Listen Live

News

Dukes receive votes in AP Top 25 preseason college football poll

3 weeks ago in Local, Sports

Dukes receive votes in AP Top 25 preseason college football poll

Photo: JMU Athletics


NEW YORK (JMU Athletics) – James Madison football enters the 2026 season with votes in the AP Top 25 preseason poll, as announced by the Associated Press on Monday afternoon.

The Dukes earned three points, while fellow Sun Belt Conference member Louisiana picked up four points. Looking ahead at JMU’s schedule, Liberty notched a point, with the two teams facing one another on Saturday, Sept. 5, when the Dukes host the Flames in a noon kickoff on ESPNU at Bridgeforth Stadium.

Earlier in August, JMU received votes in the preseason US LBM Coaches Poll, totaling six points.

JMU was ranked for the final six weeks of the 2025 season, finishing No. 19 in the final poll after winning the Sun Belt Championship and reaching the College Football Playoff.

The Dukes, led by first-year Head Coach Billy Napier, added 61 newcomers for the 2026 campaign, including 39 transfers and 22 high school seniors. James Madison returns 34 letterwinners and five starters from its 2025 roster.

— JMU Athletics —

Tags:

Story © 2026 College/Local/Sports - Images © 2026 JMU Athletics

Recent Headlines

2 days ago in Lifestyle

Nod if you’ve heard this: Bobblehead dolls are an American favorite

Any head can bobble - entertainers, athletes, politicians, animals, fictional characters, even your own if you get one personalized. Kitschy, kind of funny, kind of clever, ubiquitous as giveaways at places like baseball games, who doesn't love a bobblehead? America most definitely does.

2 days ago in Entertainment

Fall movie season has arrived. Here are 5 early Oscar predictions

It might be only just September, but the jockeying for next March's Academy Awards is well underway. Movies first started revving up their Oscar campaigns at the Cannes Film Festival in May. But now that the fall festivals, in Venice, Telluride and soon Toronto, are in full swing, so is the prognosticating about what's in the mix for awards.

2 days ago in Entertainment

Psychedelic ‘Furthur’ bus rolls back into San Francisco for new Grateful Dead exhibit

Ken Kesey's school bus — once painted in bright, swirly colors and driven across the country on a psychedelic journey — is back in San Francisco after 60 years as the centerpiece of a new exhibition celebrating the legacy of the Grateful Dead, a band that rose from the city's famed hippie movement.