Tackling Towson for Winning Season
November 19, 2009 • By Dan Lobdell, The Breeze
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Final Saturday at Bridgeforth Stadium for 14 Madison Football Seniors
HARRISONBURG, Va. — For weeks now, redshirt freshman quarterback Justin Thorpe has talked of “holding it down for the seniors” and not using his team’s youth as an excuse for losing or playing inconsistently.
With only one game remaining in this unusual season, the Dukes’ young players will need to hold it down one more time for their senior counterparts to go out as winners. Madison (5-5 overall, 3-4 Colonial Athletic Association) will host Towson on Saturday at 3 p.m. hoping to tally its sixth consecutive winning season.
Against JMU, the oft-injured Tigers (2-8, 1-6) will trot out their fifth different starting quarterback of the year. Redshirt freshman Brian Potts will stand in against a Madison defensive line led by seniors Arthur Moats and Sam Daniels.
Moats and Daniels will close out their standout careers against one of the most porous lines in the CAA. Towson has started nine different offensive line combinations and 11 different linemen have started games.
Senior right tackle Dan Bridges is the only lineman to start all 10 games for the Tigers. Poor offensive-line play has made Towson the worst offense in the CAA, averaging just 13.6 points and 251 yards. Look for those numbers to be just as bad against the conference’s best pass defense.
Entering his final career game, Moats’ star is shining brightest for the Dukes. He leads the team in tackles (83) and the country in tackles for loss (23.5). He is also a finalist for the national defensive player of the year award.
“Arthur’s one of those guys that’s in a class by himself,” JMU coach Mickey Matthews said Monday in his weekly press conference.
The impact of his last chance to play with his teammates and get a win in front of the home fans is not lost on Moats.
“We would be able to say that we were never losers in college,” Moats said. “We want to keep that tradition alive. I don’t want to go out saying that, ‘Yeah, we broke that tradition with a losing season.’ So we’re gonna make sure we do our best to keep that thing going, and that’s gonna continue.”
JMU entered this year having made the playoffs four of the past five years or as long as any of the seniors had been on the team. Their combined record over five years entering Saturday’s game is 41-18.
contact Dan Lobdell at breezesports@gmail.com
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