James Madison Post Game Thread

[Dizzy21]

I think you meant to say ex-P5, right? And may there be a reason they are no longer at that level? The thing is they have had a reputation for excellence for quite awhile, FCS regardless. UConn's reputation is the opposite. This will take a bunch of money to turn around. That is also the good news. It is now legal to do that. If it doesn't happen, it will be a matter of priorities.

What does their reputation have to do with it? They get lower ranked recruits than us from high school. They are not building through the portal, we have three times as many transfers over the last two years as them. They are simply succeeding with less talent. They pay their coaches a third of what we pay ours, so everyone who says it is coaching budget, look at yesterday. Charlton makes almost as much as their head coach.

I like Mora and all, but there is only one excuse for getting mauled by a team with less talent like yesterday...coaching.

 

[Dizzy21]

I think this is accurate. We will see a different lineup next year. And the list of portal guys from our side will be long. Lots will play at FCS places next year.

Aside from any talent, the selection of playing time needs to drastically change. Why did it take until November to take the kicker who made all his extra points, 75% of his field goals and could kick into the end zone last year off the bench?

 

[SwingDog]

I agree. We have some HUGE glaring deficiencies with athletes in a few positions (corners and safety stand out) but we have some legit players too; however, they are not prepared to execute, not adjusted to respond to the other teams, and not coached-up. We must get a new OC and hire a DC immediately. No nonsense.

Yes, and Cignetti said in preparation for the game they thought they could expose our corners, and they did. Mora is looking to shore up these and other weak areas by finding players in the transfer portal which gives me hope for the future. I really don't know enough about the coaching aspects to understand how much our shortcomings can be attributed specifically to coaching, so I'll leave that to others to debate. It's true that we have some solid players on our roster but the good teams will find the soft spots and exploit them, which is exactly what has happened over the course of the season. You want to get to a point where opposing coaches scout us and conclude that there are no apparent weaknesses. That's how it should be.

 

[Classof87]

Mora made it clear at halftime that he is fed up with being hosed by refs from the opponent’s conference.

Dude is not happy as an Independent.

These refs and the home cooking they're dishing out (even on our own field) is getting nauseating. Can we look into hiring a crew from a different conference than the team we're playing? Heck, I'd take a Div 2 crew to ref our home games. Is there some rule that says we have to use a crew from our opponents conference?

 

[Classof87]

Really?

Mitchell was supposed to be the All America heart of the defense and he’s been mediocre this year, his regression as well as the rest of the defense is a huge issue.

Lost fumbles and negative plays from trying to bounce everything outside are a major issue IMO

I think Mitchell really misses his 2 LB partners from last season. Those 2 are the only starters who didn't return.

 

[ScottVib]

Mitchell was supposed to be the All America heart of the defense and he’s been mediocre this year, his regression as well as the rest of the defense is a huge issue.

If you look the last few years Mitchell has built up massive tackle numbers, largely in pursuit rather than penetration or defeating a block, Swenson and Boyer-Randle were massive losses for the defense. There was a massive speed loss on the outside backer slots, plus the secondary has demonstrated time and again that it lacks the speed to stay with receivers deep, as well as it's struggles to help/hand-off responsibilities as route-runners transition between zones.

 

[ktuck911]

safe to say we were a little more exposed at the 2nd level on D, which made the deficiencies on the back end look that much worse...

HOWEVER, I still believe our offense should take a lot of the blame for all of it ... that undisciplined unit just didn't score enough... We should've put up way bigger numbers...