Dukes embark on rough road trip next week

by Matthew Stoss, sports editor

The University of Maine came to visit Bridgeforth Stadium and left in the same way every other guest of the venue has this season — with a crooked loss and a long ride home.

“We got our butts kicked,” Maine coach Jake Cosgrove said after his team’s 38-2 loss to JMU. “We got out-coached, out-played, out-everythinged.”

So far, the Dukes have dispatched all comers to their home turf. They opened the season with a 56-0 dismantling of Division II Lock Haven University. In their third game, the now fifth-ranked Dukes lit up Delaware State University 65-7 and Saturday, they continued the trend sending the Black Bears back to Orono, Maine, in need of a hug.

In between, JMU put on a similar show in Hempstead, N.Y., last weekend, dominating Hofstra University 42-10, but it has been the lone blemish on the Dukes’ record that has been of the most interest.

“We’re on a roll right now,” Madison quarterback Justin Rascati said. “We’re very confident. We got woke up by Coastal Carolina. It’s good to lose a game every once in a while and an early non-conference loss doesn’t hurt your title chances in I-AA like it does in D-I. The practices have been 100 times better since.”

Sept. 10, the Dukes went down to Coastal Carolina University and lost their first game since November. And since then, JMU has won three straight games, including two-straight over A-10 opponents, and now going into arguably their toughest stretch of the year, the Dukes seem to be regaining the confidence built during last year’s Division I-AA national title run.

“I’m not sure if it’s where it was, but it’s pretty high,” JMU sophomore linebacker Justin Barnes said. “We’re pretty good right now.”

And it’s a good time to be pretty good.

Out of JMU’s next four games, three are against nationally ranked opponents on the road. Next week, the Dukes travel to Amherst, Mass., where they take on the 18th-ranked Minutemen of the University of Massachusetts. Oct. 21, JMU heads to the home of the 2003 I-AA national champion and No. 13 University of Delaware and then after Homecoming against the University of Richmond, it’s back to the road where the Dukes face the 17th-ranked College of William & Mary at Zable Stadium Nov. 5.

“The coaches would’ve voted for UMass [in the preseason poll if they had a vote],” JMU coach Mickey Matthews said. “It’s really going to be a good game. There will be two great defenses. It will be a game of mistakes and whoever forces the other team into mistakes.”

JMU and UMass kick off at noon next Saturday at Warren P. McGuirk Alumni Stadium.