{"id":7761,"date":"2015-05-28T22:27:33","date_gmt":"2015-05-29T02:27:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=7761"},"modified":"2015-05-28T23:48:02","modified_gmt":"2015-05-29T03:48:02","slug":"early-polls-have-jmu-as-a-top-20-football-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=7761","title":{"rendered":"Early Polls Have JMU as a Top 20 Football Team"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">14. James, 13. Montana State, 12. Liberty, 11. Northern Iowa, 10. Youngstown State, 9. New Hampshire, 8. Chattanooga, 7. Coastal Carolina ..<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Craig Haley (@CraigHaley) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CraigHaley\/status\/603198434334609408\">May 26, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nIt&#8217;s still May (and only 99 days until JMU football season), but the preseason predictions are starting to officially roll out. Or in this case, be revealed via Twitter. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CraigHaley\">Craig Haley<\/a> is the man in charge of Athlon&#8217;s FCS Top 25 Poll which will be published in this year&#8217;s college preview magazine. Earlier this week he gave fans a sneak peak at his rankings. The &#8220;James&#8221; you see in the tweet above, refers to our lovely alma mater, James Madison University. Haley has the Dukes picked 14th.<\/p>\n<p>North Dakota State is Haley&#8217;s deserved and obvious number one pick at this point. JMU was one of four CAA Football teams to land in the Top 20. Villanova, New Hampshire, and Richmond were ranked 5th, 8th, and 20th respectively. The Dukes are set up pretty well schedule wise, avoiding New Hampshire and getting both the Wildcats and Ticks at home.<\/p>\n<p>The Dukes will be breaking in new coordinators on both sides of the ball, but have one of the top QB&#8217;s in the nation in Vad Lee. Preseason polls are notoriously flaky (yet still fun!), but a top 15 ranking for JMU seems about right. JMU got rolling last year and had a stretch where it was playing like a true contender. A disappointing playoff loss to Liberty ended things and revealed that the Dukes weren&#8217;t quite at the level we as fans had hoped however. With Lee coming back and the entire team a little more settled into the Everett Withers regime, this could be the year for a deep playoff run. Go James!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fjmusportsblog.com%2F%3Fp%3D7761&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=true&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;height=80\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:80px;\" allowTransparency=\"true\"><\/iframe>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>14. James, 13. Montana State, 12. Liberty, 11. Northern Iowa, 10. Youngstown State, 9. New Hampshire, 8. Chattanooga, 7. Coastal Carolina .. \u2014 Craig Haley (@CraigHaley) May 26, 2015 It&#8217;s still May (and only 99 days until JMU football season), but the preseason predictions are starting to officially roll out. Or in this case, be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7526,"url":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=7526","url_meta":{"origin":7761,"position":0},"title":"JMU Alum Charles Haley Finally Gets Hall of Fame Call","date":"February 1, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"After 11 years on the ballot, and 6 years as a finalist, former JMU football player Charles Haley was elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Haley played 12 years in the NFL with the San Fransisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys. He was a Pro Bowler 5 teams and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;JMU Basketball&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7862,"url":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=7862","url_meta":{"origin":7761,"position":1},"title":"Watch Charles Haley Do JMU Proud With His Pro Football Hall of Fame Induction Speech","date":"August 9, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Charles Haley became the first former JMU football player to be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday. The five time Pro-Bowler and owner of a record 5 Super Bowl rings did his school proud. Haley was a terror on the field and for years was well\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;JMU Football&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9172,"url":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=9172","url_meta":{"origin":7761,"position":2},"title":"JMU Fans Are Gonna Paint Toyota Stadium Purple","date":"December 20, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Finalists @JMUFootball and @YoungstownStFB both received 4,000 tickets to #FCS title game. YSU returned 3,000 of them and they went to JMU. \u2014 Craig Haley (@CraigHaley) December 20, 2016 Well isn't that something? JMU's pending trip to Frisco has had our social circles buzzing, both in real life and online.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;JMU Football&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6630,"url":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=6630","url_meta":{"origin":7761,"position":3},"title":"Thowback Thursday: The Time JMU Beat UVA in Football","date":"April 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Today we're going to look back, way back, to 1982. It was the year that the JMU Dukes defeated the University of Virginia 21-17. UVA was of course a member of the ACC. JMU on the other hand was in only its third season of 1-AA. It was a big\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;JMU Football&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":157,"url":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=157","url_meta":{"origin":7761,"position":4},"title":"Charles Haley&#8217;s Battle Against Mental Illness","date":"January 3, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"When I first heard the stories of Charles Haley's pranks, outbursts, and locker room antics, I laughed and thought to myself \"that dude had major issues.\" \u00a0Unfortunately, it turns out that the former JMU great has been diagnosed with bi-polar disorder. And I'm pretty sure that makes me an ass.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;JMU Football&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11660,"url":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=11660","url_meta":{"origin":7761,"position":5},"title":"Guest Post: A Small JMU World","date":"May 1, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Dukes4 is a 1979 JMU grad, (with honorary JMU rooting wife) and their three gainfully employed, JMU alumni kids. He won the prediction contest for the VMI game and sent in this fun guest post reminding us that it's a small world when it comes to JMU sports. Thanks again\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;JMU Football&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/jmusportsblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/JB.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7761"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7761"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7765,"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7761\/revisions\/7765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}