan. A lot of those dismissing the possibility of App State making the move allege that it would upset the fanbase. However, if App State’s Southern Conference-mates skip town for the CAA, the idea of sticking around to play in an increasingly unstable league might upset the fans even more. And as anyone who has followed conference re-alingment will tell you, wanting to make the jump from FCS to FBS is only one half the equation. The other half involves an FBS league actually wanting you to join. Thus far, App State hasn’t had any offers come through. They might get one sometime in the future, or they might not. Maybe the prudent thing to do would be to hedge their bets by joining the top FCS league in the land in case the FBS leagues never come calling.
In addition to those who say App State would never entertain an offer from the CAA, there are folks claiming that the league shouldn’t even waste their time courting the Mountaineers. Their logic is that App State would be a short-timer and would be heading for the exits as soon as an FBS league extended an offer. That may be true. As previously stated though, they haven’t received any offers yet and they might not ever get one. This last round of FCS to FBS moves seemed to be driven with media markets in mind. Like JMU, App State finds itself located in a small media market. To me, it seems like it’s worth a roll of the dice for the CAA. And even if App State did make the jump to FBS in a few years, the CAA would be better off in the short run. The league is perpetually one FBS move away from being completely shaken up anyway. They might as well be the aggressor and attempt to drive the ship instead of just waiting around for the next move. And I’ve got to think that Yeager and the powers that be agree with me at least a little bit. If they don’t, then why would they even “formally contact” Appy in the first place?
It’s pretty clear I’m all in for this move. I’m skeptical it will come to fruition, but I really hope it does. There is no way that anyone could argue that swapping out ODU and Georgia State for Appalachian State and any one of the other SoCon schools would not be a major, major upgrade for CAA Football. I thought JMU vs ODU had the potential to be an epic rivalry for years to come. The idea of the Dukes and Mountaineers challenging each other as conference foes is damn appealing though. The 2008 JMU vs App State game in old Bridgeforth was one of the best sporting events I ever attended. Sure, the Dukes rallying from 21 points down to win had a lot to do with that, but the atmosphere itself was electric. Plenty of App State fans made the trip and there was an energy surrounding the game that you just don’t see often in FCS. Repeat that scene every other year in the new Bridgeforth as CAA tilts? That would just be amazing.
We know, it’s hard to believe. But we received outstanding news as we’ll finally be able to make it to JMU’s standard one game appearance in the Richmond Coliseum at next year’s men’s basketball tourney now that it will presumably take place on Saturday! With yesterday’s news that the CAA’s remaining few school president’s unanimously voted to stick to their own rules and keep departing members ODU and Georgia St. ineligible for the conference title, that means only seven schools are currently slated to attend the annual festivities (Towson and UNCW are also ineligible for academic issues with their APR). JMU may actually make the second day! I say “may” because the rumors are flying fast and furious now about possible new CAA members and of course if there are enough members to need a play-in game, you can bank on the Dukes “making” that game under lame-duck HC Matt Brady. Sweet.
In all seriousness, we’re thrilled someone actually “gives a shit about the rules.” It’s just the right call to enforce your own rule. If you want to change it later, that’s a fair debate, but changing it when these schools were fully aware of it when they decided to leave (and voted for it themselves back when it was installed in the case of ODU) would have been just ridiculous. That said, we certainly don’t blame ODU or GSU for trying. We’d “want” the same thing from JMU’s administration, but of course we’d “expect” much less from JMU since the Dukes have decided they really like elementary school and they’ll stick around for a decade or so. Sorry, just couldn’t resist one last piece of summer bitterness over the fact JMU is permanently “monitoring the situation.”
Following yesterday’s announcement, both GSU Coach Ron Hunter and ODU Coach Blaine Taylor took to Twitter to express their feelings about the vote. One coach took the high road, the other was just downright unseemly. Not tough to guess who did what, huh? Hunter basically said “we’ll man up and nothing will keep us from playing great,” while Taylor unleashed a stream of whining that would make embarrass Rob’s two-year old. While we’ve got nothing personally against The ‘Stache, his anger at the CAA was really misdirected. In this case, it’s his own administration that decided to let football drive all decisions regarding ODU athletics even with the knowledge that this was a very real possibility. Plus with his first CUSA hoops tourney taking place in Tulsa, Oklahoma next year, he just isn’t having a good offseason. Really these schools should just leave right now ala VCU. Make it a clean break instead of staying through this kind of crap. Better for everyone involved. But again, that’s not good for football so that won’t happen.
I put very little stock in FCS rankings in the middle of the season, so to say that I’m slightly less than concerned with preseason rankings would be an understatement. Thankfully, the FCS Championship is decided on the field in a real playoff with all of the top teams in the country participating. That means that FCS rankings and polls are much less important than the FBS versions. With that being said they offer at least a relative barometer of how the FCS contenders stack-up. And JMU is ranked 5th in the Athlon FCS Preseason Poll, so apparently at least some folks think JMU has the talent on paper to be a contender. The full top 25 can be seen in the Athlon College Football Preview magazine, but the top 10 is below.
1. Sam Houston State
2. GSU
3. NDSU
4. Montana St
5. JMU
6. ODU
7. Towson
8. App St
9. YSU
10. UNH
And if we were going to go to 11, you’d see that JMU’s conference mate, the Delaware Blue Hens are in that spot. The highlight here is that JMU is ranked one spot higher than those miserable Monarchs. We kid, we kid. If ODU trolls are going to drop comments or start message board threads about how jealous we are of them, we might as well give them some ammo. And while we’re addressing the topic of ODU fans, if JMU fans are venting about things and they knock the academic reputation of your school (which is admittedly pointless), you’re doing yourselves no favors if you mention how amazed you are that ODU can “illicit” so much jealousy from JMU. But I digress. The real story here is that once again, the CAA is garnering a lot of respect on a national level. Shuffle the order around however you see fit, but the fact is that 4 CAA teams are in this particular top 10. In fact, you can probably just shuffle around the teams and assume that the top 3 or 4 teams in the CAA (whomever they turn out to be) will be top 10 worthy.
While I might not think preseason rankings are anything to puff your chest out about, CAA football fans have a right to brag about the conference as a whole. Just last week The Sports Network declared the CAA the best conference in the FCS. And that’s coming off a down year for the league. Yes, I said last year was a down year. Sure the CAA was deep and plenty of teams were ranked throughout the season. The fact was that none of the league’s teams were true contenders for the National Championship. The bar has been set really high for the league. A season without a national champion or final four run is a bit of a letdown. And I have a feeling this season will not be a letdown.
On the exit fee, here are my thoughts.
Last week former JMU assistant coach Lou Rowe left to take an assistant position at Rider. To fill the void on Matt Brady’s staff, JMU has hired Mike Deane. Deane has head coaching experience including stops at Marquette, Sienna, and most recently Wagner. In his first year at Sienna he had the opportunity to coach a senior point guard with impeccably parted hair named Matt Brady. Yes, that Matt Brady. Now Brady is bringing his old coach back to help him right the ship after a disappointing 2011-2012 season.
I know what you’re thinking already. “But he’s just an assistant coach, what’s the big deal?” I’ll tell you what the big deal is. It’s summer and until we hear some real news coming for the CAA meetings, we have nothing to write about. Nothing at all. So when JMU hires an assistant coach who once installed a seatbelt on his sideline chair in an attempt to avoid technicals, we absolutely need to post about it. It’s in our by-laws.
In addition to receiving his 15 minutes for the seatbelt gag, Deane has racked up over 400 wins as a head coach. He has a lifetime record of 437-322. He also has taken 3 different teams, Marquette, Siena, and Lamar, to the NCAA tournament. In 1989 his Siena team upset a Stanford team that had gone 26-7 and earned a 3 seed. Deane’s most recent stop was at Wagner, where he managed to have only 2 winning seasons in 7 years. He was fired in 2010 after Wagner struggled to a 5-26 record. His admirers, such as ESPN analyst and former Vermont coach Tom Brennan, claim he’s one of the best X’s and O’s guys around. However, his detractors allege that he simply isn’t able to relate to today’s players. Here’s to hoping the admirers are right.
We apologize for letting this news slip, but we’ve been very busy with important things slacking. Last week NBC Sports released its Fall schedule for football and JMU will have two home games nationally televised on the NBC Sports Network. The October 6 game when Towson comes to the ‘burg and the regular season finale against the once (and not future) rivals ODU Monarchs on November 17. It’s great to have any game televised, especially one against Towson, the defending CAA Champs (I still can’t believe I just typed that). With all due respect to the Tigers though, the clash with ODU could be epic. Kick-off has been set for 7:00. As if we weren’t already going to be excited enough for this game. Now with a full day to tailgate and get the juices flowing, the fans are going to have Bridgeforth rocking. Throw in the fact that it is going to be the final time JMU and ODU play each other in CAA competition.
I realize that some folks might downplay the JMU vs ODU game since ODU is leaving the CAA. If you remember back to last year, we were the ones who declared the Monarchs as the Dukes’ biggest rival before the teams even played once. We loudly proclaimed that the two programs were destined to play out thrilling contests on the gridiron for years to come. And well, quite frankly we look pretty stupid for saying that now. Be that as it may, I actually think ODU’s pending departure makes the November 17 game even bigger. And some folks actually agreed with us about the potential JMU-ODU rivarly and are anxious to see JMU avenge last year’s loss in Norfolk. And other folks simply can’t stand that ODU is moving up to FBS while JMU stays the course in FCS, and they want Mickey and the boys to send the Monarchs off with a beating. Either way, it’s a game that every JMU wants to win badly. And it’s going to be on national television. Under the lights, in Bridgeforth, with 25,000+ rabid fans proudly sporting our JMU custom t-shirts. And we can’t wait.
The London Olympics are still seven weeks away, but given that by then we’ll be heavy into backup QB controversies and 3-4 v. 4-3 debates, we wanted to go ahead and fill you in on the three former Dukes athletes we know of (so far) that are headed to this summer’s games. Plus it’s just damn cool.
First, former women’s soccer star Corky Julien is one of Canada’s top goal-scorers. We’ve been following her @cmjulien21 for a while now and assuming the Canucks don’t have a no-Twitter policy like some of the men’s squads, she’s going to be an awesome follow for some great Olympic scuttlebutt.
Next, former JMU swimmer Eva Hannesdottir will be competing in the pool for her home country of Iceland. (If you’re near @jmuswag when she reads this, you may want to throw in some earplugs to save your hearing from the delighted shrieks).
Unless you’re old like us, you may forget that JMU once had an Archery program. And they were damn good. And coed. Just generally one of those under-the-radar college sports that used to help JMU in the whole All-Sports College Cup type competitions. And former archer Jakob Wukie will be representing the good ole’ US of A and his small town in Pennsylvania. (Oddly, Rob and I had a friend on the Archery team when we were at JMU also from a small town in PA – who knew it was such a hotbed for fletching – not actually sure if that’s an archery word, but it sounds good).
Coach Lucas repping Virginia Sports
Finally, we also know JMU Field Hockey Coach Antoinette Lucas will be working a bit with the US team this summer during their prep camps. USA doesn’t always make the field in hockey so it’s a big deal for them to be in the tournament this year. Though it’ll be tough to live up to Coach L’s ’94 team.
Anyhow, enjoy the Games and now you’ll have a cool thing to point out when you’re boss’s CNBC is showing obscure Olympic sports in the afternoon (although nothing compares to Curling in the winter games).
In May, Vanderbilt announced that Lafonte Thourogood would be granted his release to transfer. Matthew Stoss confirmed tonight that on Sunday Thourogood to JMU on Sunday he was coming to play for the Dukes. Thourogood was a running back at Vanderbilt and redshirted last year. He was a very successful duel threat QB in high school and it is expected that he will line up behind center for JMU.
This is a very, very big get for Coach Matthews and his staff. Recruiting analysis and rankings are notoriously suspect, but Lafonte was a highly praised recruit coming out of Ocean Lakes High School in Virginia Beach. He was ranked as the 25th best duel threat QB in the 2011 class by Rivals.com. As you can see from the highlights above, he’s a big, strong, player who was sought after for his athleticism. He originally committed to Virginia Tech, before changing his mind and opting to sign with Vanderbilt. In addition to those two programs, he received scholarship offers from Arkansas, Florida, Stanford, North Carolina, NC State, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Many of those schools probably offered him as an “athlete”, but those are not programs you usually see extending offers to guys that end up at JMU. In short, this is a great, great get for the Dukes. Plus, Lafonte still has 4 years of eligibility and he carried a honor roll GPA in high school. In short, it doesn’t just look great from the screen of your i5 laptop deals like this can’t be passed up! I don’t mean to disrespect Jace Edwards, but it would be tough to argue that swapping Edwards for Thorougood this off-season didn’t improve the Duke’s at QB.
Well, it’s officially the doldrums with all JMU sports on summer break and 12 more weeks till football season (10 more weeks till Field Hockey if you were wondering, and I know you were). Even the CAA Zone message boards have settled back down after weeks of conference realignment craziness into a summer pattern of irrational recruiting speculation and H’burg food discussions.
Honestly, if any of you have ideas for a summer series in the mold of our past H’Burg Eats Bracket or the Battle of the late 90’s JMU Bands, let us know and we’ll fire it up, but it’s slim pickins right now.
Thanks to all who voted for former JMU soccer star CJ Sapong last week, who did indeed win MLS Goal of the Week. (after a bloodless 0-0 draw with Canada, here’s hoping the USMNT doesn’t need his spark against Antigua this week – only half kidding).
JMU's Rich Thompson rights a storybook chapter by scoring a game-winning run
Next, great story from ESPN on former Diamond Duke Rich Thompson’s recent call-up to the majors with the Tampa Bay ys. That said, it’s a little unclear who stole the “modern day Moonlight Graham” reference from who between the four-letter and Yahoo’s Big League Stew (our bet would be on Yahoo as the originator though).
And on another cool JMU note, check out last week’s Washington Post story on the upcoming movie “Lawless,” which has been generating award buzz even months ahead of its debut. The movie is based on the outstanding book “Wettest County in the World” by former Duke Matt Bondurant. From the sound of things, he may be poised to become one of the more renowned Dukes in recent memory.
