JMU and W&M in championship football -- that's news

It’s not just the Hokies and Cavaliers who’ve captured the attention of so many Virginians during this football season. The Dukes and the Tribe have, too.

The Dukes? The Tribe?

That’s right: James Madison University and the College of William & Mary.

Both are NCAA Division I-AA schools who’ve risen to the top this year and have shown that college football in the Old Dominion runs in colors other than blue, orange and maroon.

The JMU purple and gold and the W&M green and yellow met in Williamsburg last Friday – under towering bright lights, no less – to do battle in their division’s national semifinal game, with the victor going to this weekend’s championship game in Chattanooga, Tenn.

The game was played in sweater weather, with intermittent rain that dampened no spirits among the more than 12,000 packed into historic Zable Stadium.

The Dukes won big, thanks in part to five Tribe turnovers, and will take their 48-34 victory to the championship game this Saturday against the Montana Grizzlies, who this past weekend defeated Sam Houston State 34-13.

Both JMU and W&M are Atlantic 10 schools. Both entered their semifinal game with 11-2 records. Neither has ever played in a national football championship. Every fan in the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd knew the stakes at hand.

While the Dukes jumped off to a quick 21-0 lead, the Tribe pulled up to make it a close 21-20 at the half. After the break, however, it was all JMU. They ran. They passed. They blocked. They recovered turnovers.

And it was turnovers that plagued W&M. Four of the five made were turned into JMU touchdowns. The Tribe’s fumbles and interceptions against JMU numbered nearly as many as they made all season.

W&M’s loss was a hard one for coach Jimmye Laycock. This was his 25th season, and he certainly wanted to end it this weekend in Chattanooga rather than last weekend at home against in-state rivals.

For the fans, though, the setting couldn’t have been more electric – literally or figuratively.

You see, the W&M stadium doesn’t have lights. This was the first night game in Zable’s 69-year history. An Iowa-based lighting company trucked four light stanchions halfway across the country and raised them high into the Williamsburg air. They leaned inward over the stadium and lit up the heart of the campus like never before.

The novelty of the night game, not to mention it being one of such import, combined with it being carried on ESPN2 and there being thousands of decked-out wild and crazy fans from both schools made the showdown one to remember.

And as is often the case with big games, more than a few Virginia politicians turned out. Sen. George Allen was there. Gov. Mark Warner, too. And Jerry Kilgore, the state’s attorney general, traveled to Williamsburg to see if his law school alma mater could win the big game at home. There also were a few state delegates and senators scattered about.

It’s exciting to see the Hokies and Cavs go head-to-head in front of 65,000 fans in stadiums that rival those of pro teams. The noise can be deafening, the bands never stop playing, lights are always bright, and the at-stake money is always considerable. It’s also at such Division I games that you see a few who’ll soon be playing on Sundays before nationwide TV audiences.

It’s something altogether different, though, to get revved up in smaller stadiums like Zable and JMU’s Bridgeforth, where shoulder-to-shoulder crowds are every bit as exciting as those packed into Lane and Scott. These are places where you know the football programs aren’t driven – and sometimes corrupted – by the big dollars that underpin the nation’s big college programs. It’s places like Zable, where no seat is a bad one, that alums love to return and relive their own school days long ago, when, they’ll often remark, the stands would be half-filled and championship games nothing but a dream.

Harrisonburg and Williamsburg are historic towns that are home to so many of today’s best and brightest. It’s pretty neat that JMU and W&M – never known as football powerhouses – have brought as much gridiron pride to the Old Dominion this year as bowl-bound UVa and Virginia Tech.

Here’s to a good season for the Dukes and the Tribe. And here’s to hoping this weekend JMU brings home a national championship.