Laycock's Last Trip

HARRISONBURG — Longtime William & Mary coach Jimmye Laycock can provide a detailed history of James Madison’s football program.

He’s led William & Mary all but twice of the 40 times his Tribe and the Dukes have squared off.

“We go way, way back,” Laycock said ahead of his final trip to Bridgeforth Stadium. “I think we were the first team within the state to go up and play them up there whenever that was — way back in the 80s.”

Laycock is right.

Other schools in the Commonwealth like Hampton and Liberty had previously traveled to Madison, but those programs weren’t Division I at the time. So when William & Mary made its first trip to Harrisonburg in 1982, it became the first visiting Division I program in Virginia to play in the Dukes’ home venue.

In August, the 39th-year William & Mary coach announced his plans to retire at the end of the season. He is the longest-tenured coach in all of Division I and his 246 career wins are the most in Tribe history. Previous coaches at William & Mary include Marv Levy and Lou Holtz, both of whom Laycock suited up for as a player before he graduated from the school in 1970.

No. 2 JMU hosts Laycock and William & Mary on Saturday. The Dukes will honor their veteran foe with an on-field pregame ceremony ahead of the 3:30 p.m. kickoff.

“What he’s done is really special,” JMU coach Mike Houston said. “I hope I get to walk away on my own terms like he is and I hope that when I do look back I have somewhat of the success that he’s had.”

Laycock has roamed the opposing sideline against all seven JMU coaches in its history, from Challace McMillin to Houston.

“I’ll go all the way back to Challace McMillin when he started that program,” Laycock said. “I don’t know if people really recognize what he did to get things going, get things started up there. He did a tremendous job.”

The cross-state rivalry was probably at its height in 2004 with the Dukes on their way to the first national title in school history. Laycock and the Tribe won in Harrisonburg during the regular season before then-JMU coach Mickey Matthews and the Dukes got revenge in the playoffs with a victory over the Tribe in Williamsburg.

After Laycock initially announced his retirement in August, Matthews said he always enjoyed the on-field battles with William & Mary and grouped Laycock along with former Florida coach Steve Spurrier and current Duke coach David Cutcliffe as the three best offensive play-callers he ever coached against.

“I would tell our staff this when we would prepare the week of William & Mary,” Matthews said, “... William & Mary was not going to beat themselves. We would have to beat them and I would tell our team that on Sunday and then we would have a really tough week of preparation because we knew they weren’t going to make mistakes.

“But Jimmye did a great job. He graduated kids and I had a lot of respect for him. We got close.”

The mutual respect led to a lifelong friendship. Matthews and Laycock make time to catch up with each other.

“I certainly had respected Mickey and the job he had done over the years,” Laycock said. “We played golf when we had the coaches meetings together and he always thought he was a better golfer than he was, but that was Mickey.”

Laycock’s current players said their coach’s exit from a job he’s held almost twice as long as they’ve been alive has been graceful.

“We were all pretty surprised when we got the news just because Coach has been here for so long,” said wide receiver Jack Armstrong, a team captain. “I guess none of us thought that we’d be the class to hear that news, but he was great about telling us when we did.

“He told us during camp and it was pretty clear that he wanted to just get it out of the way so he didn’t want to make it about him. He wanted the season to be about us and have us go about our business.”

Linebacker Arman Jones said William & Mary is fully focused on its season now. The Tribe is 1-1 after a season-opening win at Bucknell and a Week 2 loss at Virginia Tech.

Saturday’s game at JMU is the Colonial Athletic Association opener for William & Mary since last week’s contest against Elon was postponed due to Hurricane Florence.

“We’ve certainly gone up there and have had some memorable games,” Laycock said. “We’ve competed against some outstanding teams and some outstanding players.

“But other than that I’ve tried not to reminisce about too many things because we’re concerned about what we’re going to see up there this weekend.”