Inside JMU's Decision To Play This Fall While Its League Won't

Athletic director Jeff Bourne said Friday he believes JMU – as an FCS independent – can schedule enough games to play this fall and has a target of securing at least eight contests. Second-year coach Curt Cignetti said his team is capable of taking on any foe willing to agree to a game.

“We’ve always felt good about our ability to compete against anybody we play,” Cignetti said, “and we’ve proven in the past we can do that.”

JMU, which has appeared in three of the last four FCS national championship games, is forging forward even though its conference isn’t.

Earlier Friday, the Colonial Athletic Association officially confirmed Thursday’s Daily News-Record report, announcing the league won’t play football this fall due to the pandemic. Its member schools, though, are allowed to pursue a fall season on their own if that’s what they elect to do, and JMU is choosing to do so as long as the NCAA holds FCS postseason competition.

“We’ve developed a great brand,” Cignetti said. “And I think this decision is important to protect our brand. There’s been a lot of hard work here over the last 20, 25 years. Players, coaches, administrators, donors and leaders have gotten us to where we are today and we have an exciting future. I think we needed to make a statement and we did.”

Bourne said: “We feel like that [CAA] decision was possibly made in a hurried manner by some institutions, but they find themselves in a different spot than what we do at James Madison.”

Of the league schools beyond JMU, only Elon has also committed to try to play this fall. In a press release, Villanova announced it “would consider all possible scenarios for its football season.” The nine other CAA Football members – Albany, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, Richmond, Rhode Island, Stony Brook, Towson and William & Mary – will not play this fall and instead, per Stony Brook coach Chuck Priore and CAA commissioner Joe D’Antonio, will pursue a spring season.

“I personally don’t believe over the course of the last four months that anybody,” Priore said, “no matter where you live in the country, had the opportunity to prepare correctly as an individual for competition. Even though we were going to try hard over the next month or so, it was going to be difficult. I think they were going to be more susceptible to football injuries, and the dynamics of team – with losing the opportunity to be together – was going to be difficult.

“And then you complicate the matter of the COVID-19 mitigation processes with what you have to do to play the game, and I don’t think it would’ve been an enjoyable experience for our kids.”

Cignetti said one factor propelling the Dukes to pursue a season is the athletic department budget JMU has to properly handle health and safety protocols for players, coaches and staff members.

The USA Today college finance database shows the largest athletic department budget in all of FCS belongs to JMU, which also sits 63rd in all of Division I. Other CAA Football playing programs have budgets that rank 90th or worse.

Bourne said JMU would follow NCAA guidelines set Thursday for a return to sports. Those guidelines include testing coaches, players and staff and receiving results of coronavirus tests within 72 hours of high-contact risk sports.

“I think we have to,” Bourne said. “If you’re going to be prepared to play then that’s one of the stipulations you have to look at. Those come at a cost and they’re not things you do once in a while, so we’ll have to adequately plan for what that impact will be and again look at the NCAA policy. But we want to make sure we’re doing right by our student-athletes by keeping them safe and putting them in the best position as well as all of the teams that we’d have an opportunity to play this fall.”

As for the potential schedule that JMU could play, neither Bourne nor Cignetti thinks it’ll be difficult to put together. Cignetti said even though the goal is to play eight, JMU would try to schedule 11 or 12 contests in case one or a couple would be canceled due to a virus-related concern.

The three previously scheduled non-conference games against Chattanooga (Sept. 12), at North Carolina (Sept. 19) and against Merrimack (Nov. 21) have yet to be altered.

Bourne said a wide-range of opponents at the FBS and FCS levels have already reached out and had conversations with JMU regarding potential dates. This year, FBS teams can count up to two wins over FCS opponents toward bowl eligibility. In the past it had been one.

“We obviously want the games that’ll be in the best interest of our institution,” Bourne said. “But we also realize in times like this you normally have to stretch. So, I guess, suffice to say, we’ll be much more open-minded with regard to our scheduling now than we’ve been.”

Added Cignetti: “You’re going to probably look at a few more FBS teams than you normally would, so we’ll figure out who they are. All you got to do is look at their schedules and the open dates they have. I think there’s a number of FCS teams that want to play us already, so I think filling the schedule out is going to be one of the least of our challenges. The big thing is just going to be day by day getting through this thing and being able to get through camp and make it to the first game.”

JMU’s initial virus testing went well. Players returned for summer conditioning workouts last week and upon arrival, only one of the 97 tests administered to players and coaches resulted in a positive for the coronavirus. That person who tested positive was asymptomatic.

D’Antonio said even though JMU and Elon are intending to play independently of the conference this fall, the CAA will do whatever it can to support the pair of league members.

“I’m OK with it,” he said. “And certainly if the conference can support them as they do proceed forward we have every intention of doing that.”

D’Antonio said the unique structure of CAA Football, with 12 schools that play other sports across four leagues, made the decision a difficult one to make and why opting to not play football as a conference this fall was the correct one.

“I don’t know if there was any one point,” D’Antonio said. “But certainly, the final decision hadn’t been on the table for very long, but it was really a matter of getting there by a totality of circumstances in trying to understand where every institution was and where their mindset was relative to being able to make a final decision.”