For James Madison players, Tuesday brought the concrete evidence they needed.

The proof, that the Dukes will compete come spring.

“The schedule coming out gives us a little more motivation,” JMU senior running back Percy Agyei-Obese said after practice.

Senior safety MJ Hampton said: “Now it’s actually circled on the calendar, and you go out there and you play. It’s no more, ‘it might be this team’ or ‘this team might sit out,’ so motivation has gone up. I’m excited.”

Earlier Tuesday, the Colonial Athletic Association for the unconventional campaign, which was postponed from the fall to the spring due to coronavirus concerns.

As the league and its members evaluated how to craft a grid slate for the months of February, March, April and May, players in the CAA were forced to sit agonizingly through late July, August and September as their friends and peers in the FBS returned to the field for game action this fall. It was after those games began that the schools waiting to play in the spring found out they would be able to practice this fall.

JMU started its fall practices two weeks ago.

“We’ve been ramping it up every single day at practice and we’ve been excited and now our level of motivation goes from here to here,” Agyei-Obese, who rushed for 1,216 yards and 19 touchdowns last year, said as he lifted one hand above the other while speaking about seeing the schedule, “and I think everybody has been excited about it.”

The Dukes will play home-and-home series with in-state rivals Richmond and William & Mary as well as with coach Curt Cignetti’s former program, Elon, for their six-game CAA schedule.

“I know as a player going through my football years that it’s hard to beat a team twice,” Agyei-Obese said, “so when I look at that, I know we’ve got to come in every day and know that just because we might go out and beat a team that it’s not going to happen a second time. Teams can go back and scheme, look over the demeanor and different types of things, so I think everyone has to be on the same page and know that it’s not just going to come to us.”

Hampton said matching up with three opponents twice in league play certainly presents its challenges.

“Playing them the second time,” he said, “now you have to counter in everything you put in the first game that tied into the second game. So it’s going to be complicated. There’s going to be outcomes you’re not going to like and outcomes you like, but it’s all about how you prepare for it, which I feel pretty good about for the most part. But you never know.”

JMU has non-conference home games set with Morehead State for Feb. 20 and Robert Morris for Feb. 27.

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- About the CAA’s spring season, both league commissioner Joe D’Antonio and JMU athletic director Jeff Bourne said the conference is still sorting through the coronavirus testing requirements needed for coaches and players to be able to play each week. Bourne said the minimum would be two tests per week.

- D’Antonio said traditional rivalries did not dictate and played no role in how the league divisions were broken up. Geographic proximity, health and safety and fairness in competition were the primary reasons why and how the league settled on one four-team division and one seven-team division.

- On the field, Hampton said James Madison coaches are training the safeties to play more than one of the safety positions – free safety, strong safety and spur. Hampton said he’s playing free safety and spur. “When you’re switching a position, you’ve got to cope to it and become one with it,” he said.

- Hampton said new safeties coach Eddie Whitley, a former Bridgewater College assistant, is a great guy and is teaching technique to JMU safeties that he learned during his NFL playing career.

- During the portion of practice open to reporters on Tuesday at Bridgeforth Stadium, the first-team wide receivers group included three newcomers – Duke graduate transfer Scott Bracey and freshman Antwane Wells on the outside and VMI transfer Kris Thornton in the slot – as well as junior Devin Ravenel in the slot. Thornton joined JMU last year, but had to sit out due to NCAA transfer rules. While watching the wide receivers closely, a conversation between Bracey and Wells was noticeable when the first-team offense came off the field. Bracey, the most experienced of the group, looked like he was explaining something to Wells in a very nurturing way and then Cignetti came to the sideline to speak with both of them. If Bracey can provide leadership for his position group this spring, it’d be a bonus for the Dukes after former starting slot receiver Jake Brown entered the transfer portal on Monday.

- Agyei-Obese said him and fellow senior running back Jawon Hamilton do feel a responsibility to lead not just the running backs, but the entire offense since JMU returns only four starters to the unit. “We’re some older players on the team and we’ve definitely been taking leadership roles around the team,” he said, “trying to get everybody on the same page and hold the standard of what JMU football is.”

- In an interview with the DN-R on Tuesday, Brown said he made the decision to transfer very recently.