HARRISONBURG — Maybe a third crack at stopping Bryan Schor will go better than the first two tries for New Hampshire and coach Sean McDonnell.

Schor has tormented most opposing defenses over the last two seasons while leading James Madison to a national title in 2016 and a perfect 7-0 start this fall. But across the 19-game winning streak the Dukes signal-caller hasn’t dominated any single foe more than he has the Wildcats.

“I mean he does it with such an instinctive style of football when he’s scrambling around,” McDonnell said. “And the thing that I love what he does is that he just keeps plays alive by moving around while he’s looking down the field.

“I know they got guys surrounding him, but he’s the one that ‘stirs the drink,’ as Reggie Jackson would say.”

Top-ranked JMU hosts No. 17 New Hampshire for homecoming on Saturday. The two sides met twice last year and the outcomes were very similar — wins for Madison and eye-popping performances for Schor.

In the two contests against UNH last season, Schor combined to throw for 635 yards and nine touchdowns. He ran for 47 yards and another score.

His 371 passing yards against the Wildcats in the second-round playoff win last year is his career-high for passing yards in a game. The four touchdowns Schor threw against UNH in the regular season were the most he had thrown to that point in his career. He attempted 37 passes in the playoff game and 27 passes in the regular-season contest, marking two of three times last year when he attempted 27 throws or more.

“I think it was what we hoped we would make them do,” McDonnell said of the teams’ first meeting last season. “When we had watched the tape last year at this time, they had an astronomical amount of explosive plays.

“Both the running backs [Khalid] Abdullah and [Cardon Johnson] had these 80-yard runs and 60-yard runs, 70-yard runs and they were gashing people to make a 20- or 30-yard run look OK. So we felt that one, we would have to stay in our gaps and two, force the ball to be thrown against us, and one thing we thought was let’s make the quarterback make some plays.”

Schor did just that.

Then the second time around, UNH made slight adjustments to open up the game, which resulted in the one interception Schor has thrown against the Wildcats in his career.

But once JMU adapted to those new wrinkles, it started to find success and UNH fell into its initial outline for the Dukes — stopping Abdullah in the running game.

“We missed a cut block and probably wouldn’t have thrown the interception,” JMU offensive coordinator Donnie Kirkpatrick said. “But we were able to create some things and handle what they put in new. Then they went back to what they did because you go back to what’s been successful for you.”

And like last year, New Hampshire is geared more to stop the run again.

The Wildcats ended last season 38th nationally in run defense (137.7 yards per game) and 87th in passing defense (239.8 yards per game).

Through seven games this fall, it looks similar.

New Hampshire is 45th nationally in run defense (137.4 yards) and 81st nationally in passing defense (237.4 yards).

“I think what they do offensively and what I think a lot of people do offensively is they put you on islands all over the place,” McDonnell said. “If you decide that we’re going to spread and take away what Schor likes to do, now you got [wide receivers David] Eldridge, [Terrence] Alls, [Ishmael] Hyman, [Riley] Stapleton and Ezrah Archie. You got guys that are great in open spaces.

“And somehow, if you try to take care of that, you know that [running backs Trai] Sharp and [Marcus] Marshall are going to run the football.”

Kirkpatrick said he believes UNH will commit to stopping the run first, and for a third time in the last year, force Schor to make plays in order for JMU’s offense to move the ball.

For McDonnell, he just has to hope the senior quarterback isn’t as good against the Wildcats as he was last year.

“That kid played as good of a football game against us and it was some scrambles, some throws and some reads — some were easy, but we’re extremely difficult,” McDonnell said. “He just went to the right place every time. We were wondering how we were going to get them in third downs last year and we get them into third downs, but he makes a ton of plays.”