When I arrived home Saturday evening from this debacle, my hands still
chilled into claw shapes from sitting in rain with temperatures in the mid-50s,
my wife said, “I told the kids you’ll be in a bad mood.” Nope. I never
react to dire situations with anger, because when things hit the fan, you have
to stay cool, not pitch a temper tantrum. And a loss to JMU qualifies as a dire
situation.

This isn’t a missed opportunity against a top-ten team. This is the exact
opposite, a home loss to a 1-AA school. What this means, and what will happen
next, can’t be plumbed at this point. All I can do is tell you what went wrong
Saturday, and what it tells us about where we are right now. Projecting beyond
that is just guesswork.

First, let’s break it down into the small picture, and analyze the specific
reasons this shocking loss occurred. The coaches have said “blocking and
tackling,” and they are correct. But I’ll go into a little bit more detail.

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