JMU football (4-1, 0-1 SBC) wasn’t its best Saturday, and the Dukes paid the price. A sloppy performance on the road at ULM (4-1, 2-0 SBC) led to JMU’s first loss of the season.

Let’s break down the 21-19 loss, dishing out grades for a disappointing game. As a reminder, we use Pro Football Focus to help us assign grades.

Offense

JMU scored just 19 points, failing to finish drives consistently. The Dukes did amass 399 yards, so it wasn’t all bad.

The biggest issue here, and why the unit receives a poor grade, were the self-inflicted mistakes. The team committed 11 penalties, with five being false starts. That’s an ungodly number of false starts.

The Dukes also dropped three passes and gave up a defensive touchdown on a fumble return. Sure, JMU moved the ball at times and nearly put up 400 yards of offense, but it’s really hard to win on the road in conference when making so many silly errors.

JMU’s offense largely beat itself Saturday. Credit to ULM’s defense for stepping up and locking down JMU receivers for much of the night, something UNC and Ball State couldn’t. The Warhawks played stout defense, but JMU’s unforced errors were drive killers.

Still, a few players had nice showings. Some of the offensive linemen did more than hold their own. Also, left guard Carter Sweazie exiting the game early and only playing five snaps hurt. He had been coming on strong in recent games and his presence was missed. The right side of the offensive line graded out well on PFF, with RG Cole Potts and RT Pat McMurtrie both grading out over 70. 

Grade: D

PFF MVP: RT Pat McMurtrie, 80.2 grade

Defense

There’s not much to dislike here, as the defense forced a pair of turnovers and held ULM to 14 offensive points and under 300 yards. Lyle Hemphill’s unit continues to be a force against G5 teams.

LB Trent Hendrick (78.5 PFF grade) played maybe his best game of the fall, making solid tackles in space and showing why coaches love the junior. Jacob Thomas also had another solid showing (72.8 PFF grade and an INT) at the safety spot. He’s been a standout in his junior season.

Still, there were a few rough plays. The cornerbacks at times struggled in one-on-one opportunities, and the tackling angles taken on ULM’s lengthy TD run were not good. ULM converted 40% of its third downs and 100% of its fourth downs. The Warhawks went 8-17 (47%) on third and fourth downs. JMU needed to be better at ending drives.

The defense played well enough to win, but it wasn’t quite an A-level performance in my book.

Grade: B+

PFF MVP: DE Eric O’Neill, 89.8 grade

Special teams

Everyone will point to the weird squib kick/onside kick thing as a bad play — that’s fair — but this unit was otherwise fine and that’s more of a coaching error. Chase Regan continues to be a monster on special teams, recovering a muffed punt to set JMU up with great field position.

Noe Ruelas hit both of his field goal attempts. Ryan Hanson shanked one punt, but overall the unit played fine. It wasn’t the reason JMU lost.

Grade: B-

Coaching

JMU executed poorly. That leads to blame for the players and the coaches. This looked more like the Gardner-Webb showing than UNC or Ball State. What went wrong?

Chesney said the Dukes struggled with noise on the snap counts, yet they probably won’t play in a crowd with fewer fans the rest of the month … or season. The environment was sleepy, although Chesney said music playing hampered the snap count and led to false starts. Regardless, you can’t lose games because of crowd noise leading to procedural issues. It’s one thing to have a team beat you in between the whistles, it’s another to beat yourself before plays even start.

Offensive play calling and execution didn’t seem married in this game, with the Dukes not adjusting well to ULM bringing pressure up the middle. The two-point conversion attempt to tie the game was a designed slant route to Cam Ross in tight coverage. Ross is a quality wide receiver with elite quickness, but he also leads the Dukes in dropped passes this season with five. Was trying to find him in a tight window the best play for that moment?

And certainly, it’s easy to second guess if Chesney should’ve changed his aggressive fourth-down approach. The Dukes passed up field goal attempts of 39 and 54 yards in the game, instead opting to go for each fourth down. Neither converted, giving ULM the ball. In a defensive battle, it’s fair to wonder if the Dukes should’ve been more content with the occasional field goal, given ULM’s offensive woes.

As for the weird onside kick in the final five minutes, it’s hard to understand what the Dukes thought was going to happen. Clearly, the play didn’t work out according to plan.

Grade: D-

Photo courtesy of JMU Athletics Communications