JMU Sports Blog

Long Live Streamers. Long Live City Stadium!

So I’ve been sick as a dog for three days. I didn’t clear this with Rob. And maybe it’s just the tamiflu (sp?) speaking, but the combination of the ’04 title game being on FB Live right now and today’s justification by the NCAA for the new streamer ban in Frisco citing “player safety” has stirred me out of my own pit of misery and hopefully you’ll enjoy a few random thoughts on these two things. I’m feverish and sweating and can barely even get any soup down but a few things cannot go unremarked.

First, for all the Pepe/Bison internet trolls who think FCS/1-AA traditions didn’t exist prior to 2010, those streamers sure looked beautiful, and fully established in JMU lore, in Chattanooga in ’04. Oh yeah, Chattanooga was a helluva site for the title game. Notwithstanding the turf in ’04, ask Montana, JMU, or App. St. fans how great that city was as a host and quit acting like Frisco is some sacred Jedi text.

On the other side, for all of our own fans making the argument that CAA and the playoffs are so great that anything else would be horrendous, don’t forget we’ve worn a whole lot of “conference” patches on the football unis over the years, including the Atlantic-10 patch from Chattanooga. Things change, always have, always will. JMU will be just fine no matter where we are five or ten years from now so let’s just enjoy the present and not make every game, event, message board thread, or blog post about FCS vs. FBS.

Next, the NCAA has really screwed the pooch on this streamer thing. Here’s the official statement:

Following the 2017 NCAA Division I Football Championship Game, the Division I Football Championship Committee reviewed multiple incidents involving streamers being thrown towards the opposing team bench area and on the field of play during the game. After discussing the issue at length, the committee added streamers to the list of prohibited items for the 2018 Division I Football Championship Game to help ensure the best championship game environment for fans and players from both teams.

This is wholly unsurprising because the NCAA, especially the dotards in Indianapolis, are almost insanely unaware of the passion from fanbases all over the country for events outside of the Power 5. They could’ve just stayed out of it and let things play out. Unlike last year where the tiny Youngstown contingent meant JMU fans were all over the YSU side and inevitably threw streamers that ended up in YSU fan areas or on the sideline itself, this year will be much more of a true 50-50 bowl-game type atmosphere and the sections themselves would’ve likely taken care of most non-frivolous complaints. OR, they could’ve come out strongly and consistently from the beginning regarding the streamer ban. But no, they had to dither for two weeks and allow all of lunatics on both sides to delve deep into every manner of conspiracy theory this side of Infowars. On that note, “of course” the ban was the result of whiny NDSU fans writing the venue and the NCAA about the “dangers” of airborne tissue. And of course now that the NCAA has thrown out the possibility of 15-yard penalties being assessed, in the trolling world we live in today, there’s already an online movement among the worst of the Bison fans to bring streamers to throw in order to get JMU penalized (don’t say we didn’t warn you about this bullshit).

But all that said, thank goodness the NCAA is finally addressing the very real dangers of football and acknowledging the potential harm to players….from Party City streamers. I mean, potential paper cuts are clearly a much greater risk to the “student-athlete” paradigm than two decades of no-show classes like a certain blue-blood.

Things That Are Still Wonderful From ’04

Justin Rascati, Matt Magerko and the whole O-Line, Tony LeZotte, a young Akeem Jordan, Townsend, etc. et al. – How great were all these guys?! We have been so fortunate as JMU fans to enjoy some seriously great players over the years and that ’04 group was the spark that started the conflagration we all get to witness again in Frisco next week. Thanks fellas!

Mickey the Gambler – Coach Matthews’ rep as an uber-conservative in his late JMU years was only more sad because he was the ultimate gambler from ’03-’08. 4th down attempts were consistent no-brainers and the team’s play reflected that.

Things That Did Not Age Well Since ’04

‘Nooga Turf – Still terrible.

ESPN Assigning Reasonably Competent Announcers to FCS games – Hard to believe ESPN used to assign national guys to FCS games. And without Anish Shroff this year, it remains to be seen if the new group will even have done a college freshman’s amount of homework on the JMU/NDSU game.Those kids with “DUKES” on their chests in the sub-freezing air. Seriously, what the hell was wrong with those kids?! (side note: thank goodness this was all mostly pre-mobile)

Bobby Hauck’s haircut – Yowzers. Pretty sure a haircut has never been a better predictor that a coach would be so naive (or good at pretending to be naive) to allow his program to develop such a rape culture that it would precipitate a federal investigation and a book by a bestselling author, after he scooted to greener pastures, and ultimately get him his job back when the fanbase – following proud examples like Baylor and Liberty – would successfully make enough excuses and deflections of such an outcome because losing to Montana St. apparently hurts more than living with that knowledge.

Someone’s starting to look a lot like a certain other heroic RB!

So it was a big, bad Missouri Valley team. And the Dukes were banged up. And they were underdogs in the desert by kickoff. And they turned an insane FIVE first quarter turnovers into just seven points.

And none of that meant a darned thing to the boys in purple! Needless to say, we are beyond thrilled that this team stepped up in an enormous way, with a big assist from a raucous Bridgeforth December crowd, and silenced all the doubters. Wait, what’s that you say? The defending champs riding a 26-game winning streak, including a true road game at the team they face next, are an early 3 point dog? Haha, well we’ve got 19 more days to worry about all that. Today we’re here to celebrate Saturday’s surreal performance with the good, bad, and ugly.

The Good

10 – That’s right, there are two digits in the number of turnovers JMU caused on Saturday. When the Dukes scored only one TD off the five in the first quarter, we were nervous that would haunt them. Little did we know they were just getting warmed up! This number is obviously the thing that made this game surreal, but it was a HUGE credit to Bob Trott’s game plan.

Outpost Buttons – TeeDee the Squirrel making a tiny cameo on this week’s button was outstanding and for those that collect them, seems sure to make this one a favorite.

Next Man Up – No doubt I’m going to go on way too long talking about these guys on the pod tonight, but Bryce Maginley,  Justin Bethea, and Landon Word were absolutely outstanding filling in for numerous injured Dukes. Filling in for Curtis Oliver, the fifth-year senior Bethea held up beautifully in one-on-one coverage all night, including a great play on SDSU’s all-everything Tight End when the game was still competitive. Kyre Hawkins was shaken up for a while in this game and Word didn’t miss a beat. That’s another transfer getting comfortable. And oh by the way, Maginley made arguably the biggest play of the night with that massive hit that caused the fumble that set off the avalanche of turnovers and set the tone for what JMU was willing to give physically to win this ballgame. Also, his pops is also going to be a fixture of “cool” at Dukes games for the next few years!

Pass Rush – In case you forgot JMU has some athletes that, when turned loose in the game plan by Bob Trott’s masterful scheming, can wreck havoc. We’ve seen the Dukes consistently play their base defense without a lot of blitzing most of this year. But they clearly decided to show SDSU QB Taryn Christion he wasn’t the only one with quicks. Carter, Ankrah, Urquhart, Robinson were fantastic and it was fairly clear early in the game that Christion was shook that he was getting run down from behind by linemen and linebackers. Brown, Moreland, and Robinson all got their own chances so the Jacks never knew where the rush was coming from. Yes, rushing so many opened lanes for the running game and an occassional slant pass, but as fans this was so so so much fun to watch the Dukes attack all night.

Raven Greene – If you’re gonna break the all-time JMU record with your 14th career interception, might as well do it in style! Raven’s interception return for a long TD was the icing on the second half BFS party.

Riley – The Dukes would love to get John Miller back in three weeks, but with Alls and Eldridge cranking it up lately, this offense is starting to hum the last two weeks. And oh yeah, almost overnight Riley Stapleton has gone from in/out of the lineup to a near-unstoppable force of 6’5″ FCS beast!

Jimmy ‘effin Moreland – There are many reason Jimmy is one of our all-time favorite Dukes players, and all of those reasons were on display this week. Get a PI call? No worries, just make a one-handed pick 40 yards downfield next. Get beat inside for a TD? Again, just forget it and put it behind you like all the great DB’s, then go back out there pick off two more, get a half a sack, and spend most of the night in one-on-one press man coverage against the 1st team All American WR. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Jimmy was probably the player most responsible for crushing the souls of the Bunnies this week when the realized JMU’s #2 corner was better than anybody on their team.

Marcus Marshall – Not sayin’, but just sayin’, these last two weeks sure did look a hell of a lot like playoff Khalid didn’t they? And his biggest play of the night wasn’t even on offense, but rather the huge 40 yard kickoff return after SDSU had closed to 14-10 right before the half. That return set the stage for the biggest score of the night as the Dukes marched right down (thanks Riley) and punched in another TD in less than a minute.

JMU’s in-stadium media/music person – Whoever you are, that stroke of brilliance at the start of the fourth quarter was breaking out the old Alabama classic “If You’re Gonna Play in Texas” (you gotta have a fiddle in the band) was next level stuff!

Students! – Again, that was incredible work by the students on attendance and involvement.

The Bad

Injuries – When you only have 63 scholarships and you play 15 games two years in row, there’s simply no way to get through unscathed. But JMU has a lot of question marks we’ll all be following over the next two plus weeks.

The Ugly

Frisco ticket crunch – It just sucks. No way around it. When the Frisco Stadium is smaller than Bridgeforth and you’re matching up with an equally great fanbase like NDSU, there’s just gonna be a lot of disappointed and/or priced out fans. Yes, we wish against wishing there was some way they could move this game to SMU or the Cotton Bowl or hell, sell out the lower bowl of Jerry-World, but the NCAA cabal, as usual, doesn’t give one single shit about FCS or fans or anything else except making the most money with the least effort ever. It’s already a joke that the stadium is hot garbage compared to either BFS or the FargoDome. It’ll be awesome that it’s sold out and will be as intense as any FCS/1-AA title game has ever been, but it sucks for fans.