HARRISONBURG — Chuck Priore is just happy to have James Madison coming to his place.

“That’s what I told [JMU athletic director] Jeff Bourne,” Priore, the 14th-year Stony Brook coach, said with a chuckle. “I said, ‘Finally you get a chance to come up here.’ But it’s our homecoming and they’re a good team, obviously, but we’ll prepare and worry about that when we have to.”

The Dukes and Seawolves have met five times since Stony Brook joined the Colonial Athletic Association in 2013, but four of those get-togethers have happened in Harrisonburg. In fact, JMU hasn’t played at Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium, the home of the Seawolves, in five years.

But this fall, Madison makes the trip to play Stony Brook on Long Island on Oct. 5. When the two sides met last year, JMU won 13-10 in a defensive bout, and the Seawolves’ strength this season, at least coming out of the spring, is the defense, according to Priore.

“We bring back eight starters,” he said. “We have more established depth on the defensive side and it’s sort of flipped because last year was the opposite.”

Stony Brook, which finished 7-5 overall and 5-3 in the CAA last year with a second consecutive berth to the FCS playoffs, graduated many of its key starters — quarterback Joe Carbone, running back Donald Liotine, running back Jordan Gowins, tight end Cal Daniels and wide receivers Julius Wingate, Marshall Ellick and Donavin Washington — off last year’s offense, so the pressure is on the defense early in the season to take the lead and keep the Seawolves in games.

The standout of the unit is 6-foot-2, 295-pound defensive lineman Sam Kamara, who was a second-team All-CAA choice in 2018 with 42 tackles and nine sacks.

“He’s an NFL prospect guy,” Priore said. “He’s a dude.”

Priore said of the 84 players that fill his roster during the spring, 83 had been redshirted during their careers and that the exception was Kamara.

Additionally, all five starting defensive backs including All-CAA second-team cornerback Gavin Heslop return, giving Stony Brook a solid foundation in the secondary.

But similar to what Priore’s defense was last year — many first-time starters who had been on the roster and just hadn’t played in games yet — the offense has questions marks.

“In winter and spring this group had a great work ethic and a great focus on the little things,” Priore said. “We needed to gain some maturity on the field and we have a very young team from a standpoint of we’ll have a lot of underclassmen that will be in games on Saturdays, but I thought we put them in some situations that they had to handle during the spring and I thought we got through that pretty well. Then, obviously, we’re developing a new starting quarterback for the first time in a few years and I thought that came along correctly.”

Replacing Carbone will be either junior Tyquell Fields or junior Jack Cassidy. The competition is still open, but Priore said, “Fields probably has the upper hand as far as overall talent.”

Fields backed up Carbone last year and got into eight games. Cassidy started Stony Brook’s 2016 season finale against Albany due to other players with injuries at the position, but has only appeared in one game since.

“I think the reality of the situation is you’re only as good as your quarterback at this level of football and at any level of football,” Priore said. “You see it in the NFL and at our level, so I’d say Joe’s playing experience, because he played all four years and had been on the field, will be hard to replicate.”

Liotine and Gowins combined to rush for 2,203 yards and 14 touchdowns last year, but Priore said he’s confident the running backs he has will step in smoothly for the duo that was coined, ‘The Long Island Express.’

To bolster the offense in other spots, Stony Brook added SMU transfer wide receiver Brandon Benson, Bryant transfer wide receiver Jean Constant and Connecticut transfer offensive lineman James Tunstall. Ball State transfer defensive lineman Sean Hammonds and South Florida transfer linebacker Keirston Johnson are joining the Stony Brook defense.

Even with the large number of personnel changes on offense, Priore said his program is still in a good spot as it tries to reach the postseason for a third consecutive year.

Stony Brook opens its campaign at home against Bryant on Aug. 29.

“If I told you my feelings about player one through 75, I’d tell you that it is the best one through 75 that I’ve ever had here,” Priore said. “I just can’t tell you we have the elite player yet because a lot of them haven’t played yet, but as far as talent, we’re pretty good.”