HARRISONBURG – Justin Thorpe celebrated his 21st birthday on Thursday. His family came to visit for the weekend and attended Saturday’s James Madison football scrimmage.
“Macaroni and cheese,” she said. “And more macaroni and cheese.”
Well, truth be told, there is one other thing Thorpe would like – and Saturday it appeared he’s closer than ever to getting it.
The JMU junior hopes to be the Dukes’ starting quarterback this season. Saturday, Thorpe took all of the snaps with the first time offense, while his competition – redshirt freshmen Billy Cosh and Jace Edwards – split time with the backups.
“That’s a blessing,” a smiling Thorpe said after the workout. “Coach had some faith in me and wanted me to run with the ones and I guess develop a rhythm with the players. I went out there and had some misreads but I had some good reads. All I can do is come out and work hard.”
JMU coach Mickey Matthews said he had no official announcement regarding the quarterbacks, but the playing time split appeared to speak for itself. Thorpe also was the only one of the quarterbacks wearing a red jersey, keeping him from being hit. That’s a precautionary luxury normally only extended to starting quarterbacks.
“I’m not ready to make an announcement,” Matthews said.
Thorpe went 7-for-15 for 74 yards and a touchdown pass, rolling out and finding senior wide receiver Kerby Long in the back of the end zone.
“I couldn’t miss him,” Thorpe said. “He was streaking wide open.”
Cosh, meanwhile, had perhaps his worst practice of the spring. He drew Matthews’ ire for not running hard during the live-tackling scrimmage. A few plays later, he fumbled an exchange from center and didn’t appear to go after the ball, prompting one defensive player to heckle the Kansas State transfer.
“You better stop being scared Cosh,” someone yelled from a pack of JMU defenders walking away from the play.
Later, Cosh again took a verbal lashing from Matthews after misfiring on a pass to a wide open tight end in the end zone.
“Well, it wasn’t his best day,” Matthews said. “The last two days he practiced pretty good but he didn’t have a good day.”
Overall, Matthews was satisfied that his offense was improving. The defense completely dominated the team’s first scrimmage on Wednesday. Saturday morning, things were noticeably more competitive.
That progress came despite JMU being without starting center Roane Babington (bruised ankle) and right guard Matt Krout (flu). Matthews also held starting running back Dae’Quan Scott out of the scrimmage to avoid risking an injury.
“I thought we played much better on offense,” Matthews said. “The biggest problem today was dropped passes. When you have half the offensive line out and you’re holding Dae’Quan Scott out, you’re certainly not going to be as good as you want to be offensively. All that being side, I thought we were a much better offensive team.”
Freshman wide receiver DeAndre Smith provided a spark for the offense late in the scrimmage.
Smith scored a 20-yard touchdown on a swing pass from Jace Edwards and had an 8-yard run on which he juked his way by safety Dean Marlowe – one of the team’s best tacklers.
Catch of the day: Freshman Amir Waller always gets the loudest cheers from teammates. Saturday, it was Waller’s leaping catch on a wobbly throw to the sideline that got the sideline hooting and hollering.
On second-down-and-5, Thorpe targeted Waller, who made the impressive grab falling out of bounds for an 18-yard gain.
Hit of the day: Nothing brings out big hits quite like the intensity of goalline drills.
Saturday, running back Jordan Anderson – with a full head of steam heading toward the end zone – was crushed in a violent collision with defensive tackle Sean O’Neil and safety Dean Marlowe.
Quote of the day: Told that the coaches were basically making the rules for the scrimmage up as they went along, the head linesman said, “We do that all season.”
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