{"id":8126,"date":"2015-10-26T21:11:58","date_gmt":"2015-10-27T01:11:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=8126"},"modified":"2015-10-27T18:05:14","modified_gmt":"2015-10-27T22:05:14","slug":"vad-lee-is-down-but-dont-count-the-dukes-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=8126","title":{"rendered":"Vad Lee is Down, but Don’t Count the Dukes Out (Updated)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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At his press conference, Withers said Vad Lee is having MRI done on left foot. He’s out indefinitely.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Matt Jones (@MattJones36) October 26, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Update: Coach Withers announced today that Vad had season ending surgery on his foot. His JMU career is done. Tough way to go out for an all-time JMU great.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Vad Lee, JMU’s star QB, is out. He’s not playing in this weekend’s game at William & Mary. He hurt his foot and is having an MRI done. That’s pretty much all we know. Because that’s all JMU is telling anyone. Which is really fine when you think about it. We know he won’t be in uniform Saturday. It’s fair to leave the details of his medical condition between him, his doctors, his team, and his family.<\/p>\n

Obviously, this is a huge blow for the Dukes. More than anything else though, it’s just sad. Lee was in the midst of a truly historic season. He was one of the frontrunners for the Payton Award. And now he’s out for at least this week and maybe longer. There’s just no denying that this is a loss the Dukes will feel. However, it’s not reason enough to count JMU out.<\/p>\n

Bryan Schor is the next man up. As the backup QB, he’ll now be thrust into the starting role with Lee out. Obviously, we should expect some degree of a drop off from Vad. That’s not exactly an insult when you remember that Vad was in the midst of one of the greatest, if not the greatest, seasons ever for a JMU QB.<\/p>\n

Schor doesn’t need to rewrite the record books for the Dukes to be successful. He just needs to limit mistakes and utilize his many weapons in the JMU system. We think he’s more than capable of doing that. He’s got a strong arm, a quick release, and he’s more athletic than folks give him credit for. He might not put up “Vad vs. SMU” sort of numbers, but if he spreads the ball around and executes the game plane, the Dukes offense will be fine.<\/p>\n

As upset as we are about Lee going down, his injury alone isn’t the end of the world. If you saw the game on Saturday, you surely know that the defense was bad. And by bad, we mean historically bad. And by historically bad, we mean it was without a doubt one of the 5 worst defensive performances in the history of JMU football. The defense needs to turn around completely. The offense on the other hand, just needs to\u00a0operate at 75% of what it had been under Lee and it will still score enough points to win. Provided the defense isn’t historically awful again of course.<\/p>\n

Again, Schor probably isn’t Vad Lee. But he’s our guy now and we’re rootin for him. The best thing to do is probably to hope for a speedy recovery for Vad and agree to never subject Schor to being compared to him. Because he’s never going to measure up in some folks’ minds, and he’s got his own set of unique skills to bring to the table. And in this offense, he’ll have a chance to succeed.<\/p>\n