HARRISONBURG – Earlier this summer, Las Vegas pegged FCS James Madison as a favorite over FBS East Carolina.
The two squads open the season Saturday at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium, and this morning on the Colonial Athletic Association weekly teleconference, Dukes coach Mike Houston said he couldn’t understand why JMU would be favored.
“I don’t know how in the world we’re favored in this game,” Houston said. “We’re playing a team that has 85 scholarships and we have 63.
“They have a budget that dwarfs ours, so with the resources they have, there’s no comparison. I just don’t understand how exactly someone would say we’re favored.”
On the American Athletic Conference call, ECU coach Scottie Montgomery said he didn’t view JMU as an FCS opponent.
“We don’t classify guys when we’re getting ready to play ‘em,” Montgomery said. “All we do is turn on the tape, and it shows that we’re playing a talent level of a conference game, there’s no question about it.
“Then the way that they’re coached, it elevates it to a higher point.”
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- Houston confirmed what the DN-R has reported throughout JMU’s August training camp. The second-year Dukes coach said running back Cardon Johnson and linebacker Dimitri Holloway are healthy and will play Saturday.
- JMU enters 2017 as the top-ranked FCS squad in all the preseason polls. “We’re not worried about any preseason polls,” Houston said. “They’re meaningless. Last year, nobody picked us to do hardly anything and we saw how that turned out.”
- Houston was asked what his goals were for senior quarterback Bryan Schor entering this season. Houston said first he wanted to get his quarterback through camp healthy, so no defender was allowed within five feet of him during practice. But Houston said Schor’s arm is strong and that he thinks Schor has improved his overall fitness entering the opener.
- For more on Schor, here’s the feature on the signal-caller that ran in today’s Daily News-Record.
- ECU coach Scottie Montgomery said Schor is the best player on JMU’s team. Montgomery added the way Schor operates the run-pass option is difficult to defend.
- Last week, Montgomery named Gardner Minshew the starting quarterback of the Pirates. Montgomery said the battle between Minshew and Duke transfer Thomas Sirk was highly competitive. The Pirates headman said he was really impressed with Mineshew’s accuracy, ability to run ECU’s offensive system and how he knew the rest of the personnel on offense.
