(10-14-2013 11:57 AM)HyperDuke Wrote:  Who crosses that line in your section? Can't tell if this is a thinly-veiled shot at me, but it sure seems like it.

I'm just commenting on the "Rawr! Cops are singling me out for being such an awesome cheering fan! Email the president!" mentality here.

I'm not going to call specific people out, but I have seen (as I'm sure many of us have) games where certain individuals cross the line from "loud, supportive fan" to "obnoxious dude I'm kind of embarrassed to know this minute." Hell, I'm sure I'm guilty of this on past occasions.

Just because someone didn't swear, or harass a specific opponent, doesn't mean their behavior is tolerable.

"...It draws attention in a negative way. Draw attention to yourself, but on your own terms." -Wedding Crashers, Rule #6

Fair enough. I've definitely been obnoxious to a certain degree before (probably with you once or twice), but that didn't have anything to do with this Saturday.

I think your post does bring up some good questions that deserve an answer. Is the "line" where anyone around you gets embarrassed? If so, I couldn't say a simple "Go Dukes" around some folks. Obviously, there comes a time where having a minimum level of decorum is reached, but I think some people being more "embarrassment-sensitive" creates a weird standard where it's not entirely obvious all the time.

(10-14-2013 11:30 AM)JMU_Newbill Wrote:  Sarcastic remark in closing, can you really blame ANYONE for leaving at halftime, that's when we usually stop playing anyway!

Or do we stop playing because everyone leaves. They feed each other. I don't understand the mentality anyway. Why would I sit in the rain for a half, but feel like I suddenly need to be dry in a close game for the second half. Makes no sense.

I do think the security folks go over the top. If someone is stomping or cheering loudly, and I am just talking about clean, home team yelling, I have seen troopers come over to have a word with them. Apparently, the golf clap crowd does not like it when someone is too noisy in the library.

(10-14-2013 11:44 AM)JMU Wrote:  ^ half of Strauss' yards came in the last eleven minutes of the game. You know, the part of the game, where we quit playing defense. Take that out or play the whole game and they would not have had as much - not even close.

Quit playing defense is one way of putting it, I guess, but I think we were also a bit of a victim of our own success. The D was on the field for a WHOLE lot of the 3rd and 4th qtrs. We're already thin at DB and the guy threw the ball for a BFS record number of attempts. These guys all had to be gassed, especially when the ball is coming your way over and over and over again.

It's a double edged sword- We had sustained drives in the 3rd qtr of what? 2 plays, 4 plays. Then in the 4th, 6 plays, 1 play. Well guess what, someone else is on that field when the O is not. So Strauss puts up some gawdy numbers and the score looks closer than the game really was, so what?

This wasn't exactly pretty to watch as the game wore on, but it wasn't some disaster ala NO v. NE yesterday. It was still a 10 pt lead with a minute 40 in the game. Those are pretty good odds to pull out a W.

Not what I would consider quitting, they fought back just as we tried to do a year ago. Both times the team behind came up short. It's a rivalry game, it's to be expected.

^True. Still Strauss' yardage came at the end of the game. Up until that point we played our best defense of the year. Maybe exhaustion attributed to our inability the last ten minutes of the game on defense. On offense, it seemed as if it was just simple panic causing our inepitude. Maybe they felt the game was slipping away. I don't know. I would have hoped that we could have burned up the clock a bit with our running game on a couple of possessions during that last ten minutes but that didn't happen. It took about 30 minutes to burn a total of 2-3 minutes off the playclock. In the end, it is a win and a very good win. I was just very worried that we were going to blow it.

We didn't quit playing defense. We forced Richmond to dink and dunk us down the field to get points. And they did eat up the clock in doing so. Had we been playing press man and blitzing up 38-16 and Richmond scores on a quick 75 yard TD pass then fans here would be losing their **** on the coaching staff.

And we all know pass defense is the weakness of our defense and I thought we did a good job of hiding that against a good passing offense. Give some credit to Richmond too. Strauss was hitting some good timing passes with his receivers.

But anyone that watched that game should have come away that JMU was clearly the better team over Richmond. No idea why our own fans downplay every win we have and lose their mind every time we lose a game.

(10-14-2013 10:12 AM)ShadyP Wrote:  

(10-14-2013 09:47 AM)JMU2014 Wrote:  

(10-14-2013 09:29 AM)All Dukes_All Day Wrote:  I would hope beating Virginia Tech gave a few students the football bug, but I guess not.

The problem boils down to culture. JMU doesn't have a sports culture, it has a party culture. I would wager 90% of students would rather go to a generic house party than go to a football game. While sports is great for alums and connects us to our old friends/acquaintances, JMU isn't nationally relevant enough to bring people back en masse. 25k was a goal that would've been attainable had we had a plan to transition to FBS. However, years of mediocre play and crappy home opponents (St. Francis and CCSU twice in 3 years) will underwhelm even the most diehard fans.

This year's senior class were freshmen when we beat Tech. Every single senior remembers that day and how great it was. The problem is, that win was followed up with a 6-5 season. The next season was 7-4 and no home playoff game. The next was 7-4 and no playoffs at all. All the while, the team is boring to watch and we play no-name teams. It's tough for a casual student fan to care if we beat teams like St. Francis and CCSU but then lose to teams like Delaware or Richmond. They don't know enough about JMU football to know that those are big rivalry games and generally pretty good teams.

This thought process is so prevalent across campus regarding football right now:

"We must suck. We keep losing games to teams like Delaware and Akron. Who the heck are they? And the only time we win is when we play St. Francis and CCSU. We're playing Charlotte today? No thanks. I'm going to go watch Texas A&M and Alabama."

It's hard to combat this because it really is hard to say, "No you should definitely come! We're playing Stony Brook today and it's going to be a great game!" Couple this with boring play on the field and students just don't care and are being given no incentive to care. I'm at every game in the front row, 40 yard line, rain or shine. I think this culture change needs to start at the top, because if we continue down this path, they will have to start paying students to come.

I don't intend for this come off the wrong way, but 7-4 are not actually awful seasons. Don't get me wrong I would prefer 9-2 or better and think we should have been better those 7-4 years.....but to just throw up your hands and say that's not good enough to come get your 'free ticket' And I say 'free ticket' b/c when we move up to FBS don't be surprised if students tickets are no longer 'free'.

You got a problem with Charlotte - well that is one of our future conference opponents if we get into C-USA. Don't like Richmond, that is a big rival. To get 7 home games in a season yeah, you have to have some fluff in the schedule.

It is just embarrassing to have the national 3:30 game on NBC sports in what was a huge-game for JMU and the student body to appear not to give a crap. It seems to me they would rather pile up and watch a crappy UVA-MD game. And that is the main problem - we have waaayyy too many student that are more concerned with UVA and VT athletics than JMU's. If that is the way they felt they should have gone to one of the aforementioned schools.

An occasional 7-4 record is really not all that bad. The problem comes when you look at the teams that we lose to/beat to arrive at that 7-4 record. When those wins are coming against teams like St. Francis, Alcorn St., Charlotte, and CCSU, students assume we're beating crappy teams. And it really doesn't look good when we play down to the opponent and look sloppy.

To a normal JMU student they assume we must suck because we're beating teams they've never heard of, or losing to teams that either suck (Akron), or they don't know anything about (Delaware). They don't know that Delaware is a tough team to play on the road or that Akron has 20 more scholarships. All they know is we're beating nobodies, we're losing to nobodies, and there are "bigger, more exciting" games on TV for them to watch. This WILL NOT get better by staying FCS. It will only get worse.

When we jump up to FBS, even if we get ONE recognizable FBS opponent into Bridgeforth each year (not necessarily BCS) and then play the rest of the recognizable teams on the road, students will come more regularly. They will see that we are playing with the big boys and will be more invested. It's hard for them to get invested when we play the teams we do. Even though Richmond and Delaware are a big rivals, they're just small time to most students.

I don't hold this belief. I love JMU football, I hate the Ticks, and I would gladly shut down a Blue Hen cutie any day of the week, but the majority of the JMU student body is not like that. A move to FBS will help this student apathy towards football games, staying in FCS will kill student involvement.

(10-14-2013 02:37 PM)JMU2014 Wrote:  

(10-14-2013 10:12 AM)ShadyP Wrote:  

(10-14-2013 09:47 AM)JMU2014 Wrote:  

(10-14-2013 09:29 AM)All Dukes_All Day Wrote:  I would hope beating Virginia Tech gave a few students the football bug, but I guess not.

The problem boils down to culture. JMU doesn't have a sports culture, it has a party culture. I would wager 90% of students would rather go to a generic house party than go to a football game. While sports is great for alums and connects us to our old friends/acquaintances, JMU isn't nationally relevant enough to bring people back en masse. 25k was a goal that would've been attainable had we had a plan to transition to FBS. However, years of mediocre play and crappy home opponents (St. Francis and CCSU twice in 3 years) will underwhelm even the most diehard fans.

This year's senior class were freshmen when we beat Tech. Every single senior remembers that day and how great it was. The problem is, that win was followed up with a 6-5 season. The next season was 7-4 and no home playoff game. The next was 7-4 and no playoffs at all. All the while, the team is boring to watch and we play no-name teams. It's tough for a casual student fan to care if we beat teams like St. Francis and CCSU but then lose to teams like Delaware or Richmond. They don't know enough about JMU football to know that those are big rivalry games and generally pretty good teams.

This thought process is so prevalent across campus regarding football right now:

"We must suck. We keep losing games to teams like Delaware and Akron. Who the heck are they? And the only time we win is when we play St. Francis and CCSU. We're playing Charlotte today? No thanks. I'm going to go watch Texas A&M and Alabama."

It's hard to combat this because it really is hard to say, "No you should definitely come! We're playing Stony Brook today and it's going to be a great game!" Couple this with boring play on the field and students just don't care and are being given no incentive to care. I'm at every game in the front row, 40 yard line, rain or shine. I think this culture change needs to start at the top, because if we continue down this path, they will have to start paying students to come.

I don't intend for this come off the wrong way, but 7-4 are not actually awful seasons. Don't get me wrong I would prefer 9-2 or better and think we should have been better those 7-4 years.....but to just throw up your hands and say that's not good enough to come get your 'free ticket' And I say 'free ticket' b/c when we move up to FBS don't be surprised if students tickets are no longer 'free'.

You got a problem with Charlotte - well that is one of our future conference opponents if we get into C-USA. Don't like Richmond, that is a big rival. To get 7 home games in a season yeah, you have to have some fluff in the schedule.

It is just embarrassing to have the national 3:30 game on NBC sports in what was a huge-game for JMU and the student body to appear not to give a crap. It seems to me they would rather pile up and watch a crappy UVA-MD game. And that is the main problem - we have waaayyy too many student that are more concerned with UVA and VT athletics than JMU's. If that is the way they felt they should have gone to one of the aforementioned schools.

An occasional 7-4 record is really not all that bad. The problem comes when you look at the teams that we lose to/beat to arrive at that 7-4 record. When those wins are coming against teams like St. Francis, Alcorn St., Charlotte, and CCSU, students assume we're beating crappy teams. And it really doesn't look good when we play down to the opponent and look sloppy.

To a normal JMU student they assume we must suck because we're beating teams they've never heard of, or losing to teams that either suck (Akron), or they don't know anything about (Delaware). They don't know that Delaware is a tough team to play on the road or that Akron has 20 more scholarships. All they know is we're beating nobodies, we're losing to nobodies, and there are "bigger, more exciting" games on TV for them to watch. This WILL NOT get better by staying FCS. It will only get worse.

When we jump up to FBS, even if we get ONE recognizable FBS opponent into Bridgeforth each year (not necessarily BCS) and then play the rest of the recognizable teams on the road, students will come more regularly. They will see that we are playing with the big boys and will be more invested. It's hard for them to get invested when we play the teams we do. Even though Richmond and Delaware are a big rivals, they're just small time to most students.

I don't hold this belief. I love JMU football, I hate the Ticks, and I would gladly shut down a Blue Hen cutie any day of the week, but the majority of the JMU student body is not like that. A move to FBS will help this student apathy towards football games, staying in FCS will kill student involvement.

+1. This guy knows what's up.

(10-14-2013 02:36 PM)JMUDuke25 Wrote:  We didn't quit playing defense. We forced Richmond to dink and dunk us down the field to get points. And they did eat up the clock in doing so. Had we been playing press man and blitzing up 38-16 and Richmond scores on a quick 75 yard TD pass then fans here would be losing their **** on the coaching staff.

And we all know pass defense is the weakness of our defense and I thought we did a good job of hiding that against a good passing offense. Give some credit to Richmond too. Strauss was hitting some good timing passes with his receivers.

But anyone that watched that game should have come away that JMU was clearly the better team over Richmond. No idea why our own fans downplay every win we have and lose their mind every time we lose a game.

at 38-16, UR scored on the next possession in 5 plays in 1:08 to make it 38-22.

at 38-22, UR scored in 4 plays in 1:09 to make it 38-28.

not exactly dinking and dunking or using time in those two 4th quarter possessions.

(10-14-2013 02:36 PM)JMUDuke25 Wrote:  But anyone that watched that game should have come away that JMU was clearly the better team over Richmond. No idea why our own fans downplay every win we have and lose their mind every time we lose a game.

Agree. My point is that the last eleven minutes got a little dicey for all of us that knew JMU was the better team. Please do not take my comments as if I am losing my mind over the win. I said it was a great win. Probably our best game of the year. I am impressed with the growth this team is showing, too.

(10-14-2013 02:42 PM)Duke Dawg Wrote:  

(10-14-2013 02:36 PM)JMUDuke25 Wrote:  We didn't quit playing defense. We forced Richmond to dink and dunk us down the field to get points. And they did eat up the clock in doing so. Had we been playing press man and blitzing up 38-16 and Richmond scores on a quick 75 yard TD pass then fans here would be losing their **** on the coaching staff.

And we all know pass defense is the weakness of our defense and I thought we did a good job of hiding that against a good passing offense. Give some credit to Richmond too. Strauss was hitting some good timing passes with his receivers.

But anyone that watched that game should have come away that JMU was clearly the better team over Richmond. No idea why our own fans downplay every win we have and lose their mind every time we lose a game.

at 38-16, UR scored on the next possession in 5 plays in 1:08 to make it 38-22.

at 38-22, UR scored in 4 plays in 1:09 to make it 38-28.

not exactly dinking and dunking or using time in those two 4th quarter possessions.

Those 2 drives really frustrated me when I watched the DVR, because we were clearly in a prevent but giving up the sideline deep. If we had forced those plays to the middle, each of those drives would have taken twice as long even if the same yards were gained. If you're going to eat up the clock, you can't give up 20 yard outs to the sideline. You also can't have your SR running back go out of bounds to stop the clock.

We did quite a bit wrong in that last 11 minutes, including shanking a punt. But even with all of that, UR STILL didn't have a chance to win that game. Literally 0%, they didn't have the ball with a chance to lead, tie or even the ability to stop the clock. I wish we'd executed our clock management better, if we had the final would likely have been 38-22.

Scott running out of bounds and killing the clock a time or two didn't help either. That probably could have limited Tick possessions by at least one also.

(10-14-2013 03:09 PM)JMUSteeler Wrote:  But even with all of that, UR STILL didn't have a chance to win that game. Literally 0%, they didn't have the ball with a chance to lead, tie or even the ability to stop the clock. I wish we'd executed our clock management better, if we had the final would likely have been 38-22.

ummm no. If they had gotten the onside kick, they had an excellent chance of sending the game to OT. We had stopped playing, they had not. With a minute and change left and possession, I have little doubt it would have gone to OT. We allowed ourselves to almost give away an easy game.

It's amazing how much a label and classification lead to the indifference towards the team. FCS has a small time stink to it that many students can't get over. I remember my first year (2006) I came in feeling pretty dismissive of FCS (refused to go to any games after Bloomsburg). I was a huge college football fan and refused to associate myself with an FCS team at first. However, slowly but surely the Dukes won me over and I really regret not going to that home Delaware game (night game we won 44-20 or something). I really wish I could've been there just to heckle Joe Flacco alone. It was good play that drew me in and had I not been a Freshman until maybe 2011, I'm not sure I would've ever got on board.

I'm hooked now obviously, but I'm not so sure I would've been if I was a student today.

(10-14-2013 02:42 PM)Duke Dawg Wrote:  

(10-14-2013 02:36 PM)JMUDuke25 Wrote:  We didn't quit playing defense. We forced Richmond to dink and dunk us down the field to get points. And they did eat up the clock in doing so. Had we been playing press man and blitzing up 38-16 and Richmond scores on a quick 75 yard TD pass then fans here would be losing their **** on the coaching staff.

And we all know pass defense is the weakness of our defense and I thought we did a good job of hiding that against a good passing offense. Give some credit to Richmond too. Strauss was hitting some good timing passes with his receivers.

But anyone that watched that game should have come away that JMU was clearly the better team over Richmond. No idea why our own fans downplay every win we have and lose their mind every time we lose a game.

at 38-16, UR scored on the next possession in 5 plays in 1:08 to make it 38-22.

at 38-22, UR scored in 4 plays in 1:09 to make it 38-28.

not exactly dinking and dunking or using time in those two 4th quarter possessions.

Really? It didn't seem that quick. Then either we must have eaten some clock ourself or that last FG drive for them took forever.

I know the one dumb thing I remember us doing was run the option on first down I believe and Birdsong pitched it and the back went straight out of bounds.

UR did an awful job of moving the ball with urgency in the fourth. They were killing more time than we were just standing in the huddle and trying to break out late and run plays fast. I was pretty amazed at the lack of any real two minute urgency... and yet they still made it way too close.

(10-14-2013 03:44 PM)All Dukes_All Day Wrote:  It's amazing how much a label and classification lead to the indifference towards the team. FCS has a small time stink to it that many students can't get over. I remember my first year (2006) I came in feeling pretty dismissive of FCS (refused to go to any games after Bloomsburg). I was a huge college football fan and refused to associate myself with an FCS team at first. However, slowly but surely the Dukes won me over and I really regret not going to that home Delaware game (night game we won 44-20 or something). I really wish I could've been there just to heckle Joe Flacco alone. It was good play that drew me in and had I not been a Freshman until maybe 2011, I'm not sure I would've ever got on board.

I'm hooked now obviously, but I'm not so sure I would've been if I was a student today.

It really is the FCS label. Years ago, It was a struggle to get friends/roommates away from the tailgate and into the game because they wanted to head out and watch an FBS match-up on TV. FCS for some people really is holdup.

(10-14-2013 05:07 PM)Onyxduke7 Wrote:  

(10-14-2013 03:44 PM)All Dukes_All Day Wrote:  It's amazing how much a label and classification lead to the indifference towards the team. FCS has a small time stink to it that many students can't get over. I remember my first year (2006) I came in feeling pretty dismissive of FCS (refused to go to any games after Bloomsburg). I was a huge college football fan and refused to associate myself with an FCS team at first. However, slowly but surely the Dukes won me over and I really regret not going to that home Delaware game (night game we won 44-20 or something). I really wish I could've been there just to heckle Joe Flacco alone. It was good play that drew me in and had I not been a Freshman until maybe 2011, I'm not sure I would've ever got on board.

I'm hooked now obviously, but I'm not so sure I would've been if I was a student today.

It really is the FCS label. Years ago, It was a struggle to get friends/roommates away from the tailgate and into the game because they wanted to head out and watch an FBS match-up on TV. FCS for some people really is holdup.

Sorry but anyone that skips JMU vs Richmond to watch an FBS game isn't going to attend a JMU vs E Michigan game over the same televised game

(10-14-2013 03:32 PM)mistrhanky Wrote:  

(10-14-2013 03:09 PM)JMUSteeler Wrote:  But even with all of that, UR STILL didn't have a chance to win that game. Literally 0%, they didn't have the ball with a chance to lead, tie or even the ability to stop the clock. I wish we'd executed our clock management better, if we had the final would likely have been 38-22.

ummm no. If they had gotten the onside kick, they had an excellent chance of sending the game to OT. We had stopped playing, they had not. With a minute and change left and possession, I have little doubt it would have gone to OT. We allowed ourselves to almost give away an easy game.

ummm no, they didn't. They didn't get the onside kick, anything beyond that is simply speculation on your part.