{"id":12063,"date":"2025-08-27T10:11:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T14:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=12063"},"modified":"2025-08-29T12:07:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T16:07:24","slug":"jmu-football-season-preview-weber-state-the-burden-of-favoritism-and-the-two-games-that-will-define-the-2025-season%ef%bf%bc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=12063","title":{"rendered":"JMU Football Season Preview: Weber State, The Burden of Favoritism, and the Two Games That Will Define the 2025 Season"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Welcome to Week 1 of the 2025 college football season! James Madison football opens up Year 4 of its spectacular FBS era on Saturday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Week 1 punching bag of the moment is former FCS playoff foil Weber State \u2013 more on the Wildcats in a minute or two. But before we dive into the traditional Week 1 preview, I thought I\u2019d provide you with some standard throat-clearing about what this season could look like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three full years in the Sun Belt is evidently enough for everyone to concede that JMU fields the best program in the conference. JMU received 11 of 14 first-place votes in the Sun Belt East\u2019s preseason poll. And if you\u2019re one for college football betting<\/a> markets, JMU is a +260 favorite to win the conference \u2013 dramatically shorter than the next-closest team, Texas State (+600). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only one other team in the East is shorter than 10-to-1. That\u2019s Georgia Southern, which plays in Harrisonburg at the end of September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the wider national discussion of the College Football Playoff, the Dukes have once again been offseason darlings, often slipping their way into CFP projections as a trendy pick against the preseason status quo of Boise State. (Editor\u2019s Note: Boise State lost its first game of the year on Thursday night.<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m a bit skeptical of this widespread coronation. After all, JMU Football lost a ton<\/em> of talent from last year\u2019s team, which finished the regular season with a respectable 8-4 record. (I wrote more about the broader idea of turnover last week, so feel free to check out that piece below if you missed it.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The assumption that JMU is a runaway favorite in the face of this heavy turnover is, in my opinion, a bit much. Yet JMU fans are largely optimistic about the roster in spite of its generally unknown status. My hunch is that 2024-to-25 offseason turnover doesn\u2019t feel nearly as dramatic, since the thing that preceded it was the torturous 2023-to-24 levels of offseason turnover. In that case, JMU provided a P4 school with a fully realized playoff-caliber defense & coaching staff, and it all happened in roughly the time it takes to order something from Amazon Prime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So yes, the 2025 rebuild challenge isn\u2019t that<\/em> bad. And JMU\u2019s depth of talent appears to be impressive, as Chesney and other media members have frequently alluded to over the past month. But beyond one or two special players, the top level of playmaking talent may be lower than in previous years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or, maybe not. Roster projections in 2025 are more impossible than ever. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Either way, we\u2019ll have to see how the roster fares against a Sun Belt that shows a parallel depth of teams, with no other obvious juggernauts at the top. Keep an eye on Southern Miss, who was voted to finish fifth in the West despite inheriting most of the coaching staff and players who won last year\u2019s Sun Belt championship at Marshall. They\u2019re my pick for a Western division champ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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