Dog Fight
Madison opens season against defending PSAC champs Bloomsburg this Saturday
By Brian Hansen, sports editor
Posted on August 31, 2006

This Saturday marks the start of the college football season, and for many, it has been too long between games. The JMU football team will open its season at home against the Huskies of Bloomsburg.

The Huskies are a Division II school from the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference. Last season the team finished with an 11-0 regular season record before losing in the first round of the NCAA Division II playoffs to East Stroudsburg.

“Our people know how good Bloomsburg is,” JMU coach Mickey Matthews said. “They’re the defending conference champions from up there and I expect a good football game out of them.”

Added JMU senior running back Maurice Fenner, “Bloomsburg is one of the better Division II schools, so they are definitely going to give us a battle.”

Last season the Huskies, offense averaged 38.8 points per game and 473.4 yards per game, showing that they, have explosiveness on offense that could put the Dukes defense to the test early.

That explosiveness will be largely provided by Bloomsburg running back Jamar Brittingham. Last year Brittingham ran for 2,260 yards and 32 touchdowns on his way to winning the PSAC Player of the Year and finishing third in the Division II Player of the Year voting.

“He’s probably the best running back we’ll see all year,” Matthews said. “He’s on all the NFL prospect lists.”

Last year Brittingham led all of college football with 188.3 yards per game and in just two seasons has run for 3,251 yards and 48 touchdowns.

“He’s definitely a Division I back,” Matthews said. “We recruited him out of high school, but he ended up signing with Rutgers. He ran into some academic difficulties and that’s why he’s in Division II.”

The Huskies may have to lean even more on Brittingham with the graduation of quarterback Jack Lydic, who threw for 2,135 yards last season and 17 touchdowns. The Huskies also lost fourth-round New Orleans Saints draft choice Jahri Evans from, the offensive line.

The key to the Dukes defense will clearly be to focus on shutting down Brittingham.

“We’ll need to be solid up front if we hope to stop him,” Matthews said. “We’ll be breaking in some new corners, so our defensive front will clearly be key.”

On the defensive side, Bloomsburg returns its leading tackler from last year, Rob Biernat, whose 87 stops were good enough to earn him first-team All-Conference. The defense also returns safety Tyler Trettin, who had 62 tackles and earned all-league honors.

“We need to focus on working together and knowing our assignments,” senior quarterback Justin Rascati said. “If we do that, we should move the ball pretty well.”

JMU does have some injury concerns. Junior wide receiver L.C. Baker is questionable for the game and junior safeties Nick Adams and Tony LeZotte are expected to play, but both have been banged up during practice.

The bigger concern for the Dukes may be looking past Bloomsburg and toward Appalachian State.

“It’s a problem,” Matthews said. “It’s being tabbed as the game of the year and the guys are looking forward to playing them, but we found out last year at Coastal [Carolina] that you can’t take anything for granted.”

Fenner said, “It’s still a game and it’s going to be a great challenge to play someone other than ourselves.”

The Appalachian State game pits the last two Division I-AA national champions against each other, but first the Dukes must worry about getting past a Huskies team that beat Lock Haven, the only opponent the two teams had in common last year, worse than they did. Bloomsburg beat Lock Haven 63-0 JMU did. Bloomsburg beat than they did. Bloomsburg beat  Lock Haven 63-0 while JMU beat them 56-0.

The Dukes and Huskies have met once before with JMU winning 48-3 in 1989 at Bridgeforth Stadium, but these are two completely different teams from that 1989 season.

“Bottom line is, we need to take care of business if we want to win this weekend,” Matthews said. “Hopefully we can put on a good show in front of our fans and then move on to Appalachian State next weekend.”

Game time is at 6 p.m. at Bridgeforth Stadium/Zane Showker Field.