HARRISONBURG — James Madison coach Mike Houston said he doesn’t know if junior quarterback Bryan Schor will play Saturday in the regular-season finale against Elon.

Schor was injured on the first play of the second quarter in JMU’s Colonial Athletic Association championship clinching win at Villanova over the weekend. Later in the game, he was spotted on the sideline with his left arm in a sling.

“It’s too early in the week to speculate as far as his availability this week,” Houston said during the CAA coaches teleconference Monday. “He will be back, but we’ll see if it’s this week or not. We’re preparing either way.”

Houston wouldn’t elaborate on the exact injury Schor suffered.

In 10 games this season, Schor has accounted for 2,026 passing yards, 545 rushing yards and is responsible for 27 total touchdowns. He holds the nation’s best completion percentage (73 percent) and has been named the CAA’s Offensive Player of the Week four different times.

The consensus from CAA coaches is that Schor makes JMU’s offense special. If Schor can’t play, the offense doesn’t have to be special, it just has to be good enough to win, so the question is whether or not Madison simply can win without its standout quarterback if it had to.

A win Saturday over Elon would allow JMU to finish unbeaten in CAA play this season. More importantly, if Schor misses more than one week, the FCS Playoffs begin the Nov. 26. JMU is likely to earn a first-round bye, which means the team wouldn’t play until Dec. 3.

“That’s a tough question,” Villanova coach Andy Talley said. “You’re talking about one of the top five quarterbacks in the country and if you take him out a team’s offense, you know, something’s got to give.”

Villanova’s defense held JMU to a season-low 20 points and a season-low 277 yards of total offense. True freshman quarterback Cole Johnson took all the reps against the Wildcats defense following the injury to Schor.

“They’re probably good enough to run the football and maybe run some soft throwing lanes and hit some easy throws for their backup to not put him in too much trouble,” Talley added. “I think they’re a good enough team to overcome his loss, but it depends who they run into in the playoffs. If they get a high-level team and they’ve been in some shootouts — look at the Richmond game — and they get someone that can score on them without Schor, that could be a rough deal.”

Without hesitation, Houston, who has dealt with losing a quarterback earlier in his coaching career, said JMU is a “good football team” beyond Schor.

“We won Saturday without him,” Houston said. “At Lenoir-Rhyne, the year we went to the national championship game we lost our starter in Week 9. We lost our backup in the second round of the playoffs. Our third-team quarterback took us all the way to the national championship game.

“The big thing that you understand as a coach is to be prepared at all times for those things to happen. We have a very good football team. The next guy will be ready.”

Houston added that the program expects South Carolina transfer quarterback and Schor’s backup for most of the year, Connor Mitch back soon. Mitch suffered a non-football injury during the bye week.

“The encouraging thing for us is that Bryan will be back pretty soon,” Houston said. “Connor Mitch is going to be back pretty quickly and we have a lot of confidence in Cole Johnson, so we feel good about our opportunities moving forward.”

Elon coach Rich Skrosky said he’s still prepping his defense to stop JMU’s rushing attack regardless of Schor’s status for Saturday.

“We obviously got the news about what happened to Bryan. You hate to see it because he’s having such an efficient and great year,” Skrosky said. “But to be honest, they are the third or fourth rushing offense in the country with [Khalid] Adullah and that is their bread and butter.”

JMU is averaging more than 290 rushing yards per game and Abdullah has seven 100-yard performances to his name.

“We don’t have a great amount of plays to take from, but it doesn’t look like the schematics changed dramatically,” Skrosky said. “I’m sure the package shrunk, but it didn’t look like it was a new offense or new system without Schor.”