JMU Sports Blog

We can’t believe how legit this looks either.

Editor’s Note: Hope you’re ready for some earnestness preceding a pitch. You can skip the pitch if you want, and of course you can mock the earnestness, but we love y’all no matter what. Here’s the link up front if you don’t care about all this and just want to support with a cool shirt.

Dear JMSUB Land,

In the entire existence of this site that we started back in 2009, when we’ve addressed our “readers/fans/listeners,” we’ve often made self-deprecating jokes about how there are only eighteen of you and we can’t even believe that number is so high cause we don’t have that many immediate family members. And that sense of amazement that people support us at all remains the case. But we are proud, and humbled (can you be both at the same time?), and mostly honored to say that our small corner of JMU Nation has grown little by little over the years to the point where we’ve almost gone legit. Seriously, we got “a major award” of the leg-lamp variety and everything. And the people we’ve met through the years thanks to this are the absolutely unexpected highlight of this whole thing. Like so many others who root even more passionately fer the Dukes, bud, we’ve been fortunate enough to make real friends through this community and that means more than anything. No doubt it’s a huge reason we’ve kept at it.

The snark and the independent-yet-rational-and-mostly-supportive lens we always tried to bring to our coverage of Dukes-related items will never change. Oh yeah, and we both have day jobs that have become careers we guess and we’re never going pro with this – not to mention we’ll never be able to compete with the great real pros actually doing this full-time these days.

We’ve never “sold” ads or tried to “monetize” our site because we never wanted to feel pressure to do something that we loved on someone else’s schedule. When Rob’s family was blessed with his sons, he didn’t want to worry about writing posts during those sleep-deprived first few weeks. When I moved to North Carolina and needed to get my feet under me, I felt the same. We love the Dukes and we love that we’ve stayed such great friends over two decades thanks in large part to this dorky hobby, but we always wanted it to be our own, not someone else’s. That remains the same. For a long time, this actual landing page looked like an ancient relic without banner ads running constantly and side notes popping up all the time. Now we like to think it’s come all the way back around to actually looking fairly fresh and clean and we like to think it’s a place fellow Dukes know they can come to get away from the vitriol of the rest of the interwebs and find a little nugget of pure rootin’ a few times a week.

But we’d be lying if we said our energy and perseverance hadn’t flagged a bit the last couple of years (we feel your pain Purple Wave). This summer, however, when we decided after a couple years of saying “soon” to see if we could launch a podcast (which you can subscribe to and rate in Bumpers or on Apple Podcasts under “JMUSB Season 1”), we never dreamed it would entirely refill our tank for this whole endeavor. And boy has it ever! Interacting with people at games and online now is more fun than ever even if half the people I meet tailgating know of my love for Party in the U.S.A. before we’re introduced. All that said, self-promotion and navel-gazing or even the idea of taking ourselves seriously enough to try and make something of this has always been something we’ve been afraid of. We’ve sold a couple tee-shirts along the way, some of which we thought were even pretty good, but honestly we never found a “real vendor” or tried all that hard to sell you all on anything other than the joke. We never even dreamed someone might want an actual “sports blog” product instead of something more generically JMU.

So this is awkward for us but we are genuinely offering a shirt now with the explicit intention of using profits from the campaign to keep this place alive and hopefully make the podcast even better by a) keeping it going year-round and b) looking to purchase some new equipment (mics and headphones and “stuff” we probably don’t about yet) to hopefully improve the quality over the next few months. Oh yeah, and we’re going to try and come up with something even better to support JMU Giving Day in March that might get a boost from this effort too!

To those of you who have bought previous shirts, we hope you still like them and sorry we finally came up with an “official” shirt – we owe you a beer. To everyone else, we hope you’ll join the team and be proud to answer awkward questions from strangers and friends about what the hell your shirt is in hopes of growing our little community!

Here’s the 4-1-1:

Here is the link to support us and get an awesome shirt or you can paste it/share it as follows: https://www.bonfire.com/jmusb/

We’re using Bonfire out of Richmond for our campaign. They’ve been great and are legit pros who sent us sample products and everything so we know the shirts themselves will be of higher quality than our usual suboptimal craptastic stuff. We’ve got four options for shirts (short, women’s cut, long, and baseball). The colors are slightly different for short, long, and baseball because the shirts themselves are from different suppliers but they’re all great. On the women’s cut, they run small so listen to the Bonfire warning when it comes up.

This is a “campaign,” meaning the shirts are only available for a limited time, and more importantly meaning you only have to listen to us pimp this racket for less time than an NPR Membership Drive. The campaign ends in thirteen days on Wednesday, December 13th at midnight. The shirts go to print the next day and we chose that date because we know they’ll all get delivered by at the latest the week before Frisco. We can’t guarantee Christmas delivery, but if you live in Virginia there’s a decent shot as Bonfire uses local printers – just wanted to be clear on that though. We’re hoping to sell 50 with a moon-shot goal of 100 but there’s no limit except the time limit if y’all want to spread the word. Oh yeah, there’s also a button when you check out where you can just plain “donate,” or kick in a few bucks that goes straight to us if you’re so inclined. No pressure at all, but they offer that as an option and we figured why not. To whoever kicked in already, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Holy Shit!

Last but not least, our friend and fellow Duke and all-around digital badass Ben Markowitz designed our logo for the shirt and is our silent partner in this. But we think you’ll agree both treatments of our logo (the pod picture and this one) look insanely good without violating any official marks of the real JMU!

Anyways, that’s a whole lot of words to say two things. We love you all and we hope you’ll buy a shirt that supports JMUSB (blog, pod, etc.)!

Seriously, there was a plaque and everything.

We lost the G.O.A.T. but have lots to be thankful for this year largely thanks to his inspiration.
And yes, Buckhantz of House Dagger is our dream podcast guest!

All of JMU Nation has a whole lot to be thankful for this year. And on a personal note, the two of us are filled with gratitude for so many things big and small related to our tiny little corner of that magical place. Here’s a few of those things for which we feel so fortunate, in no particular order, but there’s no way in the world we could ever list them all.

Mike Houston. Speculation Central has already cranked up, but at least for today, we choose to just be thankful for one of the greatest hires, and perfect fits, JMU has ever lucked into.

Bob Trott. Can’t talk about the HC without being thankful for the Defensive Coordinator.

JMU Nation – yes, the Facebook page. We know it gets crazy, and at times antagonistic, and you really do have to turn of off the notifications, and Facebook is destroying our culture and making us depressed, but it has like 12,000 members and there’s little doubt in our mind that the interaction between fans, the sharing of information, and the very presence of an outlet on a platform where boomers and their kids are equally comfortable and competent has been a huge factor in the rising tide that is floating all boats in the peripheral land of JMU fandom. Great work Carol and company and we hope it’s original intent – for the Queen of the Dallas Dukes to inform JMU fans about all things Frisco – will be revived again this holiday season.

The Senior Class of JMU Football players – 4 playoff appearances, 3 CAA titles, 1 National Championship, and essentially an entire regular season at #1. All with a couple academic superstars and a relatively drama-free period off-the-field.

Andy, Bob, Rebecca and co. – making D-Lot a great tailgating spot since the day it was paved.

The improved talent on the men’s hoops roster. The record not be special this year, but just watch the team. It’s night and day from the last few years on pure talent. Can you say Stuckey Mosley?!

What a program!

Megan Good – We love football of course and a Natty is special, but we’re talking about a face on the Mt. Rushmore of JMU athletes here, and we all have another spring and summer to look forward to watching this incredible player!

Attendance – complain all you want about students leaving early, but JMU led the nation in FCS Attendance this year.

The open-mindedness and willingness to be creative by the Duke Club and the team of SID’s in JMU Athletics.

ESPN College Gameday has been to JMU twice. ESPN College Gameday has never been to NC State, Virginia, Washington St., etc.

CJ Sapong back in the USMNT. Let us never speak of that team again.

3 potential home playoff games – This is incredible, and only the second time it’s ever happened for the Dukes. Make all the games you can, enjoy the weather (how often in life do you get the chance to be a kid again?), and root like hell. But also kindly remember that it’s December, and life gets in the way for people in December, and maybe don’t shame anyone who needs to root from home, or a pre-planned family vacation, on a given week.

Greg Madia and Josh Walfish – The level of coverage on the local beats in the DNR lately is unprecedented.

All of you! – Seriously, it’s hard to believe Rob and I have been doing this since 2009. And admittedly, even with the success of JMU Athletics the last few years and real support from within a few corners of official JMU, our energy and dedication for a no bull-shit, no monetization, labor-of-love hobby/project/dorkfest might’ve waned. But taking the chance on doing the podcast this past summer has entirely rejuvenated JMUSB HQ! We’ve managed to keep writing here and we don’t plan to stop, but we can’t possibly thank you all enough for listening, interacting, and supporting us even with our frequent digressions and our amateur nature because it’s one of our favorite things we do each week. (Now we’ll go emotionally prepare our selves for what happens after football season)

The Basics

#1 James Madison Dukes (10-0, 7-0 CAA) at #15 Elon Phoenix (8-2, 6-1 CAA), Noon Saturday, Rhodes Stadium, Elon, NC

Coverage: MadiZone though it’ll be Elon’s announcers. Still likely a way better product than that College Sports Live junk we saw a few weeks ago.

Weather: Mostly Cloudy, High 63, Low 41 (for the early tailgating crowd), winds 10-20 mph. Good news is the rain forecasted earlier in the week seems likely to hold off till overnight and this should be a fairly standard fall day in the Piedmont.

Tailgating and PreGame: The Triangle Duke Club is hosting an official pregame event at 10:00 a.m. at The Fat Frogg, which I can tell you from knowing the area is actually a pretty cool spot for an event like this. By Burlington/Elon standards, Fat Frogg’s is one of the rowdier live music venues at night but has tons of arcade-type games and really is pretty solid for families early on a Saturday morning. If you’re looking for an earlier arrival and to be a bit closer to the stadium, Elon is very tailgate-friendly, particularly by the staid standards of most CAA schools. Like JMU, the lots closest to the stadium are for season ticket holders, but the cool thing about Elon is there is really only one main cash ($10) tailgating lot (McMichael) so it won’t be hard to find the other Dukes fans. The lot is sort of divided into two sections, but distance-to-the-stadium-wise think of it as coming from the baseball or Hillside lots at JMU. In other words, an easy walk through campus. Hope to see lots of Dukes out there Saturday morning!

What’s at Stake?

The CAA title – Technically JMU would likely finish in a three-way tie with Stony Brook and Elon with a loss AND still claim the automatic bid in the playoffs (if SB wins too over Maine), but Elon could win a share and obviously JMU wants to win this the sporting way. This would also be the first time in school history the Dukes would have won three CAA titles in a row (though they shared the title in 2015).

The #1 Overall Seed in the FCS – Can’t stress enough how huge this is now that the Dukes are so close to achieving this goal. This would mean the Dukes get to host games at Bridgeforth all the way to Frisco. A) That’s awesome, B) that means we’re likely to get at least one of those huge out-of-conference matchups we all clamor for, and c) the Dukes get to choose their uni combos all the way through. Holiday parties, office gatherings, and family be damned, clear the first three weekends in December for

JMU’s second unbeaten season ever – Only a 9-0-1 season way way back in 1975 can even rival this year’s run. The Dukes would also become the first current CAA member to have three 8-0 CAA seasons and join some ancient UMass squad as the only teams to run the table two years in a row in the CAA. A win here would also keep alive the possibility of joining only five other FCS teams that ever one the national championship in an undefeated season.

Individual Records – IF, IF JMU can make a deep run in the playoffs there may be a handful of individual records still to fall this season, particularly by Bryan Schor, but the only one realistically in reach this weekend is Safety Raven Greene, who is one behind a three-way tie for the JMU mark for career interceptions.

Historic Defensive Numbers – JMU’s Defense leads the nation in just about every important defensive category, but when Alabama gave up 24 in a scare against Miss. St. last weekend, the Dukes became the only team at the D1 level still holding opponents under 10 points per game at 9.6. Needless to say, if they can do it again this weekend, that’s a season for the ages.

How Elon Can Win?

Let the hatemail flow but this is and always will be Elon!

Run the ball and control the clock on offense, limit their own mistakes, and stop the run/pressure Schor with their stout front seven on D. Elon runs the ball and stops the run well. They’ve played basically even with opponents in all statistical categories but their ability to control tempo and dictate the game has served them well all year. The front seven on defense is big and solid and this will be a real marker for the Dukes to determine whether that exquisite last drive against the Ticks was the running game turning the corner or if there’s still cause for major concern.

One thing Elon cannot do in this game is make mistakes. They’ve physically been the better team most times out this season but man have they been mistake-prone thus keeping so many games close. Heck, even two years ago when JMU destroyed them 51-0 you could see there was the beginnings of a talent pool that just had no idea what it was doing. Coach Cignetti has turned things around and has them believing in their own ability, but they’ve made every mental mistake you can name at some point this year – ill-timed turnovers, shanked punts, missed kicks, etc. – and that is something nobody in the country can afford against the Dukes. If Elon plays a clean game, they have the talent to hang with the Dukes. If they play a clean game and limit JMU’s possessions by controlling the clock, the Phoenix are capable of winning their first CAA title.

How JMU Can Win?

Limit mistakes and big plays and run the ball at least effectively. That Schor fumble against Richmond last week was the kind of killer mistake that we just haven’t seen often under Coach Houston. Same goes for the personal foul penalties. The Dukes defense bailed them out and the team has often been so much better talent-wise that they haven’t had to worry about overcoming these daggers. But Elon is 8-2 for a reason no matter the manner in which they’ve achieved that record and this week JMU cannot afford these lapses.

On offense, the Dukes need to find a way to run the ball “effectively” even if they aren’t the runaway freight train of last year. A single yard or no gain on first down is simply not good enough. 3rd and 9 cannot be the norm. They don’t have to gash the defense on every play, but 4-5 positive yards and staying on schedule to keep the other team guessing is mandatory. We haven’t seen all the playmakers (Alls, Hyman, Stapleton, Miller, Kloo) on the outside have space that often this year because JMU’s been forced to look their way when opponent’s know what’s coming. Think of all those 2nd or 3rd and short plays where Schor found Domo Taylor or Rashard Davis down the field last year because it was unexpected. The Dukes need to find that rhythm again and no better time than when a title’s on the line and the playoffs are looming!

Defense needs to just play the way they have all year.

Don’t Forget the FCS Playoff Selection Show

Win or lose, we’ll all get to see our three favorite letters discussed and thrown up in the 2017 Playoff Bracket this Sunday morning. The FCS Selection Show airs at 11 a.m. on ESPNU. Don’t say we didn’t warn you about the lack of knowledge of all the commentators (except Anish Shroff of course) and former Howard QB and MEAC homer Jay Howard hijacking the show with complaints about his alma mater being snubbed.

JMUSB Beer of the Week

Dad Fuel Helles Lager from Steel String Brewing in Carrboro, NC. We had to go with a local-ish selection for those making the trip to the Old North State this weekend and Carrboro, which is about 30 minutes from Elon right next to Chapel Hill, is a funky town with great food and beverage options. This hoppy pale lager is exactly what is says, fuel for dads, and is a light, easy-drinking only 5.1%ABV that works great for a morning tailgate and a noon game.

And for those of you who indulged our condiment ramblings on the podcast this week and want to check out Himihead Sauce or the cool little hamlet of Saxapahaw, here’s some more information.

Official JMUSB Prediction

Dukes drop the hammer! JMU 41, Elon 14