James Madison Sports Blog

In what looked like something from years past the Madison mavericks ran past Lee on Friday night at Comalander stadium. For the first three games of the season it was the Madison Defense that stepped up and made the big plays against some of the areas best teams, on Friday it was special teams and the running attack that took center stage.

While the passing game was no existence against Lee, with 0 completions in 3 attempts, it was not needed as the Mavs ran past, around and through the Vols. The Madison offence racked up an amazing 450 yards on the ground, lead by Junior Running Back Devin Thomas with his season high 244 yards. Also getting into the act was Junior QB Devin Myler who also had a season high of 128 yards on the ground.

Madison would jump out to an early lead after holding Lee to three and out on their first position of the game. Madison’s Rodney Green set up the opening score when he flew around the Lee punt team and blocked a punt attempt deep in Lee’s end of the field. The Mavs would score a few plays later as Devin Thomas would go around the right end for the touchdown.

The first half would be highlighted by Madison making some big hits, a timely fumble recovery and a Andrew Green interception in the end zone to stall a Lee drive. QB Devin Myler would add a score just before the half giving Madison a 14-7 lead going to the break.

Unlike the first half the second half would be highlighted by some big runs and both sides racking up points. The scoring would get underway on the second half opening kick off. Just like the week before in the Wagner game Lee would kick off out of bounds and instead of Madison taking the ball at the 30 they had Lee kick the ball again. Just like against Wagner the Mavs would make the Vols pay as Josh Miles ran back the kick off for a TD his second return for a TD of the Season.

Lee would rack up some big yards behind their RB and QB combination who racked up 271 rushing on the evening combined. The Vols would never get closer than a TD to the Mavs but would score 27 second half points against the Mavs defense.

Madison’s second half would be highlighted by big runs by Josh Miles, Devin Thomas and Devin Myler and by the time the 4th quarter rolled around the Big Madison offensive line wore down the Lee defense. In one stretch Madison would run a total of two plays from scrimmage and score on both runs.

While the game may not have gone the way the defense had wanted it was the first game that Madison faced a backfield threat of a speedster RB and a scrambling QB. The offence has improved each week to this point going into the first of several big show downs of 2006. With Smithson Valley up next and their top ranked defense coming to Comalander the Mavericks will need to take the rushing and passing attacks to the next level.

GO MAVS!