head coach Mickey Matthews James Madison University (1999-2013) Born: Nov. 8, 1953 Year at JMU: 14th Career Year: 14th Graduate of: West Texas State 1976 Hometown: Andrews, Texas JMU, Career Record: 103-65 (.613) During his 14 seasons, Mickey Matthews has firmly established James Madison University football among the nation’s leading Football Championship Subdivision programs. While becoming the winningest coach in JMU football history, he has led the Dukes to an NCAA championship (2004) and to five other playoff appearances (1999, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2011). Matthews has an 103-65 (.613) JMU record and during the 2008 season surpassed Challace McMillin’s (1972-84) program record for wins. McMillin, JMU’s first football coach, had a 67-56-1 mark. Matthews’ teams are 76-34 during the last nine years and have won the program’s national title and received five postseason bids during that time. JMU tied for the 2004 Atlantic 10 championship and won the 2008 Colonial Athletic Association title with an 8-0 record. The Dukes are 50-22 in league play during the last nine seasons. Matthews three times has been National Coach of the Year (1999 Eddie Robinson Award by The Sports Network; American Football Coaches’ 2004 award; 2008 Robinson Award and an award by Liberty Mutual) and was Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year in 1999 and CAA Coach of the Year in 2008. JMU in 2004 was 13-2 and the first team to reach the Division I-AA title game with three road wins. JMU won at Lehigh (14-13), Furman (14-13) and William & Mary (48-34) and beat Montana (31-21) for the national crown. The 13 wins set a team season record. JMU’s 2004 losses were to nationally-ranked Division I-A West Virginia and to a William & Mary team it later beat during the playoffs. The Dukes beat four nationally ranked teams during the regular season. JMU reached the 2006 playoffs while going 9-3 and 2007 post-season play while going 8-4. The Dukes in 2008 lost their opener at Football Bowl Subdivision Duke but went on to a 10-1 regular-season record and the top seeding in the NCAA playoffs. JMU tied its team record with 12 straight wins, set a team mark for regular-season wins, and was the nation’s top-ranked team from late September through the end of the regular season. The Dukes played three playoff games at home and reached the national semifinals. Matthews led JMU to a share of the Atlantic 10 title and to the league’s automatic playoff bid in 1999 during his first year as a head coach. The Dukes were 8-3 during the regular season after being 3-8 the previous year.
Fame.
In 2004 he was Virginia Coach of the Year by the state’s sports information directors and the Norfolk and Portsmouth sports clubs, Division I-AA Coach of the Year by the All-America Football Foundation, and recipient of the Amarillo (Texas) Chamber of Commerce’s Achievement Award. In 2006, he was the Richmond Touchdown Club’s Virginia Coach of the Year. Last year, Matthews was inducted into the West Texas State Athletic Hall of
***** Matthews’ JMU players have received nine league player of the year awards. Curtis Keaton was league Offensive Player of the Year and Chris Morant Defender of the Year in 1999; Derrick Lloyd was co-Defender of the Year and received the Buck Buchanan Award as National Defender of the Year in 2001; Tony LeZotte was league Defender of the Year in 2005 and 2007; Akeem Jordan was league Defender of the Year and National Defender of the Year by College Sporting News in 2006; Rodney Landers was league Offensive Player of the Year and Scotty
McGee league Specialist of the Year in 2008; and Arthur Moats was league Defender of the Year and received the Buck Buchanan Award as national Defender of the Year in 2009. Jordan was second in the Buchanan Award voting in 2006 and Landers was second in the voting for the Walter Payton Award in 2008. Last season, Stephon Robertson was the CAA Defensive Player of the Year and eighth in the Buchanan Award voting and second among underclassmen. ***** Matthews was introduced as JMU’s fifth head coach March 22, 1999, succeeding Alex Wood, who left to become quarterbacks’ coach with the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings. Matthews in 1999 took his JMU job a week before spring practice was to begin, inheriting a team that had won but five of its previous 18 games and was picked to finish next to last in the Atlantic 10. The Dukes lost at Division I-A national runner-up Virginia Tech but then won seven straight games, finished the regular season 8-3 overall and 7-1 in the Atlantic 10 and reached post-season play for the first time in four years. The Dukes were named to 12 spots on the league’s three all-star teams, and Keaton and Morant receiving Player of the Year honors was the first time in the league since 1980 that teammates won the awards. Never before had the same program gotten both player awards and the coaching honor. *****
The Matthews Family (left to right): son-in-law Ken Wells, Meredith Anne, Kay, granddaughter Taylor, Clayton, grandson Jackson, Mickey
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