Game day blog: Three keys for the JMU-CCSU game

HARRISONBURG – A week ago, James Madison's football team traveled to North Carolina to play the sacrificial lamb to the I-A Tar Heels. This week? Well, that's Central Connecticut State's role. The scholarship-challenged Blue Devils insist their not overly concerned with winning this game, saying their focus is squarely on capturing a league title and a playoff bid. But make no doubt about it, CCSU wants to pull the upset and spoil JMU's debut in its renovated stadium. 

The Dukes obviously don't plan to let that happen. Here are three keys to keep an eye on today, when you're not busy starting at the graphics on the stadium's massive scoreboard.

1) Will the Dukes do a better job tackling the Blue Devils than they did the Tar Heels?

Forget giving up 42 points. Forget a few blown assignments in the secondary. The biggest issue the JMU defense had in its season opener was a surprising inability to tackle. The Dukes are big favorites against Central Connecticut State, but if their linebackers start sliding off CCSU’s ball carriers, they could be in a for a dog fight.

Sophomore linebacker Stephon Robertson doesn’t expect that to happen.

“The Carolina game, that’s in the past,” Robertson said. “The only option now is to tackle better and play better.”

2) How long will CCSU go with starting quarterback Gunnar Jespersen?

Jespersen is the Blue Devils’ tough-as-nails quarterback who told me this week, “When I’m running, instead of juking a guy, I’d rather run into a guy sand see how many hard yards I could get.”

Before the team’s walk-through at Bridgeforth on Friday night, Jespersen spent about five minutes having his left hand heavily bandaged by the team’s trainers. He broke the pinky finger on his left (non-throwing hand) in Central Connecticut’s season opening win over Division II Southern Connecticut.

CCSU coach Jeff McInerney makes no bones about the fact that this game means little to the Blue Devils’ aspirations. To reach the Division I-AA playoffs, the team needs to win the NEC title and the automatic bid. Meaning risking further injury to Jespersen in a non-conference game doesn’t make much sense.

But Jespersen is an athletic and gritty competitor and Central Connecticut’s best chance to the move the ball against the Dukes.

3) What will the offense look like in Week 2?

The Dukes were decidedly conservative against North Carolina, fearing that a bad play could swing field position and turn the game into a route. (Yeah, yeah, I know. That happened anyway.) This week, against a CCSU defense that should be giving up size and speed at every spot, JMU should be able to run anything it wants.

“We were opening up against the best defensive front we’ve played in 13 years,” Matthews said. “We didn’t want to have a lot of bad plays against North Carolina. You had to be rather simple. We’re going to run our offense the rest of the year.”

That could mean a heavy dose or the option with Justin Thorpe and Dae’Quan Scott and plenty of zone running plays with Jordan Anderson and Jauan Latney.

But JMU’s coaches and players said the team called about 28 passing plays last week (Only 15 turned into passes and another five went down as sacks.) So will the Dukes – given the choice of being balanced or just running the ball – let Thorpe air it out again?