MUTUAL FEELINGS

HARRISONBURG — Last year’s semifinal was going to be talked about.

James Madison ended North Dakota State’s run of five straight FCS championships with a 27-17 win at the FargoDome last December to knock the Bison out of the postseason. The Dukes captured the title with a victory over Youngstown State three weeks later.

Ever since, JMU and NDSU have maintained a path to meet again and that’ll happen on Jan. 6 at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas, for this season’s championship, which would be a second consecutive for the Dukes.

“There is starting to become a little bit of a rivalry between the two schools,” second-year JMU coach Mike Houston said Thursday during a teleconference with both Lonestar State-bound coaches.

JMU (14-0) started the preseason at No. 1 and stayed throughout the season. North Dakota State (13-1) was right behind at No. 2.

Both programs won their respective conferences outright with the Dukes taking the Colonial Athletic Association and the Bison taking the Missouri Valley Football Conference.

The CAA and MVFC are widely considered the two best leagues at the FCS level.

“I think we have some familiarity with some of their returning players, just like they do with us,” Houston said. “But at the end of the day, that’s last year. Every year is a new year. Every team is a new team. That’s for us and North Dakota State.

“Certainly we’ve both overcome a lot of adversity this year, and played very, very well down the stretch to get to this game.

“I think it’s a situation where we have the two best teams in the country matched up and I think it’s one where it’s going to be a pretty intense, heated ballgame.”

NDSU coach Chris Klieman said his staff has used the 2016 semifinal showdown to help prepare for this year’s championship bout.

There are elements from that JMU-NDSU contest, even though it was a loss for the Bison, that Klieman said he’d incorporate into his game plan for the coming meeting.

“We put it into our breakdown,” Klieman said. “We’ve looked at every game, but in the same respect we’ve probably, oh, hand-picked about seven or eight [JMU] games that we’ve designed a game plan around and that’s one of those games.

“The personnel is a little bit different. There are some familiar faces for both teams, but there are some guys that didn’t play in that game or have graduated or were injured that maybe make it a little bit different. But I’m sure that you can see some similarities from ‘16 to ‘17 on both teams. So it’s something that we definitely are looking at.”

Houston said the Dukes took away a deeper respect for NDSU after traveling to Fargo, N.D., last year, and that winning there also gave his entire program the confidence it needed.

JMU quarterback Bryan Schor’s 25-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver John Miller sealed the victory as the Dukes scored the final 10 points of the game to beat North Dakota State a year ago.

Klieman said Schor and JMU’s secondary are two of his biggest concerns. He said the Dukes’ defensive backfield is as good he’s seen in FCS.

JMU and NDSU rank in the top three nationally for total defense and scoring defense this year.

“These are two teams that know how to win,” Klieman said. “You run the football, you stop the run and you play good red-zone defense, and you don’t beat yourself.”

JMU players returned to practice Tuesday after having more than a week off for Christmas. The team is on a regular schedule until it flies out to Frisco on Wednesday.

“A very energetic first practice back,” Houston said. “Older players, especially.

“They understand just how rare it is to get here. We talked about that [Wednesday] in the team meeting. For the redshirt seniors, what they went through the last five years, they understand this is a special opportunity and you’ve got to take advantage of that, so I think there is a lot of motivation, there is a lot of energy, there is a lot of excitement.

“That will only intensify as we get closer to game day.”