No. 2 Dukes Look To Finish Strong At Rhody

“We know last year we all thought we were going to get that first-round bye,” Dukes junior running back Jawon Hamilton said. “And it hit us across the head when we didn’t.”

No. 2 JMU (10-1, 7-0 Colonial Athletic Association) wraps up its regular-season slate Saturday at Rhode Island (2-9, 0-7 CAA) with a noon kickoff, and on Sunday the 24-team postseason field will be revealed during a 12:30 p.m. selection show on ESPNU.

The Dukes have already clinched the CAA’s automatic berth by capturing the league outright, and haven’t hurt their résumé at all since being tabbed No. 2 in the committee’s lone public reveal of rankings earlier this month.

JMU has won 10 in a row while outscoring its opponents by an average of 25.9 points per game this fall and enters the final Saturday of the regular season as one of only four unbeaten squads from the subdivision versus FCS competition. The others are North Dakota State, Central Connecticut State and Florida A&M - the latter is ineligible for the postseason due to NCAA sanctions.

Hamilton pointed out the Dukes were disappointed last year when their 8-3 mark wasn’t enough to earn a seed and eventually forced them to go on the road for a second-round game at Colgate that ended their campaign.

Now, it’s highly unlikely that JMU wouldn’t earn a seed this year even if the Dukes suffer a loss to the Rams, but they most certainly would fall from their current No. 2 standing if Rhode Island pulls off the stunner. The No. 2 seed ensures home-field advantage throughout the postseason all the way up to the FCS National Championship Game in Frisco, Texas.

“So we want to go up there and take care of business and do what we’ve got to do,” Hamilton said.

Dukes senior linebacker Dimitri Holloway added: “It’s one of those things that you do hear mention of by some of the guys. So we’re just making sure that we don’t take for granted what we have coming up this Saturday and we know that we’ve got to go out there to put our best foot forward because Rhode Island is going to do the same thing.”

Though the Rams haven’t won a league game this season, they’ve been competitive in most.

JMU coach Curt Cignetti said Rhode Island is better than its record would indicate. The Rams lost to Delaware in triple overtime, to New Hampshire by a field goal, to Stony Brook in the final minute and to Maine in the closing seconds.

“We were up at halftime a lot of the games or in the game at halftime a lot of the games,” Rhode Island senior receiver Aaron Parker said. “And then we came out with just not enough energy and feeling as if we had already won the game. So you’ve always got to play with that chip on your shoulder in the game of football because you never know what could happen and instincts can spark at anytime.

“To sum it up, hopefully we finish the season strong. We’re looking to go beat the No. 2 team in the nation and finish out with a bang.”

Rhode Island coach Jim Fleming said: “We’ll play this game like a mini- championship game.”

A win for JMU would also give the Dukes a perfect CAA record for the year, which has only happened three other times this decade in the conference. JMU did in 2016 and 2017 en route to Frisco, and New Hampshire pulled it off in 2014.

“If we take care of business and meet the challenge this week, we’ll be undefeated in the CAA,” Cignetti said. “That’s hard to do. It’s a tough league. It’s very difficult.”

The Coaches: Last week’s win for JMU over Richmond pushed Cignetti to 50 games above .500 for his career. Cignetti is 77-27 in his nine seasons as a head coach.

Last year was Fleming’s most successful at Rhode Island when the Rams finished 6-5 overall, but he was unable to build upon that this year. This is his fifth losing campaign in six seasons at the school. He’s 36-53 in eight years as a head coach.

The Quarterbacks: Dukes senior signal-caller Ben DiNucci has one more chance to show the league that he is deserving of consideration for CAA Offensive Player of the Year.

Through 11 games, DiNucci leads the CAA with a 69 percent completion rate and has accounted for 24 total touchdowns compared to only four interceptions.

Last year in 13 contests, he had a 68 percent completion rate to go along with 25 total touchdowns compared to 12 interceptions

“The biggest thing is he’s protecting the football better,” Cignetti said.

Rhode Island’s Vito Priore has started mostly for the Rams behind center and has thrown for 3,044 yards and 20 touchdowns, but Darius Perrantes has earned snaps in each of the last three weeks.

Series History: JMU is 11-3 all-time against Rhode Island and has won nine straight against the Rams.

In the last three meetings, the Dukes have outscored Rhode Island 170 to 41.

“My history with JMU is pretty bad here,” Parker said. “My freshman year we went down there and it was a hell hole. They came up here sophomore year and it was a good-competition game. Then we went down there last year, we had a good drive going and then we made a bonehead mistake, so it’ll pay much tribute to my career here to just beat JMU.”

URI is in Kingston - less than one hour from Providence and Newport in the nation's smallest state.

Potential Pro Matchups: The Rams, just like the Dukes, have seniors that are NFL prospects on their roster and one is Parker.

When Parker lines up against JMU cornerback Rashad Robinson, it’ll setup an encounter scouts won’t hesitate to evaluate when watching film of either player.

Parker has 76 grabs for 1,158 yards and eight touchdowns and has already been invited to the East-West Shrine Game. Robinson has 32 tackles, two interceptions and five pass breakups, and a scout from the Senior Bowl was in Harrisonburg last week to check on Robinson.

Another one to be aware of is between Rhode Island left tackle Kyle Murphy and JMU defensive ends Ron’Dell Carter and John Daka, depending on who is lined up across from Murphy. Murphy has been invited to the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl. Daka and Carter have combined for 18.5 sacks and 38 tackles for loss.

Milestones Within Reach: JMU players will have the postseason to reach these numbers, too, but there are benchmarks a few Dukes could hit against the Rams.

Holloway is one tackle away from reaching 300 total for his career.

Wide receiver Brandon Polk is 80 receiving yards shy from reaching 1,000 receiving yards for the season. If he reaches that number, he’ll be the just the second JMU receiver in school history to eclipse 1,000-yard mark.

Can’t Get Started Late: It took all the way until the final Saturday of the regular season, but the Dukes finally have a noon kickoff.

They haven’t had one all year and Cignetti said it shouldn’t negatively impact his team.

“Most coaches would rather play as early as possible,” Cignetti said. “They’d play at 9 a.m. if they could, so they could get home and have a little free time. That’s pretty much the sentiment across the country of all coaches. But this is our first 12 o’clock game. It’s going to be 44 [degrees] with 10-15 mph winds and sun might be a factor, but we’ll be ready to play. It doesn’t matter when we play.”

The sun will set about 4:18 p.m. Saturday in Rhode Island.

Don’t Be Surprised If: Rhode Island tries to minimize the number of series JMU gets on offense.

The Rams lead the conference in time of possession, averaging more than 32 minutes per game with the ball.

“And they throw the ball 62 percent of the time,” Cignetti said. “But they’re number one in the conference for time of possession. Figure that out. That doesn’t happen very often, so they’re playing very slow and snapping the ball with two or three seconds left on the clock to shorten the game, so you’ve got to take advantage of every possession you have.”

JMU is fourth nationally in scoring offense, averaging 41.1 points per game.

More Than Anything: As long as JMU plays as consistently as it has during its 10-game winning streak, it should have no problem securing its 11th consecutive victory and securing that No. 2 seed for the FCS playoffs.