JMU Football returns to action! | JMU Sports News Podcast

[Music] welcome into another edition of the jmu sports news podcast i'm ben bennett and i've got jack fitzpatrick here we're gonna do a deep drive uh to jamie's track and field program today no let's go we're perfect we're talking mostly football i would guess i would i would verge out and say primarily only football yeah we might we might do a quick end of uh and the thing olympic sports around the world yeah kind of thing around the world of olympic sports but i think we missed last week because jmu was coming off another postponement and then we're heading into the william and mario game but we just kind of wanted a week off last week this week we feel like there's enough content to discuss football at a more in-depth um more in-depth analysis we can give it because before it was what elon robert morris and morehead state and then a two-week break but now we kind of see where this team is they scored what on their first four possessions after missing the first missing two weeks in a row showed no signs of rust and absolutely blew the doors off of william and mary a team that i thought had a chance to kind of give jmu a run for their money jamie was down a bunch of starters i thought william mary was going to be at full strength little did i know that their number one running back and hollis mathis their quarterback that i really like both missed the game due to injuries and jamie just clobbered him very important to note that they were also without the two like key components of their offense obviously they gave up 38 points and jamie was the dominant team but i think it certainly could have been more competitive especially early isn't it hilarious that i mean granted they were down what percy didn't play um first game solomon van horsten like practically the whole stable of running backs were out except for juan hamilton and then kaylaon black had himself a day but it's funny that as like jmu fans were like gage isn't going oh no like as jmu fans we had like soured on cole johnson so much that the starter of the first four games of the season was coming into this game as the starter and we had been promised gage and we were like this is it this is terrible right he had basically been cole johnson basically the guy you mentioned those first three games and he was the starting quarterback so maybe a little bit too much panic but after the way he left the elon game i understand he played his best game of the season which i think was maybe a little unexpected but 16 to 22 220 yards one touchdown and no interception so he he managed the game which is all you really need to do if you're jamie quarterback this spring here's the thing was that colt johnson's best game as a jmu duke the spot start he had like as a freshman i think he was a freshman i guess elon he was pretty great in that game with he threw for like 275 and like he was he was legit so i'll give him that one but this one his best one in a very long time this is his first game that i remember in a long time he didn't throw an interception but yeah i mean it was a perfect way to step in and your boy kyle adams got some play my boy yeah kyle adams got in there he ran for 19 yards i'm going to be honestly jack i didn't watch the second of this game i didn't go back to watching this game i watched this i watched it i watched the highway i don't even think i watched the highlight i couldn't even tell you what any of the plays look like so we're we're very good to come in here and analyze this having not seen it it's you know saturday in the spring man i got stuff going on so it's it's hard in march madness yeah it's impossible so i go oh i probably could have i don't know what i was doing you were covering a baseball game baseball and i just didn't want to watch so i i stat watched they were up like by the time i got to baseball and got all settled i think they're already up 21 nothing it was like all right this isn't well yeah because they scored the first half i think they went into the break with some huge lead and then after half time things kind of slowed down for him but yeah they they had 28 points in the first half and then 10 in the third quarter and then zero in the fourth but like cruise control is it too crazy to say that jmu jmu's running backs top to bottom are all starters on other fcs programs i think you can get pretty close to well yeah i mean if you go the whole fcs yeah because you get some bottom of the barrel team i'm talking pioneer league like i mean i think you know i think some of the receivers could start running back and at some of these conferences so there's that but yeah i mean you look at like kayla black the freshman is really good uh juan hamilton's good austin douglas got some run in this one he was productive i mean ariel kelly edicary alex miller the holder kyle adams i mean they pretty much everyone on the team carried the ball and everyone gained yardage which i thought was was interesting um so they did a a heck of a job they have a lot of running backs you're what they do didn't have their arguably the three best well i don't know john hamilton i think is probably in that mix but three of the four not off the text the text i sent you earlier i'm a big juan here with the believer no i yeah i mean they were john hamilton was their only like yeah bree not i don't want to say reel back was their only consistent back they had because latrell van horse and percy were all out yeah and for them to still rush for 240 yards and four touchdowns five yards of carry was pretty darn good and i think those numbers like if that happens in a normal week not really a normal week but in previous weeks we would have been like need more from the running game and that's because the passing game had been so bad like if you can have the quarterback throw for 200 yards and not turn it over and then the russian game gets you 200 anything like you're in a great spot i think the key with what you just said there is not turn it over because you could throw for 150 125 yards is the quarterback i feel like and with this jmu run game i i feel like we're a broken record where we say this every week but if you just manage the game quite literally and get a get 100 yards or something and just don't turn it over that's the biggest part like you're going to be in positions where you're blowing the other team out but yeah you'll still definitely have a chance to win but it's going to be uglier like it the fact that he was able to actually complete passes and like open up the field yeah having not seen this um was was something that was big but from like what i read and all those things like him completing passes being efficient they got uh chris thornton involved and then was an antoine wells jr at a great game yeah he's been really good for them clayton cheatham does what clayton cheatham does adds yet another reception touchdown to his list i just want to i just want to throw this out there his career career statistics he has 22 receptions and six touchdowns like i feel like that's a pretty good like breakdown his freshman year he had four touchdowns on eight catches like he's a touchdown machine he's a touchdown machine it's what he does did that even update with the that's updated after this weekend does that have his his touchdown sometimes they're slow on career yeah they i'm 99 sure that was updated i'm going into checking again just for all [Music] yeah so that's six he's caught a touchdown in was it three different seasons yep he didn't catch a touchdown in 2018. gotcha yeah he battled injury for a while and now to have him back and healthy is is good but hey they played well they won a game i was excited about it um but they've got a significantly tougher test coming up yeah i mean what number 15 in the country number 15 richmond yeah i i don't think we've seen a ranked richmond squad come into harrisonburg in about three years ever since kyle laletta left it seems like they've been kind of doing their best to tread water is the nicest way to put it i mean i think jamie's probably outscored them 200 to 50 over the last three meetings but now they bring in joe mancuso who's been the quarterback but i think he's finally grown into a capable starter in the caa he's i think fifth he's fourth in pass efficiency in the caa but he leads the league and passing average per game and total offense he's a quarterback that can throw it around really well he can run it too which is something that has kind of been a thorn in the side of jmu i mean we all remember the national championship game where trey lance had himself a day i was expecting hollis mathis to kind of have himself a date with william and mary but he didn't play but even elon's third string quarterback who had some mobility kind of gave jmu some issues early on in that game they figured it out in the second half but i mean it's been a common thread jmu kind of struggles to to contain mobile quarterbacks and joe mancuso is a good passer for caa standards and is a good runner for caa quarterback standards so what do you expect from the defense of jmu to try and slow down mancuso richmond also has a really good running back yeah richmond's a good team they're gonna have to play solid football i think the thing that stands out to me just looking at matt cubes he hasn't thrown an interception this year they've only played three games but he hasn't thrown an interception also the three games are william and mary elon and elon yeah that is that is a grain of salt that i think we all have to understand with this richmond team but it is also the same grain of salt that you can hand to jmu 100 exact same teams because we're number one the city south man god that's something else so they obviously haven't played anyone but like you're saying they haven't even played a non-conference game so we don't you know they haven't gone up against the robert morris team i don't think robert this is a complete aside i think robert morris has played since losing to jmu i was looking that up the other day i was like i think they're probably doing well in the big south and i was like they haven't played a game i don't know what's happening with that but anyway vancouver no interstellar have not their next game is april 3rd fingers crossed they might not actually play that game they might never play that game but um he hasn't he hasn't thrown an interception he's not like gonna kill you through the air right he's he's not someone who throws for a million yards or anything like that but no but he runs 194 yards a game which is really is solid yes he's like he does not shoot them in the foot which is kind of important and then you were saying i mean he runs the ball he's got at least 48 rushing yards in all three games he has a run of at least 20 yards in every game this year i haven't looked too detailed into like how much sacks have potentially taken off those rushing totals like the guy's a productive rusher he doesn't make a ton of mistakes that's dangerous for jmu because they haven't been i mean they've been pretty good defensively but they haven't been great at times and historically um i don't mean cuz not trey lance but he you know they've they burned them a little bit with russian quarterbacks richmond cares about this game yeah they'll have a chance and and this is a game i feel like we need to know that it's i mean i can't wrap my head around how the caa is doing these tie breakers now because it makes absolutely no sense i guess we'll talk about that but before we get into that this game is a playoff game i mean yes in all honesty i'm fairly certain delaware's going to win out in the north they look like a very good team and their schedule i i don't think they have i think they barely have to play now they were supposed to play albany this weekend yeah but then albany is now breaking news 30 40 minutes ago if you saw it on jamie sports news twitter shout out bennett for getting that up there albany's hopped it out of the rest of the spring season so delaware has a no i mean you want to know the rest of their schedule yeah i think villanova is on there right villanova the 17th assuming that game happens um and then before that so they don't play now this week i would be shocked if they like move the game up to saturday because that'd be really dumb um so then they're playing delaware state on the 10th and then villanova on the 17th delaware state i know i think i get those in those uh in-state products on the schedule you know but i mean at the end of the day delaware we'll see how good villanova is but i think they're one and one right now and they're not as great as we thought um that this game so what i was saying this game is essentially a playoff game because if richmond wins this i think chase kitty tweeted this if richmond wins this game there's they have no reason to reschedule the postponed game from a week or two weeks ago like they're gonna drag their feet and rescheduling that and then i don't think they'll they will exactly and then they'll play william and mary one more time if that game's not postponed and then you're looking at them being 4-0 no you're looking at them being i'm trying to do all the math in my head without looking at their website yeah they'd be four no unless they played william mary then you get to five and then jmu sitting at three and one or four and one and then they're not even in the running for the auto bid and then you're looking at a resume of close one over robert morris close win over a a bad elon team a good win against william and mary a ranked loss and then you'd probably end with a good win over elon or william and mary whoever it is yeah it's it's elon right now on the 10th i think the same thing is true of jmu if jamie meets richmond they're not rescheduling that game i don't think i don't think that that's a really good point this is the game yeah i think that both teams are going to try to play this one it's more or less a playoff game if you're jmu then you play at home against elon and i would just say stop playing after that give yourself a bye week going into the playoff space ever but yeah i think it is a bye week then i don't know man it's all kind of a a joke it's an important game it's at richmond saturday at noon it's going to be a test for sure i don't know i mean the spring season is kind of a joke but for them to bounce back i think brought a lot of jmu fans myself included having not watched it a little bit back in just like oh okay like there's what they can do there's what they're able to do but it's an important game it's a playoff game do you think they should go with coal now that he had a good game do they go back to gage how are they going to handle that thank you so much for bringing this up no idea i have or no i mean you look at it gage has had what two good possessions this season yeah and like i know cole was really bad and and there was like this breath of fresh air when gage came in and then we were all excited that he was going to be the starter and then covet protocols he gets con or whatever happened with him i assume contact traced out of the game cole looked bad against moorhead state he didn't look good against robert morris he looked bad against elon he looked good against william and mary but then it it's just such a tough question cause like do you ride that hot hand what an emotional roller coaster call has been on do you bench him again like i'm gonna say keep coal what do you say i'm playing them both i would 100 give them both legitimate action i would not be shocked if you did this spring season is pretty much a joke you have no idea if your team's going to get coconut and get knocked out he's like a 73rd year senior i'm definitely playing him i'm still playing gage like i would just play them both and see what the heck happens and if one of them's like clearly better like you both give him a couple early possessions maybe you roll with that guy if they're both good and you blow out richmond playing two quarterbacks like what the heck now realistically they probably want one guy you would probably want one guy going into the postseason where it's like all right this is our starting quarterback if you're doing that you i would think you would have to go with gage but again i don't know how much he has or has not practiced or what he's been able to do i'm playing both against richmond and then then figure it out from there [ __ ] it yes yes that's my my move but it's just such a crazy thing because like you said he's a 88th year senior and he was given the starting job to start the season and there was high hopes around him then he crashes and burns the first three weeks of the season gets benched and then covid cancels two straight weeks of games and then the starting quarterback is out and you just got benched but now you have to play and each game's a playoff game at this point it makes no sense it doesn't i mean i think gage is probably more talented but i think the way it worked was like kind of perfect for coal where after struggling at least where they don't play for a couple weeks he has time to just like gather his thoughts or whatever he's able to do just sit in his apartment room and just yeah there it is but then he plays against william and mary and like there's no pressure like you're the guy today like you could stink gage isn't even here kyle adams is probably not coming in to save the day like whatever happens happens man like we're down a bunch of people the expectations are lowered i think he was probably just free and like i was gonna say do you think that had it like do you think the fact that he knew it was him and only him like huge maybe it was like a tua tua situation with ryan fitzpatrick behind him or like two was always looking over his shoulder you think cole was always like when's gage coming in when's coach gonna put gage in i think he was definitely a bit worried the way he was playing and then to come in and have them like lean on him and then he started off pretty well and they scored got they're up 21 nothing pretty darn quick i did see that i did see the fake guild goal highlight so i'm lying when i said i've seen nothing but uh they ran that which was cool got up big and he played well he just managed the game did what he needed to do and i don't know i i play them both to see what happens that's what i kind of wanted to do at the beginning of the season not a full two quarterback system but like i wanted the wildcat gauge system which i still think is good i mean like a power thing like you got like palmer and gauge back there i don't know if i'm a linebacker which i would be a very undersized linebacker i'm turning the other way but i have no idea i agree with you i have i have absolutely no idea what they're going to do and then of course signet was asked he's like you know we'll have to figure it out we'll have to play one of them it was like all right the question the the quote he gave was so terrible too he was just like well both guys are liked in the locker room and they're both really good guys and just good players and there's no what was the word he used there's no um controversy there's no controversy there and it's like that's not the controversy we were worried about as fans who wanted to see you win i'm not like who who do they rally around no it's like are you gonna play that's the controversy but um maybe he'll play both maybe he'll play none maybe it'll be a kyle adams situation it also didn't sound like he was 100 sure gage was going to be able to go that would be important also so it sounded like he was like if i have both because they percy traveled with the team i had read okay to william and mary but he had come back from i believe protocol protocols on like friday assume that he was like yeah i'm not gonna like i'm not gonna come i'm not gonna have you come back from that and then like get beat up in a game so he i think he'll be back at least i imagine they'll get a decent amount back because you've got you know week between games you think a lot of these protocols are going they've had the virus issues for a while so you imagine guys would kind of filter back in we'll see what happens i don't know it's going to be weird maybe he doesn't know he also certainly won't give anything away that richmond could read or see and and know they're playing they now have to prepare basically for two quarterbacks yeah i mean that's that that's the smart thing to do if you're a coach and you are in that situation 100 do not tell the media it's also funny he made other he had another quote where he was like i stopped being the social distance coordinator and started being a coach and he said that like that was some huge like thing and i don't think anyone pointed out that like coach you didn't do a good job of being a coordinator though your team was out for two weeks because of contact race like like it wasn't covid that wiped out the team it was contact tracing because yeah there's social protections coordinate well there's pretty extensive i mean it's hard when you're playing a contact sport but yeah i mean i think at this point it sounded like he was just like let's just like play football like we would and like that will make them better at football and we'll just do that and play football and it's like i mean you've already had a massive outbreak so yeah like whatever go on there to play i guess i don't know so we'll see what ends up happening with all of that i mean i guess on the positive it sounded like almost all of them from what he was saying were like asymptomatic or very minimal symptoms so i think everyone's pretty healthy and obviously they'll monitor them to make sure that they continue to stay healthy but from that perspective if it's you know minor infections they're able to stay healthy and keep an eye on their long-term health and things like that well you just got a lot of people that are going to have antibodies like i mean it is the herd immunity thing that like sounds horrible but like that's kind of what teams are doing i know at least the acc if you had it you didn't have to get tested again for 90 days they assume there's at least 90 days of immunity so you got it you got three months clear or you're just gonna just play whatever you're doing and so if you go by that logic they'll go through may which is when they've actually it's kind of smart i mean that's like the lsu logic you know yeah lsu has done a great job with how they carry their program in a lot of ways no but hopefully everyone's able to you know stay healthy and get back and they won't have too many infections and they can play in the playoffs i have a feeling that my excitement will come back to the playoffs i do too i i have a feeling after monday my excitement will be back if we lose i'm done though if we lose we're out of the playoffs like well that's right there's no conceivable way and i i imagine jamie fans are going to be in our mentions upset about what i'm about to say there's no conceivable way that this jmu team with one loss can get in i can maybe though no the committee is bad but if if delaware wins out and they get the automatic bid that would be the richmond then you'd have to get three of us three say teams in yeah that would be the concern and and it would be hard to do it could happen it could happen if it's if we lose by like one in overtime maybe that's literally impossible actually that's not impossible never mind we'll see we'll see if it if it does happen or whatever hopefully they just win that would be yeah that'd be ideal if they can win and then we can make it through the national championship in basketball i will be all in on the team and i will yeah that's that's true because then there will be kind of a lull interesting anyway i was going to say that uh i think they're going to play not that well this weekend really yeah i think that they like they maybe though maybe they'll build on it like that's what i'm hoping there's like 40 i mean it's like yep they'll build on this and then there's a 60 percent that's like they had no pressure on them they played a willie mary team it was down like its two best players and they just came out firing were up a bunch early crews do a win and they were feeling great and now they have to come back and bounce back work people back into the mix and play a team that's significantly better on the road again i think it'll be a challenge um so i i don't have the same like i don't think it'll be a blowout i think richmond's gonna have a legitimate chance to win i could be very wrong because i've thought that a lot about the power programs i'm like wow north dakota state look out this week and then they like beat north dakota by a lot and i was like oh so at the same time don't ever doubt the like three power programs it's it's also the point i mean we saw against morehead state where you're hyped up to start your season again right you go out and just obliterate them to start the game and then robert morris and then elon you have these really slow starts and it takes into the second half to get anything going and then again coming out of the pause you're so hyped up like there isn't any extra motivation that needs to be given to the guys because they just want to get out there and play and coming out of these pauses coming out of the the seas the offseason they're they're firing off the blocks they're getting these big big time wins these awesome starts it is going to be key to not have a slow start because against richmond i don't think if they're down 11 points going into the fourth quarter they're winning the game like if they have a robert morris or elon showing they are not winning this game and it might get ugly granted i do think it'll be a little bit better for them i think this is going to be a very competitive game and it's going to be a thing's going to be an old-school richmond game the types of the 2015's 2016's probably 2014s too yeah first ranked test of the season if they can get through it obviously be a heck of a win and then you look at their resume and then three of the five wins all conference wins will be on the road um so not that that's all that valuable with like no fans and then ca teams don't ever have fans but um yeah but i think uh it'll it'll be valuable to have that on the resume i think jmu is still as weird as it is like they're still in the mix for the number one seed i would think yeah it does sound like we're doomsdayers doesn't it like we're like if they lose this they're out of the playoffs which i mean but they are could be right it's like you're a one seater you're not playing in april late april it because it's so tough with this spring season like that's like i get completely readjusted here it's so tough with this spring season and and i feel like this podcast has now kind of divulged into us complaining about the spring season and the weirdness weirdness of it all and i promise we'll eventually get back to analysis here but it's just i don't get it like well also laid out so weird yeah the records are weird it doesn't make any sense you've got some limited non-conference stuff weber state pretty clearly a fraud north dakota state pretty clearly a fraud sam houston state of fraud as per usual south dakota state i think is a fraud at the end of the day we're the only team that can win the national title and it would make sense i think every single team i'm going to build off of your fake take and i'm going to give a real take i think every team this spring season is a fraud in some way like i think if north dakota state loses i'm not going to be surprised i would take the field over jmu and north dakota state in the playoffs that's bold i think also north carolina is copied yeah so i just wanted to point that out that like they're barely even playing and they're gonna like they're supposed to play northern iowa and south dakota state now to end their season on the 10th and 17th and then they would play yeah they're losing both those they're not even playing if they lose one of those again i think i think they're in kind of like a jmu situation where they have to win out it's just the craziness of the spring season so limited number of games your resume is only against your conference and that's kind of a curse and a blessing i mean for the valley teams it's a blessing but for if you're in the caas if you're in the ca north it's a blessing too but if you're in the caa south and your resume is william and mary richmond a arranged richmond and elon like gives you a good chance to be undefeated though and that undefeated well then we got to talk let's say delaware's undefeated which seems realistic jmu's undefeated you go by conference winning percentage and they're both undefeated in conference that's the same winning percentage obviously the tiebreakers don't make a ton of sense greg media is reporting that they might just have a conference call with the athletic directors not of those teams who will just decide that sounds okay i truly do not okay if you have the same winning percentage and one of the teams has more wins doesn't it make sense to then go with the team who had more opportunities to lose it yes at the same time is it jmu's fault that they only got to play over many games yes because both of the pot the both of the postponements well also now it's going to be now it's probably going to be a tie though or maybe even an edge to jmu because they're not playing albany then they have delaware state which is non-conference then they have villanova so they might only get to four and oh and yeah you will only will get to potentially five and oh i think that's right yeah because they're three and oh not no they're two no no they would just tie them before then right yeah they even tie them at four for a jmu podcast sometimes we're really um just completely unaware of things that are happening before but that's not even a consideration for whatever reason so they're doing winning percentage and then it was talking about originally it was going to be like point scoring margin but only to a certain it didn't make any sense the tiebreakers were remarkably dumb so now it just sounds like they're going to go even dumber and be like who do we think and jmu who just takes like you know flow sports to town and rips on the league all the time yeah they're like do we want all the athletic directors come together and they're like okay so do you want this this bully or do you want the fresh upstart that had a really good season in the difficult north and everyone's going to be like it's not and and delaware looks darn good i don't think it's crazy to think that delaware could get the auto bid and jmu could be the one scene didn't we talk actually that would be genius if you're the conference yeah they're undefeated they should get in anyway but i guess just stick delaware and give them the automatic thing which will probably carry a little weight seating wise then also give jmu i don't know how it works oh no if if you're an athletic director you would have to assume an undefeated jmu team you'd have to but you would assume both of them are getting in right both would get in i wonder if the committee is dumb enough that they'd be like wow delaware automatic qualifier they should be a five seed because of that instead of like unseated they might be that time i don't know who's on the committee we're you're really trashing the committee today i think i think people are going to look at the seating and be like what in the world is this on selection sunday i have a feeling we're going to see some really like i feel like nichols is going to be like a four seed and sam houston is going to be like a three hopefully jamie is one wouldn't it be hilarious if they were unranked i mean they did it before when i thought they were worthy of a seed and then they lost to colgate so who knows okay so what what is jmu back to a little bit of analysis before we jump into our ca we pick em a little bit of analysis what does jame you have to do to beat richmond we've talked about how mancuso is a really good running back aaron dykes is a good did i say running back mancuso is a great quarterback aaron dykes is a good running back for richmond they have a pretty good offense pretty solid defense they're competent on both sides of the football what does jmu give me three cross keys keys to the game you have to score more than richmond that's the one then every time i look at this game that stands out no i'll say whoever the quarterback is they just have to whoever the quarterback is don't turn the ball over or turn it over like once i think that'll be important if they can limit turnovers second i think uh just you know do what you do pound the rock so run the ball a bunch try to limit turnovers and then defensively they need to just not get gashed in the like first half that's that's kind of the thing like if they can lead at halftime or or be in the game after a quarter or whatever i think jmu typically gets stronger so the game goes on especially with that running attack and they've kind of shown that this year so i think if the if the defense doesn't have to like make all these crazy adjustments and after getting burned early i think they'll be good so i want to you know run the ball think if they run the ball well don't turn it over and then a fast start seems paramount for this team yeah i can agree with that i think another huge key is containing the qb like i just think back to the first half of the elon game when i think his name was j.r martin had a little bit of mobility and was just maneuvering around and the defensive line just couldn't get there and mancuso was a lot better than a third string quarterback at elon man nfl kid you were saying earlier off air i don't think i was i think that was you i think you were the one that said we have six nfl caliber quarterbacks in the caa right now which is blatantly or of which are on jamie's roster i need you one of which is latrell palmer wildcat quarterback but yeah mancuso what is has a 138 rating he's a good player 68 of his passes thrown for 500 almost 600 yards in three games but he's experienced too yeah he's been around the block yeah yeah he's been around a while he's a team captain he's a guy who i'm assuming has never no i guess no i wouldn't yeah he's probably never beaten jmu no he's never yeah so i mean that's got to be on his mind it's something he wants to do i mean he's been he's shown flashes in previous seasons it seems like he's sort of become more consistent now and it's just limiting those mistakes and doing a nice job i mean like last year or 2019 ran for 10 touchdowns most of any ca quarterback like he can play yeah and you're saying it he limits his his mistakes jmu lives and dies with the energy especially with the secondary this season lives and dies by forcing turnovers and if they can't get an extra possession here or there it's going to be imperative that whoever is the quarterback and really whoever's the running back doesn't make stupid turnover decisions like because they're not going to get that back like at the end of the day if you turn the ball over you're probably going to lose the turnover battle because you're not going to that was a really stupid thing for me to say of course but you know what i mean like they're not gonna turn it over back to you so if you get a yeah it's not one of those games where you can like turn it over realistically turn it over two or three times and still expect to force two or three so it's one it's like like you're saying so you gotta you gotta limit them because yeah richmond has a veteran quarterback they've got a good running back they don't make a ton of of dumb mistakes so if you're making them they'll go out and beat you and they want to make the playoffs too right this is a proud program that wants to have some success they're used to having competitive games and beating jamie in the past so they're going to come out there expecting to win and playing with an opportunity to win there at home bridge force east i think bridge forth west east town west east east people talk about so go in there and hopefully find a way to pick up a ranked victory and you know shut the national people up because i'm heard we're looking at you going against our resume our resume does suck though okay time for the caa weekly pick em it's the time of the episode that everyone loves you ready i'm very ready let's do it you're nine and four i'm seven and six uh last week i didn't publish the uh picks but last week ben and i had all the same pictures except he picked jmu and i picked william and mary serves me right for fade in the dukes this week we got maine hosting villanova villanova's game after i think two weeks of no games and domain is coming off of a bye week after getting thrashed by delaware in week one maine has slowly rattled off a few wins and they're looking pretty solid granted the wins were against albany and stony brook who do you got i mean would anyone be surprised if both these teams just met up and shook hands were like you know what we're both opting out of the spring i wouldn't be it's in maine so that's interesting to me villanova has not been overly impressive i don't remember who has had the covet pauses or who has i think new hampshire at the coveted ponds yeah that kept them ah gosh ah i'll say villanova i'll take villanova i like it um [Music] see this one's tough it is tough because i like villanova i like i like daniel smith if you have one of the top qb's in the conference your odds of i'm going to ignore you your odds of winning are pretty good i'm going to go with villanova as well interesting okay next up duh that's been canceled jmu richmond uh man i feel like richmond's actually a trendy play here kind of a trendy pick the thing is every time i think that like a power might struggle they don't they always like punch back you know south dakota state's rally north dakota state's rally jmu's rallied i think there's something to be said for having better players than everyone else and these programs all have better players so i think jamie will i think it's gonna be competitive but i think jmu will win 31 to 24 uh six ot something gonna be a shutout going into overtime and then however the math works on on that you think ot no i don't actually think of teeth but 31 24 i think it'll be competitive okay i could dig that i'm going jmu um i'm gonna go 24 17. how many overtimes 15. wow all right next game rhode island plays host to new hampshire new hampshire has played one game this season it was the friday night lights opening game of the caa season where they lost to albany who is now let this sink in unh played a game against albany albany then played out and then opted out of their season all before new hampshire played another game so who do you got rhode island who are they playing rhode island i'll take rhode island by a lot i mean new hampshire hasn't played rhode island is looking good uh rhode island typically trots out they use quarterbacks running backs receivers offensive linemen from what i know about them they love them i mean they'll put i don't know if they run 11 personnel but they'll run 11 guys out there on both sides of the ball and uh they just do what they can so so i'll take rhode island i worry because looking at everything i wasn't able to i mean i wasn't really able to watch a lot of games last weekend but this is the masters like we we are well versus subject matter but here we go normally we are no we do a good job we do it we do such a good job but we took i think we just kind of took this last week off and you can probably kind of tell in this podcast but this is just a fun one this is we're just having fun we're just talking spring season we opted out of watching i'll watch this week i actually see here's the thing before i make the pick rhode island i'm picking rhode island normally i work saturday days yeah like for work and so like i can be watching basketball i can be doing my work and then i can have my my personal computer set up to the side and i just have like three tabs open of all the games that are happening and i'll just jump through and catch some stuff and and work and and and do all of that but i was off this saturday so of course i'm not going to sit and watch terrible fcs spring football including jimmy well said no i like terrible we've really trashed on like everything football-wise maybe we should just scrap this episode all together shoot it to the moon now this is a good one this is good people will enjoy this let's hope if you enjoyed it let us know i do love fcs football don't get me wrong but yes yeah it's been particularly bad i think in terms of quality of play it's it's been bad in that quality it's just i can't get into a groove of it like every time i feel like like okay this is what's happening this weekend albany ops out jmu's out for two weeks like every time you think something's fine you're excited for north dakota state south dakota state and in a huge game and then it gets postponed like i mean you have to it brings me back to kim mulkey and you have to wonder if we could just play these games without testing like the kids would much prefer it on a quick question i think you brought it up you think like her team was just playing with like a bunch of coveted positives yeah you know what they should not text you guys just don't test i think actually everyone's fine anyway we're going home classic do you see her the way she was well they asked her something else than post game presser she had a mask on her face i don't know if i have one readily available to put it down to answer the question here it was like i'll reenact it here for our people who who watch this but she had it like this and it was somehow like getting all over her face kind of like like this and she was like fiddling with it and she's like what do you think that was my favorite when she leaned into the mic she's like what do you think write it that way yeah and it's just like coach i'm a reporter i can't put my opinion in yeah she's like you don't need a quote from me it's like that's the exact opposite of what is true she definitely needs a quote from you was that a foul was it a foul or no foul she got hacked that was a foul but uconn look paige becker's is elite yukon's awesome i've really enjoyed the women's tournament from what i've been able to watch and uh i'm looking forward to the final four here's my take yeah baylor's good team i hate and don't hate i hate when it happens against my team but i don't hate it when it happens again and just like a good game when the ref swallows their whistle late yes yeah like just call it like normally what if someone gets hacked it's called the let them play thing is always funny when people like final five seconds just let them let the players decide it so like it hit someone in the face final five seconds got a call foul in that situation in my opinion did she initiate the contact no she hit her in the face i don't know man anyway anyway baylor blow didn't uconn retake the lead on like a 19 year old or something yeah and she kim mulkey decided not to call him out during like any of that so i blame that on bait like like they could have won the game sure it's kind of like the jmu elon debate we had like in that well that was the tech hurt but at the same time you were up that cost jamie would probably be in the final four if it wasn't for that attack so that's frustrating oh we gotta we have to mention while we're on it quickly zach jacob's gonna be in the slam dunk contest thursday night nine o'clock on espn2 i've never seen him dunk so i'm looking forward to i it's it's the dunk three-point contest and because and he was like is he competing in the dunk and i was like more sense if he was in the three-point though but he's like a 15 three-point shooter yeah but he's like a zero percent dunker i don't remember him dunking honestly like he's good scored in the post got a lot better but if you told me like one player from jmu's in the dunk contest like oh cool justin he gets me in the dunk contest and then if they're like no no it's someone else be like oh like wooden or or not christmas anymore yeah louis or uh edwards or someone it's zach jacob so he's definitely gonna throw down like 360 like between the legs or be like where was this i hope so i hope he just does something completely crazy that we're all like where was that for four years it's funny because you just come back he's not coming back he's such a fundamentally sound player i would not be surprised if he grabs it runs up and just does like a form layup just not even a dunk just like he just does a post move a little hook and then runs back on defense anyway we got we do have any picks left no that was it because then william and mary elon has been postponed there's three games this weekend that's sickening i don't think there's been a full weekend of games we picked three games yeah we did there's been one full weekend of games it's gonna be kind of impossible for you to come back even given this schedule two game lead feels monumental and do we pick the same teams we did this yeah you're done you're done four well no because next week we got next week we have one two three four five two or we do sure we do yeah come come wednesday when there's one game and then every team in the ca has opted out except jmu in delaware wouldn't it be hilarious if that happened like that was the end of like after richmond loses this weekend richmond's like we're done for the season the best is that like none of these teams well they're not going to do a conference title game like barely any of the teams are going to want to play on the 17th i would think they could have just done that instead of this like conference call where the athletic directors are like who do you like more but whatever god forbid i agree i i think the fact that they're not doing a conference championship in this type of setup is abysmal to the caa abysmal to the players and the fact that it's being put into the hands of athletic directors is just mind-bogglingly mind-boggling ling ling stupid they probably watched less than we have so they want what they're talking about you know that's not a crazy thing to say because before this weekend i was watching at least two caa games a weekend oh i just got a pet sitter job oh you're a pet sitter now everyone if you need a pet sitter and you're in the charlottesville area please help some random person someone emailed they just said i do pet sitting and uh could be spam could be an opportunity so uh hopefully it is do we want to hit the other sports real quick hitter yeah hit me with the other sports i just want to talk about softball softball is 11-1 2-1 in the conference undefeated season is gone lost 5-4 to elon second game of a double header they won the series but hurts michael alliance it doesn't hurt they're supposed to play today against george washington he'll count your window it's raining they're not playing today called it off because the rain that's frustrating love this team though obviously alexander hasn't even played much i don't know why i won't speculate because i'm not in the know well didn't she stop playing last season late she got hurt last season though she'd be dealing with an injury thing i don't know if this is that or if it's a uh you know the virus it's unclear though but anyway they've done alexis bermudez has done a nice job and then alyssa humphrey jacksonville transfer everybody hey oh little jacksonville shout out i think she's 6-0 that's probably wrong she's probably got more wins than that let me check no she's 6-0 6-0 in the circle era of 1.03 that's pretty good very good she's pissed 40 and two-thirds of things leaves the team by a mile 68 strikeouts alyssa humphrey doesn't mess around she's got 68 strikeouts in 40 and two-thirds innings this girl can pitch she's young she's young she's just a freshman from gainesville where she went to high school gainesville my candidate mike my canopy that's a hard thing to say so we'll have to get a list on to clarify but she's pretty darn good they're playing well can't can't say much else baseball we got to talk about baseball actually well real quick before baseball um quick shout out to the women's tennis team 4-0 in conference play lost they've lost only one set all-conference play this season which was against elon coming up on friday april 2nd they face off with number 47 charlotte one set that is that right or like one of the only lost one second oh my fault not set um match oh my god i was like oh my god they're way better than i thought which is still good i mean what the seven and oh that's still incredible they're they're stacked but i was like oh my god i should have included that in the newsletter i should have included the other part but yeah they're just having a really good season and everything's lining up for them to make a really strong run to the caa championship and win another and bring home some uh some more hardware heck yeah give me baseball what's happening with baseball i haven't even seen like jmu tweets about them right now baseball hasn't played a game since the 14th of march since our breakdown with nick stephens they were like guys they had so they had the elon series cancelled that was so weird they were going to play at elon and there was a covet issue but then elon was supposed to come to harrisonburg and elon was like no thanks we're gonna play easter so they just bailed on that series and decided to play east carolina i have no idea how that is allowed but it appears completely bailed because jmu was looking for games it seemed like they were they were they they bailed and jamie was like uh and elon was like we're playing ecu now how's that allowed like what a conference game it's trash man i it's sickening but whatever whatever the conference is doing fine you don't want to play us you're scared of us fine did vmi opt out of its season that's what i was about to ask because why are they not playing on the 13th that seems way whatever but now they have been playing the on friday the 2nd of april against college of charleston for a three game series uncw should be coming in for another three game series fingers crossed that happens like first conference games of the year they need to go out and get some wins what are they three and six stomachs who else we got competing not i don't know lacrosse is playing soccer's out the soccers have been playing ben soccer's doing a good job i think they're up to top 15 in a poll lacrosse is four and three played virginia close but lost they're playing liberty thursday probably listening to this watch that on espn plus swim and dive doing a really good job this season yeah yeah i mean oh and volleyball's been good volleyball's been really good oh yeah volleyball's been volleyball's been balling they've been competing and they've got oh they played the the uh volleyball championship starting friday they play northeastern the semis and then championship on saturday if they get there so got a chance to win a conference crown for steinbrecker who just got her uh 200th career win good for her i really love all of the um the the athlete and coach nike apparel so if jmu if you're listening to this please sell it because they're always that was a really nice nike jacket that steinbrecker had on yeah yeah i mean that'd be cool if they wanted to i don't know if jamie wants to give us free gear or whatever we're not going to say no i'll send it we'll start talking a little more kindly about some of the teams if uh i don't i think this was probably as we finished the ramble on of this episode i think this was the nicest we've been to jmu sports all season normally there's really basketball we normally are really mean to not this you're not with coach bye quick buying oh transfer portal keep an eye out on that uh there are a few guys that i like every high major caliber guy i think would be a huge get if jamie could add like three seven footers a couple of like fifty percent three-point shooters the more pros you have the better so joel mensah entered his name into the track oh yeah losing joel um you know he got his conference player of the year like we predicted and now he's moving on to new things talk about freezing cold dates of ours freezing cold we're like this guy is going to be the most dominant big man in the conference he couldn't he didn't play well yeah when you're 7-1 you have at least some expectations of being the most dominant big man in a conference whose tallest player is six eight i mean walker kessler is gonna have a chance if he picks correctly takes the takes the dukes all right with that being said thank you guys for listening to this um this interesting episode of the jamie sports news podcast we'll be back we'll actually watch games this week we'll be back next week we'll have some good we'll have good analysis please don't leave us um it's the screen we're going to actually watch games this week needs to be your poll watch it i guess we have to i i think it's just crazy how quick i soured on this spring season yeah me too the ncaa tournament has been a lot of fun it's hard to have that much space in my life for college sports yeah especially that you cover college sports for a living yeah it's like i've had a game so then you want me to also stream the ncaa tournament while i'm watching the baseball game and a jb football game not a lunatic all right with all that being said thank you guys for tuning in go ahead and give us a like on facebook jmu sports news in the search bar you can find us on twitter at jmu sports news and find us at our home on the web jmu sportsnews.com every week we have the caa power rankings and you can jump in our mentions and call me stupid for all you want for bennett conlon my name is jeff i probably blocked them and only that one guy who started getting like really personal uh and has very awkward um tweets um so for bennett conlan my name is jack fitzpatrick you guys have a wonderful rest of your day