{"id":2687,"date":"2011-07-20T00:39:49","date_gmt":"2011-07-20T04:39:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=2687"},"modified":"2011-07-27T20:40:01","modified_gmt":"2011-07-28T00:40:01","slug":"maine-black-bears-jmusb-2011-caa-football-preview-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=2687","title":{"rendered":"Maine Black Bears: JMUSB 2011 CAA Football Preview #3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ddddaaaaammmmmmnnnn!\u00a0 Or rather, dadgumit!\u00a0 That mighty roar you hear is Mickey Matthews cursing\u00a0his luck (or cursing\u00a0the seven in the godswood – yes, I’m dorking out hardcore on BOTH\u00a0SyFy channel’s Alphas\u00a0AND Game of Thrones) that the Towson Tigers aren’t on the schedule this year.\u00a0 (And also spitting on VCU’s recent ESPY though the CAA love is nice\u00a0– and no, you are NOT forgiven Bilas and DukieV).\u00a0\u00a0 But somebody has to serve as the CAA’s \"\"<\/a>“gimme” and this year it’s going to be the Maine Black Bears, who came out of nowhere to produce a few tough performances last\u00a0year.\u00a0 Yes, this is unrealistic alumni expectation and it’s perfectly possible to think other teams are thinking the same of the Dukes, but seriously, with no Towson, RhodeI looking tougher than usual, and the two of us saving our most serious venom for that putrid placenta oozing in the Hampton Roads area, somebody has to serve as the afterthought game on the home schedule, and this year it’s Maine.<\/p>\n

Why We’re Worried<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Dukes will host Maine on Columbus Day weekend, when lots of students miss out on the opportunity for an extra weekend day in the ‘Burg (trust me, you’ll never remember that random night at Blue Iguana with your high school “friends” but you will remember that trip to the Reddish Knob area\u00a0where Omar did a backflip off the watertower because his oddly attractive fat townie manager from Food Lion said he couldn’t pull it off after 17 Beast Ices).\u00a0 And even more unfortunately, it’s sandwiched between two larger home dates with the Ticks for Homecoming the week before and Villanova for Parent’s Weekend following.<\/p>\n

Oh yeah, also Maine has some decent players and a great coach.\u00a0 Actually, they really don’t.\u00a0 In the section of the CAA Media Guide that highlights each teams’ best returning players, their highlights include just two guys who made 3rd Team All CAA last year and a QB who “started 10 of 11 games” and is ranked roughly 98th in all-time CAA yardage.\u00a0 Their coach, Jack Cosgrove,\u00a0HAS been solid for years and has consistently found a way to coax 4-7 wins out of 2-win (i.e. Towson) talent, but there’s still absolutley no way we don’t pencil this in as a Dukes W this year.<\/p>\n

Why I’m Way Out of Line for Bashing Maine<\/strong><\/p>\n

There’s no funny segue or snarky transition for the fact that Maine had a player killed<\/a> in an accident this offseason.\u00a0\u00a0 While we’ll be rooting for the Dukes when the Black Bears visit The\u00a0Purple Palace\u00a0this year, there’s no team in the CAA we’ll be pulling for harder the rest of the season than Maine.\u00a0 While JMU, and\u00a0c ertainly ODU,\u00a0managed to manufacture “tragedy” through the immature and at times felonious actions of their roster this offseason, Maine is going through something not a single team in the CAA would wish on anyone else and our thoughts are with the Black Bears family.<\/p>\n

Secondly, for all of our jokes (and those of Hofstra’s “Defiantly Dutch<\/a>” blog) about the differences and inequalities between the former CAA North and South, Maine is a seriously underrated University when it comes to how seriously they take athletics.\u00a0 Besides their noted hockey team, they take both men’s and women’s hoops dead seriously and have an undergrad enrollment of 12,000 (nothing to sneer at) in a state with no real competition.\u00a0 I’m just saying in all of our over-the-top, pie in the sky wishing and bullshitting about future FBS possibilities, don’t completely sleep on Maine despite the geographic nightmare they present.<\/p>\n