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Committee on Academic Affairs discusses school’s six-year plan

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Provost Michael Halleran stressed the College of William and Mary’s recent internationalization during the Board of Visitors Academic Affairs session Sept. 22.

Halleran highlighted the new St. Andrew’s University in Scotland exchange program and the Confucius Institute in China. He stated that six percent of the class of 2015 are international students and a growing number of faculty are international as well.

Rick Gressard, chair for the faculty liaison committee, named communication as his main goal.

“I would really like to encourage innovation in our communication and our relationship because if we are not working together in this critical year, I think it could be problematic for all of us,” Gressard said. “We don’t always have to agree but we do have to come across and communicate.”

Gressard stressed the important role that the six-year plan will play in the College’s upcoming year.

“I think the issue that stands out most to me is the six year plan,” Gressard said. “To many, this upcoming year is going to be a very critical year for William and Mary. It is going to define the quality and character of this university, and this is something that the faculty members are obviously invested in.”

While faculty salaries have been an issue of late, Gressard emphasized how the faculty feels about their positions outside of a monetary context.

“If you look at faculty members, why we are here, what we do, this is not just a job for us,” Gressard said. “This is our passion, this is our preoccupation, this is our lifestyle. We are very concerned about the quality of this university, and I do think that the six-year plan, and the response to that in Richmond will be very critical of what we are going to look like.”

Gressard said the faculty understands why salary increases are not necessarily on the table in the near future, but he believes better communication will help both parties understand the issue.

“The faculty have an international and national reputation, so I know what is happening in California and Pennsylvania, so I see the programs that are getting cut,” Gressard said. “On the one hand we say, ‘Oh, it would be nice to get a raise,’ but on the other hand, we see that there are states that are worse off than we are.”

The committee agreed with Gressard to increase communication.

Football commentary: The silver linings from a game that the Tribe should’ve won

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In some ways, a loss is a loss. None of the advancements William and Mary made as a team against James Madison on Saturday night are going to change that tally mark in the right column. No matter how much brighter the rest of the season looks because of the way they played, the Tribe isn’t going to get to the promised land without consistently outperforming its opponents. And if the team is still making bonehead mistakes — like botching field goal snaps and fumbling deep in its own territory — in November, you can forget about football games past.

After playing one obviously stronger opponent and two weaker ones, the College finally got a crack at a team that was supposed to be on its level. If the Tribe wanted to give fans serious hope of a playoff run, it needed to prove it could win games like that. But just because the College lost, it doesn’t mean it can’t. Is it disappointing that Laycock’s squad couldn’t pull out a winnable game? Yes, without question. But the outlook for the remainder of the Tribe’s season looks better because of the advancements made on Saturday.

It all starts with Michael Graham, the sophomore who started at quarterback for the first time in his career. In the beginning, Graham kept up his narrative from the New Haven game, during which he showed he’s a player with the tools to successfully manage an offense and just needs to get more comfortable in the role. Throughout the first three games, Graham turned in decent performances as it became more and more clear that senior Mike Paulus isn’t the quarterback he once was.

Graham needed the opportunity to run a more open offense in order to show that he’s the real deal. He got that chance when junior wide receiver Ryan Moody came into the game into the second half. Apart from having 82 receiving yards himself, Moody’s presence freed up other options for Graham, who looked more comfortable throwing down the field after it had been spread out. In particular, senior wide receiver D.J. Mangas benefitted, nabbing six catches for 102 yards and a touchdown.

Graham isn’t likely to ever drop your jaw behind center. He’s not able to run the offense on his talents alone, and he needs a reliable system around him to be effective. But he did show flashes of brilliance, like on his 10 yard touchdown throw to senior tight end Alex Gottlieb, a throw he made from his back foot and with a man bearing down on him.

Graham will do just fine if his receivers can be more consistent in grabbing catchable balls and if the offensive line can do enough to keep him from running for his life. If the defense plays up to its potential, the offense doesn’t have to dazzle, it just has to be average.

That defense should still leave Tribe fans confident. Yes, the Dukes’s rushing attack was a little more effective than we would have liked to see, but it’s a skilled attack and the Tribe was missing junior linebacker Dante Cook for all but the first few plays. The secondary can’t afford to make mistakes like the one that gave the Dukes an easy 52-yard touchdown going forward, but the unit’s focus was on the rushing attack, not a passing game that only attempted four throws all night.

The Tribe should be much more comfortable with their game on Saturday than with last week’s performance against New Haven. A strong conference opponent shows more about the makeup of this team than a Division II team ever could. Trying to be “1-0 every week,” as junior linebacker Jabrel Mines put it, may be admirable, but the fact of the matter is that the Tribe needs to pay attention to what hasn’t worked thus far in order to figure out what will. Last week’s win was uncomfortable and caused more questions than it answered. Given what they’ve learned from Saturday, Tribe fans should be much more comfortable with 2-2 this week than with 2-1 last week.

New sustainability projects emerge on campus

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Now there’s a responsible place to put that pesky plastic bag left over from a late night Wawa trip. After receiving a $1,000 grant from the College of William and Mary’s Committee on Sustainability, Tristan Schnader ’13 and Morrison Mast ’12 set up receptacles for plastic bag recycling around campus.

“This all started off as just [Morrison’s] idea,” Schnader said. “One night he said, ‘I’d really like to see plastic bag recycling on this campus,’ and I said ‘I’m in.’ The next couple of weeks, we started planning, and we applied for a grant from the Committee on Sustainability.”

Schnader and Mast set up 14 plastic bag containers around campus in hopes that students will recognize the need for recycling.

“The current blue bins that the school has set up, they’re only for plastic bottles. The receptacles [that we put up] are there for a) students to realize that they should be recycling their plastic bags and b) give them the opportunity. If every student takes the time to actually recycle their plastic bags, then we can increase sustainability on our campus.”

The two students teamed up with the College chapter of Alpha Phi Omega, the national service fraternity, to ensure that the containers would be emptied and recycled frequently.

“We’ve formed a partnership with APO,” Schnader said. “APO can collect the plastic bags, do rounds every two weeks. We’re going to provide a number that students can call if a bin is full, so that they can call the number, and they will come empty it.”

One motivating factor of the campaign is sea turtle research, with which Mast has experience. According to reuseit.com, plastic bags are the second-most common type of ocean refuse, after cigarette butts. Every square mile of ocean has about 46,000 pieces of plastic floating in it.

“This summer I went and worked with a sea turtle conservation organization down in Brazil,” Mast said. “Seventy percent of turtles that they did necropsies on, that either died in captivity or washed up dead, had their intestines lodged with plastic bags. Because when a sea turtle sees a plastic bag floating they have this search image for jellyfish. If it’s floating, translucent or colorful, they’ll just snatch it up; and it’ll clog them. Eventually [the turtles] will starve to death because nothing can pass through. It’s a big problem.”

Another sustainability project, managed by Corbett Drummey ’12, is focused on promoting the use of tap water rather than buying plastic water bottles. The campaign, ‘I’d tap that’, held its opening program Monday. The program involved a statue made of plastic bottles, a water tasting and free T-shirts.

“The whole thing was one big innuendo,” Drummey said. “We wanted the campaign to be really fun so that students would actually take part in it… We wanted to showcase how much the College actually uses. The College sells, on campus, 144,000 bottles a year. We wanted to showcase that, so we decided if we took one percent and we built a sculpture out of it, it would be powerful. Because the problem is unreal, it’s sort of intangible.”

A volunteer committee of students, faculty and administrators runs the Committee on Sustainability, which is funded by green fees and spearheaded by Sustainability Fellow Sarah Hanke. Included in each student’s special fees, the green fee is about $15 per student per semester, totaling around $200,000 per year. The committee then allocates funding based on grants given to applicants with plans to improve sustainability at the College.

“Last spring, they submitted a proposal for green fees funding,” Hanke said.” The money comes from the green fees that every student pays. $40,000 is put into a green endowment, and the rest is available to receive as grants. Anybody at the campus can apply. You basically just have to have an idea that impacts sustainability on campus in some way and write up a proposal. We usually try to give a priority to student-led projects.”

Dan Casey ’14 observed the construction of the first plastic bag container sponsored by the committee.
“I think that William and Mary’s move to greater sustainability is a step in the right direction,” Casey said. “It shows our increasing awareness about the interconnectedness in the world. While change at this school won’t make the difference by itself, I have no doubt that its effects will emanate out, creating more positive change in the future.”

Men’s soccer: College slays Dragons to stay unbeaten in CAA

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William and Mary scored early, added one for insurance and hung on through waves of offensive attacks from Drexel for a 2-0 win Saturday, notching its third consecutive shutout and remaining unbeaten in CAA play.
“We battled, we competed well, but we weren’t that sharp in possession,” head coach Chris Norris said. “It wasn’t our best performance of the season.”

Drexel started the game off with an offensive flurry, forcing senior goalkeeper Colin Smolinsky to make two early saves. But it was the Tribe that drew first blood. In the ninth minute, senior midfielder Nicolas Abrigo sent a free kick towards the box, past the heads of the defenders but out of the reach of the goalkeeper. Freshman defender Michael Teiman headed the ball past the keeper to give the Tribe a 1-0 lead.

“It was a great serve in a perfect spot,” Norris said. “Michael has had a knack for finding a spot in set pieces, and he was able to finish that one well.”

The goal was the first for the Tribe (5-3, 2-0 CAA) directly off a set piece. Norris said the team was “getting dangerous” on set pieces and that the team practices them regularly.

“We felt like we were close to having one of those moments where we score on a situation like that,” Norris said. “We just needed a little bit better execution, and that’s what we got.”

The Dragons put together a couple more attacks in the first half, but none posed serious challenges to Smolinsky. The Tribe wasn’t able to put together another serious offensive threat until the 56th minute, when it again got the best of the Drexel defense. Abrigo received a pass in space, and took a shot that rebounded off the goalkeeper. Abrigo collected the ball and buried it in the net for his team-leading fifth goal of the season.

“Nick timed his run behind the defense well,” Norris said. “It was a great serve by Colin, a great play on by [freshman forward] Patrick O’Brien and Nick did the rest.”

The Dragons took more chances for the rest of the second half, but none troubled Smolinsky and the defense. Drexel outshot the College 19-11, but the Tribe ended up winning the shots on goal battle seven to five. Norris called Drexel’s second-half efforts as “half-chances.”

“Despite the fact that they had a number of chances, I didn’t feel they had a number of really dangerous situations,” Norris said.

Norris said the team’s rhythm wasn’t quite right, though, attributing some of that to the game’s late afternoon start time and the artificial turf at Drexel’s Vidas Field.

“I think when we get into some more familiar circumstances, that will be a little bit easier for us,” he said.
Even though Drexel remains winless, he said the game couldn’t be “easy and comfortable” because of the familiarity the CAA teams have with each other. The win put the Tribe in first place in the conference.

“When you get into conference play, anything can happen,” Norris said. “The teams know each other pretty well.”

Harvest Moon Festival celebrates many cultures

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All is not well in the Chinese heaven. The heaven Emperor’s sweetheart, Chang’e, has fallen for his lieutenant, the dashing Kung-Fu master Houyi. In a fit of rage, the Emperor has banished both Chang’e and Houyi to Earth. There they acquire the Moon Cake of Life, which will allow them to rise up to heaven again.

The catch is that they have to wait for one year before eating the Moon Cake, otherwise they will fly to the moon instead of flying to heaven. This is trying for Chang’e, who is tired of being an earthly housewife to Houyi. Will the couple stand the trial and live happily ever after in heaven?

Meanwhile, in Vietnam, a peasant named Cuoi has cured the princess of his kingdom with leaves from his magic tree. In gratitude, the king gives him the princess’s hand. The princess’s job at her new home is to look after the magic tree. But one day she urinates on the magic tree accidentally, and it becomes very, very angry. What can the princess do now?

Friday’s Harvest Moon Festival answered these questions. Jointly organized by the Chinese Student Organization and the Vietnamese Student Association, the Harvest Moon Festival celebrates Chinese and Vietnamese each year traditions.

“Cultural groups are important because [they are] a way for people to connect with each other. People can make friends as well as understand a way of life outside America,” VSA President Kim-Anh Tran ‘13 said.

Since 2001, the Harvest Moon Festival has been a staple of the College of William and Mary’s cultural calender. To keep the festival lively, the organizers try hard to make each year’s show unique.

“Before, we typically stuck to extremely loose interpretations of the Chinese myth surrounding the tale of Houyi and Chang’e, but this year we are showcasing both the Chinese story and the Vietnamese story,” VSA vice president Tara Cassens ’13 said. “Though both have common elements and celebrate the same event, the stories are quite unique and share a lot about their respective culture.”

Interspersed with traditional and modern dance, Kung-Fu, theater and multi-media elements, the show entertained and educated a full audience. Highlights of the show included a traditional Vietnamese lion dance, a Kung-Fu fight scene, and fusion dance.

“The time commitment was substantial,” Pia Spinner ’13, who played the Vietnamese princess, said. “We rehearsed three hours per night from Sunday to Thursday for three weeks. But it was a lot of fun.”

The preparations for the Harvest Moon Festival were arduous. While VSA and CSO choreographed the dances and wrote the script during the summer, rehearsals only began three weeks before the show was performed on stage.

“Rehearsals for the fight scene were brutal,” member of CSO Zahariah Nealy ’12 said. “We put in blood, sweat and tears. Everyone was 100 percent dedicated to putting on a great show.”

The cast included students of Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, American and Hispanic heritage; the show also acknowledged the sexual diversity of the campus, by including two gay characters in the skits.

“Of course we’ve put our own [William and Mary] and American influence on the show,” VSA Treasurer Cynthia Arzola ’13 said. “The stories that the plots are rooted in [are] traditional, but the theatrical framing device that opens and closes is entirely American. Also, throughout the show we’ve interspersed a lot of American contemporary humor and references. Hopefully, these will make the traditional stories come alive so that a modern audience can relate to formerly two-dimensional characters.”

The clubs worked hard to incorporate a diverse range of experiences through different cultural outlets. They
also hoped to share the Chinese and Vietnamese cultures with campus.

“We add diversity to the campus and provide an outlet for members of our community to express their culture,” CSO President Kenneth Qiu ’13 said. “To me, it has allowed me to share my culture with others, while deepening ties to my Chinese heritage.”

Raise in quality

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Last week, the College of William and Mary Board of Visitors held a meeting, during which one board member brought up the salary situation here at the College. The situation — no pay increases in the past four years — is being looked at more closely because the BOV finally had an epiphany: If the College cannot give adequate and competitive pay to faculty, they may choose to teach elsewhere with better pay.

This isn’t a problem to ignore. A professor, or any job-seeker, looks for the best offer; contributing factors may include the location, the school, but pay is definitely one of the most important factors. Other institutions are able to give professors higher pay, and in turn, those institutions benefit from the professors’s talent. Since we do not have the means or resources to support counter-offers when other institutions are vying for the faculty we want or the faculty we already have, the College is at a significant disadvantage.

This isn’t to say we are hurting too bad — yet. Despite our low funding, he College is viewed as very efficient not only for faculty but for everything else. We are doing a good job with little money, and it doesn’t look like the Commonwealth of Virginia will increase our budget anytime in the near future. We are still prestigious and dominate in most rankings, but how long will this last if we can’t afford to keep our professors ? Professors leave the College for myriad reasons, but receipt of a better offer from another school shouldn’t be one of them. We lost one professor to Tulane University last year, a good school but one with fewer credentials than the College. The College does not have the funding to compete, and right now, all we can do is sit and watch while our talent goes to lower ranked institutions.

The College’s ability to succeed with limited resources is good, but what about the next five years? The next ten? How are we going to stay on top without quality faculty?

Apparently, there have been initial talks about the possibilities of what we can do about this problem, as well as about other issues with our funding. Three options include the state increasing our budget, increasing the number of out-of-state students on campus, and increasing in-state tuition. A fourth option is to increase out-of-state tuition. As we have seen in the past, this method isn’t a viable option if we want to continue drawing in talent from out-of-state.

We would like to see state funding increase. We realize that Richmond may not realize the significance of their actions, and it may be cliche to say, but we are the future. Alumni who have walked through the Sir Christopher Wren Building have been presidential candidates, presidents, defense secretaries and even highly rated comedians. But given the unlikelihood of this, we urge the state to allow us to increase the number of out-of-state students. This would increase revenue, as well as bring attention to the College from outside of the region.

Another solution, of course, would be just to take the money from other schools or tax certain schools, say in Charlottesville, for the amount of seersucker clothing or boat shoes per capita. But even in the highly unlikely event that Richmond would consider that — which they may consider only before giving the College more money — solutions must be made to ensure that we stay where we are, professors and all.

Green construction fails to save cash

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There are times when we all want objects that we cannot afford. However, sometimes the simple fact of the matter is that we must economize.

In recent years, owners, contractors, architects and even the College have increasingly sought to build sustainably. Sure, the environment needs our help. A large part of the sustainability movement is in the green building boom. With six buildings on campus currently, or soon to be, LEED certified, the College is clearly being assertive in this regard.

This week, however, the United States stock market fell 6.4 percent; down to October 2008 mid-crisis levels. Worse still, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Saturday that the European debt crisis is “the most serious risk now confronting the world economy.” What little stability remains in the global economy is now crumbling as the value of money decreases.

In the public arena, cash is tight. Virginia is thankfully relatively stable, but that is not the norm. Is this the time to spend extra money to satisfy some hysterical hippies?

Yes, but not exactly for that reason. Construction premiums on green buildings have been averaged at less than 2 percent. A 2006 study found that simple utility savings over 20 years of life in a LEED-class building would be $7 per square foot — while added construction costs run approximately $3 per square foot. Done correctly, a little extra initial capital expenditure can return the investment exponentially over the lifespan of the building.

On a national scale, if enough buildings begin to significantly alter their energy usage, the market demand will change. A report released by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories noted that a 1 percent decrease in the national market demand for natural gas could lead to long-term price reductions from 0.8 percent to 2 percent. Additionally, electricity, water and building supplies could easily follow suit.

A March 2008 analysis of the green building movement found that while national averages for LEED construction provided encouraging figures, individual projects could be horribly scattered. The sustainable construction industry is inconsistent in its estimations of performance on an individual basis. In such instances, far more money is spent than is needed, or budgeted.

What are we left with? We cannot afford to spend carelessly, as we simply do not have the money. Green buildings can lead to significant savings over their lifespan. They are accompanied by other less quantifiable improvements, such as a decreased national market demand for energy units and psychological effects on building users. However, they can also be hidden cost traps if not planned thoroughly.

Unintelligent spending in environmental construction can be just as significant to the economy as strategic spending — but in opposite ways. Finding the appropriate line between these two significant forces is a difficult prospect. We, as a university and a country, must seek balance in our environmentalism, despite the fact that it is a new and continually evolving field. We must economize with our scarce financial resources — lending them to projects when due diligence has proven them worthy. This is not cruel or ruthlessly pragmatic. It is the tactic by which our actions will affect the most significant change.

Capping quality: Lawmakers must rethink out-of-state quota

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Along with the rest of the country, the College of William and Mary has hit a bit of a rough patch in the current economic climate. When the Board of Visitors met last Thursday to discuss strategies to balance the budget, the hot topic was how to get the money necessary for the College to continue to operate, as well as how to give faculty their promised raises.

Our faculty has gone without pay raises for three years. Without a salary increase on the horizon, professors have no incentive to remain with the school. The College touts itself as a public Ivy; in order to meet the expectations of that title, we need a stellar faculty.

One suggestion made included raising in-state tuition by 5 percent, a plan that would simply be unable to raise enough extra money. According to the College’s website, undergraduate tuition for an in-state student amounts to $6,566 a semester. In comparison, out-of-state tuition per semester is nearly three times as much at $17,981.

An equal out-of-state increase of 5 percent would be closer to the mark, but I believe the amount of revenue generated from such an increase would not allow the College to remain as competitive on a national level.

The most logical suggestion in my opinion is to not only raise the tuition of out-of-state students, but also raise the state mandated maximum percentage of out-of-state students from 35 percent to at least 40 percent. In order to move on successfully, the College needs to look at how it can to make a top-tier education available to as many people as possible. This means looking beyond the borders of Virginia.

Although tuition would be slightly higher for the out-of-state demographic, there are many benefits to accepting more out-of-state students. College funding would increase significantly, allowing us to hire and maintain the best possible staff, retain the small campus atmosphere and be innovators in the pursuit of higher education.

Because of these perks, I believe that we would actually see an increase in the number of applicants to the College even with the slight increase in tuition. Forbes just this year named us the fifth-best public college in the country. I think we can remain competitive with a slight tuition increase.

Astoundingly, some lawmakers want to lower the out-of-state student cap to appease Virginia voters. This would lead to a further reduction of the College’s funding, and, I believe, a decrease in the quality of academics, as well as a likely increase in tuition across the board. The situation would be a lose-lose for in-state and out-of-state students alike. Lawmakers need to seriously re-examine the limits they have imposed on the quality of education within the state with the cap; the very future of higher education in Virginia depends on it.

Staying afloat

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Peals of laughter reverberated through the walls of the Commonwealth Auditorium of the Sadler Center on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. beckoning passersby to come take a look at the ruckus within. It isn’t often students get to see their professors donning togas and fake beards.

Four faculty members from varied disciplines gathered to participate in the annual Raft Debate, in which they argued about who ought to be saved after an imaginary shipwreck left them stranded on an island with only one raft. Vassiliki Panoussi represented the humanities, Andrew Fisher spoke for the social sciences, Larry Leemis represented the natural and computational sciences, and Pamela Eddy played devil’s advocate.

Each of the four faculty members had seven minutes to make his or her initial argument about which discipline should be saved. Then, each of the faculty members had the opportunity to make a three minute rebuttal before the students voted for their favorite speaker.

First up was Panoussi, an associate professor of classical studies at the College, defending the humanities. She wore a toga and had stuffed animals crammed under her arms as she approached the podium. She asserted that the humanities represented the arts, which made the world meaningful.

“Would you want an iPod if there was no music in it?” Panoussi asked the crowd. “The humanities make everything fun! We put the fun in technology!”

She also mentioned the importance of the legacy of the Greeks and Romans in developing culture and understanding humanity.

“We’ve heard how much social sciences have increased our understanding of humans,” Panoussi said. “But I also want to point out that we really didn’t need Freud because we had Oedipus!”

Fisher, an associate professor of history, then approached the podium in a ripped sport coat and an enormous fake beard. He acknowledged the beauty of the arts and the accomplishments of the hard sciences but asserted that the social sciences were a middle-ground between the two.

“We can be rigorous … like a hard science, with the elegant qualities of the humanities,” Fisher said.

He went on to indict the hard sciences for being unreceptive to disciplines that lack their specific methodology and for being unsympathetic to what is good for humanity.

“They can’t trust things that can’t be replicated in a lab,” Fisher said. “But the real world is more like Charlie Sheen … messy and unpredictable and chaotic! And they do things just because they can without thinking of whether they should. Like making atomic bombs … or a zombie apocalypse. Half of the scientists spend all their time studying and trying to fix the problems created by the other half.”

Larry Leemis of the mathematics department came next to argue for the importance of the natural and computational sciences.

“All of these disciplines are important,” Leemis said. “[But] science and technology, in the last 100 to 200 years, has so out-performed these other disciplines.”

He went on to list specific advantages of the hard sciences for humanity, including better public health and mechanization practices that make our lives easier.

“This is about survival,” Leemis said. “What do you need? Food, water, medical attention, an astronomer to navigate stars — those are the things you need going on a raft. If you are trying to survive, you want science and technology.”

Eddy, an associate professor from the education program, spoke critically of all the other disciplines, claiming that none of them should be saved because they are all flawed.

After each of the faculty members spoke, the students voted by applauding for the discipline they believed should be saved. The social sciences won the popular vote of the students, and Panoussi and Leemis patted Fisher on the back. They all smiled and laughed, energized by the debate.

A reception in Tidewater A followed the debate, where students could mingle with the faculty members and further discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each of the three major disciplines. People laughed and quoted their favorite lines of the evening. Friends walked home from the quirky Tribe tradition, playfully arguing over whose major was most worth saving and proud to represent each of their respective disciplines.

Football: Dukes run over College

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A lack of offense in the first half and defensive breakdowns in the second doomed No. 6 William and Mary at Zable Stadium Saturday night, as the Tribe fell to No. 12 James Madison, 20-14 in its conference opener.

The game was really a tale of two halves. In the first, while the Tribe’s defense kept the College (2-2, 0-1 CAA) within shouting distance down 10-0, the offense sputtered as the Tribe’s passing game was once again ineffective. Sophomore quarterback Mike Graham, making the first start of his college career, bounced back in the second half to throw for two touchdowns, but it wasn’t enough as JMU ran all over the College’s defense, finishing the game with 271 yards on the ground. A Tribe fumble late in the third quarter derailed the College’s comeback attempt.

“We made way too many mistakes,” head coach Jimmye Laycock said. “We can’t have fumbles and we can’t have missed blocks and missed assignments and missed tackles against a good team. We’re not that good.”

When he dropped back to throw, JMU quarterback Justin Thorpe was extremely efficient, going 3 of 4 for 69 yards and a touchdown pass. But the Dukes really burned the Tribe when he pulled it down or handed it off. Thorpe carried 14 times for 89 yards, while tailback Dae’Quan Scott led JMU with 29 rushes for 120 yards and a touchdown.

“We knew this is a team that gets a lot of their yards after contact,” junior linebacker Jabrel Mines, who led the Tribe with 13 tackles and a sack, said. “There were a couple of plays tonight where we weren’t in the proper angle, didn’t keep the inside and missed tackles.”

The College could see some silver linings in the loss, though. Graham laid claim to the starting role with an impressive second-half performance. The sophomore from Charlottesville finished the game at 14 of 26 for 215 yards and two touchdowns. And the addition of junior wideout Ryan Moody, who saw his first game action since tearing his ACL in April, after halftime provided a spark to the passing game that had been lacking in the team’s first three games. In the second half alone, Moody grabbed three passes for 82 yards, twice boxing out smaller JMU defensive backs and climbing the ladder to make big catches.

The College’s running game, however, floundered. Senior running back Jonathan Grimes carried 23 times for just 74 yards. Freshman Keith McBride carried twice for seven yards, but cost the Tribe a good chance at a comeback when he fumbled the ball with just over a minute left in the third. After JMU recovered on the Tribe’s 24 up 10-7, Scott punched it in for a touchdown to make it a two-score game.

The scoring didn’t start until the second quarter. On the first play of the period and just the third play of JMU’s drive, Thorpe hit wideout Kirby Long on the right sideline, fitting the ball between the zones of the Tribe cornerback and safety. Long then broke a tackle and streaked down the sideline and into the endzone for a 52 yard catch and run, putting the Dukes up 7-0.

After the College’s offense continued its first-half woes and went three and out, JMU got back to work, keeping the ball on the ground for all 10 plays, going 46 yards and kicking a 26 yard field goal to extend the Dukes’ lead to 10.

The half would end with the Tribe going three and out twice more (the team failed to gain first down for the whole second quarter). But the defense would keep the Dukes from pulling away, as halftime came with the score still 10-0.

The College’s offense came alive to start the third, though. Senior wideout Ryan Woolfolk dropped what would have been a touchdown on a perfectly thrown deep ball from Graham, but the passing game rebounded, as Graham hit senior wideout D.J. Mangas for an 11-yard gain on 3rd and 9. But on the ensuing first down, Graham’s inexperience showed. As pressure flushed him out of the pocket, the sophomore tried to throw the ball away to the sideline, instead tossing a lateral. The ball rolled backward and out of bounds, setting the Tribe up for a 2nd and 28 on its own 34. After Graham found Mangas for a gain of nine, though, Moody entered the game with a bang, going up over a JMU cornerback and snatching a Graham deep ball near the sideline for a 38 yard catch and run down to the Dukes’ 19 for a new set of downs.

“Ryan gave us a little spark,” Laycock said. “He’s a veteran receiver who’s played a lot and he knows how to go for a ball, he knows how to judge it, he knows what he can get away with out there on one on one. That’s invaluable to have that kind of experience.”

The drive would stall in the red zone and the College looked poised to get its goose egg off the score board with a field goal, but a high snap sailed over holder Brent Caprio’s head, giving JMU the ball back with its shutout still intact.

Finally, the Tribe got on the board with its next drive. Graham once again hit Moody for a big gain along the sideline, found Mangas for 26 on a 3rd and 13, and ultimately connected with Mangas for a 38 yard touchdown catch and run.

Suddenly, the College was not only down just a field goal, but it looked capable of moving the ball through the air.

“Once we got the momentum going I thought we were unstoppable,” Graham said.

The defense held the Dukes once again on their ensuing possession, but when the Tribe took over on its own 18, the momentum shifted quickly back to JMU. McBride coughed the ball up, giving the Dukes possession on the College’s 24. Five plays later, Scott ran it in from three yards out to push JMU’s lead back to 10.

The Tribe’s pass protection then began to falter, and two sacks led to a three and out, giving the ball back to the Dukes with 11 minutes, 24 seconds left in the fourth.

From there, a combination of Scott, Thorpe, and power runner Jauan Latney ate up clock and field, as the Dukes — once again without passing — went on a 12 play, 60 yard drive that ended with a field goal to give the Dukes a 20-7 stronghold with just 4:17 remaining.

Graham and the offense wouldn’t throw in the towel, though, as the sophomore led the College in the hurry up for a 12 play, 79 yard drive capped off with a beautiful touch pass — while falling down and with a pass rusher in his face — from Graham to senior tight end Alex Gottlieb for a 10 yard touchdown to make it a 20-14 game with 1:25 left.

“[Graham] did a heck of a job,” Laycock said. “He had to handle a lot of the offense because we got into throwing mode. He had to handle a lot of throws, sets and formations and all that kind of stuff and that’s not easy to do and then going on in the two minute drill he hasn’t had that many reps in the two minute drill.”

The ensuing onside kick from sophomore kicker Drake Kuhn, though, bounced up and into the arms of a waiting JMU player, and after the College’s defense once again allowed Scott to break a run for 17 yards and a first down, the game was over.

The College will look to regroup when it hits the road next Saturday to take on a 1-3 (0-1 CAA) Villanova team.

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