No. 7 JMU crushes No. 15 Towson, 38-17 in the regular season finale

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https://towsontigers.com/news/2018/11/17/-15-16-football-falls-in-regular-season-finale-vs-7-8-jmu.aspx

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Despite the loss, things worked out well. Stony Brook got shocked today at Albany, Elon lost at Maine, and Delaware blown out at home. Sure, I'm sure they'll figure out a way to keep us out. We did get thrashed by a bad Villanova team and beat up on Albany up there. So while this is an excruciating loss and we got our asses kicked, we have not suffered a bad loss. JMU is the best team in the conference, especially now that Maine may have lost their quarterback.

More quotes later.

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The previously winless in conference Albany Scooby-Doo’s beat Stony Brook today. That’s a BAD L for SB. We have the same record as SB, & blew them head-to-head. How, I ask rhetorically, would we not get in ahead of SB?

Elon lost today (albeit close L). We have a better record then Elon, AND blew them out head-to-head. I know they beat JMU, but I again rhetorically ask how would we not get in ahead of Elon?

Delaware got blown out today by Villanova, who we beat earlier. Last week they lost to SB. Of course, they did beat us (in a close game) head-to-head.

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The game that will sting all offseason no matter what happens is the Delaware game. That likely caused our poor first half in the so-called hangover effect against Maine. We're better than Delaware and blew a two TD lead in the second half. That showed our weakness defensively. and we got exploited after that big-time.

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Ambrose opening statement
I sat in my office and decided what I was going to say and didn't come up with anything good. I'm proud of our seniors. Coming from where they came from to pull of the year they did, considering what everybody else believed we weren't, I'm very proud of them. I said welcome to the family for real. They are part of the club, will graduate and will be Tigers for life. I wish we could have sent them out on a better note.

We played a great team today and while I still believe we had the ability to beat them, not with the way we played (today), we made way too many mistakes. We lost the turnover battle. You can't do that in this league against this competition. Good regular season year, much improved regular season year, I don't think anybody in this room would have given us a shot in hell of beating the teams we did beat, certainly not by the way we beat them. But man I wish we could have gotten this win. Mike (Houston) has a great team, great players, great coaches. They are the class of the league. They set the standard and the bar; we're all chasing it.

Run defense
First half again. I have to go back and watch the tape to see who missed their gaps. Giving up big plays. From the hip in my estimation, for some guys, this game was a little too big for them. They don't have enough experience of playing against a team of this caliber that means this much to understand that they don't have to do anything other than their job. And do it as well as they can do it. We live in a world where you can pick up your phone and see everybody's highlights. You don't see the consistency and the grind that got him to that highlight. That's a hard lesson to learn when you don't have that experience in your back pocket. With that being said, I'm very proud of the way (the defense) played in the second half. They really played well. We got beat in all three phases of the game by a very good football team.

Stopping the run is a point of emphasis as long as you breathe. At times we did that very well, at times we did that subpar and that really hurt us.

Flacco on JMU and the magnitutde of that game
I know that JMU is a very good team going in. Watching film. Last week, was a win-or-go home game against Elon and we felt the same way here. Our offense could have played better. We didn't and have to move on. Hopefully we get a chance to play next week. We beat ourselves today. 

On 500 yards of offense, just 17 points
We've struggled with that all season. We always get drives going but then even against Elon, we tripped up at the 30-yard line. Even this week, we didn't have great field position a couple of times but we just stumbled past the 50 yard line. It starts with my decision-making. A couple of times I made some poor decisions that put us in bad situations. I need to get better down there for sure.

On JMU's secondary
I don't like to compare. They were good. No 6 was one of the better players. He goes everywhere. 

Ambrose
I say their pass rush was better than Maine and that's a high compliment. He (Tom) didn't exactly have all the time in the world to throw.

Flacco on front 7
Those guys are athletic up front. Something I need to work on. They were bringing their ends up and had a spy. On that fumble, it was a draw and the spy came up and I was surprised to see him. Usually guys slip off me annd today they weren't. No. 52 (Landon Word) was very long. He was able to get to me a couple of times.

Ambrose On JMU's size
They are two inches taller than us across the board. Size, length, speed. Two inches make a big difference in our league when you are trying to escape somebody.

Ambrose on next week
I really don't want to imagine a scenario where we are not playing next week. All of us don't want it to end. But considering what we've done this year, no way in hell do I want to imagine not playing next week. Biggest takeaway? We have good players, everybody has good players. It's what you do from January until the time you start taking snaps in September for real that make all the difference. That applies to everybody who ever coaches this game and everybody who ever plays this game. The biggest diffrence is made in the offseason. Our guys had a tremendous offseason because they got tired of losing and it paid off big time. And we beat quality opponents, top 10 opponents. We whupped top 10 opponents. Don't get me wrong, we are not a finished product. We are still a work in progress. But this ship is moving back in the right direction. I love them. There's not a football team in this league I'd rather coach. They are the hardest working, tighest group.

On the difference between this year and 2015
We are going to have the top 10 strongest schedule in the country. I wouldn't have minded playing some of the other guys. I'm ticked we lost. If they let us play football one more game, let us in the playoffs. We are all like brothers in this league. We all beat up on each other all season long. Just let us out of the cage so we can beat up on other people and let  them find out what the crucible of our league is like. That's awesome. That's the difference. We've been tested time and time again, the hottest fire makes the toughest steel. We played great teams in this league and found a way to beat them. We played great teams in this league and found a way to lose close games. I want to play somebody outside this league and let them see what this league is made up nationally.

On QB making the difference
Tons. There's no playoff team in America that gets there with bad quarterback play. They are coaches on the field. He runs the show. Tom and Ryan slugged it out all camp long by just this match. Imagine if you are on a team with a really good quarterback and the guy behind him is that much away. That builds confidence in the team. You can play pretty fast and confident when you have two starters that you can trust and have faith in. Ryan learned a lot from Tom this year. While am I smiling just a little bit? Because God help me if this is the last rep we have to play this year. I'm pretty damn confidence in the guys that are calling thz

We won this game, it's a walk. Now it's counting on smart people to evaluate our resume' and agree that we are one of the top 24 teams in the country and we have proven that time and time again. If we are going to play for the national championship, we are going to have to play one more game than we did in 2013. So be it.

On pressure
This season? Has it been a lot. So has every season since I was a player and a coach. Being successful is a 24-hour life. That's why you see a lot of football players that finish up, that they are very successful men. That they grew up under the umbrella of football to help.

Flacco on next 18 hours
I've never been apart of it. I don't know if I say goodbye to the seniors. I didn't want to say thank you to anybody because we're still going.

Ambrose
Let's be honest. There's not a guy in the locker room that's going to be tonight. There's not a coach, there's not a player that will sit there and stare at the wall. We'll hold our breathe until 12:30 tomorrow.