HARRISONBURG, Va. (AP) – Mickey Matthews doesn’t believe teams are just destined to win. Not with all the hours of work that go into preparing for every practice and every game.
The coach at James Madison, the top-ranked team in the Football Championship Subdivision, will even offer explanations for how his Dukes managed improbable comeback victories against former No. 1 Appalachian State and highly ranked Richmond earlier this season.
But mention the Dukes’ last-play, Hail Mary victory at Villanova, and Matthews bursts into hearty laughter. Sometimes plausible explanations don’t cover the implausible.
essure and lofted a pass into the end zone, where one of at least four waiting Wildcat defenders batted it away – right to JMU wide receiver Bosco Williams.
Touchdown!
James Madison wins, 23-19.
Matthews wore stunned look as he walked off the field. James Madison (8-1) had practiced the play two days earlier, but not converted, and now the coach who likes to formulate in his head what he will say to his team after a game was forced to do some mental scrambling.
Before the play, he admitted, he was working on a “keep your chins up” message.
“I was dang sure I would tell the guys how proud I was that we had played poorly but we had got the game back with a chance to win, that we’d played hard in the rain on the road, and we weren’t playing our best but we hung in there with them, and that we still had a chance to win the national championship,” Matthews said. “All of sudden, we win the game.”
Matthews could have just gone to his archives from earlier in the year for his words.
He could have used the speech from after the Dukes erased a 21-0 halftime deficit against App State, the two-time defending national champions, and pulled out a 35-32 victory.
ft at Richmond, held the Spiders on defense and won 38-31 on Scotty McGee’s 69-yard punt return touchdown with :01 left.
“I don’t know if you really know about your football team until they get behind in a situation like that because you don’t know how they’re going to react,” Matthews said.
“When you do something like that, obviously, our guys reacted very well. It’s why we think we’re going to win it. We believe very strongly that we’re going to win games late.”
Both the App State and Richmond comebacks left the Dukes feeling somewhat charmed, but the Flutie-to-Phelan-like prayer that beat the Wildcats was clearly one for the ages.
“I think that one was a little more special just because of what was at stake,” Landers said, noting that it was a Colonial Athletic Association game. “For us to pull it out on the road like that, it was truly something special. We were definitely at a loss for words.”
Neither Landers, whose vision was blocked by the linemen in front of him, nor free safety Marcus Haywood, who was on the sidelines, saw Williams actually cradle the batted pass.
“I was like, ‘I can’t believe it. We pulled out another one,”’ Haywood said.
waiting text messages.
Destiny, many JMU fans told them over and over, was on the Dukes’ side.
But that’s not a belief the players or coaches care to embrace.
“Some people might say its destiny. Some people say it’s luck,” Haywood said. “I don’t want anybody inside our locker room believing it’s destiny because destiny is nothing.
“You still have to make it happen on your own.”
And wild endings notwithstanding, James Madison has done that pretty well, too, often by letting the dual-threat Landers wreak havoc with his feet and his arm in crunch time.
“I’ve never been around a guy that dominates a game like Rodney does,” said Matthews, who turned 55 Saturday. “He’s that great an athlete. He’s such a dominant player in the fourth quarter when the defense we’re playing is really tired, that’s when he’s at his best.”
In the comeback against App State, McGee got it started by taking the second-half kickoff back 99 yards for a touchdown, and Landers pulled the Dukes within 21-14 on their second possession, bolting 62 yards untouched for a touchdown after a three-and-out for App State.
He later adding another rushing touchdown, as well as a scoring pass, and when they went ahead in the fourth quarter and held on, Landers said, the Dukes became far more dangerous.
n shock,” Landers said. “Not because we didn’t believe that we had that type of ability … but just to be able to do it in the magnitude of the moment and then on that stage. A lot of us were like, ‘Wow, we can really play with the best here.”’
They’ve been doing it ever since, often with a continuing flair for the dramatic.
Mary on Nov. 15, then play at Towson – the Dukes are in line to gain the top seed in the FCS playoffs, and home games for the first three rounds, providing they continue winning.
Landers would prefer to be finished with nailbiters and instead get to enjoy the fourth quarter watching as the second team wraps up victories, but knows that’s not up to him.
“I just think we need to win,” he said.
Add A Comment