Ties Bind Non-CAA Foes To James Madison
HARRISONBURG — The three head coaches of non-conference opponents James Madison football faces in 2017 all have ties to the Dukes.
Whether it’s coach-to-coach or coach-to-player, East Carolina, East Tennessee State and Norfolk State are familiar with JMU in some capacity.
Starting with the Pirates, who host JMU in the season opener on Sept. 2, their coach, Scottie Montgomery, knows Dukes wide receiver Terrence Alls. The 6-foot-1, 195-pound pass catcher played for Montgomery when they were both at Duke. Montgomery was the offensive coordinator for the Blue Devils.
“I know Terrence really well,” Montgomery said. “He’s tremendously talented and has a huge catch radius. Down the field he makes all the plays especially over his outside shoulder. He’s a really talented wide receiver.”
Alls made 39 catches for 575 yards and five touchdowns in his first season at JMU last fall.
In a 2015 game for Duke against Miami, Alls made five catches for 45 yards. All five catches came on passes from quarterback Thomas Sirk. Recently, Sirk transferred from Duke to East Carolina and could be the starting quarterback for the Pirates on that first Saturday in September.
JMU wide receivers coach Drew Dudzik was an offensive grad assistant at Duke when Montgomery was the offensive coordinator there,too.
East Tennessee State comes to JMU on Sept. 9 for the Dukes’ home opener. ETSU coach Carl Torbush said he’s known JMU coach Mike Houston, offensive coordinator Donnie Kirkpatrick, defensive coordinator Bob Trott and strength coach John Williams for quite some time.
“I’m a great fan of Mike Houston because I’ve seen him,” Torbush said. “I view him as a high school coach because I watched his career develop from high school coach to assistant coach at Lenoir-Rhyne to head coach at Lenoir-Rhyne to head coach at The Citadel to head coach at James Madison.
“He’s won everywhere he’s been. It’s a success story.”
Torbush said he first met Kirkpatrick in the mid-1980s when Kirkpatrick was an assistant at Appalachian State, and Trott in 1990 when Trott was an assistant at Clemson. Williams was the assistant strength coach at North Carolina when Torbush was the Tar Heels’ head coach (1998-2000).
Torbush’s offensive coordinator Mike O’Cain worked the 2013 season at JMU as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.
Lastly, Norfolk State coach Latrell Scott was the tight ends coach at JMU in 2012 under ex-Dukes coach Mickey Matthews. Scott also worked with Trott and JMU inside linebackers coach Byron Thweatt when he was the coach at Richmond in 2010.
“Coach Houston did a nice job of putting together a great staff,” Scott said.