HARRISONBURG — James Madison will be home through at least the quarterfinals of the FCS playoffs.

The Dukes have the No. 4 seed in the 24-team single-elimination tournament, which begins Saturday with first-round games.

As one of the top-eight seeds nationally, JMU has earned a first-round bye.

JMU will play at Bridgeforth Stadium on Dec. 3 at 2 p.m. in the second round against the winner of Lehigh and New Hampshire.

“Our team is very excited to be the No. 4 seed in the national playoffs,” JMU coach Mike Houston said. “We look forward to playing the winner of Lehigh and New Hampshire — two quality football programs. It should be a great first-round game and I’m sure the winner will present us with a monumental challenge in the second round.”

To earn the No. 4 seed, JMU finished its regular season 10-1 overall, 10-0 against FCS opponents and 8-0 in the Colonial Athletic Association. By winning the CAA outright, JMU gained the league’s automatic qualifying bid.

Four CAA teams were selected to the tournament with New Hampshire, Richmond and Villanova all securing at-large bids.

The earliest any CAA teams could meet is in the second round, if New Hampshire gets past Lehigh to meet JMU. In October, JMU won at New Hampshire, 42-39.

“To have a CAA matchup in the second round, it isn’t necessarily surprising,” said the CAA’s Associate Commissioner of Football, Brian Gordon, who was in Harrisonburg over the weekend. “It’s the nature of the field.”

JMU will practice today, Tuesday and Wednesday this week before taking Thanksgiving off.

Houston said the team would work in practice to prepare for both the familiar Wildcats (7-4) and unfamiliar Mountain Hawks (9-2).

“That’s traditionally what we’ve done,” Houston said. “We’ll practice three days this week and we might spend more time on Lehigh just because it is an opponent we have not seen, but we’ll certainly focus on New Hampshire, as well.”

New Hampshire has reached the postseason 13 years in a row. It is the nation’s longest consecutive postseason appearance streak.

Beyond the first and second rounds, JMU could see undefeated Sam Houston State (11-0) in the quarterfinals and five-time defending national champion North Dakota State (10-1) in the semifinals.

The national title game is set for Jan. 7 at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas.

“We’re just going to focus on the two teams that we could play next round,” JMU senior linebacker Gage Steele said. “We’re not looking too far ahead in the bracket. We’re focused on the next game because it’s the most important, whether it’s Lehigh or New Hampshire. As time goes on and when those games come around, we’ll game-plan for it.”

North Dakota State is the No. 1 seed in the tournament and Sam Houston State won the Southland Conference to grab the No. 5 seed.

Other national seeds are No. 2 Eastern Washington (10-1), No. 3 Jacksonville State (10-1), No. 6 The Citadel (10-1), No. 7 North Dakota (9-2) and No. 8 South Dakota State (8-3).