They’ve already officially added five newcomers via the transfer portal for the upcoming fall season, and aren’t yet finished looking for more.

“I would say we’re still monitoring the portal on a daily basis,” James Madison coach Curt Cignetti told the Daily News-Record last week. “It’d be premature to say we’re done.”

All five of the Dukes’ incoming transfers are defenders. Three are defensive linemen and two are defensive backs.

Former Towson defensive end Bryce Carter is the most experienced of the bunch, having appeared in 35 games with 24 starts in his four years with the Tigers. He racked up 144 tackles to go along with 34 tackles for loss, 15 sacks and six forced fumbles.

Ex-Ohio State defensive tackle Zaid Hamdan saw limited action with the Buckeyes and former Army defensive lineman Jordan Funk spent only 2020 with the Black Knights.

With Carter, Funk and Hamdan joining the team, JMU now has 20 defensive linemen on its roster.

In the secondary, former VMI safety Josh ‘Cheese’ Sarratt and ex-Eastern Michigan safety Jalen Phelps could help the Dukes immediately or at least boost depth in the defensive backfield after thriving for the Keydets and Eagles, respectively, in their last stops.

This past spring, Sarratt had two interceptions for VMI, which had its season ended in the first round of the FCS playoffs in a loss against JMU. And Phelps played in 42 games for EMU before sitting out last season.

Even on the heels of a lengthy spring season for JMU, Cignetti said he feels his staff is in a good spot in regard to recruiting 2022 prospects.

JMU doesn’t have any commits yet in the group, but the Dukes also haven’t offered scholarships to many players.

“A lot of people, like [Old Dominion] didn’t play at all, so they’ve had a year to work on recruiting,” Cignetti said, “and other teams in the CAA that went out [of the spring season] early probably got a little bit of a jump on things. So, we’ve been jamming pretty hard as a full staff on recruiting.”

Cignetti said JMU is competing against the usual suspects for players.

“At the end of the day when it’s all said and done,” Cignetti said, “you’re recruiting kids who have a number of Group of Five offers and maybe have had some Power Five offers early on in their careers, so it’s the same folks as always. And then you also might be in there against Delaware or Villanova.

“But the process has to sort itself out still, and I think a lot of people at the top are being very patient. That gives the Group of Five [schools] a choice. They can be very patient or just throw a million offers out there. There are some schools that do that. There are four or five schools that throw offers out. … We don’t operate that way, but we’ll be going against the same folks as always.”

James Madison linebacker Chase Soper announced his decision to enter the transfer portal late last week.

On Saturday, Soper, a 2020 signee of the Dukes, told the DN-R that he’ll miss JMU, but he’s looking for the chance to play quarterback again. He was moved to the defensive side of the ball this past season.

At Hayfield High School, Soper was dual-threat quarterback and racked up 4,784 total yards of offense across his junior and senior seasons while setting school records for career rushing yards by a quarterback, career rushing touchdowns by a quarterback and career passing completions. He had other offers then from Cornell, Davidson, Fordham, New Hampshire, Valparaiso and VMI.