His senior season didn’t begin the way he wanted it to.

But Riley Stapleton has a chance to cap his James Madison career exactly how he and his teammates dreamed they would – with a shot at the FCS national title.

JMU hosts Northern Iowa in the quarterfinals of the playoffs on Friday at 7 p.m.

“It’s been a lot of ups and downs,” Stapleton, the Dukes senior wide receiver, said Saturday in his first public comments this year following JMU’s 66-21 second-round win over Monmouth.

Stapleton was suspended three games to start the season after pleading no contest to a charge of false imprisonment in an Indiana (Pa.) County Common Pleas Court this past April. Indiana, Pa., is his hometown.

He missed non-conference contests at FBS West Virginia, vs. St. Francis and against Morgan State, but settled in with ease when he returned and had his most productive performance of the campaign against the Hawks by hauling in seven catches for 87 yards. Both marks were season highs.

“I think Riley has really been playing well the last four or five weeks,” first-year JMU coach Curt Cignetti said. “He’s doing a great job separating, catching the ball and making critical plays. He’s doing a really good job blocking.”

That kind of effort shouldn’t come as a surprise from Stapleton, though. It was this time two years ago he was spotlighted in the Dukes’ offense and had every FCS playoff spectator believing he could be the subdivision’s next great receiver.

The 6-foot-5 Stapleton had 23 catches for 428 yards and three touchdown receptions during the 2017 postseason.

But that was then and this season he’s taken a complimentary role to Penn State transfer wide receiver Brandon Polk, who leads JMU with 1,062 receiving yards and 10 touchdowns.

“The kid can fly,” Stapleton said of Polk. “And we put him in a lot of positions where he can showcase his speed whether it’s catching a bubble or taking the top off the defense. And if he gets a step on someone, you better watch out because he’s one of the fastest kids I’ve played with and he works his butt off every single day.”

Stapleton said he’s thrilled to be part of an offense averaging 44.1 points per game, and that earlier in the season he leaned on teammates while dealing with the off-the-field issue, the suspension and returning from it.

“It was tough,” Stapleton said. “But I just focused on doing my job every day and tried to support my team on and off the field when I wasn’t able to play. So obviously it wasn’t easy, but my teammates made it a lot easier for me and they had my support throughout the whole process, so they made it a lot easier for me.”

He said it helped having his brother, JMU senior tight end Dylan Stapleton, there too.

“He’s my best friend,” Riley Stapleton said. “And he’s been there for me through the highs and lows of everything throughout my life, so not just this year, but having his support day in and day out has been life changing and I couldn’t be more thankful to have him with me.”

Stapleton, who had six of his seven catches against Monmouth result in first downs, said he’s eager to see what he and his teammates can accomplish the rest of this postseason.

“It’s a great feeling,” he said. “And we’re just hoping to become one of the next four teams to be able to play, so that’s our main focus right now. We’re playing well, but Northern Iowa just won, so we’re focused on Northern Iowa and trying to be one of the last four teams remaining.”