RICHMOND — With his late fourth-quarter touchdown, James Madison senior running back Khalid Abdullah set a new school record for career rushing scores.

Abdullah now has 33 career rushing touchdowns to his name.

“I’ll do anything help this team win,” Abdullah said. “If that’s scoring touchdowns and breaking records, then so be it, but honestly I’m just trying to play the next play, remain healthy and play for the guys beside me.”

The Newport News native also set a personal best for single-season rushing yards. For the first time in his career, he eclipsed the 1,000-yard mark. Abdullah now sits at 1,074 yards on 153 carries.

His 123 yards and two touchdowns in the win over rival Richmond gave him his sixth 100-yard game of the year.

Third-Down Domination

On five separate occasions, JMU junior quarterback Bryan Schor completed a third-down throw of ten or more yards.

He connected with senior wide receiver Brandon Ravenel for gains of 13 and 36 yards on third down. Senior receiver Rashard Davis had receptions of 19 and 14 yards to move the chains and Duke transfer Terrence Alls also had a catch for 11 yards in a third-down situation.

“They’ve been extraordinary on third down,” Richmond coach Danny Rocco said. “We studied it long and hard.

“We were kind of searching for the right formula to match up with their receivers and play tight enough coverage and we just couldn’t quite get it to where we needed to.”

In total JMU converted 8-of-12 third down tries.

Richmond’s Trickery

Richmond quarterback Kyle Lauletta didn’t need any extra help moving the football on Saturday, but his offensive coordinator John Garrett, the brother of Dallas Cowboys coach Jason Garrett, gave him a boost in the form of calling for two different trick plays.

In the first quarter, Lauletta completed a 15-yard screen pass to left tackle Alex Light and in the second quarter the Spiders scored on a double pass.

Lauletta handed the ball to running back David Broadus on a jet sweep. Broadus stayed behind the line of scrimmage and threw back to Lauletta, who also stayed behind the line. Lauletta then connected with his receiver Brian Brown downfield for a 28-yard touchdown.

“We’ve had those plays in the arsenal, but we really hadn’t been repping them or utilizing them,” Rocco said. “They came front-and-center here during the open date and we took reps on them and we had a good belief that we’d call them and John called them freely.”

Moving And Shaking Ahead

James Madison and Richmond weren’t the only pair of top teams to play in games with postseason implications over the weekend.

The Dukes entered the contest at No. 5 in the initial FCS Championship Committee rankings released Thursday. The Spiders were ranked No. 7.

Unranked Gardner-Webb upset No. 9 Charleston Southern.

JMU coach Mike Houston’s old team, The Citadel — ranked No. 6 — needed overtime to beat Samford.

Between JMU’s win at Richmond as well as some other close calls around the country, there could be some shakeup in the committee’s next rankings set of rankings due to come out Thursday afternoon.

JMU goes to Villanova on Saturday.