JMU Pushes Offensive Pace

HARRISONBURG — James Madison is conditioning its offense to change speeds. And if first-year coordinator Donnie Kirkpatrick has it his way, the unit will operate with a rapid tempo.

“If you hear a loud sound, you’ll know we hit the sonic boom,” Kirkpatrick said. “That’s what our goal is, but we will change our tempo up some. It’ll depend on the situation in the game.”

Throughout a game, an offense can use a variety of tempos. A quick tempo limtime between snaps and slow tempo expands time from play to play.

Kirkpatrick said this fall, the Dukes offense will mostly move at a similar pace to that of East Carolina’s recent teams. Kirkpatrick spent the last 11 seasons at ECU where he coached alongside minds notorious for coaching up-tempo schemes like Lincoln Riley – the current offensive coordinator at Oklahoma.

At JMU’s morning practice Tuesday, Kirkpatrick’s offense went through a period designed purposely to have the unit move as fast as it could from play to play. As soon as quarterback Bryan Schor completed a pass to one of his receivers, the ball was spotted. Once the ball was spotted, Schor had to have the offense lined up so that he could call the cadence for the next play.

“Today, we were working and trying to snap the ball within eight to 10 seconds of when the ball was spotted,” Kirkpatrick said. “It’s a 40-second play clock from the end of the previous play, so we’d like to get the snap off within about 12 to 15 seconds of the spot or at about the 28-second to 25-second mark on the play clock. That’s our normal pace.”

Schor — who took the majority of first-team reps again Tuesday — said 12 seconds between snaps doesn’t give the defense much time to adjust.

“The best thing about going fast is that most of the time defenses can’t get set, so they have to run a base defense against your offense,” Schor said. “A base defense is the easiest for our linemen to block and it’s the easiest for a quarterback to read. That’s why we like to go fast.”

According to Kirkpatrick, there is one key personnel attribute enabling JMU to move fast: The Dukes have versatile skill players to use.

“That might be the number one reason why I think we can do it,” Kirkpatrick said. “[Running backs] Cardon [Johnson] and Khalid [Abdullah] are versatile. They can line up at a number of places on the field and they’re willing to block. [Jonathan] Kloosterman is the same way. He can play as a receiver, as a tight end or as a fullback. You can play fast because you don’t have to change personnel to get into different formations.”

The only players likely to swap in and out of the game while JMU’s offense pushes the tempo are wide receivers. Kirkpatrick and wide receivers coach Drew Dudzik said they’d like to enter the Sept. 3rd opener against Morehead State eight-deep at the position.

“That’s the advantage for us on offense. We can sub more guys than the defense is willing to,” Kirkpatrick said. “We can run deep routes, and then every two or three plays, I can put a fresh receiver in. Very seldom does a defensive back come out of the game. That defensive back may run six or seven sprints, where our guy is only running three.”

Currently, seniors Rashard Davis, Brandon Ravenel, Domo Taylor and junior John Miller are in line to start at receiver, Dudzik said, with junior Ishmael Hyman and Duke transfer Terrence Alls expected to earn occasional first-team opportunities.

“There’s definitely a plethora of talent in our room and we want to have a two-deep at each position,” Dudzik said.