RE: Game time
Hopefully the JMU faithful most upset about yesterday's loss have had a night to sober up and look at yesterday's game with a bit more perspective this morning. Losses are never easy, and yesterday's loss was particularly tough because there's good reason to argue we could, perhaps should have won. Yet, that aside, I saw a really good JMU team yesterday, that (if it can get past the self-inflicted wounds) will win many, many games this season.
The CAA schedule will be tough this year...it always is, and it looks to be tougher still this season. That said, if the Dukes remain injury free and compete like they did last night there's no reason the Dukes can't be competitive in every game remaining on the schedule and make the playoffs.
A couple quick observations...the "looking at the sidelines" shtick is very annoying, still the Dukes ran 94 plays...second most in team history. That's fast play.
Also, Birdsong had his first 300+ yard passing game, completing 69% of his passes for 3 TDs. Not bad for a young QB making his 4th start.
The team controlled the game clock for 38:20 minutes and nearly 500 yards of offense. Doing that against an FBS team with 22 extra scholarships boasting a solid DL and DB (perhaps the best collection of DL and DB talent JMU will face this season) portends for a bright future.
The kicking game was excellent. There's little question our FG and punting talent is superior.
Our receivers made some tough catches yesterday, and there were few, if any drops.
Individually, Brown looks like he's back, and DQ woke up and posted another 100 yard game.
On the negative side of the ledger, untimely penalties (especially by senior captains), poor clock management by coaches, and questionable/confused coaching decisions on things as important as point after conversions and special teams (I'm thinking the pooch kick-offs) have us all scratching our heads. As frustrating as those aspects of our play were, however, the dagger to JMU's chances to winning the game were the play of two R-Fr. R-Fr Lambert's fumble, and R-Fr Taylor's poor play at CB cost JMU the game. Both of those guys are really, really gifted, and while MM benched Lambert in the second half, JMU apparently doesn't have a better replacement for Taylor. Hopefully Taylor learned something last night, and will get better fast.
Looking forward to seeing the team against STFU.
Go Dukes!
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