This is just another adjustment for a college football coach who has spent his career making them.

“We’re kind of right now where we’d normally be at the begining of the spring,” James Madison coach Curt Cignetti told the Daily News-Record on Wednesday about resetting the calendar for his football program.

“And I think the teams and programs that do the best job believing and assuming that we’re going to play in the spring,” Cignetti said, “and use this fall committed to preparation for the spring, are going to do the best and get the most out of the spring.”

Cignetti is readying for a fall without a traditional football season.

Earlier this month, JMU made the decision to suspend all of its fall sports, including football, and to pursue a spring schedule like most programs in the FCS are doing while the NCAA, each conference and school figures out how to best operate during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

He said it’s probably the first time in 40 to 50 years he won’t be involved in games during the fall. Last year was Cignetti’s first at the helm of the Dukes, but he had previous head-coaching stints at Elon and at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and has been in coaching since 1983. He played at West Virginia before that, and grew up in college football since his father, Frank Cignetti Sr., coached at WVU, IUP, Princeton and Pittsburgh starting in the mid-1960s.

The challenge of leading JMU through an undeniably unique circumstance is a bigger one than settling in to coach a different program, making a halftime adjustment to slow an opponent’s rushing attack or adapting to a new recruiting rule, but it’s an adjustment nonetheless.

And Cignetti said as tough as it is for him and his staff not to coach in games, his players not to compete and for fans of the Dukes not to see them in action this coming fall, “it’s time to move on, make the best of it and not dwell on the past.”

Cignetti is already thinking ahead to what the spring could look like and how the months ahead could unfold because he believes the NCAA will hold the FCS postseason then.

He said he’s hoping for and planning for his team to be able to practice this fall like they normally do in the spring.

“We really haven’t been out there with the ball since our last game,” Cignetti said.

JMU took the field in full pads most recently this past Jan. 11, when it lost to North Dakota State in the FCS national championship game in Frisco, Texas. The Dukes’ spring practices were canceled due to the coronavirus and players only returned to Harrisonburg in July for strength and conditioning. Training camp never started since JMU pulled the plug on the season on Aug. 7 – the day practices were slated to begin.

“We devoted July to getting in shape,” Cignetti said. “So at some point, hopefully, we get something beside the strength and conditioning that goes on, and we can do skill instruction with the coaches, players maybe can get out there on their own and do some 7-on-7, too. We’ve got some new faces and this would give us an opportunity to get some much-needed work, especially with younger players who were going to get some valuable reps last spring.

“Hopefully things move along and if the environment looks right and we can do it safely, we get a full spring practice in [during the fall] and get ready for a spring season.”

He said he ultimately thinks the team will be allowed to practice this fall.

For a spring season to work – and Cignetti said it is possible – he thinks a training camp would have to begin in January and a conference-only schedule must start by March 1.

As of Wednesday, two FCS leagues – the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference and Southwestern Athletic Conference – had released spring slates. Both conferences will kick off the weekend of Feb. 27 and conclude with league title games on May 1.

Earlier this month, JMU athletic director Jeff Bourne said the FCS playoffs would have to finish by Memorial Day weekend.

“My commonsense would tell me you play a conference-only schedule of about eight games,” Cignetti said. “Then you have a playoff bracket – maybe instead of 24 teams, it’s 16 or something like that – but you need to be done in May. And then maybe [fall] 2021 is pushed back a little bit and instead of 11 games, it’s 10 or something like that because players don’t have anytime for rest and recovery. But I think it’s doable.”

Cignetti said the Colonial Athletic Association Football coaches meet every few weeks with conference commissioner Joe D’Antonio. The second-year Dukes coach said once the NCAA provides a little more clarity on the details of fall practice and a spring season that the CAA could help set dates for the start of training camp and put together a regular-season schedule.

Until then and even after that, he’ll have plenty to keep him busy.

“From a work standpoint this business is all about recruiting and development,” Cignetti said. “So this is a year round thing. We’re in here every morning, watching tape and right now we’re studying ourselves with Game 1 through Game 16 [from 2019], revisiting those games and sort of refreshing our memory and evaluating and also studying other people, too. And when the players come back, the development phase includes strength and conditioning and on-the-field coaching, and the recruiting is never ending.”

With the spare time he’d like to take a trip or two with his wife and go visit their kids, he said.

“I’m going to enjoy the fall the best I can, but there’s still work to be done,” he added.