Sophomores answer call

By Matt McGovern, assistant sports editor
Posted on October 1, 2007

James Madison came into Saturday’s game tied for second in the Colonial Athletic Association South Division with Villanova. Following their most consistent offensive onslaught of the season, they now stand alone behind Delaware (5-0 overall, 3-0 in CAA).

With senior tailback Eugene Holloman sidelined following arthroscopic knee surgery and senior wideout L.C. Baker seeing limited action because of a hamstring injury, Madison’s freshman and sophomore offensive players stepped up in JMU’s second conference game.

The Dukes improved to 4-1 overall and 2-0 in the conference, thanks to a consistent passing attack led by junior quarterback Rodney Landers. The versatile Landers completed 25 of 32 passing attempts for 300 yards and two touchdowns, while rushing 18 times for 70 yards and two more touchdowns. Averaging 3.9 yards per carry was a season low for Landers, but his 300 passing yards were a season high.

“The line protected well, and the receivers did the rest,” Landers said. “It was an easy day for me.”

Madison’s injury issues led to offensive production from a variety of freshmen and sophomores. Freshman tailback Scott Noble rushed for his third touchdown of the season, while sophomores Mike Caussin and Bosco Williams combined for 71 yards receiving. Caussin caught his first two touchdowns of the season in the aerial assault.

Sophomore wideout Ray Brown led all receivers with six receptions for 74 yards, totaling almost three times his production before the game. The Clinton, Md. native has eight receptions for 99 yards this season.

In 2006, Brown was expected to be one of Madison’s top receivers before struggling in the opener against Bloomsburg University. With Baker seeing limited action due to a hamstring injury, Brown saw a chance to prove himself.

“I just got some advice from the senior leadership they told me to just take the game as practice,” Brown said. “This is one game where I took that into effect and things fell into place with Rockeed [McCarter] dropping his ball and L.C. coming out … it was my chance to step up with Villanova running that stacked defense.”

The Villanova defense stacked the box with defenders and held the Dukes to their lowest rushing total since they only had 150 rushing yards against North Carolina. Landers led all rushers with his 70 yards against the Wildcats, and senior tailback Antoinne Bolton ran the ball 10 times for 54 yards. Sullivan rushed seven times for 22 yards, his lowest total since he only rushed once for 4 yards against UNC.

“Villanova runs that 3-3 stack, and that is so unconventional,” JMU coach Mickey Matthews said. “It took us a good day and a half to just draw a blocking scheme for them, and we finally realized the best blocking scheme you could probably do was to run those bubble screens ‘cause they had so many guys inside.”

The screen passes worked well for Madison as Landers connected with nine different receivers on the day. Baker and Bolton were the only seniors with receptions, and Landers’ seven other targets were either freshmen or sophomores.

“The passing game — it’s always been there, it’s just we haven’t really had to use it,” Baker said. “Today we used it, we exploited the defense [and] guys like Mike [Caussin] and Ray [Brown] really stepped up and played.”