COACH MATTHEWS Q&A XX JMU’s Program After His First 13 Seasons We’ve had a great run with the success that we’ve had on the field and the consistent quality program that we’ve be able to develop, and credit has to be given in many areas. We’ve gotten tremendous support from our university and athletics administrations; our support staffs give us outstanding assistance; and the JMU Nation -- our students, alumni and other fans -- have great enthusiasm for our program and interest in what we’re doing. We’ve been able to take advantage of the tremendous potential that always has existed in the JMU football program. We have a nationally recognized academic institution with a beautiful campus and dedicated people. Combining those ingredients with a hard-working coaching staff and talented student-athletes hopefully can allow us to continue to build on the success that we’ve enjoyed. Our recruiting continues to improve. We feel that if we can get a recruit to visit on game day and see the atmosphere that we have surrounding our games and our facilities, we have a great chance of signing him.
sions. I really like the leadership Jeff Durden (offensive coordinator) provides, and Kyle Gillenwater (defensive coordinator) has been here since my hiring and will do an excellent job in his new role. Our coaches have great rapport with our players, and I think that shows on Saturdays in how we play. We’ve had a lot of stability. You’re going to have movement on a staff; you can’t hide good coaches. It’s a huge compliment that so many people have inquired about our assistants. Chris Malone took over as our offensive line coach after splitting the responsibilities the year before, and we didn’t lose a thing there. We lost Joe Danna (secondary coach in 2007) but brought in Mark Hendricks. They’re very similar, and our coaches had worked with Mark in camps. We thought we knew what we were getting. He’s fit in well and we’re excited to have him. Tony LeZotte has been another excellent addition to our staff, as his experience as a player here at JMU is well documented so he understands how we do things. He’s a highly qualified young coach who relates to our players and who will recruit well.
His Philosophy For A Successful Program
JMU’s Athletic Performance Center
Our first focus is to graduate every player. They’re here to go to school. A lot of coaches give lip service to that, but our players will find out in a hurry how serious I am about us going to school; I want every youngster to graduate. Secondly, I want to make sure everyone has a good time, really work at it. I’m easy to get along with, and our staff is that way. I want to make sure they have a good time because I tell all the players this will be the best time of their lives, being a college football player and attending JMU. The third thing is that while we’re graduating everybody and everybody is having a good time, we’ll try to win football games. Believe me, winning is important; that’s why they have the scoreboard. Winning has to be something you think about every day. Winning has to be something you don’t talk about, you have to train yourself to do it. And our youngsters will do it, believe me.
His Staff It’s a fact on the FCS level that if you win, you’re going to have turnover on your staff. We’ve been fortunate here that we’ve kept much of our staff together for several years. I like our staff. It’s a close-knit group that works well together. We have the best group of recruiters that we’ve had, and they continue to do a solid job. Our two coordinators are very solid, are excellent leaders, are intelligent and good organizers, and make excellent game deci-
Not only is the Plecker Athletic Performance Center the top FCS facility in the nation, it’s a top-40 end zone facility. The fact that we can combine our locker room, our strength and conditioning area, our academic support areas, our sports medicine area, and our office areas under one roof allows us to accomplish so much more than what we were able to do in the past. More than anything else, the completion of the facility demonstrates the university’s commitment to having a first-class football program. It speaks volumes to the players we would like to recruit to our program and to the outside world. We’ve always had a beautiful campus to recruit to; putting the facility on top of that is extremely advantageous for our recruitment of student-athletes.
JMU’s Stadium Expansion We have an excellent playing facility in the renovated Bridgeforth Stadium/Zane Showker Field. We’ve gotten outstanding support during recent seasons, and moving to nearly 25,000 seats allows our program to continue to develop and for more of our fans to enjoy everything that’s included in JMU football. Not only is there be increased seating, but everything included in the expansion should make for a more enjoyable experience for everyone involved with JMU football.
His Offensive Philosophy We strive to be balanced because offensive football always has been about taking advantage of your available personnel. We want to be known as a multiple offensive football team that presents preparation problems to our opponents. We have a wide-open philosophy that our fans enjoy, but we don’t sacrifice solid, offensive football principles.
His Defensive Philosophy Our base defense is an eight-man front, and we want to be extremely multiple. We want to blitz and use an attacking front. In pass coverage we play as much man-to-man as our talent allows. We place a premium on speed as opposed to size.
His Recruiting Philosophy We concentrate our recruiting in Virginia, the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore areas, and Eastern Pennsylvania. We hope to attract top student-athletes who are quality football players
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