When James Madison football coach Mickey Matthews said Friday that Michael Birdsong would be the Dukes' starting quarterback in 2013 after a promising freshman year, it seemed uncommonly early to declare the QB competition over, considering the pocket-passer's relatively scant experience.

JMU has four other quarterbacks, two of whom redshirted this year (Ian Fisher and Taylor Reynolds) and another who transferred from Vanderbilt specifically to play QB (Lafonte Thourogood).

But Tuesday afternoon, while driving from Washington to Virginia Beach on a recruiting trip, Matthews reiterated that the job was Birdsong's to lose - not that Matthews thinks he will.

"We don't anticipate that. He's a very competitive guy," Matthews said. "You never say never with any youngster, but going into spring, he's our starting quarterback and, unless some unforeseen, catastrophic thing happens, he's going to be our quarterback next year."



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