HARRISONBURG — How Mike Greene forced a fumble on the first play from scrimmage Saturday is what he likes most about James Madison’s defense.

“We’re doing way more speed stuff,” Greene, the Dukes junior defensive tackle, said.

To knock the ball free from Stony Brook running back Isaiah White, Greene dashed behind fellow defensive tackle Adeeb Atariwa and hit White before taking a swipe at the football.

“We have a little scheme between me and Adeeb,” Greene said. “But when Adeeb went past me, I saw the running back, I tackled him and felt the ball, so I stripped at it and it popped right up and I made a great play.

“But we’re doing a lot more stunting and even going outside to play some end if we have to. But it’s a fun defense. We have a lot of fun with blitzing and stunting, and we make a lot of plays.”

Greene said defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman’s aggressive style is engineered for the Dukes’ front line and linebackers, and that the approach uses the quickness Greene and his inside-the-box teammates have to JMU’s advantage.

At 6-foot-3, 285 pounds, Greene said he’s the fastest at his position on the team and joked he might have a step or two on a few others that you’d think are quicker than him.

Before Saturday, Greene had tallied only as many as four tackles in a game this season, but during the 45-38 overtime victory he matched his career single-game best with nine takedowns to go along with two tackles for loss, a sack and the forced fumble.

“Mike had a dominant game against Stony Brook,” first-year JMU coach Curt Cignetti said.

And Greene added the stunts and blitzes combat the opponent’s rushing and passing attack equally.

Entering this Saturday’s 1:30 p.m. contest against Villanova, the Dukes lead the Colonial Athletic Association in run defense, yielding only 71.8 yards per game. JMU’s 14 sacks are the fourth most in the league behind the 15 sacks that Villanova, Stony Brook and New Hampshire recorded.

“I’ll have to give it all to Coach Hetherman,” Greene said. “We move around every play and are making plays everywhere. So between the defense and then we focus on the techniques that we work on in practice and then do them in the game. We work on a lot of techniques that relay straight to the game and our coaches get that right for us.”

For the season, Greene has 25 tackles, 6.5 tackles for loss and three sacks.

His personal goal before the season kicked off was to make the All-CAA team and now he said he believes he’s trending in the right direction to achieve that goal.

“Definitely,” Greene said. “Trying to fight for that spot every single day and trying to work every single day to get up there and it comes with time, practice and watching film, but it’ll come eventually.”