It’s a shame James Madison doesn’t have its usual trip to play against an FBS foe this fall.

The Dukes have competed well in those matchups recently. They won at Virginia Tech in 2010, at SMU in 2015 and at East Carolina in 2017, and then took N.C. State and West Virginia down to the wire before only falling late in the fourth quarter during their last two tangos with Power Five opponents.

This fall, though, the gap on the playing field between the upper echelon of Division I and some of the FCS will be tighter than before due to the number of seniors who opted to return to their schools for a normal fall slate following the subdivision’s spring season. That sent their respective FCS programs past the regular 63-scholarship threshold they are typically held to and closer toward the 85-scholarship limit FBS programs are tied to.

“We’re probably tilting in that [FBS] direction,” third-year JMU coach Curt Cignetti said about where his team is at scholarship-wise comparatively to what’s normally allowed in the FBS and the FCS. “But I guarantee there’s probably 25 FCS teams around the country in the same situation.”

Last year, the NCAA gave all athletes an extra season of eligibility because of the pandemic. So, FCS programs – or at least the ones capable of affording additional scholarships – are allowed to have more than 63 scholarship players on their rosters this coming season.

Since the spring, JMU added nine transfers and a signing class of 12 freshmen to its team. The Dukes lost a few from their spring squad to graduation and the transfer portal, but overall, they brought in more players than they lost.

This month, Cignetti said JMU has more defensive backs and defensive linemen than the Dukes have had since he’s been the coach, which shows the upgraded depth that would likely give them a better shot against an FBS squad with more scholarship players.

But the Dukes don’t have an FBS game on their schedule and instead are playing a marquee non-conference matchup on Sept. 18 at four-time defending Big Sky champion Weber State to start a home-and-home series with the Wildcats.

In training camp, the increase in scholarship players have created an interesting dichotomy for Cignetti. Uniquely, JMU has a large number of fifth- and sixth-year seniors, who are so experienced, as well as two freshmen classes, which are on the other end of the spectrum. And as Cignetti noted, redshirt freshmen, like the true freshmen, have never been through a traditional college preseason until now.

JMU’s February practices leading into the spring campaign didn’t consist of any full football-focused days in the heat of August.

“We’ve got a lot of young guys, too, who are in the mix,” Cignetti said.

He said his staff has balanced teaching and helping young players improve with fine-tuning the experienced or even resting seasoned veterans when they needed it through the first seven practices, which included a scrimmage on Friday.

“We’ve just got to get better fundamentally,” Cignetti said, “and get better to develop guys, to see who can sustain, who can stay on the practice field, who is dependable and who we can count on.”

This coming week, the outlook changes slightly and gears more toward figuring out how the fall team will operate.

“We’re still trying to develop players and let them show everybody what they can do,” Cignetti said, “who can make plays and who’s made a significant factor in their improvement to factor into the mix. We’re really not so much trying to get a certain guy the ball right now in camp, but we’re really just trying to give everybody an opportunity to see what they can do.

“Now, schematically, there are things you’re looking at and now this week, we’ll try to identify our play-makers a little more. We know who some of them are and we’ve had some emerge, but we’ll pick a lane on a few things schematically.”

JMU opens its season on Sept. 4 at home against Morehead State.