W. Virginia v. James Madison (in Landover, Md.)

WVU and JMU are not that far apart -- only 168 miles -- but they are very different institutions. WVU is soaked in the long and complex history of its sports-obsessed state, while JMU has only been playing football since 1972. The Mountaineers and the Dukes have met only once before. That was in 2004, up at Morgantown, WV, and the Mountaineers rolled to a 45-10 victory. They will be heavily favored to roll up a similar margin today -- or they would be, if anyone were giving odds on the game (I couldn't find any on the usual web pages).

For reasons that I don't fully understand, this game is being played at FedEx Field, home of the Washington Redskins. FedEx Field, which sits out in the suburbs of Prince George's County, Maryland, is almost uniformly hated by Redskins fans, who miss watching the Skins at RFK. They regularly share stories about how terrible it is to get to FedEx Field, how poor the atmosphere is once you arrive, and how long it takes to get home. And that's when the Redskins are there. The DC Metro Area is not exactly a hot-bed of college football (Saturday is when Washingtonians normally run errands), so I don't think you'll see a lot of the locals heading out to old FedEx to watch the Mountaineers and the Dukes. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if the stadium were only about half-filled.

That would be a big break for the Dukes, who need all the breaks they can get. But WVU looked awesome two weeks ago against Marshall, and I will be stunned if JMU can stay within 20 points of the Mountaineers.

James Madison University

If you drive down I-81 toward southern Virginia (or up I-81 toward northern Virginia) you will go through the lovely town of Harrisonburg, Virginia (population 49,973). If you pay attention as you go through town, you will see James Madison University -- a school with over 17,000 undergraduates, making it one of the largest universities in the Old Dominion.

JMU, as it is known to the people who talk about it, began life in 1908 as the State Normal and Industrial School for Women at Harrisonburg. At first, it was basically a technical or junior college. In 1916, however, it was authorized to award bachelor's degrees. By this time it had been renamed the State Normal School for Women at Harrisonburg.

The term Normal School is confusing now, and was probably confusing then. (According to Wikipedia, it derived from the French ecole normale, which referred to a school that established teaching standards or "norms.") Anyway, in 1924 was re-named the State Teachers College at Harrisonburg. It kept that name until 1938, when it was named Madison College after James Madison, whose estate was in Orange, Virginia -- about 52 miles away from Harrisonburg.

After that the school continued to grow. In 1946, men were first enrolled as regular day students. In 1954, the school was authorized to grant master's degrees. In 1966, the school became fully co-educational. In 1976, it was renamed James Madison University. And in 2009, it was granted a Phi Beta Kappa chapter. These days, it is one of the most highly-regarded regional universities in the country, and is filled with students from the crowded (and education-obsessed) suburbs of Northern Virginia. Virginia has kept UVA and William and Mary at roughly the same size even as the state's population has soared, and JMU has greatly benefited from the overflow.

JMU's sports teams are known as the Dukes -- after Samuel Page Duke, who was the president of the school from 1919 to 1949. The Dukes started playing Division III football in 1972, but in 1980 they shifted to Division I-AA. They have an all-time record of 250-192-4, and they won the I-AA national championship in 2004, and they stunned Virginia Tech 21-16 in 2010. Their current coach, Mickey Matthews, has been there since 1999 and has an all-time record of 98-61. This season the Dukes are 2-0 with home wins over St. Francis (Pa.) (55-7) and Alcorn State (42-3). They are currently number 4 in the country in Division I-AA (I know that division has been renamed but I refuse to use the new name).

This will be JMU's first chance to play for the UCFC.

Wrap Up: 2012 Week 2

Unlike week 1, week 2 in college football held a lot of exciting stuff.

Let's start with Arkansas. Maybe they were looking forward to next week when they will play Alabama, but they tripped up in a big way this week losing 34-31 to the University of Lousiana-Monroe in overtime. If Arkansas had visions of making the BCS title game that all came crashing down Saturday.

Sticking with the SEC let's take a look at the two newcombers Missouri and Texas A&M. Both were hosting their first SEC opponents as SEC teams and both were hyping up their chances of success. I actually thought that both teams had a shot at winning as Georgia tends to choke up at least one game a season and Florida doesn't seem that good, but Georgia stomped Missouri and Florida managed to get the win. This actually bolstered the SEC in many ways. If we take a look at the new Massey Comparison we'll see that the SEC and PAC 12 increased their control over the top of college football. 

1. Alabama
2. LSU
3. USC
4. Oregon
5. South Carolina
6. Georgia
7. Oklahoma
8. Michigan St
9. Stanford
10. Kansas St
Why you might ask did the PAC 12 fair so well this week?  Well because Oregon State beat Wisconsin, Arizona beat Oklahoma St, UCLA beat Nebraska, and Arizona State beat Illinois.  These are not supposed to be the top teams in the PAC 12, but they all won over major conference opponents.  Three of those wins came over Big 10 teams and so we are left with the notion that the Big 10 is floundering.  We are also left with the idea that you shouldn't schedule a team like Savannah State for your season opener as Oklahoma State did.

West Virginia will be back defending The Unofficial College Football Championship next week against James Madison, but let's see what other games of interest I'll be keeping an eye on.

Alabama at Arkansas
     This is now Arkansas' season.  If they can beat Alabama it won't get them into the BCS, but it would bring down Alabama from the top and right now what else do the Razorbacks have.

Tennessee Tech at Oregon
     One word "Eaglebait."

Wake Forest at Florida State
     This will be Florida State's first test of the season and so it will be interesting to see how good they are.  Wake has played a spoiler in the ACC the last few seasons so you never really know how good or bad they will be on any given week.

Notre Dame at Michigan State
     Right now Michigan State is the top dog of the Big 10 and Notre Dame is trying to push themselves up into the top 10 realm.  This may well be the game of the week over Arkansas, Alabama.

USC at Stanford
     Another big game early in the season.  Everyone will be watching this one closely to see just how good USC is.

University of Louisiana-Monroe at Auburn
     With Auburn struggling can Louisiana-Monroe pull off two upsets over SEC teams in a row?

Western Kentucky at Kentucky
     According to the Massey Comparison WKU is ranked 74 and Kentucky 68.  This should be a good game, and if Kentucky loses will mark the end of their head coach.

         

Wrap Up: 2012 Week 1

The first week of the college football season is always a bit odd. You don't really expect any big stories because you expect the top 25 teams to roll their opponents, but there is always that anticipation of something unique happening. Of course this week all the build up was for the Alabama, Michigan game. Could the SEC dominance continue or would Michigan be able to represent the Big 10 and show that they were a conference worth watching. Well we got the answer in a blowout win for the Tide and so we are left to assume that the SEC will have at least one team at the end of the season playing in the BCS title game.  Now the focus starts to narrow on who will be there in the end.

One of my favorite college football ranking sites is Massey Ratings.  It is a meta rating site where he ranks the teams based on their ranking across many ranking systems.  It was interesting to see the shift at Massey after the opening week.  Here are the preseason rankings.

1. Alabama
2. LSU
3. Oklahoma
4. Oregon
5. USC
6. Oklahoma St
7. Arkansas
8. Stanford
9. Michigan
10. Wisconsin

Here are the rankings after week 1

1. Alabama
2. LSU
3. Oregon
4. USC
5. Oklahoma
6. Oklahoma St
7. Arkansas
8. Florida St
9. Michigan St
10. South Carolina

The Michigan loss hurt the big 10 and USC and Oregon are now up there as the 3 and 4 team behind Alabama and LSU.  I would imagine this will be the image we see for quite some time and of course what's intersting is to think that as we move toward a four team playoff system we are currently in a situation where the majority believe the four best teams represent only two conferences.

With the UCFC title holders off next week we look to see what big matchups lay ahead. 

Here are the games I'll be interested in.

Western Kentucky at Alabama 
     Growing up in Kentucky I'm keeping hope that WKU can pull one of the greatest upsets in college football history.

Georgia at Missouri
     There is a lot of hype of Georgia, but they always seem to blow games early in the season, so this might be an upset.

Eastern Washington at Washington State
     It would be fantastic if Eastern could pull off the Idaho, WSU double.
 
Vanderbilt at Northwestern
     I always find this to be a fun game.

W. Virginia 69 - 34 Marshall (Final)

There really isn' t much to say about the rest of the game -- West Virginia had this game well in hand at halftime and simply kept rolling in the second half. This is WVU's second UCFC game in a row, and they have scored 139 points in those two games. Geno Smith's numbers today look like something you'd see in a video game: 32 of 36, 323 yards passing, 4 touchdowns, and no interceptions. Oh, and Smith also carried eight times for 65 yards. West Virginia ended up with 649 yards of total offense. Of course, they did give up 34 points and 544 yards. But that merely underscores the fact that they should be right at home in the defensively-challenged Big 12 Conference.

West Virginia retains the title it won in the 2012 Orange Bowl, and its all-time record in UCFC play is now 12-7. This was Marshall's first appearance in a UCFC game, so the Thundering Herd is now 0-1 in such games.

West Virginia has a bye next week, so they will hold the title for at least two more weeks. Their next defense will take place at Fedex Field, home of the Washington Redskins, on September 15. Their opponent will be the James Madison Dukes.

W, Virginia 34 - 10 Marshall (1:02 left in 2d Quarter)

The last time we saw WVU they were scoring 70 points in the Orange Bowl. And now they've put up another 34 points in the first half of this game. This was a 67-yd drive that ended with a 9-yard pass from Smith to J.D. Woods. The Eers have gone for 413 yards in the first half. Here are Geno Smith's passing numbers: 18-21 for 185 yards and three touchdown passes.

I think the James Madison Dukes can officially start getting excited, because in two weeks they will be playing WVU for the UCFC.

W. Virginia 27 - 10 Marshall (6:54 left in 2d quarter)

The WVU offense is actually getting better. That time the Mountaineers needed only 3 plays to go 82 yards -- the touchdown being scored on a 6-yd pass from Geno Smith to Tavon Austin. WVU already has 339 yards of total offense.