{"id":8518,"date":"2016-05-01T12:27:51","date_gmt":"2016-05-01T16:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=8518"},"modified":"2016-05-01T12:27:51","modified_gmt":"2016-05-01T16:27:51","slug":"he-has-no-connection-to-jmu-but-man-are-we-pulling-for-eric-striker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=8518","title":{"rendered":"He Has No Connection to JMU, But Man Are We Pulling for Eric Striker"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RWXzHCkkm1c\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Eric Striker has absolutely no connection to JMU football. He played linebacker for the Oklahoma Sooners and was good enough to earn All Big 12 and All America honors. Like many college players, he hoped to hear his name called during the NFL draft. But he didn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>After the final picks were made, he gave this amazing speech to his family and friends who&#8217;d gathered to follow the draft with him. It&#8217;s hard to watch a guy fight back tears like that, but at the same time it&#8217;s pretty damn incredible to witness someone with such wisdom and perspective.<\/p>\n<p>We said that Striker has no connection to JMU football, and he doesn&#8217;t. At the same time, his experience as a standout player from one of the true power programs in college football gives us even more appreciation for the Dukes who&#8217;ve beaten the odds to make an NFL roster. The odds of anyone playing on Sundays are pretty steep. \u00a0That holds true if you&#8217;re Eric Striker from Oklahoma, and even more so if you&#8217;re Deane Marlowe, Daniel Brown, Earl Watford, Arthur Moats, or anyone else from JMU.<\/p>\n<p>Striker signed with the Buffalo Bills as an undrafted free agent. Since we&#8217;re saps, we&#8217;ll be rooting like hell for him to make the team. And hoping that more JMU Dukes continue to defy the odds and play in the NFL as well.<\/p>\n<iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fjmusportsblog.com%2F%3Fp%3D8518&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=true&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;height=80\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:80px;\" allowTransparency=\"true\"><\/iframe>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eric Striker has absolutely no connection to JMU football. He played linebacker for the Oklahoma Sooners and was good enough to earn All Big 12 and All America honors. Like many college players, he hoped to hear his name called during the NFL draft. But he didn&#8217;t. After the final picks were made, he gave [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2251,"url":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=2251","url_meta":{"origin":8518,"position":0},"title":"JMU Alum CJ Sapong Scores 1:43 Into His MLS Debut","date":"March 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Former JMU soccer star, CJ Sapong, got his MLS career started with a bang over the weekend. The rookie striker earned\u00a0the start\u00a0for the season opener and\u00a0then scored in the second minute of the match. Scroll to the 48 second point in the video above to see it. The goal\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;News&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":659,"url":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=659","url_meta":{"origin":8518,"position":1},"title":"Four Dukes To Get A Shot In The NFL","date":"April 25, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Arthur Moats and Scotty McGee became the first JMU football players to be drafted since 2000. Moats is heading to Buffalo to play linebacker in the 3-4 and McGee will take his 4.37 speed down to Jacksonsville to do what he does best, return kicks. Offensive lineman, Dorian Brooks and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;JMU Football&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/jmusportsblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/mcgee-again2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":629,"url":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=629","url_meta":{"origin":8518,"position":2},"title":"When Will Moats Get Drafted? A JMUSB Contest","date":"April 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"With 22 NFL scouts at JMU's pro-day this year, it's clear the NFL is starting to take notice of JMU football. Arthur Moats and Dorian Brooks opened some eyes with their performances at the combine, while Mike Caussin and Scotty McGee have had some strong workouts for a number of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;JMU Football&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jmusportsblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/moats.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8526,"url":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=8526","url_meta":{"origin":8518,"position":3},"title":"Vad Lee Had a Tryout With the NY Giants You Guys","date":"May 8, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"(Update: unfortunately, the Giants decided not to sign Vad.) Word broke late last week that Vad Lee had earned an invitation to the NY Giants Rookie Minicamp. As a diehard Giants' fan, this was pretty exciting for me personally. But it's not about me. It's about Vad, an all-time great\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;JMU Football&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7692,"url":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=7692","url_meta":{"origin":8518,"position":4},"title":"Four More Dukes to Get a Shot at the NFL","date":"May 3, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The NFL Draft came and went this year without any JMU players being drafted. Free Safety Dean Marlowe had an outside shot after participating in the NFL Scouting Combine, but his name was never called. That's not too surprising, seeing as how about 320 players participated in the combine and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;JMU Football&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"Maine James Madison Football","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/jmusportsblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/100811-jmu-um-ftb3-mr.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":670,"url":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=670","url_meta":{"origin":8518,"position":5},"title":"Big Weekend for the Dukes &#8230;and Jari","date":"April 26, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This past weekend was a good one for the JMU Dukes. As we noted in an earlier post, Arthur Moats and Scotty McGee were drafted in the 6th round of the NFL Draft and Mike Caussin and Dorian Brooks signed free agent deals. The good news didn't stop there though.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;JMU Football&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8518"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8518"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8519,"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8518\/revisions\/8519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}