HARRISONBURG – James Madison’s quarterback hardly had any time to rest thanks to his defense.

“I was getting tired on the sideline,” Dukes senior signal-caller Ben DiNucci said. “I’d sit down, put my helmet down and be like, ‘Holy crap, third-and-15 again,’ and I’d have to get ready.”

A stretch of 10 straight three-and-outs showed just how dominant the Madison defensive unit was throughout No. 2 JMU’s 44-7 romp of visiting St. Francis in front of a whited-out crowd of 22,422 at Bridgeforth Stadium on Saturday.

The Red Flash (1-1) gained just 37 yards over those 10 series spanning from the first quarter through the early fourth quarter as the Dukes (1-1) displayed an in-depth understanding of what first-year defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman asks of them.

“Now we’re trusting the game plan,” JMU senior safety Adam Smith said. “I think that helps with us trying to play fast, so with us trusting the game plan and trusting each other we’re able to fly around and play some pretty good defense.”

Smith had six tackles and a pass breakup. Junior defensive tackle Adeeb Atariwa had 1.5 tackles for loss, a pass breakup and a quarterback hurry. Senior defensive end Ron’Dell Carter had a tackle for loss and two quarterback hurries.

St. Francis pushed the ball past midfield just once over the first three quarters.

“A lot of what we do is maybe similar in some respects to what [JMU] has done in the past,” first-year JMU coach Curt Cignetti said. “I’m sure some of it is different. But I think we’ve done a good job of simplifying our defensive package since we came out of camp.

“We threw a lot at ‘em in camp and there were a few too many missed assignments in the scrimmages. And we’ve simplified it to allow ‘em to play fast, which, when you got good players, all you want to do is free ‘em up to play fast.”

St. Francis coach Chris Villarrial said his offense was overmatched.

“Probably one of the best defenses we’ve seen in a long time,” Villarrial said. “Their up front guys are very sound, very strong. … They stymied us. They brought a lot of edge pressures and we just couldn’t get in rhythm.”

That lack of rhythm for St. Francis helped DiNucci and company stay in sync throughout the evening. The Dukes tallied 533 total yards of offense to St. Francis’ 175.

DiNucci and redshirt freshman running back Solomon Vanhorse took turns accounting for touchdowns.

Vanhorse, who rushed for a game-best 86 yards and two touchdowns on 14 carries, scored on a 2-yard run to cap the opening series and a 9-yard run in the second quarter to extend JMU’s lead to 21-0.

DiNucci completed passes to five receivers. He threw a 45-yard touchdown pass to junior slot receiver Jake Brown and a 19-yard scoring pass to true freshman running back Austin Douglas.

“I’m glad we had success throwing the football,” Cignetti said, “because we’ve got these guys out here and they practice hard from spring, fall camp and you want to get ‘em all involved, so that was good to see and hopefully we can keep improving.”

After finishing 16-of-21 for 221 passing yards and two scores to go along with 51 rushing yards, DiNucci said the offense and defense complimented each other throughout the win.

“They did a heck of a job tonight,” DiNucci said, “in terms of shutting down what [St. Francis] tried to do. They stopped the run, stopped the pass and played a full game. Credit to them and they made our job easy and gave us good field position all night.”