Mickey Matthews doesn't have much to hide.
James Madison's head coach traditionally makes his practices highly accessible to the media. He has a half dozen starters back, on both sides of the ball. Except for a few wrinkles, the JMU gameplan shouldn't surprise anyone.
So the Duke Blue Devils, JMU's opponents in Saturday's season opener, have a pretty good idea of what they're up against on Saturday.
"They have a lot of talent. They have some size," says Duke junior quarterback Thaddeus Lewis. "But one thing they want to do is, they want to stop the run. So you have to take what their defense gives you, and try to execute."
"They have a very good quarterback, and two quick running backs," says senior linebacker Michael Tauiliili. "It's going to take us to be, assignment-wise, sound in all our assignments, because James Madison does a great job of taking advantage of a defense's mistakes."
Saturday's game will be the Duke debut for new head coach David Cutcliffe. He took over the Blue Devil program last December.
He had been the offensive coordinator at Tennessee and before that served as head coach at Mississippi.
Cutcliffe brings a whole new scheme to Durham, so the Dukes are, as Matthews calls it, going into Saturday's game "blind."
"You can't really focus on what they're going to do, because we really have no idea," says JMU senior quarterback Rodney Landers. "You basically just look at personnel."
"It's hard, at one point," says junior defensive tackle Sam Daniels. "But you can only line up so many ways and play football."
Senior defensive end Hassan Abdul-Wahid shares Daniels' optimism.
"As long as we execute on defense, and we do our job, our responsibility from each 11 players," says Abdul-Wahid. "We think we'll be alright."