What James Madison needs to happen to win the College Football Playoff

The College Football Playoff will feature two Group of Five participants for the first time ever. The James Madison Dukes earned the final auto bid by virtue of the ACC imploding upon itself when five-loss Duke upset No. 17 Virginia in the conference title game.

JMU, champions of the Sun Belt Conference, are the 12-seed and face one of the toughest — if not the toughest — path to the national championship game. Even though many feel the Dukes don’t belong in the competition, there’s still a chance (albeit tiny) they do the impossible and shock the college football world.

What James Madison needs to happen to win the CFP

First round: No. 12 James Madison vs. No. 5 Oregon

Well, right off the bat the Dukes need some divine intervention. The football gods will need to smile upon JMU and give the Ducks a serious case of bad luck for this upset to have any sort of grounding in reality.

Oregon and JMU are No. 9 and No. 10 nationally in scoring defense respectively. The Ducks average 14.83 points per game allowed compared to the Dukes’ 15.85 points. That suggests this would be a low scoring affair in a potentially chilly and rainy Autzen Stadium. On the other hand, Oregon and JMU also boast the No. 9 and No. 10 scoring offenses respectively. So, really, this will come down to the turnover margin and if JMU gets a couple breaks on that front, the bracket could be busted extremely early.

Quarterfinal at the Orange Bowl: No. 12 James Madison vs. No. 4 Texas Tech

Here’s where things get even more difficult. Texas Tech has the No. 3 scoring offense and defense in the country. That’s a daunting task and would require a highly inexperienced JMU team to get extremely creative in its play calling and hope Red Raiders quarterback Behren Morton makes frequent mistakes.

Where JMU could find a chink in Texas Tech’s armor is in the running game. Wayne Knight owns the 10th-most rushing yards in the country (1,263) and would be up against the best run defense in the country (68.5 yards allowed per game). Solving that puzzle could frustrate the Red Raiders and free up things in the passing game which would, in turn, open up the playbook for JMU.

Semifinal at the Fiesta Bowl: No. 12 James Madison vs. No. 9 Alabama

This may feel a little backwards. Alabama typically becomes a whole different beast once in the postseason but No. 1 Indiana and No. 8 Oklahoma boast top rushing defenses that JMU would not want to face. The Crimson Tide, instead, are 36th nationally against the run which would allow Knight to feast.

The Tide average 273.2 yards per game through the air, which could be a problem for the Dukes but if their secondary clamps down enough the opportunities will come on the other side of the ball. And when things get tight on offense, JMU keeps its cool. The team converts 47.7 percent of its third down attempts. Combine all that with JMU’s suffocating defense and Alabama could be in for a tougher contest than it would anticipate.

National championship: No. 12 James Madison vs. No. 10 Miami

Remember when I mentioned divine intervention before? If it wasn’t evident JMU would need some just to get this far, they’ll also need it elsewhere in the bracket. The Dukes do not want to see No. 2 Ohio State or No. 3 Georgia (nor any other SEC foe on that side of the bracket). In that case, ACC representative Miami will have to suffice.

QB Carson Beck is a formidable challenger and has experience in the CFP so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he could lead the Hurricanes to a national championship game. However, he’s thrown 10 interceptions this year and JMU has picked off 12 of its own. Once again, the turnover margin may be the margin of victory in what would be the greatest title run in college football history.