No. 1 Dukes Are Back In Action Vs. Tribe

Signal-caller Gage Moloney was elevated to starter less than 48 hours later, but since then the Dukes have been quiet. They had two games postponed and were briefly put on pause because of coronavirus issues within the team.

No. 1 JMU (3-0, 1-0 Colonial Athletic Association) returns to game action today, though, traveling to William & Mary (1-1, 1-1 CAA) for a 1 p.m. South Division showdown at Zable Stadium in Williamsburg.

“I feel confident we’ll have enough guys to play,” Dukes coach Curt Cignetti said. “I don’t know who all is going to play. There’s going to be guys not playing that you’re used to seeing. That’s for sure. There’s no doubt about that.”

He said managing the roster has been a daily task with players going into or coming out of protocol.

The virus impacted 28 JMU players as of last week, with 12 testing positive for COVID-19 and 16 others put in protocol due to contact tracing. The pause lasted three days before players resumed strength and conditioning workouts last weekend, and then restarted practice on Monday.

“So you also might be in a situation where you have to play guys before you want to,” Cignetti said. “And really you can speed the learning process up through extra meeting time and stuff like that, but time has to take its course in those matters.”

Similarly, to JMU, William & Mary is coming off of a memorable win over Elon. The Tribe thumped the Phoenix, 31-10, at home last weekend. With a win over the Dukes, William & Mary would move ahead of them in the South Division standings.

“They are a talented team,” William & Mary coach Mike London said of JMU. “And it’s going to be an all-out battle because whoever they bring down here to Williamsburg, rest assured, they’re coming to win the game.”

Cignetti said his program never thought about canceling the rest of the spring campaign. He said his players still want to play and try to achieve their goal of winning a national championship. In spite of not playing the past two weeks, the Dukes remained at No. 1 in both the Stats Perform FCS Top 25 and the FCS Coaches Poll.

He said, if anything, the pause rejuvenated his bunch who have had their problems with slow starts in their last two victories. The Dukes fell behind Elon 17-3 before rallying to win 20-17 and were behind Robert Morris 9-2 and 16-9 in non-conference action on Feb. 27 ahead of a second-half surge that propelled them to win 36-16.

“We should be more mentally fresh than we have been in a while,” Cignetti said. “What I kind of noticed was there was a lot of excitement and energy for the opener and then the next two weeks I saw us set in a little bit. Now we’ve been off and I think the guys are excited to get back on the field, so I think our team appears to be fresh right now.”

He said he pushed the group harder in practice than he normally does during their Monday drills and was going to do that throughout the week to make sure JMU was as prepared as possible for its encounter with William & Mary, which is improving under London.

William & Mary won three of its last four to finish the 2019 season and opened this spring losing closely to Richmond before walloping Elon.

“They’re really playing hard and flying around,” Cignetti said. “They played with great energy against Elon.”

The Coaches: Only Cignetti, London and Delaware coach Danny Rocco held the head gig at another CAA school ahead of taking their current posts. London and Rocco both previously worked at Richmond while Cignetti was in charge at Elon before getting to JMU.

London led Richmond to win the 2008 FCS national championship. He had stops at Virginia and Howard prior to returning to the CAA at William & Mary in 2019. London is 6-8 with William & Mary and 68-69 in his 12 seasons as a head coach.

Cignetti is 84-28 overall and 17-2 at JMU.

The Quarterbacks: Moloney should make his first career start today on the heels of leading a pair of fourth-quarter touchdown drives to push JMU past Elon three weeks ago.

Cignetti said even while JMU was paused, he and his staff were able to prepare Moloney virtually.

“He’s a veteran guy and he knows what it takes,” Cignetti said. “We were able to have Zoom meetings with the guys and [offensive coordinator Shane] Montgomery coached [Moloney] up on our past games and the games we have coming up.”

The fourth-year junior has less experience than his counterpart, William & Mary sophomore quarterback Hollis Mathis. Last season, Mathis didn’t play against JMU, but he has started 13 games in his career and is only getting better.

Mathis hasn’t thrown an interception in his last 92 passing attempts.

“[Mathis] does a great job of delivering the ball,” Cignetti said. “Really extends plays and makes plays with his legs. He’s very sudden. Very quick. Quick release. Extremely accurate and he’s really a threat.”

Series History: Today’s meeting will be the 43rd between the two in-state foes. JMU leads the all-time series 25-17 and has won each of the last four contests convincingly, with an average margin of 29.5 points.

Shutdown Second Halves: Though the Dukes have started slow in two of their three games, their defense has been beyond superb in the second half throughout the season, which has allowed the team to build its comebacks.

In three second halves this spring (90 minutes total) against Morehead State, Robert Morris and Elon, JMU has limited opponents to 89 total yards of offense while those opponents have converted only 3-of-19 third-down attempts. Opponents have been limited to -29 rushing yards during the second half also.

And looking closely at the fourth quarter of the three games, JMU stifled those opponents. Those teams combined for -10 total yards of offense and -32 rushing yards against the Dukes’ defense in the fourth quarter.

Newcomer To Watch: William & Mary freshman running back Malachi Imoh, a product of John Handley High School in Winchester, was stellar a week ago when he rushed for 137 yards and three touchdowns on 10 carries to spark the Tribe.

“He’s going to be a future star here because he can flat out go,” London said.

London said Imoh is one of the fastest players on William & Mary’s roster.

“He took our offense a long ways in terms of his explosive runs, he create spaces and helped us with our ground game,” London said.

Don’t Be Surprised If: JMU needs a player it’s not accustomed to counting on to start or make a big play against William & Mary.

“In this day in age, you’ve got your plans and then you’ve got to make your adjustments based on who all is available,” Cignetti said.