This is not the same, star-studded group of James Madison defensive linemen.

In fact, some of these players across the front aren’t even the defenders who the Dukes probably thought would replace their departed standouts.

Nevertheless, third-seeded James Madison enters Saturday’s 2:30 p.m. FCS national semifinal at No. 2-seed Sam Houston with the third-best run defense in all of the subdivision, thanks in part to its rebuilt and no-excuses defensive line.

“It’s completely different compared to last year,” senior Mike Greene, the lone returning starter to the D-Line, said with a grin as he started to chuckle. “But it’s been a lot of fun.”

The smile on Greene’s face said it all through the screen of a Zoom interview earlier this week, because it measured just how remarkable it is that this ragtag bunch has held up.

Greene, perhaps, is a future pro, but he’s playing defensive end. His natural spot is defensive tackle.

And this season, unlike last, when he looks across the front toward his fellow teammates, there’s no other All-Americans next to him. Former Dukes defensive ends Ron’Dell Carter and John Daka were huge factors in helping reach the national championship game in 2019, and they’re in the NFL now. That season, Carter was a consensus All-American and Daka led the FCS in sacks. Ex-JMU defensive tackle Adeeb Atariwa transferred to Virginia in the offseason.

There probably wasn’t a better collective defensive front nationally than Atariwa, Carter, Daka and Greene.

Currently, the starters playing alongside Greene are third-year sophomore defensive end Mike Wilcox and defensive tackles James Carpenter, a redshirt freshman, and fourth-year junior Garrett Groulx. Aside from Greene, the only other defensive lineman on the roster to a start a game in a previous season for JMU is Groulx.

So, defensive coordinator and ends coach Corey Hetherman as well as defensive tackles coach Marcus Hall-Oliver deserve credit for being able to replenish the position group and prepare inexperienced players for competition.

Wilcox hadn’t seen any game action prior to this spring, but registered a sack in the regular-season finale against Richmond, three tackles in the Dukes’ opening-round win over VMI and two more this past Sunday in the quarterfinals against North Dakota. Carpenter recorded an interception against the Keydets.

“It’s been great seeing how hard those guys work,” Greene said. “They’re working every day, trying to get better to play their part. I’d say Wilcox has come a long way and he’s now the starter at our defensive end spot, so it’s been great seeing all his hard work pay off and same with Garrett and James and everybody.”

Central Florida transfer defensive tackle Mason Cholewa and Minnesota defensive end Abi N-Okonji have contributed regularly off the bench, too.

Freshman defensive end Mikail Kamara started the first six games, but didn’t play against North Dakota. The same goes for sophomore defensive tackle Tony Thurston, so the Dukes are well beyond playing second-string defensive linemen at this point.

During fall practices, they lost projected starting defensive ends Isaac Ukwu and Jalen Green to injury.

“We’ve done a good job of developing players,” JMU coach Curt Cignetti said last week about his improving defensive line.

Greene leads the team with 9.5 sacks, which on a per game basis (1.35) are more than he had last season (0.68). And as a defense, JMU is actually allowing fewer rushing yards (66.4 per game) this spring than it did in 2019 (74.8 per game).

Said Greene: “We’ve had a couple of people go down with Isaac and Jalen and we’ve had a lot of people step up and step into those spots. But we’ve been playing hard and working hard and we’ve just been trying to get better every day and we’re trying to get the national championship. We’ve got two more weeks and hopefully we can get to our goal.”