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Won't have to wait 5 games into the season this year to find out who the starting QB is/wait for one to get injured so that Mickey can make up his mind.

Mickey Matthews says Drew Dudzik will be James Madison's starting quarterback when the Dukes open the 2010 season next September.

Matthews notified Dudzik, a rising senior, and sophomore Justin Thorpe of his decision on Tuesday afternoon.

"I just thought it was time to do it," Matthews said when reached by phone Tuesday night.

http://www.whsv.com/sports/headlines/92 ... ml?ref=054" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

DJ - is this good or bad news in your opinion? I didn't really follow JMU after the wheels fell off midseason - I know the names, but not much about their respective performances last season.

Its always better to name the starter after spring if possible. Albany has a 3-horse race still going on. Now they'll be battling through the summer camp with no real leader to emerge.

ASUG8 wrote:DJ - is this good or bad news in your opinion? I didn't really follow JMU after the wheels fell off midseason - I know the names, but not much about their respective performances last season.

I’m not so sure that Dudzik is so much better than Thorpe to warrant a one-year thing like this. A lot of JMU fans have had a complete hard-on for him since the Montana game in ’08, and in some games last year (Maryland especially) he looked better than Thorpe, but then others like Hofstra he looked as bad if not worse than Thorpe.

When Dudzik was finally injured for the year, Thorpe’s first three games as a starter were against a national quarterfinalist, national champion, and a national semifinalist, and if not for him dangling the ball out we probably would have beaten Richmond. He improved enough to lead the offense, but I was never as comfortable with Thorpe playing last year as I was Dudzik. Their stats were pretty similar, Thorpe just had a lot more interceptions (if I can find, I'll post).

I just have a hard time feeling its justified to put a senior with roughly equivalent playing time and numbers over a sophomore who could start for three years.

This is good IMO per what DF described. I don't think the uncertainty at the QB position bodes well for the QBs nor the rest of the team. This will give Dudzik more time to get reps with the first team. I'm not so sure about the pick for Dudzik. On one hand, the kid can play ball and definitely looked better than Thorpe last year before Dudzik got hurt. On the other hand, Thorpe got better towards the end of the year and has a season under his belt leading the team. I trust Mickey


EDIT: and what DJ above me said

And the career stats to say this isn't completely justified:

In Games Completions Attempts Percent Yards TDs Ints Rating Rushing Attempts Rush Yards Yds/Carry and TDs

Thorpe: 11 78 136 57.35% 1260 6 9 136.5 148 654 4.41 5
Dudzik: 26 50 89 56.18% 643 8 3 139.8 76 402 5.29 5

DukeJack wrote:And the career stats to say this isn't completely justified:

In Games Completions Attempts Percent Yards TDs Ints Rating Rushing Attempts Rush Yards Yds/Carry and TDs

Thorpe: 11 78 136 57.35% 1260 6 9 136.5 148 654 4.41 5
Dudzik: 26 50 89 56.18% 643 8 3 139.8 76 402 5.29 5

Wow - looks like a coin toss on this one.

DukeJack wrote:And the career stats to say this isn't completely justified:

In Games Completions Attempts Percent Yards TDs Ints Rating Rushing Attempts Rush Yards Yds/Carry and TDs

Thorpe: 11 78 136 57.35% 1260 6 9 136.5 148 654 4.41 5
Dudzik: 26 50 89 56.18% 643 8 3 139.8 76 402 5.29 5

Looking at Dudzik's numbers. Guessing he has played 1 or 2 series only in a number of his appearances?

green&gold75 wrote:

DukeJack wrote:And the career stats to say this isn't completely justified:

In Games Completions Attempts Percent Yards TDs Ints Rating Rushing Attempts Rush Yards Yds/Carry and TDs

Thorpe: 11 78 136 57.35% 1260 6 9 136.5 148 654 4.41 5
Dudzik: 26 50 89 56.18% 643 8 3 139.8 76 402 5.29 5

Looking at Dudzik's numbers. Guessing he has played 1 or 2 series only in a number of his appearances?

Yup, lot of games where he was just in there and did nothing at all, ran the ball once or ran one series as QB.

ASUG8 wrote:

DukeJack wrote:And the career stats to say this isn't completely justified:

In Games Completions Attempts Percent Yards TDs Ints Rating Rushing Attempts Rush Yards Yds/Carry and TDs

Thorpe: 11 78 136 57.35% 1260 6 9 136.5 148 654 4.41 5
Dudzik: 26 50 89 56.18% 643 8 3 139.8 76 402 5.29 5

Wow - looks like a coin toss on this one.

Yep, and it goes back to thread a few days ago - all things being equal, do you start the freshmen or the senior?

JMU DJ wrote:

green&gold75 wrote:
Looking at Dudzik's numbers. Guessing he has played 1 or 2 series only in a number of his appearances?

Yup, lot of games where he was just in there and did nothing at all, ran the ball once or ran one series as QB.

Makes more sense. Thanks.

Means little if Dudzik can't stay healthy. I'm not convinced he can run the offense Mickey wants to run (where the QB handles the ball a lot of the time) and not get hurt.

GannonFan wrote:Means little if Dudzik can't stay healthy. I'm not convinced he can run the offense Mickey wants to run (where the QB handles the ball a lot of the time) and not get hurt.

Honestly I'm not sure any QB we have right now is able to play that offense. We were a much more diversified offense with Rascati and then switched to this very heavy run approach with Landers, and after he left Mickey kept it. It puts a lot more wear and tear on any QB who isn't built like a bull and these little nagging injuries with Dudzik finally caught up to him. Unless Mickey makes it a priority to bring the pass-run ratio closer to 50:50, we are going to have some big problems with QB injuries the next few years.

Screamin_Eagle174 wrote:

You've been jacking it quite a bit lately, SE. Watch out for carpel tunnel.

DukeJack wrote:

GannonFan wrote:Means little if Dudzik can't stay healthy. I'm not convinced he can run the offense Mickey wants to run (where the QB handles the ball a lot of the time) and not get hurt.

Honestly I'm not sure any QB we have right now is able to play that offense. We were a much more diversified offense with Rascati and then switched to this very heavy run approach with Landers, and after he left Mickey kept it. It puts a lot more wear and tear on any QB who isn't built like a bull and these little nagging injuries with Dudzik finally caught up to him. Unless Mickey makes it a priority to bring the pass-run ratio closer to 50:50, we are going to have some big problems with QB injuries the next few years.

Even under Rascati JMU ran the ball a lot - the ratio when he was QB was something like 75% run, really not that different than now. The only thing that changed was how the ball was run and the recent shift to the belly-read-option offense is really the only difference. I'm not sure JMU has the horses in the backfield or on the line to go back to a more traditional run offense like they had under Rascati, and really, neither Dudzik or Thorpe are the passers he was so it may not really matter.

GannonFan wrote:

DukeJack wrote:
Honestly I'm not sure any QB we have right now is able to play that offense. We were a much more diversified offense with Rascati and then switched to this very heavy run approach with Landers, and after he left Mickey kept it. It puts a lot more wear and tear on any QB who isn't built like a bull and these little nagging injuries with Dudzik finally caught up to him. Unless Mickey makes it a priority to bring the pass-run ratio closer to 50:50, we are going to have some big problems with QB injuries the next few years.

Even under Rascati JMU ran the ball a lot - the ratio when he was QB was something like 75% run, really not that different than now. The only thing that changed was how the ball was run and the recent shift to the belly-read-option offense is really the only difference. I'm not sure JMU has the horses in the backfield or on the line to go back to a more traditional run offense like they had under Rascati, and really, neither Dudzik or Thorpe are the passers he was so it may not really matter.

Difference is, Rascati was about a 67% pass, 33 % Run.

Thorpe is 50-50.

The run game that you saw under Rascati was split over four people, 3 RB and Rascati. Rascati wasn't the leading rusher, didn't get the most carries, etc.

Thorpe led the team in rushing yards, carries, rushing TDs and pretty much only split carries with one other RB.

Grizalltheway wrote:

Screamin_Eagle174 wrote:

You've been jacking it quite a bit lately, SE. Watch out for carpel tunnel.

Don't worry, I'm a pro. I sport a wrist-guard.

JMU DJ wrote:

GannonFan wrote:
Even under Rascati JMU ran the ball a lot - the ratio when he was QB was something like 75% run, really not that different than now. The only thing that changed was how the ball was run and the recent shift to the belly-read-option offense is really the only difference. I'm not sure JMU has the horses in the backfield or on the line to go back to a more traditional run offense like they had under Rascati, and really, neither Dudzik or Thorpe are the passers he was so it may not really matter.

Difference is, Rascati was about a 67% pass, 33 % Run.

Thorpe is 50-50.

The run game that you saw under Rascati was split over four people, 3 RB and Rascati. Rascati wasn't the leading rusher, didn't get the most carries, etc.

Thorpe led the team in rushing yards, carries, rushing TDs and pretty much only split carries with one other RB.

Oh, I agree - I certainly think the change in the offense has been to make the QB much more featured in the running game, hence the danger for Dudzik, in that offense, to get hurt yet again. I don't think there's a stable of RB's like there was in '04 for JMU to change that now so there'll still be more QB running again this year.

Know this thread is over a week old, but here goes:
Under Rascati
04': 29.4% pass (753 run, 314 pass). Rascati & Matt Lezotte 10.0 carries per game (15 games, 150 attempts).
05': 31.6% pass (486 run, 225 pass). Rascatti 7.1 carries per game (11 games, 78 attempts)
06': 32.5% pass (493 run, 237 pass). Rascati 9.5 carries per game (12 games, 114 attempts)

Under Landers:
07': 26.4% pass (595 run, 214 pass). Landers 18.6 carries per game (12 games, 223 attempts)
08': 22.7% pass (689 run, 219 pass). Landers 19.1 carries per game (14 games, 268 attempts) (and if he plays 2nd half against Montana, it would have likely been over 20 per game)

Thorpe/Dudzik:
09': 28.9% pass (485 run, 197 pass). Thorpe/Dudzik 16.7 carries per game (11 games, 184 attempts) (alot of that was due to Thorpe's tucking and running 1/2 the time he went back to pass the 1st 7 games of the season.

JMU probably called close to 40% pass last yr. Only were sacked 18 times (which count as running plays). But Thorpe in his 1st 7 games (up until UD) literally tucked and ran on close to 1/2 his pass plays. JMU has 3 good tailbacks coming back (Yancey, Sullivan, Noble) but no great ones. Next season I imagine under Dudzik we'll see JMU also call about 40% pass plays, but with similar on the sacks much less tuck and run, will show a pass/run ratio of about 35%/65%. If Dudzik gets hurt, under Thorpe will probably be more like called 35% pass, but with the more tucking and running, a pass/run of about 25/75.