The talk at the beginning of this season was how many Football Championship Subdivision (the lower level of Division I football) schools from the Colonial Athletic Association could end up beating teams from the Football Bowl Subdivision’s Atlantic Coast Conference. We heard a lot of the pundits talking about how the CAA was catching up to the FBS ranks and how it may be as good as the ACC. Well, any sane individual would have noticed that the bottom rung of the ACC was the teams that lost (or almost lost) to the ranks of the CAA.
However, I am a Hokie graduate, and I happen to have a younger brother who is a senior at James Madison University. Over the past few years since Virginia Tech and JMU met on the football field (43-0 Hokies in 2003 and 47-0 in 1999) JMU has won a FCS National Championship, held high FCS rankings, and progressed deep into the FCS playoffs. Since that 2003 meeting, JMU fans have been touting their program and trying to muster up all of the logical reasoning they can to say that JMU could somehow take down Virginia’s powerhouse — the Hokies. Interestingly, there hasn’t been any proof as to why that may not be the case. Has JMU football surpassed the University of Virginia? Could the Dukes compete on a good level with Virginia Tech? Do the JMU fans have a reasonable argument that they could fit in the ACC just as well as Maryland or UVa?
We’re about to find out in 2010.
The Hokie in me says that Tech taking the field next season will be as good as the 1999 season and better than the 2003 season. The Duke in my brother says that it may compete with the Hokies and stay within a score (referencing our horrible performance against Furman in 2008).
JMU is building an elite football facility — perhaps the best in the nation for an FCS program. JMU is pushing its athletics to be on par with some of those in the FBS ranks. It’s time for both schools to “put up or shut up.”
I’m glad to see this match up. I just hope our Hokies show up and prove why we’ve been ACC Champions so frequently. Alternatively, this is also JMU’s chance to show UVa and the college football world that perhaps it is bigger than the CAA, bigger than the FCS, and perhaps deserving of a spot in a prime FBS conference. Tech’s little brother up I-81 has learned a lot from Tech’s past and passion for football. Let’s just make sure it stays our “little brother.”
Matthew T. Bolling
class of 2006
computer engineering
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No they don't
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you can't be serious.
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If we wanted to leave our starters in we could hang 100 on JMU. D1-AA schools are what, 5-189 against 1-a schools in the past 5 years? This is a joke of a game.
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Thank God for the internet...to keep track of what people say....
JMU 21 VT 16
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