[rtb72]

Well, I know we had this before all of the technical issues, but I'd like to maybe see if we can get it going again. Worth a shot, I suppose. Nevertheless....

LU v. JMU (-6.5)

Tie breaker - Total rushing yards for the Flames

LU 17 - JMU 28
221

[AATL]

Might as well start the year off with optimism! Who knows how long it will last

Chadwell picks up where he left off vs Napier -- 30-27 good guys

[jmclaughlin]

LU 29 - JMU 24...We miss an XP, because Chadwell loves kickers.
Rush for 193 yards

[Chippy]

L - 20-13

JMU dominated our O line. This team is better than last year's team. Had our opportunities, a lot of self-inflicted wounds. I'm hoping we can still go 9=3 (7-1 in CUSA).

[rtb72]

1st half was awful. This persistent slow start which aligns with last year has got to end. Constantly having to coming from behind is just not going to lend to many wins. Penalties, poor clock management, stalling in the red zone and play calling…… yet again. 2nd half was much better and at least gives us some hope. Albeit an unpopular opinion, I still question if Chadwell can get us where we need/hope/should be. Nevertheless, we did give ourselves a chance against JMU. I guess we will know if that matters as the season goes on. I’m not sure JMU is the same pedigree as previous years, so that also is yet to be seen. .

[AATL]

I feel better after the game than I did during it. I'm excited about Coleman, and I really liked seeing them try to get him into space on the edges on the first drive. I'm encouraged that Jackson seems like a legitimate jump-ball target, which we've sorely lacked since CJ Daniels. I'm cautiously optimistic about the secondary. The 3rd & 3 shovel pass to LaKelsey Johnson made me grin.

That said, JMU's front seven ate the OL's lunch. Red zone was the difference, in large part because yardage between the tackles was non-existent there. I thought the edges generated good pressure, but it seems like we haven't had a block-shedding, scramble-eating DT since Kendy Charles.. I'm going to have nightmares about JC Evans scrambling into green grass on 3rd downs. Clock management at the end of the first half was bad bad bad and left points on the board.

Going into the year, I'd have called 3-1 in the non-conference with a split vs JMU/CCU an acceptable result. It feels doable after seeing the 2nd half, but that feeling might change if next week brings 10 more penalties.

[jmclaughlin]

It would have been great to walk out of there with a W but i do feel like it was more encouraging than discouraging. Many of the newcomers popped in moments and will make a sizable difference during the '26 campaign. I really think Purdie has a chance to be a solid QB. He was certainly off on some of his throws but he has the best arm we have had behind center since Malik. The Purdie - Jackson connection can be special. The RBs didn't have a standout performance but we have a full stable to play with. Kam is a horse and will be huge in those 3rd / 4th and short situations that we have struggled in the past few seasons. They didn't feature him much but the TE Johnson (From Baylor) should be another weapon that we have not had. He did miss some assignments (looked like) and had a critical FS that cost us a drive. Still think he can be the best TE we have had in a while.
Disappointments: 1. Pre-snap penalty's 2. Poor tackling at the point of contact 3. Another kickoff out of bounds 4. Poor play calling in critical moments 5. Clock management at the end of the 1st half 6.Subpar OL play (Second half was much improved)
Almost all of those I lay at coaching...even the poor tackling. I think we were so careful to come out healthy from fall camp that i bet tackling was limited. Not saying that i blame that approach. The most frustrating sequence for me was LU's final drive. Just picked up a huge 3rd and 8 conversion and we enter the redzone and out comes VASKO in a critical moment on a first down play and we call a designed QB run? Netting a 1.5 yard play??? It just didn't make any sense. We had momentum and immediately let the air out of the balloon. 3 plays later we have a 4th and short, call a timeout to draw up a play to convert. The play: Rollout to the boundary side of the field and scheme 2 receivers in the same tight window. I can understand the thought is to give Purdie 2 options in the same window but there was no room for any layering to happen. It is a bad play call.
I give the first half a draw because we were trying to establish our identity on the ground and just didn't get many chunk plays out of it. The run is how we are going to beat teams this season. that is how this team is constructed. The more balanced approach in the 2nd was a good tweak by the coaches and was nice to see. If Purdie can hit those downfield shots it will do wonders for our running and RPO calls.
This team will be a fun watch this season. Our return game has the chance to be fun again and the D looks much faster and longer than the past 2.
Light'emUp!

[Humble_Opinion]

I'm done trying to be nice and patient with HCJC. I'm glad the man is back close to full strength and appears to be doing better health wise. That being said, we are paying this man too much money to have our team struggle with the same issues that we did last year.

A few observations about the game:
1) The 2026 version of JMU is NOT the same as the 2025 version. I realize it's the first game of the year, but this was clearly a weaker version of JMU.
2) Assessing whether or not 2026 LU is any better than last year is made more difficult by JMU clearly being weaker. The fact that our rush game was putrid is concerning.
3) Everyone is expressing cautious optimism about our Defense, but I'm not sure why. JMU scored on their first four drives to begin the game. They started QB JC Evans, which should have been a tell for what our gameplan on Defense should have been. Have 7 men in the box and a spy for the QB. Make them beat you with his arm and make sure you don't lose contain when you rush him on drop-backs. Numerous times, I was unable to ID a spy and I saw several plays where we ran stunts up front and lost containment right up the middle leading to 10-12 yard gains each time. That should not have happened. Missed tackles aside, the game plan didn't seem right for the matchup. Everyone is pointing to improvements in the 2nd half. You know what I saw? JMU began playing 2 QBs, which always leads to inconsistent play and loss of rhythm on offense. While I think we played better overall, the matchup was better for us because their WRs had a more difficult time getting separation vs our DBs when they didn't have a QB that was a real threat with his legs.

Offense:
1) Our OL is a concern. We return 4 starters and the 5th in the rotation was a transfer from Penn St. and was highly touted coming out of high school. The 2023 OL is the benchmark that all OLs should be compared against. That OL was big and nasty. They played with an attitude and never struggled against any opponent until Oregon. What we saw against JMU should concern everyone. They looked weak and timid. Several times I saw our Guards getting pushed back into the backfield on bull rushes by the DTs of JMU. I know JMU stacked the box to stop the run game, but the Triple Option is supposed to help negate some of that and it clearly didn't.
2) We were too slow to open up the playbook for Purdie. Trying to ease into the game and have him complete little short passes slowed him down from truly getting into his groove. Purdie's stats show that he struggles on short/intermediate throws of the 10-15 yd variety. Knowing that JMU was stacking the box, we should have tried to stretch the field faster and play to one of Purdie's strengths. I am optimistic about Purdie.
3) Playcalling / Time-Management was atrocious at times and is a real cause for concern because it's directly connected to the coaching staff. There were several times where I thought Purdie was finding a real groove only to be cut off by a bad play call where we were trying to be cute. The one that sticks out was mentioned elsewhere, but it was the 1st & 10 from the JMU 15 after Purdie had just converted a 2nd & 26 with two great passes. What did we do? We brought in Vasko... who supposedly isn't even the best QB runner on the team. Why did we do that? It was a wasted down because JMU INSTANTLY knew what was coming. A designed QB draw. If they had left Purdie on the field and made the same call, it probably would have been more effective, because at that point, JMU was struggling in the pass game. The clock management was highly frustrating as well. We cross midfield with 1 minute to go in the 1st half after a few great plays, and we call a run play and then don't use a timeout despite having 3!! Then we get called for a false start with 34 seconds left on the clock and wind up having to use a TO just to stop the 10 second run-off. Just silly! Then on the last drive, we got the ball with ~6 mins left in the game being down a score. Instead of going a little quicker, we go at a snail's pace snapping the ball with single-digit seconds left on the play clock every snap, while trying to mix in run plays. We burned over 4 minutes of clock and ultimately were stopped with a little over 2 mins left on a failed 4th down that was also a terrible play call. At that point even if JMU didn't convert a first down, we would have a chance to get the ball back with less than a minute left and likely a full field to go.

We should win our next two games, hopefully by very wide margins. But the game against CCU is going to be tough. They gave WVU all they could handle and their Freshman QB is a legit dual-threat. We should be 3-0 entering that game. Now we will be 2-1 at best. If we lose that game, we enter conference play 0-2 against the Sunbelt and beginning conference play against a good Delaware team on the road. We have a lot of improvements to make in the meantime. Hopefully, we find our way, but as of right now, I'm not optimistic.