HARRISONBURG — For all the hours Old Dominion players and coaches spent game-planning for James Madison’s elite defense, they couldn’t have envisioned their first two scores Saturday.
On the opening kickoff, Brandon Crutchfield forced a Braeden Wisloski fumble that fellow defensive back Lucas Struck returned 5 yards for a Monarchs touchdown. Later in the first quarter, Colton Joseph hit Tre’ Brown in stride on a slant route, Brown racing 98 yards for a touchdown, the longest play in ODU history and the longest ever allowed by JMU.
But those lightning strikes weren’t nearly enough in a contest that exceeded the Vegas over of 47½ points midway through the second quarter. And the primary culprits — again — were Monarchs turnovers.
Pouncing on three ODU second-half giveaways, the Dukes turned a tense homecoming into a 63-27 demolition and campus-wide party.
The second-half carnage: JMU outscored the Monarchs 35-0 and outgained them 256-10.
Entering Saturday, JMU (6-1, 4-0 Sun Belt) had authored two consecutive second-half shutouts. Moreover, the Dukes had yielded 10 second-half points in their previous four games combined.
That mojo extended to the first play of Saturday’s third quarter, when Amar Thomas leveled Joseph on a play-action deep ball that cornerback Justin Eaglin intercepted at JMU’s 43-yard line. Moments later, Wayne Knight’s 13-yard scamper and Morgan Suarez’s ensuing PAT bumped the margin to 35-27.
After Devin Roche and Struck muffed punts in last week’s setback at Marshall, ODU coach Ricky Rahne tabbed backup quarterback Quinn Henicle to return punts, only to see his third-quarter muff recovered by JMU’s Drew Spinogatti at the Monarchs’ 26.
Alonza Barnett’s 6-yard touchdown run then gave the Dukes their first two-score lead at 42-27. JMU’s incumbent quarterback, Barnett sustained a torn ACL in last year’s regular-season finale, and while his return this soon is remarkable, he had yet to fully display his 2024 form.
Until Saturday, when he was sublime. Barnett accounted for six touchdowns, four rushing and two passing, and 448 yards of total offense. His 8-yard scoring scramble early in the third quarter was set up by Eaglin’s second pick of Joseph.
That’s 21 JMU points off three ODU turnovers.
The Monarchs’ one chance to survive the deluge went awry midway through the third quarter as Brown dropped a perfect Joseph throw that would have produced a 75-yard score and trimmed the Dukes’ margin to 42-34.
In three defeats, ODU (4-3, 1-2) has committed 12 turnovers, a crippling volume that Rahne and Co., must fix if they’re to have a winning season and avoid September’s road rout of Virginia Tech becoming a fleeting memory.
JMU has checked beaucoup boxes since elevating to the Football Bowl Subdivision three years ago, including a 2022 Sun Belt East Division title that the conference declined to acknowledge because the Dukes, as a transitioning program, were postseason-ineligible.
JMU has since earned its first bowl invitation and victory but has yet to play in the Sun Belt championship game. Midway through the league season, the Dukes are overwhelming favorites to scratch that itch come the first Saturday in December.
The game matched not only a nationally ranked offense (ODU) and defense (JMU), but also young, pedigreed coordinators.
Monarchs offensive coordinator Kevin Decker was a standout quarterback for New Hampshire, a Football Championship Subdivision program renowned for spread attacks coordinated by the likes of Chip Kelly (now with the Las Vegas Raiders) and Tim Cramsey (now at the University of Memphis).
Dukes defensive coordinator Colin Hitschler spent last season at Alabama, where he was co-DC in Kalen DeBoer’s first year as head coach and helped the Crimson Tide finish 10th nationally in scoring defense. Prior to Alabama, Hitschler worked six seasons under Luke Fickell, one at Wisconsin and five at Cincinnati, primarily as a defensive backs coach.
Cincinnati’s DC for most of Hitschler’s time there was current Notre Dame big whistle Marcus Freeman, and in 2021, with now-Alabama DC Kane Wommack running the defense, the Bearcats authored an undefeated regular season and became the only Group of Five team to reach the four-team College Football Playoff.
ODU’s task at hand is to prevent this two-game slide from spiraling. In each of the past seven seasons, four under Rahne and three under Bobby Wilder, the Monarchs have endured at least one losing streak of three or more games.
David Teel, david.teel@virginiamedia.com
