There’s a parody account run by a couple of JMU alums that’s been absolutely torching Oregon in the lead-up to Saturday’s College Football Playoff game, and Rece Davis made sure to spotlight it on College GameDay.
“Have you checked out this X account, James Madison Sports News?” Davis asked. “They’ve embraced the perceived gulf between the two. They’ve studied the tape, and the talent discrepancy is overblown; the Dukes should not overlook these feisty Ducks. Then, they showed a 325-pound lineman catching a pass at the end of practice and saying, ‘No way Oregon has any answer for this.’ Then, they made fun of Oregon because they’ve never won the Boca Raton Bowl, as JMU has.”
The account — @JMUSportsNews, run by Bennett Conlin and Jack Fitzpatrick — has been running a masterclass in sports trolling. They’ve posted slowed-down Oregon highlight footage to make the Ducks look glacially slow. They’ve reminded everyone that Oregon has never won the Boca Raton Bowl — “often called ‘The Granddaddy of Them All'” — while JMU captured it just last year without their starting quarterback.
It’s so clearly not serious that nobody could possibly take offense. Oregon fans have been sending Conlin and Fitzpatrick coffee and beers via their Linktree. The two even appeared on an Oregon podcast to talk about their campaign.
The JMU Sports News account knows JMU is a massive underdog. Conlin and Fitzpatrick aren’t pretending otherwise. They just decided to make the lead-up entertaining instead of treating it like some grave injustice. Oregon fans are in on the joke. Everyone’s having fun with it.
That’s what GameDay should be doing more of.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.