(12-03-2018 05:29 PM)jmufan2008 Wrote:  

(12-03-2018 04:39 PM)BDKJMU Wrote:  

(12-03-2018 04:23 PM)jmufan2008 Wrote:  Saw this coming, unfortunately. I hate this almost as much as Houston leaving. Trott turned our defense around IMMEDIATELY after the travesty that was Withers' defensive coaching. Thanks for everything, Trott! We'll miss you!

Nope. The JMU defense was getting shredded for much of the 1st 9 games of the 2016 regular season. Then the 10th game vs VU it was like a switch was flipped. The last 6 games (2 regular season and 4 playoffs) defense was DOMINANT. And then 2017 defense was probably the best in school history, and domiant again this year with really only 4 of 12 starters back from the 2016 season (Moreland, D Carter and Maginely/Oliver (either 3rd LB or nickel corner in the game). For most of this season Moreland was the only one of those 4, and the only senior starting. That’s why even though the defensive #s dropped from 2017, this past season Trott might have done as impressive a job as 2017.

True. I guess immediately in all caps was incorrect. But, in less than a year he took us from being really bad to being a brick wall. It was crazy. And yeah, it was until VU that I think our guys were mostly coasting and then when Schor got injured they realized they actually needed to start playing. And ever since then they've been amazing.

Look at Saturday...not that Colgate's offense is amazing...but BD threw 4 INTs (that mattered) and the defense still only gave up 23 points total. That 4th down stand near the goal-line was incredible earlier on.

Maybe they never bought in at Richmond, whereas it took us several games? Or maybe it's the combo of Houston and Trott?

I felt like our secondary coverage disappeared later part of this year. For two years we were tight wherever ball was thrown... this year wide open receivers and we never figured out how to cover the flat well. Colgate had three TDs that a QB like stick would not have overthrown... I think our safety play was sorely missing the SRs from last year.

(12-03-2018 04:47 PM)DukedoG06 Wrote:  So what about Rashad? How does the medical RS work? Is he graduating this year?Can he follow Houston?

Don't FCS players moving to FBS have to sit out a year or has that changed?

(12-03-2018 11:29 PM)Purple Wrote:  

(12-03-2018 04:47 PM)DukedoG06 Wrote:  So what about Rashad? How does the medical RS work? Is he graduating this year?Can he follow Houston?

Don't FCS players moving to FBS have to sit out a year or has that changed?

He’s not going anywhere. Unless he’s taking an INT to the house, of course.

We are talking about an ECU team that went 3-9 last year, with a win over UConn and a 2 point win over ODU. They were VERY bad and will take time to rebuild. Lost to FCS NC A&T

If I am a player, why on earth would I want to transfer there for a year or two, with no guarantee of even having a winning season?

JMU : loaded team expected to make a run to Frisco that has everyone returning. A chance to be a star on a NC caliber team.

ECU : historically bad team, towards the very bottom, will be lucky to get to a toilet bowl next year.

Maybe some players/recruits with 4 years to play would consider it, but they'd be nuts to go there with one or two remaining.

A last thought here: Houston came to JMU with a loaded deck of cards. His performance at Citadel was good, but not nearly as impressive, and they were not ECU bad. Houston did a great job of taking our talent, and winning with it right away. I'm not sure if he will turn things around quickly enough to please the ECU folks, they ran Ruffin out of town. There is some real risk of Houston not making it work. ECU is Texas St bad.

(12-03-2018 08:16 PM)5000DOLLARBILL Wrote:  

(12-03-2018 05:29 PM)jmufan2008 Wrote:  

(12-03-2018 04:39 PM)BDKJMU Wrote:  

(12-03-2018 04:23 PM)jmufan2008 Wrote:  Saw this coming, unfortunately. I hate this almost as much as Houston leaving. Trott turned our defense around IMMEDIATELY after the travesty that was Withers' defensive coaching. Thanks for everything, Trott! We'll miss you!

Nope. The JMU defense was getting shredded for much of the 1st 9 games of the 2016 regular season. Then the 10th game vs VU it was like a switch was flipped. The last 6 games (2 regular season and 4 playoffs) defense was DOMINANT. And then 2017 defense was probably the best in school history, and domiant again this year with really only 4 of 12 starters back from the 2016 season (Moreland, D Carter and Maginely/Oliver (either 3rd LB or nickel corner in the game). For most of this season Moreland was the only one of those 4, and the only senior starting. That’s why even though the defensive #s dropped from 2017, this past season Trott might have done as impressive a job as 2017.

True. I guess immediately in all caps was incorrect. But, in less than a year he took us from being really bad to being a brick wall. It was crazy. And yeah, it was until VU that I think our guys were mostly coasting and then when Schor got injured they realized they actually needed to start playing. And ever since then they've been amazing.

Look at Saturday...not that Colgate's offense is amazing...but BD threw 4 INTs (that mattered) and the defense still only gave up 23 points total. That 4th down stand near the goal-line was incredible earlier on.

Maybe they never bought in at Richmond, whereas it took us several games? Or maybe it's the combo of Houston and Trott?

I felt like our secondary coverage disappeared later part of this year. For two years we were tight wherever ball was thrown... this year wide open receivers and we never figured out how to cover the flat well. Colgate had three TDs that a QB like stick would not have overthrown... I think our safety play was sorely missing the SRs from last year.

Other than everything that encompasses late 1st half/late game clock management, I had only one other gripe with Houston. It was his habit of playing his starters very deep into games that were already decided. I swear Raven Green and Jordan Brown played 95% of the snaps last year. It's been a big drop off there.

(12-03-2018 11:46 PM)JMURocks Wrote:  We are talking about an ECU team that went 3-9 last year, with a win over UConn and a 2 point win over ODU. They were VERY bad and will take time to rebuild. Lost to FCS NC A&T

If I am a player, why on earth would I want to transfer there for a year or two, with no guarantee of even having a winning season?

JMU : loaded team expected to make a run to Frisco that has everyone returning. A chance to be a star on a NC caliber team.

ECU : historically bad team, towards the very bottom, will be lucky to get to a toilet bowl next year.

Maybe some players/recruits with 4 years to play would consider it, but they'd be nuts to go there with one or two remaining.

A last thought here: Houston came to JMU with a loaded deck of cards. His performance at Citadel was good, but not nearly as impressive, and they were not ECU bad. Houston did a great job of taking our talent, and winning with it right away. I'm not sure if he will turn things around quickly enough to please the ECU folks, they ran Ruffin out of town. There is some real risk of Houston not making it work. ECU is Texas St bad.

All great points and in this day and age, if youre good enough, the NFL will find you. Saw an article about Marshall the other day as a potential late round pick with some comparisons to Philip Lindsay over in Denver. May not happen but players at this level still get on the radar.

(12-03-2018 08:16 PM)5000DOLLARBILL Wrote:  

(12-03-2018 05:29 PM)jmufan2008 Wrote:  

(12-03-2018 04:39 PM)BDKJMU Wrote:  

(12-03-2018 04:23 PM)jmufan2008 Wrote:  Saw this coming, unfortunately. I hate this almost as much as Houston leaving. Trott turned our defense around IMMEDIATELY after the travesty that was Withers' defensive coaching. Thanks for everything, Trott! We'll miss you!

Nope. The JMU defense was getting shredded for much of the 1st 9 games of the 2016 regular season. Then the 10th game vs VU it was like a switch was flipped. The last 6 games (2 regular season and 4 playoffs) defense was DOMINANT. And then 2017 defense was probably the best in school history, and domiant again this year with really only 4 of 12 starters back from the 2016 season (Moreland, D Carter and Maginely/Oliver (either 3rd LB or nickel corner in the game). For most of this season Moreland was the only one of those 4, and the only senior starting. That’s why even though the defensive #s dropped from 2017, this past season Trott might have done as impressive a job as 2017.

True. I guess immediately in all caps was incorrect. But, in less than a year he took us from being really bad to being a brick wall. It was crazy. And yeah, it was until VU that I think our guys were mostly coasting and then when Schor got injured they realized they actually needed to start playing. And ever since then they've been amazing.

Look at Saturday...not that Colgate's offense is amazing...but BD threw 4 INTs (that mattered) and the defense still only gave up 23 points total. That 4th down stand near the goal-line was incredible earlier on.

Maybe they never bought in at Richmond, whereas it took us several games? Or maybe it's the combo of Houston and Trott?

I felt like our secondary coverage disappeared later part of this year. For two years we were tight wherever ball was thrown... this year wide open receivers and we never figured out how to cover the flat well. Colgate had three TDs that a QB like stick would not have overthrown... I think our safety play was sorely missing the SRs from last year.

Adam Smith was first team All-CAA. Hard to replace two All-Americans. Amos did struggle a bit this year.

(12-04-2018 07:49 AM)fishingduke12 Wrote:  

(12-03-2018 11:46 PM)JMURocks Wrote:  We are talking about an ECU team that went 3-9 last year, with a win over UConn and a 2 point win over ODU. They were VERY bad and will take time to rebuild. Lost to FCS NC A&T

If I am a player, why on earth would I want to transfer there for a year or two, with no guarantee of even having a winning season?

JMU : loaded team expected to make a run to Frisco that has everyone returning. A chance to be a star on a NC caliber team.

ECU : historically bad team, towards the very bottom, will be lucky to get to a toilet bowl next year.

Maybe some players/recruits with 4 years to play would consider it, but they'd be nuts to go there with one or two remaining.

A last thought here: Houston came to JMU with a loaded deck of cards. His performance at Citadel was good, but not nearly as impressive, and they were not ECU bad. Houston did a great job of taking our talent, and winning with it right away. I'm not sure if he will turn things around quickly enough to please the ECU folks, they ran Ruffin out of town. There is some real risk of Houston not making it work. ECU is Texas St bad.

All great points and in this day and age, if youre good enough, the NFL will find you. Saw an article about Marshall the other day as a potential late round pick with some comparisons to Philip Lindsay over in Denver. May not happen but players at this level still get on the radar.

I feel really bad that Marshall didn't get more carries and I simply don't understand why. Houston thought it fair that he share the load with the other seniors, but he got the short end of that stick. With his breakaway speed, he would have been my feature back. A little daylight and he is in the house. Very smart for NFL scouts to see that even if our own coaching staff didn't.

(12-03-2018 11:46 PM)JMURocks Wrote:  We are talking about an ECU team that went 3-9 last year, with a win over UConn and a 2 point win over ODU. They were VERY bad and will take time to rebuild. Lost to FCS NC A&T

If I am a player, why on earth would I want to transfer there for a year or two, with no guarantee of even having a winning season?

JMU : loaded team expected to make a run to Frisco that has everyone returning. A chance to be a star on a NC caliber team.

ECU : historically bad team, towards the very bottom, will be lucky to get to a toilet bowl next year.

Maybe some players/recruits with 4 years to play would consider it, but they'd be nuts to go there with one or two remaining.

A last thought here: Houston came to JMU with a loaded deck of cards. His performance at Citadel was good, but not nearly as impressive, and they were not ECU bad. Houston did a great job of taking our talent, and winning with it right away. I'm not sure if he will turn things around quickly enough to please the ECU folks, they ran Ruffin out of town. There is some real risk of Houston not making it work. ECU is Texas St bad.

Just a quick Defense of ECU, Coach Montgomery showed exactly what the wrong inexperienced Coordinator can do. Ruff was run out of town but there were issues beside wins and loses that were never talked about. Ruff's last year we had a third string QB that led the team to a 5-7 record with a win over VT and other than dropping a wet ball on a wide open TD pass to tie the game we lost to Florida in the Swamp. BYU game could have been a win so bottom line is the season Ruff got fired we should have gone Bowling despite being decimated with injuries. You go one year prior to that in 2014 ECU was the first G5 team to ever be ranked in the Playoff Poll and made it as high as being ranked #14 that season so I would say we have not been historically bad forever.

The team has talent on it now especially on the Defensive side and skill positions but the OL sucked and Coach Montgomery and our OC Tony Peterson were just that bad. I would predict that Coach Houston could easily do what Coach Skip Holtz did when he replaced God Awful John Thompson and took at team that had only won 3 games over two years and won 5 and could have easily won 7 his first season. Holtz won Back to Back CUSA Championships fairly quickly and had ECU ranked. He flirted with Syracuse and had the WVU job lined up before they won the Fiesta with their interim Coach after Rich Rod left so Holtz ended up at USF. Houston has a great QB in Holton Ahler to build around. If he has success the AAC is pretty much the breeding ground for multi million dollar P5 pay out gigs from UCF, Memphis, Houston, Cincinnati and Temple Coaches over the last few years.

I am a Northern VA guy so have lots of friends that went to JMU. Wish you guys the best. I liked Terry Holland's vision before our entrance into the AAC of ECU playing in a more regional conference with ODU, JMU, Charlotte, Marshall etc.. but that never happened.

Thank you for the compliment. I did my best, but could not get Jon Boy Alger to join our movement. I wish nothing but the best for the JMU diehards that seek athletic competition at the highest level. For those that want to stay in the land of misfits, I wish you good luck in irrelevancy. Collegiate tackle football is not for the indecisive.

Your buddy,
Terry Holland

A plane from Birmingham, AL is set to touchdown at SHD a little bit before 9 AM tomorrow morning. The plane is owned by Tommy Ebner, former player for the University of Houston, and UH booster. His son played for Houston in the late 2000s. He's a big enough booster that the Houston Alumni Association had a tribute to him at their 2010 awards dinner.

UH fired their DC at the end of November. Could be a coincidence, though.

(12-04-2018 07:07 PM)DukeDogNation Wrote:  A plane from Birmingham, AL is set to touchdown at SHD a little bit before 9 AM tomorrow morning. The plane is owned by Tommy Ebner, former player for the University of Houston, and UH booster. His son played for Houston in the late 2000s. He's a big enough booster that the Houston Alumni Association had a tribute to him at their 2010 awards dinner.

UH fired their DC at the end of November. Could be a coincidence, though.

I really hope that isn't the case. Houston's defense gave up a lot of points. Not really a glowing resume.

(12-04-2018 09:12 PM)JMad03 Wrote:  

(12-04-2018 07:07 PM)DukeDogNation Wrote:  A plane from Birmingham, AL is set to touchdown at SHD a little bit before 9 AM tomorrow morning. The plane is owned by Tommy Ebner, former player for the University of Houston, and UH booster. His son played for Houston in the late 2000s. He's a big enough booster that the Houston Alumni Association had a tribute to him at their 2010 awards dinner.

UH fired their DC at the end of November. Could be a coincidence, though.

I really hope that isn't the case. Houston's defense gave up a lot of points. Not really a glowing resume.

I meant, maybe they're coming to see Trott. It would be a nice "Welcome to the AAC" present from Houston to Houston.