They have no problem admitting it.
Stops, starts and lengthy layoffs have brought along frustration, and playing in the spring has taken some getting used to.
“It’s been a lot,” James Madison defensive lineman and team captain Mike Greene said. “It’s been crazy with having four games canceled.”
Greene said he and his teammates earlier in the week received a scouting report on Richmond for the third time this season. The No. 1 Dukes and the No. 11 Spiders have yet to actually play against each other this spring, but are slated to finally clash Saturday – with the Colonial Athletic Association South Division crown on the line – after two meetings scheduled for last month and earlier this month were postponed because of coronavirus issues first with JMU and then with Richmond.
When most of the FCS decided to punt on playing through the pandemic this past fall, there was hope in the subdivision that it’d be easier to pull off an abbreviated schedule come springtime.
To sum it up since the regular season concludes Saturday, this campaign has been imperfect, unbalanced and downright whacky at times. (And yes, if you’re wondering, the NCAA decision to allow ESPNU to reveal the FCS playoff committee’s lone public top ten during an SEC baseball game certainly falls under the third category.)
Most teams still going are vying for a spot in the postseason, and depending on coronavirus’ impact on those squads, their leagues and their opponents, resumes differ from one another.
JMU (4-0), which tried its damnedest to play during the traditional football months until the NCAA shifted the FCS postseason to the spring, would’ve likely gone three straight Saturdays into the playoffs without playing if Richmond’s game with William & Mary for last week wasn’t called off due to virus problems at W&M. Richmond (3-0) needs to play a fourth time to be eligible for an at-large berth into the postseason.
In the Colonial Athletic Association, 11 league members tried to play this spring but only four – JMU, Richmond, Delaware and Villanova – remain. Two schools opted out, and five others had their seasons end prematurely because of COVID-19 or because games on the schedule no longer existed due to opt outs or virus problems with an opponent.
Outside of the CAA, Big South champion Monmouth (3-0) will enter the postseason having only played three times after its regular-season finale for this Saturday was called off by Robert Morris.
In the Missouri Valley Conference, North Dakota will likely get into the playoffs as an at-large selection having not played since its March 20 loss to North Dakota State because the Fighting Hawks’ bout for this Saturday was scrapped when Youngstown State decided Wednesday it wasn’t worth playing. The MVC automatic qualifying bid will go to either North Dakota State or South Dakota State, which are scheduled to meet on Saturday after those two had to postpone a previous game against each other earlier in the year.
Elsewhere, Jacksonville State, to its credit, took the field seven weeks in a row without a postponement while winning the Ohio Valley Conference. And down I-81 in Lexington, VMI played six weeks straight and can clinch the Southern Conference automatic qualifying bid on Saturday with a victory over The Citadel.
So across the FCS, the end result is the clearly inequitable schedules and choppy resumes from one team to the next during this 2021 spring season, but those contrasts do not mean this campaign is less legitimate than any other.
Almost every program still alive has dealt with logistical setbacks. Most teams have had multiple weeks when they’ve had to practice knowing there isn’t a reward of playing on a Saturday.
Just ask JMU coach Curt Cignetti, whose Dukes have aspirations of a national title, about how he and his staff have tried to keep their players prepared through those seemingly monotonous workouts. JMU had two games last month postponed because of virus issues with their team and two more postponed this month because virus issues somewhere else.
“We’re always going to do good-on-good work,” Cignetti said in regard to how he has run his practices this spring. “We’re always going to go team run and seven-on-seven good-on-good and we’re going to work some special teams, obviously. You know, though, I’ve been throwing some surprise two-minute, one-minute situations into practice where the coaches and players don’t know what that situation is going to be.
“There’s been a couple of practices when I’ve done two of ‘em because our guys really thrive on that competition and those pressure-type situations. I think that’s been good for us. We’ve done that every practice.”
The Dukes have worked late-game kickoff and punt scenarios and Hail Marys, too, which are all plays that might come up once a year. But the second-year coach wants his team prepared in case they encounter it.
Meanwhile, off the field the teams still playing have followed strict virus protocol also, and that shows the sacrifice made in order to get through this season. Players and coaches probably have taken more COVID-19 tests than some doctors and nurses since February.
So, even though surface-level perception may tell you to think this season is a farce, it’s not. At least not for those involved.
“We could say we’re the first team in the history of [FCS] football to win a spring championship,” Greene said. “So that’s a big thing. And that’s our team goal every single year. We come into the year every year wanting to win a championship and wanting to be one of the best teams in the nation in all kinds of ways.”
Greene would know the appropriate value, too, because he’s been part of JMU teams of the past to make runs to the FCS title game during traditional seasons, and it’s evident this spring isn’t any less important to him.
