This isn’t exactly breaking news, because we’ve been saying it for year, but now it’s official. Hero Sports has declared JMU the best football program in the Commonwealth of Virginia. You can go to the site to read all about the methodology used, but in a nut shell, it’s purely scientific and JMU crushes.
JMU is in select company with other top P5 teams from across the country such as Stanford, Clemson, and Florida State. As well as some successful, but lesser know teams such as Linfield and Mary Hardin-Baylor. So when you take a step back and view everything in context, it makes total sense. But it’s really more fun to just ignore everything else and focus on the fact that JMU is better than UVA, VA Tech, RU, ODU, and William & Mary.
By now you’ve probably read all about the CAA’s broadcast deal for the upcoming football season. It’s, um, underwhelming. Actually, it pretty much stinks. One game a week will be streamed online via CBS Sports digital package. And your defending National Champions will be featured a grand total of once.
We’re not exactly thrilled over this dramatic step backwards for the league. Listen to the latest episode of the podcast for our full thoughts on the matter.
And everybody just hang in there. Next week is a real live football game week, so we’ll be back to our regular blog schedule and done with all this summer time filler crap.
Go Dukes.
Sports are really not that important. We know it’s kind of silly to get too emotionally involved in games the way we do. And we admit that there’s something almost crazy about the way we cast our favorite players as heroes and the complete strangers who happen to be rivals, as villains. But sometimes folks just make it too easy. Danny Rocco, the head coach of the Delaware Blue Hens, makes it really easy.
Rocco is a good coach. Let’s get that part out of the way. But man, he is also a heel. While serving as the head coach at Liberty, he talked an awful big game for a guy who never lead the Flames to a single playoff appearance. Once he took over as head coach at Richmond, he was um. really quite University of Richmond-y. (ed. note: We trust that if you’re reading this blog, you understand that is definitely meant as an insult.) If you need an example of what we mean, let us tell you a little story. It’s about the time that Head Coach Danny Rocco gave a game ball to Head Coach Danny Rocco. Seriously. He did that. After a game against his old team the Liberty Flames, Rocco awarded himself the damn game ball. And then he brought said ball, to the post game press conference.
Look, we don’t know what happened inside the UR RU locker room during the 2013 season. But the head coach giving himself the game ball is weird. Very weird. Particularly after his Top 20 team, which was coming off a loss to something called Gardner Webb, beat an unranked Liberty squad. Michael Strauss threw for 210 yards and TD in that game. Jacobi Green rushed for 184 yards and 3 TDs. Ben Edwards eclipsed the 100 yard mark receiving. But no, Rocco said Rocco got it done.
Good gracious. Delaware has been irrelevant for a few years now. So much so that it was tough to build up any animosity toward the Blue Chickens. They were easy to hate (sports hate) when they were winning and being coached by K.C. Keeler, the man with the most punchable face in the college football. And now that Rocco is in charge, it’s like old times again. Thanks to Rocco, the Blue Hens are easy to root against again. Even if the Dukes will stomp ’em by 4 touchdowns.
We’re giving this podcast thing a spin and recorded our second episode of the JMU Sports Blog Podcast last night. In this episode we discuss our most anticipated JMU football games of the 2017 season and talk about our favorite D-Hall menu items (it’s the offseason people). Give it a listen.
Writing this only made us love BFS more!
We are outright stealing this idea from one of our favorite FBS writers, Spencer Hall of Every Day Should Be Saturday. And we couldn’t be prouder! And in many ways, some of JMU’s “rivals'” “stadiums” make this easier than spotting attractive people at D-Hall.
Without further ado, this year’s style guide to how to reference a few our favorites to hate, because, as Spencer reminds us, it’s important to have the correct immature name ready when needed. And of course feel free to comment with way better things than we can come up with!
William & Mary: Zable Maths Stadium at Nerd Field.
Elon: Rhodes Stadium. Named for Dusty Rhodes! We’re not even kidding. Of course, a hundred all three Fightin’ Christians fans are going to comment now that “we haven’t been the Fightin’ Christians since the 90’s” and that apparently their Trustee that was named Dusty Rhodes is not that The American Dream. Oh well, still, Dusty Rhodes!
Rhode Island: Real-grass-remains-the-only-redeeming-quality-Field. (But actually, RhodeI’s official page for Meade Stadium has an incredibly unvarnished explanation of how it acquired the “Meade” moniker and is not to be missed – it even includes the phrase “…a donnybrook that makes Bush-Gore look like a Cub Scout picnic.”
ECU: We didn’t even have to come up with this one because this is from EDSBS’ version: We would just like to point out that the real name of ECU’s stadium is “Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium,” which is already a parody because we don’t know what “dowdy ficklin’” is but we assume it’s Carolina slang for nothing wholesome or legal or competent-at-DB. (ok, maybe we added that last bit).
Delaware: The Tub – the Blue Chickens almost take the fun out of this by giving their own stadium it’s fittingly pissy name. And it gives us a chance to repost the actual “piss wall” picture from the only men’s restroom on the “nicer” side of this gigantic, ancient dump.
New Hampshire: Caps/Nats Arena. Playoffs every year, first round exit every year.
Villanova: Seriously-We-Have-Football-Too Field sponsored by Kelly’s Taproom
NDSU: White AARP Member Dome. Seriously, did you see that crowd last year? We kid because we love. In all fairness, while the Dukes may have turned the Fargo Dome into a house of sadness for Bizen fans last year, there’s no doubt an indoor facility is a must up there and it’s one of FCS’ best venues (even if the lighting needs some serious help).
Montana: Declawed Cub Stadium.
Soft Houston St.: Charmin’ Stadium. No further explanation required.
Jacksonville St.: Port Authority Field. Simply a transit station between a big FBS program and the CFL for most of the Gamecocks.
Youngstown St.: Eat A Salad Stadium. As we learned in Frisco, this is nearly a universally appropriate thing to yell at the entire ‘Guins fanbase.
Eastern Washington: Ahhhh, my eyes, somebody fix the TV.
Richmond: Hahaha, this shitbox middle-school stadium is unworthy of this column.
Lehigh: Built-Too-Big-For-Our-Fanbase Field at Goodman Stadium.
Norfolk St.: Charlie King Field at FCS4lyfe Stadium.
Frisco: Bridegeforth South.
Preseason polls are nothing more than a reminder that football is right around the corner. They don’t really mean squat and as a general rule we like to ignore them. But we also have a rule on this blog that any poll, ranking, or list about on virtually any topic, will be blown out of proportion and hyped up if it puts JMU at the top. Especially if it pops up in the offseason. Because mediocre content doesn’t create itself. And today Stats released its official FCS Preseason Poll with JMU ranked number one. So we’re kind of OK with preseason polls this year.
JMU was the overwhelming first choice, gathering 134 of 163 first place votes. North Dakota State ended up second. That is pretty much the story. NDSU has been the preseason favorite for the past 6 years. But now it’s the Dukes who enter the season with the big target on their backs. Bryan Schor for one, seems perfectly fine with that. The way he put it, “It’s not something we’re going to run away from as a team. We realize people are going to be gunning for us. We were lucky enough to go on and win a national championship. That’s something that everybody else wants.” Well there you go. Run it back boys.
JMU football officially kicked off 2017 today with the start of preseason camp. Which means that the season is so close that it’s perfectly acceptable for fans to spend 2 or 3 hours a day looking at highlight videos. May we suggest starting with this one featuring the Dukes 35-32 win over Appalachian State back in 2008.
If you weren’t there for the game, we’re sorry. Hyperbole is the worst thing ever, but this game might have been the single greatest FCS regular season game ever. App State rolled into the ‘burg as the #1 team in the country and 3 time defending National Champion. The Dukes were ranked #5 in the country and eager to avenge a 2007 playoff defeat to App State. In that game, JMU was in position to win late, and then bad stuff happened. I don’t want to talk about it.
The 2008 game was easily the biggest home game in JMU history up to that time. With a full day of tailgating before the evening kickoff, fans had Bridgeforth absolutely rocking at kickoff. Then Armanti Edwards and the Mountaineers jumped out to a 21-0 lead and things looked pretty bleak. But Scotty McGee took the second half kick to the house so fast that some fans who were taking advantage of the leave/re-enter policy to drown their sorrows in the parking lot (cough, me & Todd) barely made it back into the stadium in time to see it explode. From that point the rally was on. Rodney Landers and the Dukes played about as good a half of football as you’ll ever see and JMU walked out with a 35-32 victory. It was quite simply, epic.
My boys’ latest issue of Sports Illustrated for Kids arrived in the mail today. My kids love the magazine and their favorite thing about it, is that each issue comes with trading cards. So that’s the first page we opened to. And right there next to a card for some guy named Cristiano Ronaldo was one for JMU’s own Megan Good. That’s big time.
If you missed JMU’s pregame hype video before the semi-final game at North Dakota State, you really missed it. But like a gift from the football gods, it’s finally been posted on YouTube. So here you go. Watch it. Feel the goosebumps. And get ready to root in 34 days.
CAA Football Media Day took place today in Baltimore. The Dukes were picked to finish first, because of course they were. Bryan Schor was tabbed as the Preseason Offensive Player of the Year, while Jonathan Kloosterman, Aaron Stinni, Andrew Ankrah, Raven Greene, and Robert Carter all joined him as preseason All CAA selections. Coaches spoke. Every team had a great summer, getting stronger and faster. The top teams think they’re ready to take the next step. The bottom teams like being underestimated. Blah. Blah. Blah. In short, it was like every other media day and you missed nothing from the official program. And based on the tens of thousands tens of people who bothered to tune into the broadcast, odds are you definitely missed it.
But believe it or not, we did learn something interesting today. Of course it wasn’t from the official Media Day events. Instead, it came courtesy of some solid reporting from the DNR’s Greg Madia, who tweeted the following:
Commish Joe D’Antonio: “We’ve been in negotiation with CBS Digital and Twitter.” … Says CAA is waiting on contracts to officially announce.
— Greg Madia (@Madia_DNRSports) July 25, 2017
Now if you’ve been following along, you’re well aware that we’re a little over a month out from football season and there is still no CAA Football broadcast deal in place. The league’s contract with NBC Sports ended after last season. Since then there has been very little information about any other deal. At this stage, it was pretty clear that the odds of a television deal were slim. But many fans (us included) were anxious to learn about streaming broadcasts. Needless to say, today’s little nugget has us very excited.
We have actually been hoping that the league would move in the direction of streaming online. Yes, watching games online is still a hurdle for some who prefer traditional television broadcasts. The days of networks paying big rights fees are probably behind us for all but a few prized properties though. The league would be better off prioritizing maximum exposure though online platforms.
The NBC Sports package sounded better than it actually was frankly. The production value was nice, but most of the broadcasts were relegated down to regional networks. That typically worked out great for those of us in the Mid-Atlantic. It all but cut off Dukes fans living elsewhere many weekends though. Twitter on the other hand, essentially offers worldwide distribution.
Some might scoff at the idea of watching a game through Twitter or CBS’ digital platform, instead of on a traditional network. That’s foolish in our opinion. The quality is top notch and both platforms are easily accessible. Ask anyone who tuned into any of the Twitter’s NFL broadcasts last year, or watch March Madness online with CBS and they’ll tell you that they are top quality products.
This is a great move for the CAA. We’d love it for the league to have the SEC’s deal with nationally broadcast games every Saturday. But that isn’t going to happen. Instead of going further down the television ladder, it sounds like the league wisely pursued more modern streaming platforms with far greater reach. If they’re able to close on the deal, it will be a win for the league, and a win for fans.
