{"id":8951,"date":"2016-10-10T10:22:03","date_gmt":"2016-10-10T14:22:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=8951"},"modified":"2016-10-10T10:22:03","modified_gmt":"2016-10-10T14:22:03","slug":"good-bad-and-ugly-from-jmu-31-wm-24","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=8951","title":{"rendered":"Good, Bad, and Ugly from JMU 31 &#8211; W&#038;M 24"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ar1TmYsCDOQ\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\nThe JMU Dukes defeated the W&amp;M Tribe by the score of 31-24 in a rain soaked Bridgeforth Stadium on Saturday. The victory moved the Dukes to a perfect 3-0 in CAA play and 5-1 overall. William &amp; Mary on the other hand, dropped to 0-3 in the CAA and 2-4 overall. In some ways it was a rather ugly game. The Dukes were able to move the ball, but struggled to convert all the yardage into points in the first half. And the Defense was unable to put the clams on Kendall Anderson and his Tribe teammates, allowing them to hang in there and make a game out of it. Taylor Reynolds came up huge, picking up a Steve Clulely pass in the endzone with under 2 minutes left and the Tribe driving to tie the ball game. Then Khalid Abdullah broke off a 74 yard TD to seal the game. Here&#8217;s the good, bad, and ugly from the game.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Good<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Abdullah and Cardon Johnson went beast mode again. Johnson had 90 yards and a touchdown on 17 carries. Abdullah ran for a career best 194 yards and three touchdowns. The duo might not be unstoppable, but they&#8217;re pretty damn close. And on a wet day in dogfight against a bitter rival, they both elevated their games and helped lead the team to a win.<\/p>\n<p>The O-line. Johnson and Abdullah have rightly been getting a ton of credit for their outstanding play, and justifiably so. But the dangerous pair couldn&#8217;t do it without the big guys up front opening up holes for them to run through. They did just that on Saturday. And they also protected QB Bryan Schor giving him time to pass and preventing the Tribe from sacking him.<\/p>\n<p>Taylor Reynolds. The pick in the endzone was obviously pretty clutch, but Taylor made other big plays on Saturday.\u00a0He came off the edge to make a tackle for a loss near the goal line and hold W&amp;M to a FG. It&#8217;s pretty amazing to think about how far he&#8217;s come in his time at JMU.<\/p>\n<p>Gage Steele. Steele&#8217;s production dropped last season. That was partially due to him battling injuries and partially due to the overall weakness of the JMU defensive scheme. Games like Saturday&#8217;s though highlighted Steele&#8217;s ability to swarm all over the field and make stops.<\/p>\n<p>Gunnar Kane. As a punter for JMU, Gunnar doesn&#8217;t even break a sweat some games. He&#8217;s answering the bell when called upon though and was great on Saturday. He booted a career best 66 yard blast to pin the Tribe on its 9 yard line.<\/p>\n<p>The Crowd. We weren&#8217;t able to make in Saturday, but we&#8217;ve sat through plenty of rainy of games in the past. The fans in Bridgeforth probably weren&#8217;t comfortable, but they were loud and supported the Dukes during a tough rivalry game. That&#8217;s rootin.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bad<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Another missed chip shot. Tyler Gray has a big leg and has been huge on kickoffs all season. He missed what should have been a gimme on Saturday though. It happens and he&#8217;s too good not to bounce back though.<\/p>\n<p>The rushing D? This one&#8217;s tough to judge. It wasn&#8217;t a shut down performance worthy of the good section, but it definitely doesn&#8217;t deserve to be labeled bad either. Others might disagree based on the fact that W&amp;M ran for 205 yards. The reality is that the JMU defense pretty much held W&amp;M in line. The Tribe averaged 4.7 yards per rush. They average 4.8 yards per rush on the season. So on a day where everyone in the world knew that W&amp;M was going to try to pound the rock and keep the Dukes offense on the sidelines, JMU basically limited them to a standard performance.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ugly<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The win. This was an ugly win over a bitter rival. And yes, this is a total cop out and my way of turning the ugly section into a compliment. Todd and discussed in Saturday night though and we simply can&#8217;t pick nits and look for things to be upset about after JMU took care of business against the Tribe and probably eliminated them from the postseason as well. Style points don&#8217;t count in the win column. Coach Houston and the Dukes beat a desperate Tribe team in the rain and are 3-0. Life is good.<\/p>\n<iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fjmusportsblog.com%2F%3Fp%3D8951&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>The JMU Dukes defeated the W&amp;M Tribe by the score of 31-24 in a rain soaked Bridgeforth Stadium on Saturday. The victory moved the Dukes to a perfect 3-0 in CAA play and 5-1 overall. William &amp; Mary on the other hand, dropped to 0-3 in the CAA and 2-4 overall. In some ways it [&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":[7],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11210,"url":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=11210","url_meta":{"origin":8951,"position":0},"title":"The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly From JMU 38 &#8211; W&#038;M 10","date":"October 21, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"The Dukes won. Again. This time it was against an overmatched William & Mary team on its homecoming. Stop us if you've heard this before, but JMU started slow, fell behind early, and the took its opponent behind the woodshed. Despite needing to come from behind, the outcome was never\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;News&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/jmusportsblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Carter_Ron_Dell_092918_Richmond.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8938,"url":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=8938","url_meta":{"origin":8951,"position":1},"title":"JMUSB Game Preview #6: William &#038; Mary at JMU","date":"October 6, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Once again, it's time for the Dukes to welcome the boys from William & Mary to Harrisonburg. No matter if you call them the Tribe, the Indians, or the Pantsless Griffins, it's a big game and one we definitely circle on the calendar every year. Now we could waste a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;JMU Football&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11758,"url":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=11758","url_meta":{"origin":8951,"position":2},"title":"2021 JMUSB Game Preview #10: JMU at William &#038; Mary","date":"November 12, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Time to begin the burn-it-all-down tour. Less animosity towards the Tribe than just about any CAA team, but they're first on this retribution circuit. Big game, worthy opponent, one more time with the Griffins. The Basics Matchup: #2 JMU Dukes (8-1, 5-1 CAA) at William & Mary Tribe (6-3, 4-2\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;News&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/jmusportsblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/JMU-D.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10464,"url":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=10464","url_meta":{"origin":8951,"position":3},"title":"JMU 51 &#8211; W&#038;M 0. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.","date":"September 23, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Huh. That was kind of lopsided. We expected JMU to win comfortably. But we're not sure anyone saw that 51 point beatdown over the Tribe from William & Mary. With legendary Tribe head coach Jimmye Laycock retiring, we thought there was a chance William & Mary would elevate its game\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;JMU Football&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jmusportsblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/5ba6e3dd5abf6.image_-1024x682.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8980,"url":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=8980","url_meta":{"origin":8951,"position":4},"title":"JMU Football Fan Confidence Poll","date":"October 20, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"We're smack in the middle of the Dukes' bye week, so we thought it would be a good time to take the pulse of the fanbase. JMU currently sits atop the CAA Football standings with a perfect 4-0 record in league play. The Dukes are 6-1 overall, with a loss\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;JMU Football&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"schor-vs-tribe","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jmusportsblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/schor-vs-tribe.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4499,"url":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=4499","url_meta":{"origin":8951,"position":5},"title":"JMU Welcomes William &#038; Mary to Bridgeforth","date":"October 12, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The William & Mary Tribe makes the trip to Harrisonburg this weekend to face our beloved JMU Dukes. JMU currently is ranked 5th in the FCS Coaches Poll and 4th in the Sports Network Top 25. William & Mary is unranked and hoping to pull off the upset and carry\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;JMU Football&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/jmusportsblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/stephon.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8951"}],"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=8951"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8956,"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8951\/revisions\/8956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}