HARRISONBURG — With one sentence, Raven Greene described James Madison’s first preseason practice Wednesday.

“We’re a little bit more seasoned, to say the least,” the senior safety said.

The Dukes won the national title last year, but there wasn’t anything nonchalant or slow about the two-hour, 20-minute session that opened their 2017 campaign either.

As players sprinted through drills, took offensive snaps or defensive reps and ran when second-year coach Mike Houston demanded them to, it just looked like they had done it before.

“We were very organized,” Houston said. “I thought we were pretty sharp with throwing and catching the football. Defensively, we had a pretty good package in already today.

“Being in year two, there’s a lot more of everyone being on the same page and you’re able to just be at a little bit higher of a level early on.”

The plan for JMU is to work on its own offense and defense for the first few weeks before transitioning into preparation for the Sept. 2 opener at FBS East Carolina.

Houston said with a more veteran team this year, players know exactly what to expect over the next month of camp.

“I don’t have to be as concerned about setting the tone,” Houston said. “I’m still obviously going to be the leader out on the field, but I also got a bunch of other guys that are going to be leaders on the field, too.

“They know what the expectations are. They know what level of effort and intensity we’re going to play at. They know that there are certain things that won’t be tolerated and they handle a lot of that stuff. So if you get to the point where it’s them handling it instead of me handling it, I think it allows your team to play at a much higher level.”

Greene said defensive coordinator Bob Trott has asked him to take more of a leadership role in his final go-around.

Greene is a STATS FCS preseason third-team All-American and comes off of leading the Dukes with a team-best six interceptions in 2016.

“Coach [Trott] wants me to be more of a teacher to the young guys and that’s really what I’m focusing on,” Greene said. “I’m trying to show them the way because I remember those days when I was struggling myself.”

And at safety behind Greene and fellow senior Jordan Brown, JMU needs one of the young players to emerge as a reliable backup to the two upperclassmen. Freshmen D’Angelo Amos and Reggie Collins, along with sophomore Adam Smith and junior Grant Westbrook, are involved in the competition.

“It’s a pretty good thing as far as a competition,” Greene said. “It’s going to push everybody who’s fighting for that spot to get better.”

Senior wide receiver John Miller said the initial practice was a success.

“We just came out here, did our jobs and worked hard,” Miller said. “That’s the main thing for the first day. Of course there are going to be some mistakes because everyone is coming off the summer, and we had a great summer, but we worked hard and got a little sweat on.”

Miller, who hauled in a key touchdown in the national semifinal win over North Dakota State, is part of an offense that returns its starting quarterback — Bryan Schor, who was named to the Walter Payton Award watch list — from last year, but is without its leading rusher and three of the four top receivers from the 2016 season.

“I think our main advantage is that we’re all so close,” Miller said. “The offensive line, I’ve never seen a closer group in my life, and the receivers are all close. Bryan connects with all of us well and the running backs are good as well.”

Even though the team started strong Wednesday, Houston said it still has plenty of work to do.

“We haven’t played a game with this team yet, so we don’t know really what this team is all about,” Houston said. “We think we have a pretty good chance to be good defensively, but we don’t know yet. We think we have a chance to be explosive on offense. We don’t know yet.

“We’ve got to really challenge each other to be that physical defense that we were at the end last year and to have that physical run game that we had last year. And I feel comfortable that if we can do that, we’ll be just fine throwing the football and playing against the pass.”