| JMU had to rebuild their team after Cignetti took all the coaches and top players to Indiana—Chesney brought in 67 new players to fill the open slots the year after Cignetti left. That’s just wild. And the continued success is impressive. Quite a few JMU players are now at Indiana (in the #1 spot), and doing well there. JMU is a pipeline to top programs for players and coaches. Overall, JMU is excited for Chesney’s success, not bitter, and didn’t expect they could keep him for long as he is true rising talent. Same for some of their top players. As for strength of schedule, it’s true other some colleges won’t schedule JMU for fear of an embarrassing loss—there have been noteworthy teams on the schedule (done several years out) who found excuses to drop the game. So it’s hard to know how JMU could perform against a slightly tougher schedule. I do believe they could have beaten Duke or UVA this year based on how both those teams played in the ACC championship. In fact I think JMU is definitely as good as some ACC teams. Oregon, OU, Ohio, Indiana and all those schools are big $$$ schools and it’s a whole different game when you can buy top talent. JMU quite likely has the best football team in Virginia right now. But because of the portal, NIL, and other factors that will shift annually. JMU football is a perfect Cinderella team. Super guys, excellent coaches, all around great bunch of people. |
| Duke or UVA would easily beat JMU. |
UVA had the chance in 2023. UVA paid JMU $500k to play, and they lost. This is a much better JMU team. Being in the ACC doesn’t make teams better. Having said that, I can only hope JMU keeps it relatively close against Oregon. |
What D1 sport did you play at JMU? Next... |
DP that was a D1 athlete at JMU. What does someone’s participation in NCAA athletics have to do with anything? |