On the big picture side first, the Dukes snapped UNH’s 17-game home winning streak. Kind of speaks for itself in terms of the Wildcat’s quality of play and the way those constant noon kickoffs affect teams that have endured pretty ridiculous travel itineraries by modern college football standards to make their way to Durham, NH. But even more than that, the Dukes now sit at 6-1 with home games remaining against URI and Elon. Taking nothing away from the allegedly improved Fightin’ Christians – strike that – taking everything away, this means the floor for the Dukes now likely sits at 8-3. Enormous road tests at RU and Nova make up the rest of the slate but even a split of those games could have the Dukes in great position for a seed again as only JMU and Stony Brook are still undefeated in conference play.<\/p>\n
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When we all assumed it was over, and clearly the players did too.<\/p><\/div>\n
Ready to play – The noon kick at Maine earlier this year showed how tough it is to play these games beyond the wall. The Dukes were sluggish then. \u0010\u0010They clearly had learned their lesson as they were ready to go in the first half of this one despite an opening drive three-and-out for what seems like the first time in forever.<\/p>\n
Just better – Before the-quarter-that-shall-not-be-named this was really our big takeaway from this game. At halftime I jotted a note to myself that said “just better.” What I meant was that both of these teams were clearly prepared\u00a0and well-coached with gameplans they meant to stick to. But whereas in years past under both Mickey and Withers, the Dukes may have squandered their considerable talent advantage against a disciplined team sticking to its plan like UNH, this year, JMU was also a disciplined team sticking to its plan and the talent could make the difference. The Dukes don’t turn the ball over or commit the penalties at horrendous times the way we’ve seen before and that puts them into position for things like their elite-for-FCS talent to make plays like the Terrance Alls TD grab or the Simeyon Robinson XP block. It’s such a pleasure and truly gives us hope that JMU can really compete in the postseason this year.<\/p>\n
Simeyon Robinson – D-Line was the biggest concern coming into the season and the Dukes failure to generate pressure on QB’s for huge swaths of games – like the entire first half of this one – is still the one glaring weakness (kicking is a concern right now too) of this squad, but Mr. Robinson is capable of taking over for a series or a quarter in a way we haven’t seen since D.J. Bryant. To us, he might be the most irreplaceable\u00a0player on the team right now.<\/p>\n
O-Line – What can you say? Well, you can probably say something more intelligible than color commentator Brian Baldinger’s CTE-induced, incoherent rambling about the road graders up front. But we agree with his enthusiasm about the way Kirsch, Rigney, Frank, Stinnie, etc. are playing right now.<\/p>\n
Passing Game – Schor was great and has deservedly picked up the CAA Offensive player of the week, but the most important thing is the Dukes showed just how complete they are on offense this week. UNH threw everything at slowing down the run game and it worked. Last year after Vad went down, the Dukes couldn’t really prove they could win the game in the air. This week they showed how great they can be and it’s unlikely anyone will be able to solely focus on any one thing going forward. Huge step for the team.<\/p>\n
Rush Defense – On the other side of the ball, while we all get frustrated with how many short passes in open space the Dukes give up, we should keep in mind the gameplay. UNH’s best player was RB Dalton Crosson. UNH had 57 yards rushing. 57. The Dukes forced UNH to try and win with the passing game and they couldn’t do what Schor and co. did.<\/p>\n
The Bad<\/strong><\/p>\n UNH’s “crowd” – New stadium. Good team. 17-game winning streak and one of the CAA heavies in town on a perfect fall afternoon in New England. Some things never change.<\/p>\n The Ugly<\/strong><\/p>\n ASN – Basically everything about this telecast was some high-school A\/V Club level nonsense. The whole first half the sound wasn’t synced with the picture. They lost the feed entirely to start the second half. And lots of folks were actually having better luck with the YouTube feed than the cable broadcast. #CAA4lyfe!<\/p>\n The last ten minutes – Look, there are a million things we could say about this, but we’re not going to waste our time. When Charles Tutt ran in the fumbled kickoff to put the Dukes up 42-12 with a \u00a0backup QB in the game, the ENTIRE team thought it was over and turned their motors to “Off.” Honestly, so did we as fans. I took the dog out, lit the grill, and casually watched out of one eye till the second UNH score when I paid full attention again. And this wasn’t just the defense. The offense did nothing to keep the ball. Bottom line is the 42-12 score didn’t do justice to how good the Wildcats actually were. The Dukes had to play mistake-free football to obtain that lead, it wasn’t just that they were worlds better. And when they stopped doing that, the wheels came off. Thankfully they had already done enough.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n